And so, the hope for order lies in what a vanguard can do by controlling the last allowed public word. Let us note that the response to the call of cultural help by the so-called revolutionary order exclusively comes from those who write and dominate the syntax, the meaning and the signifier, id est: the written symbol, except poetry. Neither the cinema nor the visual arts nor the music— apart from the modern anthems— nor the sculpture nor the urban culture can give oxygen to the revolutionary order. Their cultists can do it, but scarcely their works. It ultimately reveals that the whistles and laughs generated by the society become more audible. They re-emerge to stay. After all, our original condition is set by Modernity and Western civilization. And the cultural clerics are in the middle of their own Catch 22. If they keep on ingesting and supplying soma— Christianity and alcohol without their disadvantages—, the society will become aware of its autonomy and will stop taking the pill to take on alcohol with all its drawbacks. If they decide that it’ s time to suppress alcohol and resume purity, as it seems to be if we pay attention to the latest actions and reactions by the cultural clergy, then the increasingly louder whistles and laughs of society will continue to go elsewhere and such an escape will demonstrate the defeat of the purity revived by the cultural clergy. Defeat if they open up, defeat if they close down. And they have decided to close down due to another feature of our culture: we are ineffable( sic) to discouragement, which is not bad, although the real data punctually contradict us. Thus, we are witnessing a bloodless civil war in its cultural modality, imposed by the powers that be even against the constitutional and legal order. This is interesting and dangerous. Interesting, because when the power opens fire in the cultural fields, it shows and demonstrates the immanent weaknesses of its discourse; and dangerous, because it proceeds by trampling upon the law and the constitution made by the same order that provides its firepower. The socalled legitimate right to cultural defense is nourished by an unconstitutionally granted firepower. In parallel with the updating of the socalled socioeconomic model, another socialist realism is being produced through a new diffuse commissary for all the cultural institutions. However, it is a fascinating cultural challenge for one reason: in the debate— not deliberation— on culture, the society stays ahead of the power exercised by the cultural clergy. The first advantage is structural. Modernity returns focused on the individual and on the need for selfrecognition. That is why horizontality prevails, along with collaborative mentality, deliberation as mutual learning and rational language, even among the youngest actors in all power institutions. The second advantage is technological. Few people in power have the ability and mentality needed to generate cultural products as society does, despite the monopoly imposed by the powers that be over the communications. Although such a monopoly would delight many multinationals, the society’ s advantage is not reduced, but increased and exponentially favors the structural advantage. The third advantage is, forgive the word, epistemological. The references about what is knowledge and which are its limits are dominated more and better by society than by all the centers of academic and cultural power. The point is that critical thinking predominates in times of change or reform, or just of attempts of both. And I say critical, not self-critical, because the latter is a
98