It may be enough that we do not turn away from what stands before us, even when it exceeds what we believe we can endure. What lies ahead is not lessened by our hesitation. If there is any measure left to us, it is in seeing what is there without withdrawing from it. Let it not pass unnoticed. In facing what we fear, something in us has already given way, though we continue as if it had not. Still, something must hold, even where we cannot name it.
Let it not be said that we did not see what we became. No tyranny stands apart from those who allow it to stand. What prevails does so not by force alone, but through what remains unexamined in each of us. If there is anything to be undone, it does not begin elsewhere. It begins in the refusal to see what we are when we turn away. If there is mercy, it is not in judgment, but in the possibility that one might still face what has been done without turning from it.
We do not stand outside this. What we condemn is not separate from us. If we fail, it is not only through action, but through what we leave unexamined. Indifference does not remain contained. It spreads, quietly, until nothing resists it. What we become in that condition is not imposed. It is allowed. And in that allowance, something essential gives way.
Before it is too late, there is only this: to see what is there, within and without, without division. Not in parts, not in sequence, but all at once. To see it without turning it into something else. In that seeing, there is no method, no progression, no assurance. Only the fact of it. And where that fact is seen without distortion, something acts, not as decision, but as the ending of what cannot continue once it is fully seen.
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Ricardo F. Morín, recast from 2014, April 25, 2026, Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania.
“Geometric Allegory” digital painting 2023 by Ricardo Morin (American visual artist born in Venezuela–1954)
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Author’s Note
This installment examines how ideological labels, liberal, socialist, democratic, are deployed as instruments of alignment rather than as enforceable commitments. Venezuela is approached not as an exception, but as a case in which administrative practice, international positioning, and partisan abstraction converge to obscure responsibility. What follows traces how power is exercised through method rather than doctrine, how ideological language displaces accountability, and how clarity, rather than consensus, emerges as the first condition for recovery.
Ricardo F. Morín, January 12, 2026, Oakland Park, FL.
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Chapter XIII
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The Fifth Sign
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The Pawned Republic
1
The Venezuelan economic crisis developed within a political environment in which control over foreign currency, public spending, and state revenues became increasingly concentrated in state-controlled allocation systems and off-budget fiscal mechanisms. After exchange controls were established in 2003, access to foreign currency was centrally allocated through state mechanisms such as CADIVI, and by 2013 even government authorities were publicly acknowledging fraud in the assignment of preferential currency, including allocations to shell companies. At the fiscal level, parallel funds such as FONDEN handled large sums outside meaningful parliamentary scrutiny, while public information on state spending and parafiscal funds became increasingly unavailable. Under these conditions, the diversion of public resources did not appear as isolated misconduct but as a recurring feature of governance in which formal procedures governing budget approval and reporting remained nominally in place while independent verification and public disclosure diminished. What emerged was not the failure of a declared doctrine, but the consolidation of an administrative method in which access to public resources depended less on transparent procedure than on the concentration of discretionary control.
Debates that frame socialism and capitalism as opposing economic systems mistake ideological language for operational reality. These terms describe beliefs about ownership and social purpose, not the concrete methods through which economies are administered. Economic stability arises instead from institutional practice: whether taxation is predictable, contracts are enforced without eDebates that oppose socialism to capitalism misidentify the operative field. These terms describe beliefs about ownership and social purpose; they do not describe how economies are administered. Economic stability does not follow from declared purpose but from enforceable limits on taxation, spending, and contract execution. It depends on whether taxation follows rule, whether contracts are enforced without exception, whether budgets are bounded by procedure, and whether authority is exercised within limits enforced through budget law, contract enforcement, and institutional oversight. Where these conditions are absent, ideological designation does not fail; it becomes irrelevant.xception, budgets are constrained by rule rather than urgency, and authority is exercised through procedure rather than discretion. A polity may describe itself as capitalist while permitting economic decisions to be redirected by political convenience, just as another may invoke socialist aims while maintaining disciplined fiscal administration and enforceable limits on power. The divergence in outcomes reflects not ideological virtue or failure, but the presence or absence of methodological constraint—a distinction that, once obscured, allows ideology to substitute for responsibility rather than to inform it.
As state procurement in sectors such as oil, infrastructure, and food imports became subject to political discretion, auditing functions weakened and oversight bodies lost operational independence. State-controlled revenues and contracts were increasingly used to redirect resources through discretionary allocation. Public authority ceased to function as a mediating structure and became an object of appropriation. The result was not episodic corruption but a stable arrangement in which diversion operated as an expected outcome of governance.
The mechanism did not explain action; it displaced its examination. Ideological language did not clarify operations; it rendered them inaccessible. Official discourse invoking class struggle and anti-imperialism shifted public attention away from currency allocation, public spending, and procurement practices toward symbolic political conflict. These appeals replaced the examination of procedures with narratives of opposition that carried no capacity for control.
This substitution extended beyond the national sphere. Governments identifying with liberal or democratic traditions supported sanctions presented as instruments of pressure. In practice, these measures intensified economic hardship without altering the internal configuration of power. [1] At the same time, states maintaining political and economic alignment with the Venezuelan government, including China, Russia, and Cuba, tolerated the weakening of electoral oversight, judicial independence, and legislative authority and framed inaction as fidelity to principle. [2] Across these positions, ideological designation did not guide action. It concealed a convergence: measures that weakened society without altering authority, and positions that preserved authority without regard to how it was exercised.
2
What is presented as a divide between opposing systems resolves, in operation, into a convergence of practices. External pressure that weakens a population without altering authority, and external tolerance that preserves authority without regard to institutional dismantling, produce the same condition: the isolation of society from judicial, electoral, and legislative means of contesting authority.
Within that condition, the population is not situated between competing models of governance. It is rendered instrumental to positions that do not operate upon the mechanisms that sustain or constrain power. The language of alignment, whether in the form of solidarity, neutrality, or caution, does not alter this configuration when it remains detached from the procedures through which authority is exercised. [3]
Where accountability is not enforced, other forms of organization take hold. Criminal and informal economic networks operating without judicial or regulatory enforcement expand into the space left unregulated. Their growth does not require ideological justification; it follows from the absence of enforceable limits. [4] What is described as crisis does not begin with collapse. It begins when constraint is withdrawn from the exercise of power and remains withdrawn without consequence.
Endnotes on Chapter XIII
[1] Francisco Rodríguez and Jeffrey Sachs, “Economic Sanctions as Collective Punishment: The Case of Venezuela,” The Lancet 393, no. 10178 (2019): 2584–2591; Center for Economic and Policy Research, “Sanctions in Venezuela: Economic and Humanitarian Impacts,” 2019.
[2] R. Evan Ellis, “The Maduro Regime’s Foreign Backers: China, Russia, Iran, and Cuba,” Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), November 6, 2020; United Nations Human Rights Council, “Report on the Situation of Human Rights in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela,” 2022.
[3] Javier Corrales, “Democratic Backsliding Through Electoral Irregularities: The Case of Venezuela,” Perspectives on Politics 18, no. 2 (2020): 311–327.
[4] Insight Crime, “Venezuela’s Criminal Landscape: A Country of Collusion,” 2021; Transparency International, “Venezuela: Corruption Perceptions Index,” 2022.
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Chapter XIV
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The First Issue
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Resisting Partisan Control:Civil Society’s Stance in Venezuela
1
Democratic life is not secured by a single principle but by the interaction of distinct forms: pluralism, partisanship, nonpartisanship, and antipartisanship. These forms do not resolve into unity. They define how authority is organized, contested, and limited within institutions such as parties, courts, and legislatures.
Pluralism establishes the condition under which difference can appear without being suppressed. Its function is to ensure that multiple positions can enter public space without requiring prior alignment. Where institutions fail to protect participation through electoral access and legal safeguards, participation contracts and representation narrows.
Partisanship organizes competition through structured alignment. Its function depends on a limit: that allegiance to a party does not supersede adherence to the rules governing the contest itself. When that limit dissolves, competition persists in form while its constraints disappear.
Nonpartisanship suspends alignment in order to preserve procedure. Its role is not neutrality in the abstract, but the maintenance of conditions under which decisions remain accountable to rule rather than to affiliation.
Antipartisanship emerges when these arrangements fail. It rejects parties as vehicles of representation, but in doing so it removes the structures through which accountability is exercised. Where this rejection becomes programmatic, it does not remove power. It removes the structures that limit it, leaving power to concentrate without opposition.
2
In Venezuela, antipartisanship became a governing strategy through the delegitimization of established parties and the centralization of authority in the executive. Public disillusionment with established parties enabled the rise of a singular political alternative that did not operate outside institutions but reorganized them. Institutional limits were recast as impediments, and their removal was presented as restoration. What was removed, however, was not obstruction but constraint. [1]
Under Chávez, this method extended through the redirection of state resources. Oil revenues were deployed to secure political alignment across sectors. Access to state-distributed resources increasingly depended on political alignment, particularly through government programs and public employment, establishing dependence in place of institutional trust. Under Maduro, this structure persisted under contraction: as resources diminished, the requirement of alignment intensified while preserving the same operational logic.
3
Clientelist practices were not introduced but expanded and centralized. What had been dispersed became systemic. Programs such as the Misiones Bolivarianas, funded through oil revenues and administered through state-aligned structures, illustrate this transformation. Their stated function was social provision; their operation linked access to political identification. In programs such as Barrio Adentro, healthcare delivery was administered through structures coordinated with the governing apparatus. [2] Benefits did not follow need alone, but alignment.
Policies of expropriation and currency control further restricted independent economic activity. By reallocating assets through administrative decision, these measures reduced the space within which alternative forms of organization could emerge. Economic contraction followed as a consequence of constrained operation.
4
The weakening of institutional structures displaced rather than eliminated organized activity. Civil society organizations assumed roles in legal defense, human rights documentation, and service provision where State institutions failed to operate consistently.
Organizations such as Provea, Foro Penal, and Transparencia Venezuela document violations, provide legal defense, and maintain records of administrative conduct. Electoral observation organizations document voting conditions and irregularities despite legal and operational restrictions. Community-based structures such as Mesas Técnicas de Agua coordinate access to basic services such as water supply in the absence of reliable State provision. These activities maintain a verifiable link between documented actions and their consequences, between public claims and records, and between authority and its legal limits. Where institutions no longer secure these relations, they are sustained through practice.
5
These formations do not constitute an alternative system of governance. They operate within limits imposed upon them, and their continuity remains contingent. Legislative measures increasing oversight of non-governmental organizations have further reduced their operational space.
What persists is not a program but a set of practices that maintain a verifiable link between action and consequence, authority and limit, and decision and verification. Where these relations are sustained, even in restricted form, the possibility of reconstruction remains.
Democratic recovery does not begin with alignment or design. It begins with the reestablishment of constraint upon power and the restoration of procedures through which actions can be examined and limited. Where these conditions are absent, declarations of principle do not fail; they do not operate.
Endnotes on Chapter XIV
[1] Javier Corrales and Michael Penfold, Dragon in the Tropics: Hugo Chávez and the Political Economy of Revolution in Venezuela (Washington: Brookings Institution Press, 2011), 19–24, 30–34.
Ricardo F. Morín Triangulation II 22″ x 30″ Body color, sanguine, sepia, and white out on paper 2008
Societies rarely recognize when language begins to prepare the conditions for hatred. Long before violence appears, speech has already changed how people see what is in front of them. A group is no longer described by what it does, but by what it is made to stand for: a “threat,” an “invasion,” a “corruption.” Description yields to designation.
In “Language, Judgment, and Freedom of Conscience: On the Architecture of an Intellectual Position,” I examined how freedom of conscience depends on a steady link between what is seen, what is said, and how it is judged. That link is not sustained by itself. Seeing something does not ensure naming it precisely, and naming it does not ensure judging it clearly. When that link breaks, language stops following experience and begins to direct it. Words no longer come after what happens; they tell people in advance what they are supposed to see, think, or conclude. In that shift, the ability to judge for oneself begins to weaken, long before courts are bypassed or rights are set aside.
Once perception is shaped in advance, judgment no longer moves on its own. Hostility no longer appears as a break but as something already contained in the way things are said. A neighbor becomes “one of them.” A disagreement becomes “an attack.”
Societies speak easily about hatred, yet rarely ask where it begins. When violence becomes visible, the instinct is to find someone to blame. The tyrant appears sufficient. Yet this explanation soothes more than it explains. It confines wrongdoing to individuals while leaving intact what made it possible: repeated phrases, accepted labels, words no longer questioned.
A distinction is required. To see clearly is not to hate. To name brutality is not resentment but clarity. To say “this act destroys a life” remains a description. Hatred begins when the person is reduced to what must be removed. Whoever speaks in that way adopts the same language he claims to reject.
Ideologies that organize hostility do not arise in isolation. They differ in name but share a simple rule: people define who they are by pushing others out. Where this rule governs how people define themselves, human worth no longer serves as a shared measure. Public life divides between those who belong and those who do not. Nazism in Europe, Chavismo in Venezuela, the MAGA movement in the United States, and forms of theocracy show how entire populations come to speak of others as enemies and to treat that division as necessary for order or purity.
What appears in Trump is not new. It is what no longer needs to disguise itself.
Once this way of speaking is taken up and repeated, it does not remain confined to leaders or doctrine. It spreads. Some repeat it because they believe it. Others repeat it to avoid trouble, to fit in, or to protect themselves. Language changes. Words stop pointing to people and begin to assign them a place. The adversary becomes a threat; the threat becomes someone to despise. A person is no longer called by name but by a label: “illegal,” “traitor,” “infidel,” “enemy.”
Another confusion follows. In the name of understanding, some begin to describe those who defend such ideas as misunderstood or wounded. This posture appears balanced, yet it shifts attention toward those who exercise power and away from those who live under it.
This confusion rests on a deeper habit of thought. Violence is often explained by pointing to personal wounds or exclusion. There is truth in this. Yet when applied everywhere, it removes responsibility. Everyone is vulnerable. Not everyone participates in organized harm. That requires decisions, repeated words, and people willing to act on them.
The difference between ethics and moralizing appears here. Moralizing sorts people into good and bad. Ethics looks at what allows certain actions to take place and spread. It does not turn the adversary into a monster, but it does not excuse what is done.
Those who suffer the consequences rarely appear in these arguments. They do not belong to factions or slogans. They are those who must live with what others decide: the family forced to move, the worker shut out, the person who learns to remain silent.
The question, then, cannot be answered by pointing to a tyrant. Hatred is fed when people accept the lowering of language, treat humiliation as normal, and allow their judgment to be replaced by ready-made explanations.
At that point, hatred no longer appears exceptional. It becomes a habit. It repeats itself in ordinary speech: “that is how things work,” “everyone does it,” “we have no choice,” “we were forced,” “it is for the nation.” It appears in the language of order and protection: “to restore order,” “for your safety,” and in the steady stirring of fear: fear of losing place, fear of difference, fear of those seen as outsiders, even in societies shaped by mixture.
These expressions do not simply describe what is happening. They shape how it is understood. They make exclusion seem reasonable. What once required justification begins to sound like common sense.
When this way of speaking settles in, hostility no longer needs to be defended. It becomes expected, repeated, routine. Responsibility does not vanish through denial; it fades through repetition: through explanations that excuse and fears no one stops to question.
This is how hatred continues: not only through those who declare it, but through those who repeat it, accept it, or let it pass without objection.
The question remains.
Who feeds hatred?
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Ricardo F. Morín, March 16, 2026, Oakland Park, Florida.
Ricardo Morín Infinity One: The Grammar of Emotional Mimicry 60″x 37″ Oil on linen 2005
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Public life today is shaped less by ideas than by emotional cues. People respond not to the content of arguments but to the register in which those arguments are delivered. Tone becomes substance; affect becomes authority. The substitution of emotional cues for argument is not accidental. It reflects a deeper cultural grammar in which individuals learn to recognize themselves not through reasoning but through emotional likeness. The most resonant voice is not the most coherent one but the one that mirrors the emotional state of the crowd. I call this phenomenon the grammar of emotional mimicry.
The press plays a central role in reinforcing this grammar. Modern media does not function as a platform for the slow work of thought; it functions as a marketplace of sentiment. Editors select, frame, and circulate stories on the basis of emotional traction rather than intellectual clarity. A confession of anguish is treated as insight. A display of distress is treated as truth. The media’s primary currency is resonance, measured not by accuracy but by the intensity of feeling it can evoke. It simply reflects the incentives of an attention economy.
Prominent authors or celebrities are often given expansive platforms to articulate personal grievances that contain little conceptual grounding. A statement such as “there is no closure for innocent suffering unless the universe holds someone accountable” is presented as a courageous moral reflection. Yet the premise collapses at first contact: suffering is not distributed according to desert, and nature does not adjudicate innocence. Still, these are emotionally potent narratives because the marketplace rewards vulnerability, not reasoning.
This pattern of selection and reward parallels the emotional logic of populism. Followers of political figures often identify with leaders not because they share material circumstances or policy interests but because they recognize themselves in the emotional posture the leader performs.This is evident in the movement surrounding Donald Trump. His supporters do not mimic his ideas; they mimic his emotional volatility, his sense of grievance, and his theatrical defiance.He becomes a projection surface for the emotional life of the crowd. In return, he mirrors their turbulence. This is mimicry in both directions.
The convergence between media dynamics and populist dynamics is not accidental. Both rely on the same grammar: emotional resonance as a substitute for coherence. Trump’s appeal depends on this alignment between emotional expression and public response. The press amplifies his volatility because it generates spectacle; the public interprets the spectacle as authenticity; and authenticity is misread as truth. What appears most authentic is often least reliable as a guide to truth. The cycle continues because repetition and amplification do not depend on coherence. Indeed, incoherence strengthens the bond, because it signals freedom from the constraints of disciplined thought—constraints that many interpret as elitist or oppressive.
This grammar does not operate only in politics. It shapes cultural life more broadly. Cultural production increasingly privileges emotional exposure over disciplined expression. Works are evaluated on the basis of how effectively they simulate immediate sentiment, not on how clearly they illuminate experience. The result is a narrowing of public imagination: nuance becomes difficult to sustain, and reflection is displaced by emotive shorthand. This environment favors individuals who narrate their emotions vividly, regardless of whether their interpretations withstand scrutiny.
The consequences for civic life are considerable. When emotional mimicry becomes the dominant mode of engagement, disagreement becomes impossible to navigate. Individuals no longer encounter differences in judgment; they encounter differences in emotional identity. To critique an argument becomes an attack on the person’s emotional legitimacy. Public conversation becomes a contest of grievances rather than an exchange of ideas. The result is a brittle social sphere in which the loudest emotional frequency defines the terms of debate.
This shift also erodes the distinction between witness and participant. By seeking emotional stories, the press becomes a participant in the very dynamics it reports. It reinforces the emotional scripts people already inhabit. It privileges personal turmoil as evidence of moral depth. It treats spectacle as substance. In doing so, it trains the public to internalize emotional performance as the primary mode of communication. The media does not merely reflect emotional mimicry; it makes it a habitual form of expression.
Today’s emotional grammar differs in scale and function. Selection, repetition, and amplification now operate continuously, reducing complex experience to a narrow range of signals—grievance, resentment, and confession. As these signals circulate, attention is captured by intensity rather than guided by coherence. This is not a moral collapse; it is a failure in how attention is directed and sustained in public life.
The challenge is not to suppress emotion but to restore proportion. Emotional life is essential to human experience, but it cannot serve as a universal grammar for public reasoning. A culture that communicates primarily through emotional mimicry loses its ability to distinguish perception from projection. It becomes reactive rather than reflective. To recover clarity, we must once again separate the vividness of emotion from the validity of thought. Only then can public life recover the depth it has traded for resonance.
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Ricardo F Morín, November, 2025, Oakland Park, Florida
This installment concludes Chapter XII, “The Fourth Sign.” It presents §§ 26–34 under the heading The Asymmetry of Sanctions, examining the unequal application and effects of external economic and political measures in the broader context established by the preceding sections on Autocracy and Venezuela.
Ricardo F. Morín, December 29, 2026, Oakland Park, Fl
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Chapter XII: Part 3
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The Asymmetry of Sanctions
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26
Sanctions are often employed as a diplomatic tool to weaken autocratic regimes. Yet, their use reveals a deeper asymmetry in the struggle between democratic accountability and authoritarian resilience. According to data from the V-Dem Institute, nearly 72% of the world’s population now lives under autocratic rule—the highest proportion since 1978. This reality reframes sanctions not as exceptional measures against isolated regimes, but as policies deployed within a global order where autocracy has become the prevailing form of governance.
27
On one hand, sanctions aim to isolate autocracies economically and politically. On the other hand, regimes like Nicolás Maduro’s have demonstrated remarkable adaptability in the face of such measures. Such regimes’ endurance exposes the limitations of tools designed for a world in which democracy was presumed dominant.
27a
Subsequent developments, including the removal of Nicolás Maduro from power, alter the immediate object toward which sanctions were directed but do not resolve the structural conditions examined here. The networks of authority, the institutional arrangements, and the external alliances that sustained his rule have not been dissolved by his departure. What is observed in this case is not the endurance of a single figure, but the persistence of a governing structure capable of adaptation beyond him.
28
Maduro has formed adversarial alliances to circumvent external pressure and maintain his rule. By invoking themes of sovereignty and resistance against Western influence, he has turned isolation into a narrative of defiance.
29
This narrative serves as a foundation for partnerships with other autocratic States, including Russia, China, Cuba, Iran, and Turkey. [43][44][45][46][47] Driven by pragmatic interests rather than strict ideological alignment, these alliances enable Venezuela to mitigate the intended effects of sanctions.
30
The result is a paradox: while sanctions aim to weaken autocracies, they unintentionally contribute to their resilience. Reliance on alternative alliances allows regimes like Maduro’s to access resources, military aid, and political support, which in turn shields them from severe economic disruption and international scrutiny. In a world where the majority of the world’s population now lives under autocratic rule, the logic of isolation loses its potency; it becomes a misreading of the global balance itself.
31
In this way, sanctions contribute to the persistence of autocracy. Regimes like Maduro’s exploit their isolation to present themselves as defenders of national sovereignty and resistance to global hegemony. [48] This dynamic amplifies the concept of a multipolar world order. As global power shifts away from unipolar dominance, regimes like Maduro’s find new avenues to thrive.
32
By framing their cooperation as resistance to Western dominance, authoritarian regimes justify their alliances under the banner of multipolarity. This strategic repositioning does more than circumvent sanctions—it actively reshapes the global order. As these regimes expand their influence, they undermine democratic norms by replacing them with a system in which power is consolidated without external accountability.
33
This shift is not confined to regimes like Maduro’s: it reflects a broader trend in which authoritarianism gains ground by exploiting ideological fractures within democratic societies. Across Europe and Asia, nationalist and right-wing movements increasingly echo Kremlin-aligned narratives to amplify skepticism toward Western institutions. The rise of such forces in countries like Hungary, Italy, and India is not merely a domestic shift—it signals an alignment with a global framework where sovereignty is invoked not to empower citizens, but to insulate leaders from accountability.
34
Contrary to the argument that authoritarianism is solely a reaction to U.S. hegemony, its expansion demonstrates an independent momentum, one that persists regardless of American intervention. China and Russia do not seek to challenge the U.S. in pursuit of a more equitable world order; they aim to consolidate their power free from external constraints. In this landscape, the traditional ideological divide between left and right becomes secondary to a more fundamental struggle—the contest between concentrated power and democratic resilience. Whether under the guise of populism or nationalism, the objective remains the same: to undermine institutional checks and to consolidate power without sufficient accountability. [49]
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Endnotes—Chapter XII: Part 3
§ 29
[43] In 2019, Russia’s State-owned Rosneft handled 70% of Venezuela’s crude oil exports and circumvented U.S. sanctions. Russia also supplied military equipment and training to bolster Maduro’s control over the armed forces.
[44] China’s involvement includes joint oil ventures in the Orinoco Belt, infrastructure projects like the Tinaco-Anaco railway project, and housing initiatives (Great Housing Mission). Despite operational challenges, these investments highlight China’s strategic interest in Venezuela’s energy sector.
[45]According to the Brookings Institution, Cuba and Venezuela have maintained close political and strategic ties, particularly during the Chávez and Maduro administrations. This relationship has extended beyond diplomatic and economic cooperation to include security and intelligence collaboration. Cuban institutions have provided training, advisory support, and technical expertise to Venezuelan military and security forces: 1). Dirección de Inteligencia(DI, a.k.a G2) [1961]: The Intelligence Directorate, also known as G2, has been involved in providing intelligence training and support to Venezuelan security forces, particularly in surveillance and national security operations. 2). Comité de Defensa de la Revolución(CDR) [1960]: The Committee for the Defense of the Revolution, created in Cuba, focused on grassroots mobilization and surveillance. Its activities extended to Venezuela, where it contributed to internal security and the promotion of political ideology. 3). Brigada Especial Nacional(BEN) del Ministerio del Interior(a.k.a.Avispas Negras or“Boinas Negras”) [1986]: The National Special Brigade, known as Black Wasps or Black Berets, has been involved in specialized military and security training; it has provided high-level tactical training to Venezuelan military and security personnel.
[46]Iran has aided Venezuela through energy and military cooperation, providing refined fuel and technical support for Venezuela’s oil industry. Barter agreements and drone technology exchanges underscore their deepening alliance.
[47]Turkey facilitated Venezuela’s gold trade, enabling Maduro to bypass sanctions. This trade, involving $900 million in 2018, has drawn criticism for its opacity and links to illegal mining in the Arco Minero region.
§ 31
[48]Aníbal Pérez-Liñán and Scott Mainwaring, Democracies and Dictatorships in Latin America: Emergence, Survival, and Fall (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 183-87, 199-202.
§ 34
[49]Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, How Democracies Die (New York: Crown, 2018), 212-15.
Young people grow up hearing a language of promise. School principals, teachers, and commencement speakers present the civic language of freedom, equal worth, and opportunity in classrooms, school assemblies, and commencement ceremonies. Young people enter life expecting that dignity belongs to them not by achievement but by right.
The world in which adolescents grow up reveals another measure of value. Universities select applicants. Employers choose candidates. Newspapers, screens, and social media present visible distinction as a standard of value. In this environment value becomes linked less to the fact of being alive than to results obtained: grades, admission, income, recognition. Public language affirms equal dignity and opportunity, while everyday life rewards distinction.
The consequences of this tension in adolescence cannot be reduced to a single cause. Yet the statistics describing adolescent suicide provide an observable point from which to examine the pressures affecting young lives. In the United States, suicide ranks among the leading causes of death for those between fifteen and nineteen years of age. Thousands of adolescents take their own lives each year. Similar figures appear in other countries whose laws and public speech affirm freedom and dignity. These figures do not reveal the thoughts of any single adolescent, yet they show that many young people reach a point at which life appears closed to them.
Each suicide carries its own history. Parents search for reasons in school pressure, humiliation, loneliness, or despair that no one recognized in time. Physicians prescribe medicine. Counselors offer guidance. These efforts help some adolescents and fail to reach others. The continued rise of these deaths directs attention to the world in which adolescents grow up.
From early childhood many students learn that recognition follows visible success. Teachers and schools praise the highest scores and celebrate the strongest performers. Young people watch classmates receive awards and admission letters while others receive neither. Under such conditions adolescents begin to measure their own lives against the success of others.
The acquisitive and ostentatious character of contemporary life becomes visible on screens, in the media, and across social networks. In them, mastery and social status predominate. Young people learn to present themselves as exceptional before they come to know themselves, and they learn not only to observe these images but also to reproduce them. The surrounding culture celebrates achievement while leaving little room for hesitation or failure, even though both belong to the passage into adulthood.
Failure forms part of learning, and discovery begins with uncertainty. That understanding arises from repeated observation across history and from the process of discovery itself. Within that process, error is gradually set aside until what is intelligible and comprehensible comes into view. Yet the surrounding environment continues to place visible honor on success. The young therefore encounter two messages at once: encouragement to endure failure and a public display that celebrates achievement.
Within this environment the work of forming human relations grows difficult. Friendships break. Intimate relations begin with uncertainty. Sexual experience rarely matches the images that circulate in public view. These difficulties belong to the slow formation of adult life. Yet the contrast between public images of fulfillment and the experience of life can lead some adolescents to judge themselves as failures.
The judgment of value does not remain external. It becomes shame. Shame seeks concealment. An adolescent who carries shame may continue to appear among friends, classmates, and family while inwardly withdrawing. Recognition promises to confirm value, yet it awakens a need for worth that cannot be founded by recognition itself. Beneath that shame lies another absence: the absence of self-love. Without some measure of regard for one’s own existence, recognition from others becomes the only source of worth, and failure becomes a verdict upon the self.
Family expectations may deepen this burden. Parents often transmit hopes formed by their own experience. They may believe that success will protect their children from the difficulties they themselves encountered. When the achievements of the young appear to confirm the sacrifices or aspirations of earlier generations, the pressure can grow heavier than a simple wish for well-being.
Communication surrounds young people with images and activity. An adolescent may sit among many signals and still face distress alone. Social encounters become occasions for display rather than opportunities for trust to form through time. The adolescent appears present in social life while carrying a sense of emptiness. When the language of dignity no longer corresponds to the experience of life, the public words themselves begin to lose their meaning.
Adolescence does not create this condition; adolescence reveals it. Many adults live under the same pressure to prove worth through success and recognition. Work, family, and routine allow life to continue, yet the sense of insufficiency does not always disappear. Some carry it for decades. Adolescents encounter the condition before such supports take hold. Some confront it before they possess the strength required to bear it.
This condition does not belong to the present alone. Records from earlier centuries describe the same despair, the same shame, and the same act of self-destruction among the young. The forms surrounding life have changed across time. Religious authority once imposed its judgments. Family honor and inherited status placed other burdens on the young. Human vulnerability has remained constant even as the surrounding environment has changed.
The question does not lie in whether despair among the young is new. The question lies in how the conditions of the present shape that vulnerability within a society that speaks often of dignity and opportunity yet still produces circumstances in which some young people come to believe that life offers no place for them.
A society may create conditions that intensify despair, shame, and pressure. Those conditions deserve examination and criticism. Yet the act of ending one’s life cannot be assigned to others in the same way that those conditions can be examined collectively.
Over time many people come to recognize a difficult distinction: to feel another person’s pain deeply is not the same as bearing responsibility for their choice. One may carry empathy, grief, and even a lingering sense of connection to that suffering without having been the agent of the act itself.
When deaths accumulate in this way, observers turn to specialized language in search of explanation. Academic terms attempt to describe the problem through categories and theories. Such language may organize discussion, yet the words themselves do not remove the fact that thousands of adolescents take their own lives each year. The numbers remain visible without the help of technical vocabulary.
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Ricardo F. Morín, March 12, 2026, Kissimmee, Florida
Reflections from previous chapters eventually lead to a more historical inquiry, in which the following archive, Chronicles of Hugo Chávez, becomes another lens through which I approach the Venezuelan experience.
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Ricardo F. Morín, December 12, 2025, Oakland Park, Florida.
Chapter VI
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Chronicles of Hugo Chávez
~
1
Hugo Chávez, who spearheaded the Bolivarian Revolution, was born on July 28, 1954, in Sabaneta, Venezuela. He died on March 5, 2013, at 4:25 p.m. VET (8:55 p.m. UTC) in Caracas, at the age of 58. As the leader of the revolution, Chávez left a discernible imprint on Venezuela’s political history. To reconstruct this history is to revisit a landscape whose consequences continue to shape Venezuelan life.
At the core of Chavismo lies a deliberate fusion of nationalism, centralized power, and military involvement in politics. This fusion shaped his vision for a new Venezuela, one that would be fiercely independent and proudly socialist.
~
Hugo Chávez at age 11, sixth grade, 1965 (Photo: Reuters).
2
Hugo Chávez’s childhood was spent in a small town in Los Llanos, in the northwestern state of Barinas. This region has a history of indigenous chiefdoms (i.e., “leaderships,” “dominions,” or “rules”) dating back to pre-Columbian times. [1] Chávez was the second of six brothers, and his parents struggled to provide for the large family. As a result, he and his older brother Adán were sent to live with their paternal grandmother, Rosa Inés, in the city of Barinas. After her death, Chávez honored his grandmother’s memory with a poem; it concludes with a stanza that reveals the depth of their bond:
Entonces, / abrirías tus brazos/ y me abrazarías/ cual tiempo de infante/ y me arrullarías/ con tu tierno canto/ y me llevarías/ por otros lugares/ a lanzar un grito/ que nunca se apague.[2]
[Author’s translation: Then, /you would open your arms /and draw me in /as if returned to childhood /and you would steady me /with your tender voice /and you would carry me /to other places /to release a cry /that would not be extinguished].
3
In his second year of high school, Chávez encountered two influential teachers, José Esteban Ruiz Guevara and Douglas Ignacio Bravo Mora, both of whom provided guidance outside the regular curriculum. [3][4] They introduced Chávez to Marxism-Leninism as a theoretical framework, sparking his fascination with the Cuban Revolution and its principles—a turning point more visible in retrospect than it could have been in the moment.
4
At 17, Chávez enrolled in the Academia Militar de Venezuela at Fuerte Tiuna in Caracas, where he hoped to balance military training with his passion for baseball. He dreamed of becoming a left-handed pitcher, but his abilities did not match his ambition. Despite his initial lack of interest in military life, Chávez persisted in his training, graduating from the academy in 1975 near the bottom of his class.
5
Chávez’s military career began as a second lieutenant; he was tasked with capturing leftist guerrillas. As he pursued them, he found himself identifying with their cause and believed they fought for a better life. But by 1977, Chávez was prepared to abandon his military career and join the guerrillas. Seeking guidance, he turned to his brother Adán, who persuaded him to remain in the military by insisting, “We need you there.” [5] Chávez now felt a sense of purpose and understood his mission as a calling. In 1982, he and his closest military associates formed the Bolivarian Revolutionary Movement-200: they aimed to spread their interpretation of Marxism within the armed forces and ultimately hoped to stage a coup d’état. [6]
6
On February 4, 1992, Lieutenant Chávez and his military allies launched a revolt against the government of President Carlos Andrés Pérez. Their rebellion, however, was swiftly quashed. Surrounded and outnumbered, Chávez surrendered at the Cuartel de la Montaña, the military history museum in Caracas, near the presidential palace, on the condition that he be allowed to address his companions via television. He urged them to lay down their arms and to avoid further bloodshed. He proclaimed, « Compañeros, lamentablemente por ahora los objetivos que nos planteamos no fueron logrados . . . » [Author’s translation:“Comrades, unfortunately, our objectives have not been achieved… yet,”].[7] The broadcast marked the beginning of his political ascent.His words resonated across the nation and sowed the seeds of his political future.
~
Chávez announces his arrest on national television and urges insurgent troops to surrender.
7
In 1994, newly elected President Rafael Caldera Rodríguez pardoned him. [8] With this second chance, Chávez founded the Movimiento V República (MVR) in 1997 and rallied like-minded socialists to his cause. [9] Through a campaign centered on populist appeals, he secured an electoral victory at age 44.
8
In his first year as President, Chávez enjoyed an 80% approval rating. His policies sought to eradicate corruption in the government, to expand social programs for the poor, and to redistribute national wealth. Jorge Olavarría de Tezanos Pinto, initially a supporter, emerged by the end of the elections as a prominent voice of the opposition. Olavarría accused Chávez of undermining Venezuela’s democracy through his appointment of military officers to governmental positions. [10] At the same time, Chávez was drafting a new constitution, which allowed him to place military officers in all branches of government. The new constitution, ratified on December 15, 1999, paved the way for the “mega elections” of 2000, in which Chávez secured a term of six years. Although his party failed to gain full control of the Asamblea Nacional (National Assembly), it passed laws by decree through the mechanism of the Leyes Habilitantes (Enabling Laws). [11][12] Meanwhile, Chávez initiated reforms to reorganize the State‘sinstitutional structure, but the constitution’s requirements were not met. The appointment of judges to the new Corte Suprema de Justicia [CSJ]was carried out without rigor and raised concerns about its legitimacy and competence. Cecilia Sosa Gómez, the outgoing Corte Suprema de Justicia president, declared the rule of law “buried” and the court “self-dissolved.” [13][14]
9
Although some Venezuelans saw Chávez as a refreshing alternative to the country’s unstable democratic system, which had been dominated by three parties since 1958, many others expressed concern as the Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela (PSUV) consolidated power and became the sole governing party. [15] Legislative and executive powers were increasingly centralized, and the narrowing of judicial guarantees limited citizens’ participation in the democratic process. Chávez’s close ties with Fidel Castro and his desire to model Venezuela after Cuba’s system—dubbed VeneCuba—raised alarm. [16] He silenced independent radio broadcasters, and he antagonized the United States and other Western nations. Instead, he strengthened ties with Iraq, Iran, and Libya. Meanwhile, domestically, his approval rating had plummeted to 30%, and anti-Chávez demonstrations became a regular occurrence.
10
On April 11, 2002, a massive demonstration of more than a million people converged on the presidential palace to demand President Chávez’s resignation. The protest turned violent when agents of the National Guard and masked paramilitaries opened fire on the demonstrators. [17] The tragic event—the Puente Llaguno massacre—sparked a military uprising that led to Chávez’s arrest and to the installation of a transitional government under Pedro Francisco Carmona Estanga. [18] Carmona’s leadership, however, was short-lived; he swiftly suspended the Constitution, dissolved the Asamblea Nacional and the Corte Suprema, and dismissed various officials. Within forty-eight hours, the army withdrew its support for Carmona. The vice president, Diosdado Cabello Rondón, was reinstated as president and promptly restored Chávez to power. [19]
11
The failed coup d’état enabled Chávez to purge his inner circle and to intensify his conflict with the opposition. In December 2002, Venezuela’s opposition retaliated with a nationwide strike aimed at forcing Chávez’s resignation. The strike targeted the state oil company Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA), which generated roughly 80% of the country’s export revenues. [20] Chávez responded by dismissing its 38,000 employees and replacing them with loyalists. By February 2003, the strike had dissipated, and Chávez had once again secured control over the country’s oil revenues.
12
From 2003 to 2004, the opposition launched a referendum to oust Chávez as president, but soaring oil revenues, which financed social programs, bolstered Chávez’s support among lower-income sectors. [21] By the end of 2004, his popularity had rebounded, and the referendum was soundly defeated. In December 2005, the opposition boycotted the elections to the National Assembly and protested against the Consejo Nacional Electoral (National Electoral Council) (CNE). [22] As anticipated in view of the opposition boycott, Chávez’s coalition capitalized on the absence of an effective opposition and strengthened its grip on the Assembly. [23] By that point, legislative control rested almost entirely with Chávez’s coalition.What followed was not a departure from this trajectory, but its extension through formal policy.
13
In December 2006, Chávez secured a third presidential term, a victory that expanded the scope of executive initiative. He nationalized key industries—gold, electricity, telecommunications, gas, steel, mining, agriculture, and banking—along with numerous smaller entities.[24][25][26][27][28][29] Chávez also introduced a package of constitutional amendments designed to expand the powers of the executive and to extend its control over the Banco Central de Venezuela (BCV). In a controversial move, he unilaterally altered property rights and allowed the state to seize private real estate without judicial oversight. Furthermore, he proposed becoming president for life. In December 2007, however, the National Assembly narrowly rejected the package of sweeping reforms.
14
In February 2009, Chávez reintroduced his controversial proposals and succeeded in advancing them. Following strategic counsel from Cuba, he escalated the crackdown on dissent.[30] He ordered the arrest of elected opponents and shut down all private television stations.
15
In June 2011, Chávez announced that he would undergo surgery in Cuba to remove a tumor, a development that sparked confusion and concern throughout the country.[31] As his health came under increasing scrutiny, more voters began to question his fitness for office. Yet, in 2012, despite his fragile health, Chávez campaigned against Henrique Capriles and secured a surprise presidential victory.[32]
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Chávez during the electoral campaign in February 2012.
16
In December 2012, Chávez underwent his fourth surgery in Cuba. Before departing Venezuela, he announced his plan for transition and designated Vice President Nicolás Maduro as his successor, alongside a powerful troika that included Diosdado Cabello [military chief] and Rafael Darío Ramírez Carreño [administrator of PDVSA].[33][34][35] Following the surgery, Chávez was transferred on December 11 to the Hospital Militar Universitario Dr. Carlos Arvelo (attached to the Universidad Militar Bolivariana de Venezuela, or UMBV) in Caracas, where he remained incommunicado, further fueling speculation and rumors. Some government officials dismissed reports of assassination, while others, including former Attorney General Luisa Ortega Díaz, claimed he had already died on December 28.[36] Maduro’s cabinet vehemently refuted these allegations and insisted that no crime had been committed. Amidst the uncertainty, Maduro asked the National Assembly to postpone the inaugurationindefinitely. This further intensified political tensions.
17
The National Assembly acquiesced to Maduro and voted to postpone the inauguration. Chávez succumbed to his illness on March 5. His body was embalmed in three separate stages without benefit of autopsy, which further fueled suspicions and conspiracy theories. Thirty days later, Maduro entered office amid sustained political uncertainty.[37] The implications of this transition extend beyond chronology; they shape the conditions examined in the chapters that follow in this series, which comprises 19 chapters, miscellaneous rubrics, and an appendix.
~
Endnotes:
§ 2
[1] Charles S. Spencer and Elsa M. Redmond, Prehispanic Causeways and Regional Politics in the Llanos of Barinas, Venezuela (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017). Abstract: “…relacionados con la dinámica política de la organización cacical durante la fase Gaván Tardía.” Published in Latin American Antiquity, vol. 9, no. 2 (June 1998): 95-110. https://doi.org/10.2307/971989
[4] L’Atelier des Archive, “Interview du révolutionnaire: Douglas Bravo au Venezuela [circa 1960]” (Transcript: “… conceptos injuriosos en contra de la revolución cubana …” [timestamp 1;11-14]), YouTube, October 14, 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cx2D5VM8VM
§ 5
[5] “Hugo Chavez Interview,”YouTube, transcript excerpt and time stamp unavailable: Original quote in Spanish (translated by the author): “. . . , if not, maybe I’ll leave the Army, no, you can’t leave, Adam told me so, no, we need you there, but who needs me?” Retrieved October 12, 2023.
[9] Gustavo Coronel, “Corruption, Mismanagement, and Abuse of Power in Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela,” Center for Global Liberty & Prosperity: Development Policy Analysis, no. 2 (CATO Institute, November 27, 2006). https://www.issuelab.org/resources/2539/2539.pdf.
[11] Mario J. García-Serra, “The ‘Enabling Law’: The Demise of the Separation of Powers in Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela,” University of Miami Inter-American Law Review, vol.32, no. 2, (Spring – Summer, 2001): 265-293. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40176554
[37] “Cuerpo de Chávez fue tratado tres veces para ser conservado: … intervenido con inyecciones de formol para que pudiera ser velado,” El Nacional De Venezuela – Gda, Enero 27, 2024, 05:50, actualizado Marzo 22, 2013, 20:51. https://www.eltiempo.com/amp/archivo/documento/CMS-12708339
Ricardo F. Morin Eschatology Watercolor, gouache, oil sticks, white correction fluid, and black ink on paper 14″ x 20″ 2004
*
Civilizations periodically describe their present as uniquely perilous. Such claims are rarely grounded in historical comparison or institutional analysis. They arise instead from a failure of scale: the inability to distinguish disruption from collapse, uncertainty from termination, and incoherence from apocalypse.
Moments of genuine civilizational danger are not hypothetical. The Black Death removed a third of Europe’s population. The Thirty Years’ War devastated entire regions. The twentieth century combined industrialized warfare, genocide, and the advent of nuclear annihilation. These events did not require prophetic language to be understood as catastrophic. Their magnitude was measurable. Their effects were material. Their causes were traceable.
Apocalyptic rhetoric appears not when danger is greatest, but when comprehension falters. It converts uncertainty into moral drama. When political processes appear opaque, when outcomes resist prediction, and when authority behaves without an intelligible pattern, explanation withdraws. In its place enters eschatology: a narrative that simplifies complexity, assigns absolute blame, and promises closure.
The figure of the Antichrist belongs to this register. It is not an analytical category. It is a symbolic condensation of fear. By locating total danger in a single person, eschatological thinking relieves societies of the obligation to examine institutions, incentives, and limits. It replaces causal inquiry with revelation.
Such framing also distorts responsibility. Civilizations do not disintegrate because of individuals alone. They deteriorate through cumulative failures of governance, adaptation, and legitimacy. These processes unfold unevenly, often reversibly, and without finality. They do not announce themselves with signs. They do not culminate on schedule.
Eschatology thrives where explanation retreats. It offers emotional certainty where analysis requires patience. It persuades by promising an end to ambiguity, not by clarifying causes. By transforming political disorder into cosmic struggle, it diverts attention away from conditions that can be examined and toward myths that cannot be corrected.
The danger of apocalyptic thinking is not that it exaggerates risk, but that it misdirects attention. It trains citizens to search for omens rather than causes, villains rather than conditions, destiny rather than decisions. In doing so, it deepens the very helplessness it claims to describe.
What the present requires is not prophecy, but proportion. Not moral theater, but discernment. Not the language of revelation, but the discipline of understanding how power operates, where it fails, and how it can be constrained.
Where explanation returns, superstition recedes. Where clarity is restored, apocalypse no longer functions as an explanation.
*
Ricardo F. Morín, January 11, 2026, Oakland Park, Florida.
This essay is the first part of a trilogy that explores how human beings approach reality through certainty, doubt, and ambivalence. It begins with certainty—how the desire for stability drives thought and belief, even when what appears secure is already open to change. Though written from personal inquiry, its scope is broader: the question of certainty concerns not one life but the fragile conditions of shared reality. The trilogy continues with The Discipline of Doubt and concludes with When All We Know Is Borrowed.
Ricardo Morín, Bala Cynwyd, Pa. August 23, 2025
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The Colors of Certainty
We live in an age unsettled by division. The subtleties of thought that once allowed us to pause, to weigh, and to distinguish are increasingly swept aside by the demand for immediate clarity. Everything is urged toward opposites: yes or no, ally or enemy, awake or asleep. The pace of public life, accelerated by technology and amplified by conflict, leaves little patience for nuance. Contradiction, which once signaled the restless work of an honest mind, is now treated as treachery. In this atmosphere, to admit complexity is to risk mistrust, and even the smallest hesitation is judged as weakness. We are asked, again and again, to define ourselves as though identity were a single stroke, not a layered drawing made across time.
Symbols flourish in such a climate while they reduce complexity into consumable images. Few have proven more enduring than the pill metaphors drawn from The Matrix film. When it appeared in 1999, the scene of choosing between a red pill and a blue pill was a cinematic device, which dramatized the tension between reality and illusion. Its influence grew gradually, as the film became a generational touchstone. Over the decades that followed, the pills slipped into online communities and political rhetoric only to harden into modes of thought that now shape how we imagine truth and the identity of belonging. To take the red pill became a declaration of awakening, access to hidden truths. To take the blue pill was to be mocked for complacency. Eventually the darker black pill emerged into both despair and fatalism embraced as destiny.
Once this logic takes hold, the world itself is reduced to a theater of absolutes. Disagreement becomes disloyalty, and belonging is measured not by shared life but by categorical allegiance. I have felt this even in conversations with people I have known for decades. In one such exchange, I remarked that I was appalled by Noam Chomsky’s recent habit, even in his nineties, of opposing Western hegemony over Russia as though that stance could excuse the war in Ukraine. Yet in another context, I expressed admiration for Chomsky’s earlier work on linguistic relevance in science four decades ago, which continues to illuminate how language shapes knowledge. To my interlocutor, these two statements seemed incompatible, as if they could not both be true. The expectation was that my judgment had to be seamless: either I rejected Chomsky entirely or endorsed him wholly.
Why must one justify such distinctions, as though every judgment were required to form a single line of allegiance? The contexts are not the same—one belongs to the 1980s, another to the present; one to the realm of linguistics, another to geopolitics. Yet in today’s climate, the demand for congruence is relentless. It reflects the pill logic that has seeped into our speech and habits of thought: one is either awake or asleep, aligned or opposed, consistent across every domain or untrustworthy in all.
That same craving for certainty also gave us Infowars—the radio podcast. Founded in 1999, the very year The Matrix was released, it became a commercial theater of the red pill metaphor. Infowars thrived on dramatizing crisis, telling its audience that elites, governments, or hidden forces manipulated events at every turn. What institutions explained as complexity, Infowars simplified into betrayal. The clarity it offered was intoxicating: good versus evil, freedom versus tyranny, awake versus deceived. It was not simply ideas being sold, but certainty itself—packaged with survival kits, supplements, and slogans. In seeking to liberate its audience from illusion, Infowars created a new one, offering not understanding but a permanent performance of awakening.
The narrowing of discourse is not only about politics and ideology, but it also extends to who is permitted to speak. I was reminded of this in a private exchange, where writing itself was dismissed as the work of an “armchair liberal” or a “limousine socialist.” According to this view, only those directly scarred by battle may speak of war, only those who have suffered prejudice firsthand may give voice to injustice, and to write as an observer is to mock the reality of struggle. It is a charge meant to discredit, as though the act of “fighting with a keyboard” were less real than hand combat in a bloodied field. Yet such suspicion denies what writing has always been: a means of bearing witness, of preserving memory, of shaping the conversation through which societies recognize themselves. The pen has never replaced experience, but it has always transformed it into something shareable and durable. To demand firsthand suffering as the sole qualification for speech is to reduce witness to autobiography and to strip dialogue of the breadth that comes when voices join from different vantage points.
Another difficulty lies in language itself. Writers who seek precision—who stretch language to its sharpest edge—often find that what emerges are metaphors. Even when grounded in substantiated terms, description requires figures of thought, images, and analogies that can never be wholly exact. The question is how precise language can ever be. Even the most brilliant minds struggle with definitions, because in their best formulations they remain presumptive theories. To acknowledge this is not to diminish language but to recognize that our dependence on tropes is not weakness but necessity. Story lines and metaphors are the bridges of comprehension, without which complexity would dissolve into noise. To lean on metaphor is not necessarily to abandon truth but to approach it by way of what can be shared.
What began as a film’s conceit has become a method of thinking, and in many ways a prison. The Matrix offered its audience a vision of awakening through choice, but our culture has taken that image and turned it into a grid of loyalties, where every stance is measured by whether one has swallowed the right capsule. Infowars amplified this posture; it dramatized the hunger for certainty until conspiracy became a substitute for thought. Suspicion of the writer’s position narrowed it further while it mocked reflection as inauthentic and demanded that speech bear the scars of direct experience before it could count as legitimate. And beneath it all lies the frailty of language itself: its inability to define with absolute precision, its reliance on metaphors that shape the very realities they describe.
To speak today of red pills, blue pills, or black pills is not only to reference a film or a subculture; it is to acknowledge the grip of a society that prefers binaries to dialogue, antagonism to complexity, performance to reflection. To resist that grip is to remember that thought is not a pill to be swallowed but a conversation to be carried, a conversation sustained in the fragile medium of language itself. However uncertain, however provisional, it is in that ongoing act of speaking and listening that culture remains alive—where friendship can endure, where witness can be honored, and where the truths no single color can contain still find their voice.
*
About the cover image:
Newsprint Series Nº 9, 2006, by Ricardo Morín (47” × 74”): Translucent dyes, ink, white-out, and blotted oil paint on newsprint.
This image belongs to a series that transforms fragments of printed matter into layered fields of color and erasure, this piece speaks to the instability of certainty itself. The pigments veil and expose in turns, while the newsprint beneath reminds us that truth is mediated, provisional, and never free of interpretation. As with language in the essay, meaning emerges only through contrast, through what resists containment.
Annotated Bibliography
Cialdini, Robert B. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. New York: Harper Business, 2006. (A classic study in behavioral psychology showing how persuasion exploits binary choices and authority cues, useful for understanding the appeal of pill metaphors and the certainty promised by conspiracy movements.)
Lakoff, George, and Johnson, Mark: Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003. (A foundational text on metaphor in cognition and language, relevant to the essay’s argument that even the most precise use of language depends on tropes and figurative structures for human comprehension.)
Marwick, Alice, and Lewis, Rebecca: Media Manipulation and Disinformation Online. New York: Data & Society Research Institute, 2017. (This analytical report documents how conspiracy narratives spread through online ecosystems; it highlights the role of platforms in amplifying symbolic binaries such as “red pill” awakening.)
Pew Research Center: “Public Trust in Government: 1958–2023”. Washington: Pew Research Center, 2023. (Presents longitudinal data on the decay of institutional trust in the United States and offers a data-driven context for why audiences turned to alternative voices such as Infowars.)
Southern Poverty Law Center: “Male Supremacy”. Montgomery: SPLC, 2019. (A report classifying the Incel subculture and related groups within the larger “male supremacist ecosystem,” cited in connection to the black pill ideology and its links to violence.)
Sunstein, Cass R., and Vermeule, Adrian: Conspiracy Theories and Other Dangerous Ideas. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2014. (This book explores why conspiracy theories flourish and frames them as efforts to create certainty in moments of social disorientation. It is highly relevant to the discussion of Infowars as a commercial theater of the red pill metaphor.)
Taguieff, Pierre-André: The New Culture Wars. Paris: CNRS Éditions, 2020. (This book is a political-philosophical treatment of identity politics and binary antagonisms in Western democracies: it offers a perspective on how pill metaphors entered the broader theater of culture wars.)
Tversky, Amos, and Kahneman, Daniel: Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982. (A landmark in cognitive science explaining why people reduce complex realities into simplified binaries; it anchors the essay’s meditation on the lure of certainty.)
Ricardo Morin The Shared Shadow of History (Template Series) 3rd out of six Each 30″x 22″= 66″h x 66″ overall Watercolor on paper 2005
To the memory we all inherit—capable of bridging distances, yet more often deepening them.
By Ricardo Morin
August 12, 2025, Rochester, NY
*
Across cultures, rituals are both vessels of history and instruments of adaptation. They carry the weight of collective memory while responding to the shifting conditions of the present, negotiating between inherited forms and the realities in which they are practiced.
At a recent wedding within a centuries-old tradition, two family members—a rabbi and a woman—shared officiating duties, blending contemporary adaptations into the ceremony. The shared roles, gestures, and blessings revealed how continuity and innovation can inhabit the same space, weaving together memory and renewal.
Such occasions unfold within atmospheres shaped as much by public discourse as by personal heritage. They demonstrate how ceremonies are never static: they are marked by the echoes of the past, yet reshaped by the urges and hopes of the present.
This interplay between the ceremonial and the political is far from unique. Diasporas across the world have long balanced the preservation of essential forms with the incorporation of new influences. My own ancestry traces to communities that, over generations, retained elements of earlier practices while integrating into new surroundings—a trajectory familiar to many shaped by migration and the pressures of assimilation.
The enduring question, visible in ceremonies from many cultures, is whether customs survive best when they hold firmly to inherited forms or when they adapt to welcome diversity and safeguard the integrity of others. As with many legacies, history will answer in due course.
*
Annotated Bibliography
Anderson, Benedict: Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso, 2006. (In this influential work, Anderson examines how shared cultural narratives and rituals create a sense of belonging across dispersed populations. He explores how communities sustain identity across generations, offering context for understanding the persistence of tradition within diasporas.)
Gerber, Jane S.: The Jews of Spain: A History of the Sephardic Experience. New York: Free Press, 1992. (Gerber traces the history of Sephardic Jewry from medieval Spain through the diaspora, detailing how cultural and religious traditions adapted to new environments. She provides an accessible account of resilience in the face of displacement and persecution.)
Hobsbawm, Eric, and Ranger, Terence eds.: The Invention of Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983. (Hobsbawm and Ranger compile studies on how traditions are often consciously constructed or adapted to serve contemporary needs. Their analysis invites readers to consider how ritual continuity is shaped by changing political and social contexts.)
Sorkin, David: Jewish Emancipation: A History Across Five Centuries. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019. (Sorkin presents a broad historical account of Jewish emancipation movements in Europe and beyond, showing how shifts in political and cultural climates influenced religious practice and identity formation.)
Todorov, Tzvetan: The Conquest of America: The Question of the Other. New York: Harper & Row, 1984. (Todorov explores how cultures define themselves in relation to the “other,” with attention to encounters between Europe and the Americas. His work illuminates how cross-cultural contact reshapes both identity and tradition.)
This essay examines the ethical decline at the heart of contemporary civic life and its consequences for culture. It argues that culture is not merely the preservation of artistic or intellectual forms, but the public expression of moral purpose. Drawing from Hannah Arendt’s The Human Condition (1958)—in particular, her critique of the “worldlessness” of mass society—the essay traces how symbolic and institutional forms have become detached from ethical responsibility. In place of a culture grounded in shared moral commitments, it identifies the rise of anticulture: a spectacle-driven imitation of cultural life, stripped of civic responsibility and moral depth. Rejecting nostalgia, the essay calls for a cultural renewal based on solidarity, public compassion, and ethical engagement.
The Withering of Culture: Goodness and Civility
Culture’s crisis is a moral one before it is a political one.
A society’s cultural life is not sustained by museums, literature, or festivals alone. These may serve as symbols of identity or refinement, but culture, in its fullest sense, demands a deeper moral orientation. If goodness—understood as a commitment to the dignity of others—does not animate civic life, culture loses its grounding and becomes a decorative shell. It may preserve the language, symbols, and rituals of a healthy society, but without ethical vitality, these forms risk becoming performative—or even deceptive. What withers first in such decline is not expression but conscience—the inner faculty that gives culture its ethical weight.
The current state of American public life illustrates this decline. Public discourse has grown coarse. It is now common for political actors to brand their opponents not merely as mistaken, but as dangerous or depraved. During his first presidency—and again since returning to office—Donald Trump has labeled critics as “traitors,” “scum,” and “evil.” At rallies and across social media, he has referred to political adversaries as “vermin,” language historically used by authoritarian regimes to delegitimize opposition. The press has been repeatedly cast as “the enemy of the people,” a phrase long employed to undermine public accountability.
This style of politics has become normalized. In school board meetings, legislative chambers, and campaign platforms, elected officials accuse their counterparts of being “groomers,” “communists,” or “un-American”—language that transforms disagreement into moral condemnation. In 2023, when Republican Utah Governor Spencer Cox publicly supported protections for LGBTQ youth and called for civil dialogue, far-right commentators denounced him as a ‘Republican in name only’—a supposed traitor to conservative values. His appeal to empathy was interpreted not as strength of character but as political surrender. In such an environment, even measured gestures of respect are read as weakness—or worse, betrayal.
Conspiracy theories once relegated to fringe pamphlets now echo in congressional hearings. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has accused political opponents of orchestrating “Satanic rituals”, while Senator J.D. Vance suggested that cultural and academic elites pose an existential threat to the nation. In such an environment, political opposition is recast as moral deviance. The result is not merely polarization, but a systematic dismantling of the civic imagination.
What is promoted in this environment is not only a political ideology, but a form of power centered on the humiliation of others—a self-glorifying posture sustained by the denigration it requires. This type of leadership rests not on principle or public vision but on the glorification of one’s own image. It is a form of narcissistic power—not in clinical terms, but as the conversion of symbolic authority into a vehicle for grievance, personality cult, and systematic contempt for difference.
The consequences of this climate are not confined to rhetoric. In 2022, Paul Pelosi, the husband of then–Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, was attacked in their home by an intruder radicalized by online conspiracies. In 2025, Minnesota state senator Melissa Hortman and her husband were murdered by a man reportedly enraged by progressive legislative agendas. Around the same time, a lone assailant attacked attendees at a local Pride event, citing ideological grievances as justification. More recently, on September 10, 2025, the high profile influencer Charlie Kirk was assassinated by a young radical inflamed by the very rhetoric he opposed. These acts are not isolated tragedies. They reveal a civic landscape in which anger is not only normalized but weaponized. Dehumanizing discourse is not idle speech; it becomes license for violence.
Online platforms amplify these dynamics. What began as tools for connection have become engines of outrage. Algorithms on platforms like X (formerly Twitter) promote content that inflames rather than informs. Verbal take-downs, personal attacks, and tribal affirmations generate more engagement than thoughtfulness or restraint. The loudest voices—not the wisest—are the most amplified. As a result, cruelty is often rewarded as candor, and ridicule is mistaken for insight.
The effects are tangible. A mayor receives death threats for enforcing public health policies. A schoolteacher is harassed online for adopting inclusive language. A librarian resigns after refusing to censor materials that affirm pluralism. Columbia University pays over $200 million in penalties to the federal government under political pressure from the Trump administration—forced to signal partisan compliance in order to continue its cancer research. These are not anecdotal exceptions. They reveal a broader decline of democratic sensibility: a failure to recognize fellow citizens as worthy of care, dialogue, or even basic dignity.
Nowhere is this inversion of moral language more visible than in two of the most enduring national failures: the absence of universal healthcare and the unchecked circulation of firearms. In both, the language of freedom conceals the logic of profit. Insurance and weapons industries, fortified by investors and political patrons, convert dependency and fear into revenue while legislators invoke “choice” and “rights” as moral cover for their complicity. The result is a civic inversion: health and safety—once understood as the moral responsibilities of a just society—are administered as markets. When interest acquires the vocabulary of conscience, democracy begins to speak its own undoing.
Yet this crisis is frequently mischaracterized. To name it is not to indulge in nostalgia. The diagnosis does not propose a return to an idealized past, but instead demands a reckoning with the ethical foundations of culture itself. A society may build monuments, publish literature, and preserve archives—but if it no longer cultivates compassion, humility, and the habit of care, its culture has already begun to wither.
When Aaron Copland composed Fanfare for the Common Man in 1942, the phrase “the common man” carried a sense of moral optimism—the embodiment of democratic dignity, sacrifice, and inclusion. Today, detached from that wartime faith in shared purpose, the same title sounds almost ironic, as if questioning whether the “common man” still exists amid inequality, manipulated populism, and performative patriotism. What was once an anthem of unity now lingers as an echo of the ideal—equality, justice, and shared responsibility—and that echo reveals, beneath its noble resonance, a critique of how those virtues have been hollowed out and repurposed by demagogic politics and consumer spectacle. The fanfare no longer celebrates; it laments. It stands as an elegy for the loss of democratic sincerity masquerading as triumph, capturing with quiet precision the tension between moral aspiration and civic disillusionment.
This moral decay gives rise to what may be called anticulture: not the absence of cultural forms, but their inversion—their use as instruments of division, branding, or control. Anticulture offers performance without substance, heritage without responsibility, and visibility without ethical vision. It mimics meaning but does not generate it. Its language flatters rather than guides. Its stories entertain but do not bind.
When conviction forgets to breathe, it mistakes endurance for moral strength. In time, it becomes a ritual of loyalty to its own image. Aspiration, however, is the current that keeps conviction alive—the movement that returns it to conscience. Without conviction, aspiration drifts without form; without aspiration, conviction calcifies into creed. The moral imagination depends on their continual exchange: hope that remembers, and memory that still dares to imagine.
To rebuild culture is to recover its moral essence. It is not enough to preserve institutions, sponsor festivals, or fund the arts if the ethical spirit is neglected. Culture without goodness becomes hollow—easily co-opted by spectacle, tribalism, or power. Acts of public courage, the rehumanization of discourse, and the refusal to normalize contempt are not ornamental gestures; they are essential conditions for renewal. Like democracy, culture must be tended—not merely inherited or displayed. When culture mistakes approval for virtue, morality becomes a mirror for power.At its core, culture and goodness are not separate. Nurturing one gives life to the other. Where goodness falters, culture loses its vitality; where it is cultivated, culture may yet be renewed. The work of rehumanization is therefore never complete; it must remain a continual labor of conscience.
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Annotated Bibliography
Arendt, Hannah: The Human Condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958. (Arendt explores the distinction between labor, work, and action, offering a foundational critique of how modern life has eroded meaningful public engagement).
Bellah, Robert N., et al: Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985. (This sociological study examines the tensions between individualism and civic responsibility in American culture).
Berman, Marshall: All That Is Solid Melts into Air: The Experience of Modernity. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982. (Berman traces the psychological and cultural disorientation caused by modernity, especially in urban life).
Girard, René: Violence and the Sacred. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977. (Girard’s theory of mimetic desire and sacrificial violence clarifies how cultural forms can devolve into mechanisms of exclusion or aggression).
Lasch, Christopher: The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations. New York: W. W. Norton, 1979. (Lasch critiques the rise of therapeutic individualism and the erosion of civic virtue).
MacIntyre, Alasdair: After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981. (MacIntyre’s argument that modern moral discourse is fragmented and incoherent lays the philosophical groundwork for the essay).
Nussbaum, Martha C.: Political Emotions: Why Love Matters for Justice. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2013. (Nussbaum argues that cultivating emotional capacities—such as compassion and solidarity—is essential for a just society).
Putnam, Robert D.: Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000. (Putnam presents a comprehensive study of declining civic engagement in the United States).
Sandel, Michael J.: What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012. (Sandel critiques the intrusion of market logic into spheres of life traditionally governed by ethical norms).
Taylor, Charles: A Secular Age. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007. (Taylor examines the moral and cultural consequences of secular modernity, particularly the fragmentation of shared meaning).
I am grateful to Billy Bussell Thompson, PhD in Linguistics and Professor Emeritus at Hofstra University, for his attentive reading and for the intellectual and editorial exchange that accompanied my work over many years. I am equally grateful for the editorial subtlety and insight of my sister Bonnie Morín, playwright, producer, and director of the Madrid Method Workshop in Spain (https://www.metodomadrid.es/), and of her daughter Natalia Velarde (@nix.conbotas), graphic artist and author of fanzines. I also give thanks for a long-awaited reunion with Bonnie’s other daughter, my niece Camila Velarde, Licentiate in Philosophy and Letters, and choreographer. Finally, I thank my husband David Lowenberger, whose influence has been a constant in my life. His wisdom and perception helped guide the writing of this story.
Ricardo F. Morin T., 21 February 2021
_________________________________________________
PREFACE:
Choking On His Own Saliva
My father once told me how bleak his life would be if his identity were to disappear under the orthodoxy of religion. It was no accident that, in reaction to the pieties of five generations, he became a criminologist. For most of his life, he regarded the traditional stories of retribution, and the binary belief in reward and condemnation, as harmless fantasies, at least until they hardened into substitutes for inquiry. As a young man, he based his doctoral dissertation on those very premises. In the end, however, the convictions he had dismissed as delusional became his own.
I do not think a person must become fearful or destructive, except when the search for meaning hardens into attachment to fiction and leads to violence. Whether violence arises from retribution or from self-preservation, the only remedy lies in knowing the difference between fantasy and reality.
As I reflected on my father’s contradictions, I remembered what he told me when I was a child: that lying was a skill of survival. It allowed a person to hide, not necessarily out of moral weakness, but sometimes out of charity, or out of fear of being judged. For him, lying belonged to the making of a competent adult. It concealed imperfection and vulnerability. Yet if sincerity or honesty threatened his survival, it was because he preferred to invent a story rather than confront his ignorance and the limits of his own importance. Was it natural for him to hide behind lies, or was it an expression of his own arrogance? Perhaps he spent his life choking on his own saliva. He lived under the illusion that truth could be avoided, or that he could control the refusal to face it. Was this a fear of losing control? Was that one reason he could never understand himself? The mystery did not lie in self-examination, but in the fictionalizing of his own life, no differently from our forebears.
__________________________
Gangs of West Harlem
1
The Process
For the third time I was serving on jury duty. As on previous occasions, I introduced myself as a visual artist during the voir dire. This time the defense lawyer inquired if I was a portraitist. I reasoned to myself the question was intended to probe the degrees of observation a painter aspired to. I replied that my interest as a visual artist was in the conceptual processes of abstract art, no different from that of a portraitist or any other representational painter, seeking to observe and interpret the essence of a subject. What I chose to represent through abstraction or conception was just as concrete as that of a sitter for a portraitist.
2
The Rules
The trial concerned the murder of a fourteen-year-old boy, and I was selected juror number 12. Previously, I served in civil cases. In civil cases, the preponderance of the evidence is the determining principle. In a criminal trial, the ruling principle is the measure of reasonable doubt. The rules were cautionary and aimed to avoid bias on the part of the jury. In their deliberations jurors were to concentrate on the evidence presented and not on background. Also, jurors were not to share information with other people outside of their own forum. I did not know how my participation in a murder trial would affect me. The day after the trial began, juror number 11 was replaced by an alternate.
Testimony lasted 17 days. During that time our electronic devices, cell phones, laptops, and tablets were allowed. On the 18th day, when jury’s deliberations started, these devices were taken away from us. Before this, we had been permitted to speak on matters not related to the trial. We were a diverse group and had very little in common. During court hearings, we had been allowed to take notes while we sat in the jury box. After the days’ proceedings, our note pads were left on our respective seats. When deliberations began, we could take our pads back and forth between the jury box and the jury room. Only then, were we able to study our notes and refer to our observations. Only then could we begin to talk about the case with each other.
3
The Jurors
The foreman of the jury was an office manager, who felt comfortable in his role as moderator. His communication skills were excellent; even when he disagreed, his manner never expressed condescension. Some jurors were reticent and never voiced a judgment one way or the other. The youngest member of the jury did not find the witness of the crime unreliable. Other jurors were open minded. A teacher remained calm throughout; she listened to others before expressing her own views. Another juror was impatient about the length of the trial. She complained that she had a toddler to care for at home. Aside from myself, there were two other retirees, one of whom was a corporate lawyer, who reminded us of the distinction between civil and criminal cases. Reasonable doubt existed in varying degrees for every member of the jury, save for the youngest one.
4
The Defendant: In dubio pro reo
The defense lawyer had her client plead the fifth amendment. The accused gazed solicitously, with a kind of clawing eagerness. He looked seven years younger in his freshly starched white shirt and tie. His hair was a cropped Afro, and he had across his upper lip a straight mustache. His appearance had been arranged to suggest decency. Since the time of the murder, he has been a detainee at Rikers Island. Sitting barely 30 feet away from the jury, the accused bore a grin across his face whenever he looked towards the jurors. Some members of the jury interpreted his countenance as gloating. Others saw his expression as self-pity or abjection, even an attempt at winning us over. His grin, a kind of twisted grimace, was unflappable and even disturbing to us. By the end, however, we dismissed our apprehensions. It was impossible to know whether the accused was remorseful or just trying to beguile us. More important was the question of consistency. If doubt was to play a part in the case, it had to arise from the evidence. The crucial question was whether the accused had acted alone. Certainty had to come from the assessment of facts, and not be based on appearances.
5
The Prosecution
The prosecution charged the defendant with “first degree” murder. This implied premeditation with malice aforethought. The prosecution added two other charges: murder in the “second degree,” suggesting lack of premeditation. The third charge was for felony murder: death caused during the commission of a felony using an illegal weapon and with extreme indifference to human life. Rendering judgment on these charges rested on intent. Each member of the jury would have to reach an approximation of the truth, and no other reasonable explanation could explain the evidence presented at the trial. The verdict, of course, would have to be unanimous. Proof of the direct involvement of the accused was paramount. The evidence had to show the accused had committed the crime. Was the victim’s death the result of self-defense or was it deliberate? The question before the jury was whether there were circumstances outside the control of the accused. How did his instincts and fears come into play with his own actions. Could the jurors differentiate all of these aspects?
6
Testimonies
I
July’s weather was overbearingly hot. The air conditioning in the jury room was old and as inefficient as it was in the court room; the jury room was even more stifling than the courtroom, particularly between the long intervals of each day’s proceedings. The room was barely large enough for the long table and its 12 uncomfortable chairs. In this tight space it was almost impossible for the jurors to walk around, to go to the water-fountain, or even to the single restroom available. Lunch breaks were much appreciated. On the few days when there was a breeze, we could open the windows, but had to put up with street noise. In the court room, no such liberties were permitted
II
By the third week of the proceedings, the judge began standing with his arms folded against his hips. With a baffled face, he would turn around and stand behind his chair, his black robe half unfurled, and his necktie loosened. At times, he assumed what seemed to be a meditative expression with both arms folded over the back of the chair. Other times, he supported himself with one of his elbows over the back of the chair. One of his hands was placed against his chin, giving him a certain look of abandon. For me, this informality broke up the monotony of the case, as if it were helping him stay awake, and mollified the stultifying heat.
III
The aspects of this case had been under investigation for seven years. We, the jurors, were astonished at the lack of cohesion to the accusations. The statements by the witnesses in no way corresponded to the arguments made by the prosecutor. In fact, the prosecution’s case seemed to have lost its coherence. One wondered if there was any justification for this trial. The only merit to the case seemingly was using the authority of a jury trial to render a verdict, either for exoneration or conviction.
IV
According to testimony given by the police, the crime resulted from two rival gangs. The gang members’ ages ranged from 12 to 40. The defendant’s lawyer provided their pictures to the jury. The pictures showed them in expensive clothing. Both groups seemed to be showing off, as if they were the source of the neighborhood’s pride. Each group had its own hand signs as mottoes. According to the police, on the night of the murder the two gangs fought over their territory for the peddling of drugs. The defendant became the prime suspect two years into the investigation. According to one of the detectives, the defendant sought to intimidate younger members of the opposing gang, as a means of establishing his own authority over them. The defendant’s motive was said to be an attempt to sooth his own anger for being “dissed.” The jury found these to be speculative. For us the only facts credible were those of the struggle between them.
V
The first eyewitness, aged 13 years at the time of the murder, was the centerpiece of the prosecution’s defense. He had been a close friend of the victim, and his proximity to the deed made him valuable. During the course of several days of testimony, two officers escorted him in dressed in an orange jumpsuit, both hands and ankles shackled. They removed only his handcuffs when he sat down on the stand. From the defendant’s attorney, we learned that he had been in custody for two years on a different murder charge. The defendant’s attorney asked him: Are you here today in exchange for lenience for the indictment you face? He thrust his arms and shoulders forward. His answers seemed evasive while the prosecution objected. The question was withdrawn, but the jury would not forget it. His hand partly covered his face, especially his eyes and nose. His head shifted from side to side. He pointed to the defendant, rubbed his chin, and accused him of being the killer. Yet, his manner was difficult to read and seemed manipulative. Obviously, he had not seen from where the bullet had come. His allegations sounded implausible, as if they had been rehearsed. He had an air of entitlement, exuding hatred. During the prosecution’s examination, he revealed his conversion to Islam, and stated he had become a better person by the teachings of the Prophet. For the jury, however, his demeanor was that of an unrepentant malefactor. His lack of doubt hinted at a life of crime, without a sense of any morality.
VI
The prosecutor’s second witness spoke softly, yet his testimony seemed tentative. By his own account, he had been at the edges of the riotous horde. A circle had formed around the hooded individual and the victim. When questioned by the defense, he hesitated before admitting having seeing another armed buddy. But at the end, he relented. He recalled that other gang members had shot into the sky. He acknowledged that other guns had been used, thus accounting for multiple shells found by the police. The bullet, however, that pierced the victim’s heart was a mystery. The jury was at a loss as to what had gone on. Was it retaliation? Was it the shooter egging on accomplices? No answer was forthcoming, neither from this witness nor from the previous one.
VII
Even though the defense attorney tried to unravel the credibility of the prosecutor’s two eyewitnesses, she tripped over her own words. Not unnoticed was her assertion that the gunman might have carried a gun inside the pocket of his hoodie. Since no one had yet claimed to having seen him draw a gun, her attention to this matter seemed out of place. Was she trying to negate the hooded man’s innocence, while at the same time admitting to her client’s involvement? Jurors never understood her purpose, since the identity of the person in the hood had never been made clear. For the defendant her digression was inconsequential. But not for the jury because it augmented our doubts. Nevertheless, the defense attorney rebutted the evidence gathered by the police.
VIII
On the night of the murder, a pedestrian called the neighborhood foot patrol’s attention to a commotion on the street. The patrol did nothing until the police arrived in their cars and found the body of someone killed. The crowd around the victim had already dispersed and none of the neighbors willingly spoke of what they had seen. The jury was dismayed that the arrest warrant was issued two years after the event. The defense lawyer emphasized that, in the course of those two years, any witnesses’ recollection surely must have faded. She argued: “… just to be pointing a finger at an alleged culprit, out of a desire to seek closure, should not be deemed evidentiary in and of itself.”
7
The Evidence
We asked to see the video evidence before and after the shooting. Witnesses had stated that the defendant on the night of the murder had gone to a tenement looking for a gun, which was shared by all members of his gang. There were two cameras, both of which had restrictive angles of vision. The video was grainy: the product of low resolution security cameras. There was no sound and the imagery was choppy. The lobby camera showed someone descending the stairs to exit, wearing a baseball cap underneath a hoodie. Only his lips and chin were visible. The jury’s dilemma was how to identify the person. The woman with the child at home emphasized “…those features could have been any member of either gang.”
The crime took place at midnight. There was no traffic and the street was poorly lighted. For a second time, we examined the tape from the outside camera. We concentrated on the footage just before the shooting. It was murky and it showed the person in the hoodie stepping outside the building. The victim’s back was visible and his friend was behind him. There were several flashes of gun fire with one of them coming from next to the victim. A person in the hoodie faced the camera wielding a gun.
Ballistic evidence showed that the trajectory of the bullet came from a short distance before it entered the body of the victim. Maybe the shot came from the position of the hooded man but this was only a guess. More importantly, no guns were ever recovered and we still did not know who the gunman was. In summary, the testimonies, the analysis, and the written accounts were all useless to us.
8
The Community
Jurors were in agreement that the accounts given by the two gangs and the community were not to be trusted. The two gangs lived in two adjacent blocks. Drug infested, the community had become their victim. Solidarity showed itself as hostility. Assault not only on the street but at home was rife. Mothers, brothers, and sisters were commonly attacked. The death rate was high, which, in and of itself, was evidence that this community was sowing the seeds of its own destruction. Teenagers commonly stole and murdered. Only the rare adolescent was exempt. No social program could help. We, as jurors, were we only agents of retribution?
9
Blind Justice
From the first days of deliberation, the jurors were uncertain if the accused had taken any part at all. On our fourth day, the young woman who had been most adamant about the guilt of the accused began to waver. Most jurors still thought him to be innocent, but four remained unconvinced. The more jurors accepted their own limitations, the more difficult it became to form an opinion. The phrase blind justice turned piercingly poignant.
10
Unanimity
The majority argued with the four hold outs. Tensions rose with the thermometer. The heat of midday, the humidity, and the noise from the street became increasingly unbearable. With the windows closed, we turned on the anemic air conditioner and became more fearful than ever of not measuring up to the task. Our disagreements put us on edge and were nerve racking. Slowly we moved towards common ground. One by one, concessions were made. By the time of the third vote, the foreman hesitantly voted against conviction. There were still three jurors holding strongly for conviction. We gave ourselves a minute of silence before voting again. The decision was unanimous innocent. Surprisingly, had we presented a wrongful conviction, or had we derailed the case?
11
Announcing the Verdict
Jurors summoned the guard and handed him a yellow manila envelope with the verdict. After we had returned to the court room, the judge polled us individually. Indelibly imprinted on us was the murdered child’s mother’s face. From the start she had sat alone on the back left corner of the court room. Her sorrow contrasted sharply with the defendant’s family. I felt wary of these families’ reactions. I was deflated, even felt inadequate, indeed insignificant. Knowledge here was slippery.
An uproar reigned in the courtroom. The cries of the murdered child’s mother collided with the joy of the defendant’s family. Repeatedly, the judge admonished the room to be silent. He closed by thanking the jurors for their service, who were in a state of shock. Were we right or were we wrong?, I asked myself.
12
The Randomness of Truth
Chance dominated the jury’s participation. I recalled with fear my father’s imperative about hiding behind fiction as an instrument of self reliance.
The jury broke up. The judge stared at us with a smile as we climbed down to the exit. We walked to where we had deliberated and collected our belongings. We moved to an elevator at the opposite end of the courthouse. Below, the family of the acquitted man awaited us and, as we approached, they shouted their deafening thanks. Whatever had shaped that life remained unbroken.
________________________________________________
Epilogue
Ended the theater of misalliance, jurors, lawyers, and witnesses became actors in the absurd. Our verdict was uncertain. Loss of life, and life itself, stood foremost. Society seemed predetermined. Advantage and disadvantage stood in confrontation. What role do abandonment and darkness play in the human condition? I pondered. It just seems as if, under destiny, no one becomes an instrument of justice.
Series F Medium: Oil On Linen Size: 14 by 18 by 3/4 inches 2009
*
Acknowledgments:
David Lowenberger,
Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986),
Carlo Giuseppe Soarés (1892–1976).
*
Introduction
An artist’s Manifesto by Ricardo Morin: Viewing of his Jersey City art-studio where he engages with his paintings [2005-10]; some artworks are in progress and some are part of a recently finished hanging scroll series, entitled Metaphors of Silence. http://www.ricardomorin.com/
*
Metaphors of Silence (2005–2010)
Studio Videography Transcript (Edited in Prose)
From 2005 to 2010, the work expands on questions dealing with perspective, synthesizing concepts of pictorial space and infinity that have been present over the years. Painterly abstraction and plasticity are allowed to express, both in form and in content, a kind of art that moves beyond a material world of signs.
The paintings reach toward the infinite, toward mystery, and toward the poetry present in each individual drama. Although situated within twentieth-century aesthetics, the work does not align itself with a specific historical movement or with a postmodernist agenda. Making art is approached as a fleshy product of human experiencing, a result of the maker’s own passion.
The idiosyncrasy of the individual, indivisible in nature and blind to causality, is held within an aesthetic frame that embraces all essences. The image appears as a residue: non-objective, timeless, and at times existential. It does not seek to explain experience. Rather, it manifests itself and invites interpretation from the observer.
The finished work stands on its own. The viewer may come away with the sense of a generative completeness, as if a universe were making and remaking itself.
“Metaphors of Silence” suggests that the verbalization of aesthetic reality implies its own ending. No matter how precise, words resist the magnitude of that reality. The actuality of art may remain unseen if it arises within a fragmented spirit, shaped by formulas, gratification, or condemnation.
Art is not sustained by the prejudices of the observer, nor by the need to attract attention through eccentric stimuli. It is found instead in the open space of silence, in the stillness of meditative contemplation, and in the freedom to observe without the control of the observer.
In that state of heightened attention, questions become unnecessary and responses diminish the act of observation. This aesthetic is not derived from accumulated experience, from association with the past, from the search for an audience, or from the demands of a prevailing market.
These currents are not governed by awareness or unawareness. They do not pursue fulfillment, nor do they arise from vanity or choice. They are manifestations common to all, defining what exists beyond ideas and words. They operate creatively without dependence on the noise of knowledge and remain outside measurement and classification.
Within that obscurity, a vital energy unfolds, moving beyond limitation and isolation. Creation appears as a process of awakening and renewal within every relation. To participate in the movement of life requires a continuous release from conditioning.
The creative act is not an accumulation of knowledge. The figure of the “creative genius” marks only a stage within the process of deconditioning, and it cannot become knowledge if confined to individuality. The eye, bound to duration, may seek moments of inspiration, but those moments do not constitute creation itself.
Creation occurs in that which reaches beyond the moment toward continuity.
In this relation to art, the aim is not self-fulfillment, but the expression of an underlying interconnectedness.
Ricardo F. Morin. November 24, 2010, Jersey City, NJ
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Metaphors of Silence (2005–2010) by Ricardo F. Morín
Studio Videography Raw Transcript
0:07
From 2005 to 2010, my work expands on questions dealing with perspective,
0:14
synthesizing concepts of pictorial space and infinity, something I have worked on over the years.
0:23
I have allowed painterly abstraction and plasticity to express, both in form and in content,
0:29
a kind of art that goes beyond a material world of signs.
0:38
My paintings reach for the infinite, the mystery, and the poetry in every man’s individual drama.
0:44
Though immersed in twentieth-century aesthetics,
0:52
I neither strive for a specific historical movement nor for the postmodernist agenda.
1:01
Simply, I look at making art as a fleshy product of human experiencing,
1:08
a resultant of the maker’s own passion.
1:15
Just as the idiosyncrasy of an individual, indivisible in nature, is blind to causality,
1:25
an aesthetic frame embraces all essences,
1:32
and the image is only the result or residue non-objective, timeless, or even existential.
1:40
In this sense, the image seeks not to explain what the meaning of experience is;
1:48
rather, the image manifests itself, provoking interpretation from the observer.
1:56
The finished work stands on its own.
2:06
The viewer comes away, I hope, with the sense of the work’s generative completeness,
2:15
of a universe making and remaking itself.
2:23
Metaphors of Silence.
2:31
The verbalization of an aesthetic reality implies its own death.
2:38
No matter how precise, the very accuracy of words resists the magnitude of that reality.
2:46
Seeing the actuality of art may never take place
2:53
if born in a spirit fragmented by the illusion of formulas,
3:01
immured by gratification or condemnation.
3:08
Art is not sustained by the avarice of a prejudiced observer,
3:16
nor is it derived from eccentric stimuli meant to draw attention to itself.
3:23
It is found in the open space of silence,
3:32
in the stillness of meditative contemplation,
3:40
in the freedom to observe without the control of the observer.
3:48
With heightened attention, questions become unnecessary,
3:56
and responses trivialize the act of observation.
4:03
This aesthetic is not the product of experience,
4:11
nor the association with the past,
4:19
nor the search for an audience,
4:27
nor the product of a prevailing market.
4:34
These currents are not aware or unaware;
4:43
they do not propagate fulfillment,
4:50
nor are they the product of egotistic or vain ritual.
4:57
They are manifestations common to all of us,
5:06
that which defines us beyond ideas and words,
5:14
that which operates creatively without dependence on the noise of knowledge,
5:23
that which is not suited to measurement or labels.
5:45
Within obscurity, a vital energy unfolds beyond isolation.
Creation is the awakening and renewal present in every relation.
If we are to join in the movement of life,
freeing ourselves from conditioning is a continuous creative process.
The creative genius is only a stage in the deconditioning of the self,
which cannot become true knowledge if confined within individuality.
The eye, bound to duration, may seek moments of inspiration,
but such moments are not part of the act of creation.
Creation belongs to that which reaches beyond the moment toward continuity.
In this relation to art, I do not seek self-fulfillment,
Ricardo F. Morín Still Life 22″ x 30″ Mixed media on paper 2000
A relation between two individuals may appear stable even when it rests on a false premise. A decision is put forward without support and accepted before it is tested. One speaks; the other adjusts. A claim is introduced and taken in without examination. When contradiction appears, it is set aside. The relation holds because one asserts and the other accepts. An account of two individuals may appear exceptional, but the relation it reveals is not confined to them.
A wider relation between individuals, sustained by excluding contradiction, does not require agreement. It requires direction and alignment. A statement is repeated as if it were already settled and is carried forward as something to maintain. A speaker states a position with certainty and without qualification, and others accept that certainty as evidence of its validity rather than examine the claim itself. A shared account sets what may be said; questioning it is excluded. A decision holds because it confirms what is already assumed. The relation continues without being questioned.
At what point does such a relation stop interpreting reality and begin to act in its place? Not when a false claim appears, but when the relation no longer allows it to be tested. As long as claims are tested, disagreement examined, and adjustment follows evidence, the relation remains open. The shift occurs when alignment replaces testing. A claim is carried forward before it is checked and no longer stands as something to be tested.
Contradiction no longer interrupts the relation. It is dismissed or set aside and does not enter the decision. What does not fit is excluded from what follows.
A claim holds because it repeats what has already been said. Affirmation arises within the relation itself. Correction becomes unlikely.
A decision formed within the relation is carried out beyond it without being checked, and a person who did not take part in forming it is required to comply. The effect on that person is not examined and is treated as secondary to keeping the claim in place. Each participant encounters the effect on the person subject to the decision. Each participant continues to act in accordance with the claim and sets that recognition aside in order to maintain alignment. The action continues before either law or ethics can take hold.
Decisions are then measured against what has already been affirmed rather than against what is present. Behavior proceeds without testing. Judgments form within closed circles of affirmation. In an investment partnership, a senior partner advances a thesis under time pressure and incomplete information, and others commit capital on the strength of that authority rather than on outside validation. Elsewhere, under unresolved uncertainty, in a clinical setting, available tests do not resolve the diagnosis, and a physician advances a working assumption; care proceeds on that basis as it is repeated and affirmed, while conflicting signs are set aside. What appears consistent within produces actions that do not fit the conditions they are meant to address.
A relation of this kind also defines responsibility in a limited way. Each participant attends to the other within the relation, but not to those affected by it. Agreement between participants does not extend to those who are subject to what the relation produces. Within the relation, nothing presents itself as a breach: the claim is affirmed, the decision follows, and alignment is maintained, so no point of interruption arises from which it could be judged. Responsibility would require that each participant consider how the claim and the decision affect those outside the relation and allow that effect to alter or halt what follows. Where that does not occur, responsibility remains contained within the relation, and those outside it are acted upon without their situation entering into the decision.
The difference between shared belief and shared distortion lies in whether the relation allows correction. Where contradiction can enter and be considered, the relation remains open. Where it is excluded, the relation closes.
The problem does not begin when a claim is false. It begins when the relation that sustains it no longer allows it to be tested.
*
Ricardo F. Morín, March 31, 2026, Oakland Park, Florida.
Ricardo Morín Still Twenty-three: The Crypto Ladder Oil on linen & board 12″ x 15″ x 1/2″ 2012
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Cryptocurrency claims independence from financial authority. In practice, tokens are bought, sold, and stored on centralized exchanges that control custody, execute trades, and process withdrawals. When participants leave their assets on these platforms, the exchange holds the private keys and manages access to funds. Control therefore shifts from regulated banks, which operate under capital requirements, liquidity rules, and continuous supervisory oversight, to private trading platforms that are incorporated in different jurisdictions and are subject to differing disclosure rules, reserve standards, and enforcement practices. The protections available to participants depend on the rules that apply in the jurisdiction where the platform operates.
Before public trading begins, access to newly issued tokens is limited to founders, private investors, or participants in early distribution rounds. Transactions during this stage occur within that restricted group, and prices reflect exchanges among those who received tokens prior to public trading.
When public trading opens, additional buyers gain access through exchanges. They compete to purchase the existing supply from those who received or acquired tokens prior to public trading. Because supply does not immediately expand, buyers increase their bids against one another. As bids rise, the market price increases.
When participants who acquired tokens earlier sell at the elevated market price created by competitive bidding, later buyers transfer capital through those purchases, and that capital becomes the profit realized by earlier sellers.The exchange of tokens at increasing prices depends on the expectation that other participants will continue to enter the market and accept those prices. This expectation is not produced by the transaction itself; it precedes it and is shared among participants. Under these conditions, value depends on the continued participation of others, and information about that participation is not distributed evenly among participants.Participants who obtain information about expected demand earlier than others are able to act before prices adjust, and this difference in timing affects how gains and losses are distributed.
Token systems can distribute supply broadly at issuance through public offerings or community allocations. Once trading begins, however, participants with greater capital can accumulate larger positions by purchasing from those with smaller positions. Over time, this accumulation concentrates supply within a smaller group. Participants who acquire positions earlier, or who can continue purchasing during periods of lower demand, come to control larger portions of supply than those who enter later or must sell under pressure.
If demand continues to exceed available supply, buyers increase their bids and prices rise. If demand declines and fewer buyers submit bids, the increase in price stops. When participants with large positions attempt to sell into a declining market, they submit large sell orders to the exchange. Those orders must match with buyers willing to purchase at the current price. If buyers submit bids at lower prices, sellers accept those lower bids in order to complete the trade. Each completed trade at a lower price becomes the new market price. As the quoted price falls, additional participants with open positions decide to sell in order to limit further loss. Those later sales occur at lower prices than earlier trades. Each completed sale alters the price available to others. Participants who exit earlier do so under different conditions than those who remain. The sequence of action changes the conditions of action for those who follow.
When requests for withdrawals exceed the cash or liquid assets an exchange holds, the platform restricts withdrawals or halts trading in order to slow the outflow. At that point, price formation no longer governs the system; access to liquidity does. When prices reverse and many customers attempt to withdraw funds at the same time, exchanges that lack sufficient immediately available assets cannot satisfy all requests simultaneously. Participants must wait, and access to funds depends on the exchange’s internal capacity rather than on individual account balances alone. Account balances continue to record claims, but the ability to act on those claims depends on the platform’s capacity to honor them.
Even when tokens are initially distributed across many wallets, trading activity can lead to uneven accumulation. Participants with larger capital reserves can buy during downturns and retain their positions through volatility. Participants with smaller positions may sell under financial pressure. Over repeated cycles, ownership can become concentrated despite dispersed beginnings.
Under these conditions, order of entry shapes distribution. Early participants accept uncertainty about whether demand will materialize. Later participants accept higher acquisition costs once demand has already raised prices. Gains and losses follow the sequence in which participants assume risk and provide capital.
Traditional banks and regulated stock exchanges operate under supervisory rules enforced by public authorities. Banks must maintain capital reserves to absorb losses and liquidity buffers to meet withdrawals. Public companies must disclose financial information so that investors can evaluate risk. In many jurisdictions, deposit insurance protects individual depositors up to defined limits. When institutions face systemic stress, central banks provide liquidity to prevent destabilization of the financial system.
Cryptocurrency markets do not uniformly operate under comparable requirements. Some exchanges publish limited financial information. Reserve practices are not standardized across platforms. Deposit insurance does not apply to token holdings. When an exchange becomes insolvent or mismanages assets, customers become unsecured creditors and bear losses directly. Their claims are not protected at the moment of stress, and recovery depends on liquidation processes that occur after access to funds has already been lost.
Participants who seek to avoid dependence on traditional financial institutions rely instead on trading platforms that combine custody, execution, and leverage services. When such platforms suspend withdrawals or fail, users have limited recourse. The location of authority changes, but reliance on intermediaries remains.
Order of entry continues to influence who gains and who loses. In regulated markets, capital requirements, clearing mechanisms, and deposit insurance absorb part of trading losses before they reach individual participants. In cryptocurrency markets, those stabilizing requirements do not uniformly apply. When prices fall, losses move directly from declining trade prices to individual account balances without an intermediary layer that cushions the decline.
Cryptocurrency technology continues to develop. Applications beyond speculative trading expand when protocols are adopted for payment processing, settlement, or other non speculative functions. However, as long as token prices depend on continued buyer participation and as long as ownership becomes concentrated through repeated trading cycles, sequence of entry influences distribution of gains and losses. Any reform that seeks broader participation would need to address how tokens are allocated at issuance, how exchanges manage custody and liquidity, and what protections apply when platforms fail.
Under these conditions, cryptocurrency does not constitute a substitute for banking or for stock markets in a strict institutional sense. The functions of custody, execution, and liquidity provision persist, but they are carried out under different conditions and without uniform frameworks of protection.
The structure described here does not remove authority from the system of exchange. It relocates authority. Banks operate under capital requirements, liquidity rules, and continuous public oversight. Trading platforms do not operate under comparable constraints. In regulated institutions, authority is exercised through rules that constrain institutional behavior before failure occurs; on trading platforms, authority is exercised through control over access, execution, and withdrawal at the moment participants seek to act.The location of authority changes, but authority remains.
The language of decentralization coexists with continued reliance on centralized exchanges for custody, liquidity, and rule enforcement. Participants deposit funds, accept platform terms, and depend on exchange decisions even as they describe the system as independent of institutional authority. Independence is asserted at the level of description, while dependence persists at the level of operation.
*
Ricardo F. Morín, February 27, 2026, Oakland Park, Florida.
“Geometric Allegory” digital painting 2023 by Ricardo Morin (American visual artist born in Venezuela–1954)
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Author’s Note
This installment continues Chapter XII, “The Fourth Sign,” following the initial discussion of Autocracy (§§ 1–9). It focuses on Venezuela, examining §§ 10–25 in which the earlier framework is applied to a specific national case. The chapter concludes in a separate installment devoted to The Asymmetry of Sanctions (§§ 26–34).
Ricardo F. Morín, December 26, 2025, Oakland Park, Florida.
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Chapter XII: Part 2
*
Venezuela
*
10
To grasp the practical implications of autocracy and its concentration of power, I defer to Rafael Arráiz Lucca’s book, Venezuela:1830 a nuestros días:Breve historia política [2016]. Here, Arráiz Lucca provides a comprehensive history of Venezuela from independence to today.[1]He covers political, economic, and social changes that have shaped the nation. He explores early struggles and the rise of military strongmen, and has treated Hugo Chávez’s rise to power, his ideology, and the effects of his policies on society. He has also examined the continuing influence of Chávez under Nicolás Maduro. In his view, both Chávez and Maduro have exemplified regimes that have centralized power and suppressed dissent.
11
The country’s political trajectory has been profoundly shaped by its enduring history of military rule. Since independence in 1811, twenty-fivemilitary officers have held the presidency, presided over 172 years of governance, and entrenched the military’s influence in the nation’s political fabric. [2] The transition to representative democracy in 1961 marked a significant shift, which ushered in thirty-eight-years of civilian-led stability under the Punto Fijo Pact (see Chapter XI). This civilian era, however, was not free from upheaval. The 1989 Caracazo riots, coupled with the failed coup attempt by Hugo Chávez in 1992, revealed the fragility of civilian democracy and the lingering appeal of military leadership in moments of crisis. [3][4]
12
The Caracazo riots and the subsequent repression had laid bare deep societal fractures that undermined confidence in civilian governance. For many, the chaos and disillusionment rekindled the perception of the military as a force of order and stability, a perception rooted in the nation’s long history of caudillo leadership. Chávez’s rise can be understood as a direct outgrowth of this historical legacy: a charismatic military figure presenting himself as the answer to the failures of civilian politics. The violent repression following the riots, coupled with the systemic inability to address the economic and social inequities they symbolized, paved the way for a return to autocratic tendencies, cloaked in populist rhetoric. This marked the beginning of a new authoritarian era, shaped not only by the fractures of the present but also by the shadows of the past.
13
The presidency of Hugo Chávez continued the tradition of authoritarianism that had been seen earlier during the regime of General Marcos Pérez Jiménez.[5] As in the era of Pérez Jiménez, Chávez relied on oil to finance his policies. [6]
14
For Hugo Chávez, “participatory democracy” aimed at empowering marginalized groups. He created community councils and social missions, which became instruments of his political control—the so-called Bolivarian ideology. Participation therein hinged on one’s loyalty to Chávez, which ultimately led to the marginalization of people opposed to his policies. His blend of populism and authoritarianism framed dissent as being unpatriotic and thus hindered national progress. This approach enabled him to undervalue the power of law; the legislative and judicial branches of government became dependent on the executive.
15
With the endorsement of Nicolás Maduro by Hugo Chávez in 2012, the country slid further into authoritarianism. [7] Opposition parties such as Vente Venezuela, Primero de Justicia, Un Nuevo Tiempo, and Voluntad Popular accused Chávez and Maduro of manipulating the Consejo Nacional Electoral. [8][9][10][11][12]
16
After the death of Chávez, Maduro faced similar accusations in the 2013 and 2018 elections. The Organization of American States, the Lima Group, the International Contact Group, and the Group of Seven concurred.[13][14][15] Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have also questioned his legitimacy. [16][17] One exception is the United Nations’ Security Council debate (press release SC/13719), which urged Venezuelans to resolve their crisis internally. [18][19]
17
Following Venezuela’s 2016 suspension from Mercosur, Latin American responses varied and then changed as political administrations changed. [20][21] Initially, Argentina favored the measures by the Organization of American States to apply diplomatic pressure on Venezuela and sought to address the political and humanitarian crises there. [22] It also recognized Juan Guaidó as the legitimate president, though in 2019, it changed and became an advocate for mediation. At first, Brazil recognized Guaidó and was for sanctions against the Venezuelan government, and then in 2023 asked for mediation. [23] Between 2018–22, Colombia accused the Maduro regime of drug trafficking and of giving support to the guerrilla groups, the National Liberation Army and the Revolutionary Armed Forces; Colombia broke diplomatic relations. [24] Later, in 2022, a new administration reopened diplomatic ties and promoted non-intervention. Chile has consistently urged sanctions against Maduro’s government, and even referred Venezuela to the International Criminal Court (ICC). [25][26] Peru expelled Venezuela’s ambassador: The immediate trigger for the expulsion was Venezuela’s Tribunal Supremo de Justicia’s move to dissolve the opposition-controlled Asamblea Nacional, which Peru saw as a step toward authoritarian control. [27] As all other members of the Lima Group did, Peru regularized the status of Venezuelan migrants. In the beginning, Mexico condemned the human rights abuses in Venezuela and called for the release of all political prisoners, but, in 2018, it shifted to a non-interventional approach and in 2022 offered mediation as the only recourse. [28][29][30]
18
Ahead of the 2024 presidential election, opposition leader María Corina Machado was disqualified after having won her coalition’s primary. [31] The Tribunal Supremo de Justicia based its decision on her alleged support of U.S. sanctions, supposed corruption, and accusations holding her responsible for losses related to the American subsidiary Citgo of the Venezuelan State-owned oil and natural gas company: Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA). Machado’s denial of access to the allegations against her was a blatant violation of due process. Her disqualification left Edmundo González Urrutiaas the unified opposition candidate. [32]
19
Both campaigns engaged in tactics of intimidation. González’s coalition deployed 200,000 observers across 16,000 voting centers and Maduro’s administration intensified media censorship and repression. After Maduro declared victory, protests resulted in extrajudicial killings, arrests, and crackdowns on independent media. [33]
20
González’s coalition collaborated with international observers, including the Organization of American States, the European Union Electoral Observation Mission, the Carter Center, and the United States Mission to the United Nations, to monitor irregularities. [34][35][36][37] The government, however, withheld disaggregated voting data critical for audits—supposedly because the data had been hacked—and imposed travel restrictions on foreign observers. [38] The Carter Center criticized the elections for failing to meet international standards of transparency, fairness, and impartiality. [39]
21
Maduro accused both Machado and González of having incited unrest and announced investigations into the crimes of “usurpation of functions” and “military insurrection,” each carrying thirty-year prison sentences. On August 8, 2024, González left for Spain after the government had granted him safe passage.
22
To understand Venezuela’s political and institutional landscape, one must examine how global indices assess the state of its democracy. The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index, the Freedom House’s Global Freedom Index, and the Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index all provide distinct metrics illuminating Venezuela’s democratic decline under Nicolás Maduro.
23
The Democracy Index ranks countries with higher scores as more democratic. Freedom House and Transparency International diverge from this by using lower scores to indicate worse outcomes, with lower numbers signifying less freedom and higher corruption.
24
In the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index, Venezuela ranked as the least democratic country in South America in 2008; in 2022, it ranked 147th out of a total of 167 countries. [40] Likewise, in 2023, Freedom House’s Global Freedom Index finds that Venezuela scored low both as a democracy and high corruption, while in its CorruptionPerceptions Index Venezuela scored 13 out of 100 and was positioned as one of the most corrupt nations globally. [41]
25
Additionally, a report by Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index for the period from 2012 to 2023 has highlighted the severe corruption to be found in Venezuela. [42] In its 2023 Corruption Perceptions Index, out of 180 countries, Venezuela received a score of 13 out of 100, ranking 177th. These indicators present a clear picture of Venezuelan authoritarianism and of the deterioration of its political landscape in recent years.
~
Endnotes
§ 10
[1]Rafael Arráiz Lucca, Venezuela: 1830 a nuestros días: Breve historia política. (Caracas: Editorial Alfa, 2016), 15-151, 212-37.
[3]The Punto Fijo Pact was a political agreement signed by the three predominant political parties—Acción Democrática (AD), Comité de Organización Política Electoral Independiente (COPEI), and Unión Republicana Democrática (URD)—at the residence of Rafael Caldera (COPEI): Punto Fijo. The pact aimed to stabilize the country after the fall of dictator Marcos Pérez Jiménez [1952-1958] by ensuring democratic alternation of power, institutional continuity, and preventing single-party rule. While it contributed to political stability and a peaceful transition to democracy, critics argue that it also entrenched elite dominance, marginalized smaller parties, and fostered systemic corruption. As a foundational element in Venezuela’s post-dictatorship political landscape, the agreement shaped the nation’s governance for decades. Its legacy, however, is marked by political divisions, as the pact’s structure increasingly excluded some groups and led to dissatisfaction among factions. This period reflects both the challenges and achievements of Venezuela’s efforts to establish a stable and inclusive democracy.
[5]Fredy Rincón Noriega,El Nuevo Ideal Nacional y los planes Económicos- Militares de Pérez Jiménez 1952-1957(Caracas: Ediciones Centauro, 1981)–Kindle Edition
Judith Ewell,The Indictment of a Dictator: The Extradition and Trial of Marcos Perez (College Station: A&M University Press, 1981).
[6] Both leaders have employed centralized power and state control over resources, though their approaches differed. Pérez Jiménez emphasized technocratic and infrastructural development. His policies, as outlined in the Nuevo Ideal Nacional, focused on large-scale construction projects and urban modernization. These initiatives promoted economic growth, but their benefit was directed towards the middle and upper classes. Chávez, on the other hand, pursued a blend of populism and socialism aimed at redistributing oil wealth through extensive social programs for the poor. These policies increased the State’s dependence on oil revenues and left the country vulnerable to market fluctuations.
§ 15
[7]Margarita López Maya, “The Venezuelan Caracazo of 1989 : Popular
Javier Corrales, “Chapter 12: Venezuela’s Autocratization, 1999-2021: Variations in Temporalities, Party Systems, and Institutional Controls.”PDF extracted from Archon Fung, et al, When Democracy Breaks: Studies in Democratic Erosion and Collapse,from Ancient Athens to the Present Day (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023). https://tobinproject.org/sites/default/files/assets/Chapter%2012%20-%20Venezuela%20-%20Corrales.pdf
[12] The Consejo Nacional Electoral, responsible for overseeing elections in Venezuela, has faced long-standing accusations of partisanship and favoritism. Opposition groups (Vente Venezuela, Primero de Justicia, Un Nuevo Tiempo, Voluntad Popular) have alleged that Chávez and Maduro appointed to it only members who favored the ruling party. For an analysis of the Consejo Nacional Electoral’s role in reinforcing authoritarianism, see Javier Corrales: Autocracy Rising:How Venezuela Transitioned to Authoritarianism (Washington: Brookings Institution Press, 2023), 3, 28. Also see Jennifer L. McCoy and David J. Myers, The Unraveling of Representative Democracy in Venezuela (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004), 276-80, 293-96.
§ 16
[13] The Lima Group, formed in August 2017, includes: Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Guyana, and St. Lucia.
[14] The International Contact Group (the European Union, Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Uruguay) advocates for credible elections and have voiced concerns about the Consejo Nacional Electoral’s impartiality.
[15]Group of Seven (G7)–Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States–has condemned electoral irregularities in Venezuela and called for independent oversight. Allegations of voter registration manipulation by the Consejo Nacional Electoral, has heightened suspicions of vote tampering.
[18]“Venezuelans Must Resolve Crisis Themselves, Security Council Delegates Agree while Differing over Legitimacy of Contending Parties. Briefing on Weekend Incidents Biased, Says Foreign Minister as Speakers for United States, Russian Federation Exchange Barbs,” United Nations: Meetings Coverage and Press Releases, 8472nd Meeting, SC/13719, February 26, 2019. https://press.un.org/en/2019/sc13719.doc.htm
[19] In February 2019, a United Nations Security Council Report debated whether to supervise elections or mediate between Maduro’s government and the opposition. Ultimately, the Council upheld a non-interventionist approach while offering to mediate.
[21]Mercosur (acronym for the Mercado Común del Sur or the Southern Common Market) is a regional trade bloc founded in 1991 by Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay (it later included Chile). Mercosur’s mission is to promote economic integration and free trade.
[30].- Mexico has mediated between Nicolás Maduro’s government and the opposition after the July 28, 2024 presidential election results, with support from Brazil and Colombia.
[38].- Disaggregated election results enhance transparency by enabling cross-checking against aggregated totals. This method reveals potential errors, facilitates audits, and highlights regional irregularities, strengthening the legitimacy of electoral outcomes.
Observations On Perception 
