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“The Unmaking of a Nation”

July 29, 2025

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Ricardo Morin
The Unmaking of a Nation
CGI
2025

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To my brother Alberto, whose persistence sustained this reflection and made these pages possible.

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By Ricardo Morin

July 29, 2025

Abstract

This essay examines the fragmentation of Venezuelan national identity amid a prolonged crisis of State failure. It argues that the collapse of institutional sovereignty, the entrenchment of foreign authoritarian influence, and the marginalization of native citizens from civic and economic life have not only hollowed out the republic but have also fractured the symbolic cohesion necessary for shared civic identity. Through a reasoned analysis of foreign entanglement, cultural displacement, and the moral cost of dispossession, the essay contends that Venezuelan identity has become a contested act of memory and resistance. The argument proceeds not from political activism but from a civic and ethical perspective on national dissolution.

Section I: Losing the Nation: Identity in a Failed State

National identity is not an abstraction. It is a lived sense of coherence that binds individuals to a shared history, a common language, and a civic project. In functional States, this identity is sustained by stable institutions of governance, the continuity of law, and the everyday experience of participation in a protected civic order. When a State collapses—through authoritarian control, institutional decay, and the disfigurement of sovereignty—its people do not merely lose services or rights. They begin to lose their place in the world.

As Michel Agier observes, “when institutions that once guaranteed rights, protection, and civic recognition collapse—such as courts, elections, or access to public services—citizens can become internally exiled: physically present, but stripped of belonging”—of any sense of inclusion.

This disintegration is not caused solely by economic collapse or political repression. It has been compounded by the regime’s calculated alignment with foreign authoritarian powers, which have embedded external interests deep within the nation’s economy and territorial administration. Through negotiated dependencies—whether in extractive industries, infrastructure, surveillance, or military cooperation—the Venezuelan State has relinquished control over strategic industries and assets. In doing so, it has not only compromised national sovereignty; it has reordered the social and cultural hierarchy of belonging.

As Louisa Loveluck has documented, these foreign enclaves operate as “parallel structures of control and privilege,” where loyalty to external powers displaces the traditional role of State industries such as in oil and mining resources (Loveluck, “Foreign Control and Local Collapse in Venezuela’s Border Zones,” The Washington Post, 2019).

According to David Smilde, this delegation of sovereign functions to authoritarian allies has transformed the State apparatus into an instrument of regime survival rather than a vehicle of national representation (Smilde, “The Military and Authoritarian Resilience in Venezuela,” Latin American Politics and Society, 2020).

The result is a deep psychological rupture. Arjun Appadurai describes this condition as a form of “identity disanchoring,” in which cultural detachment renders citizens unable to recognize themselves in their historical present (Modernity at Large, 1996).

When a nation’s institutions no longer reflect its people, and when its future is shaped by foreign imperatives, Venezuelanness becomes less a civic reality and more a memory under siege. What is lost is not only territorial—it is existential. Hannah Arendt warned of this condition with stark clarity: the loss of the right to have rights begins when one no longer belongs to a political community capable of guaranteeing them security (The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951).

Section II: Authoritarian Alliances and Economic Infiltration

Venezuela’s transformation into a failed State has not occurred in isolation. Its authoritarian trajectory has been reinforced by a calculated strategy of international alignment with other regimes operating outside the norms of democratic accountability. These alliances—chiefly with Cuba, Russia, China, Iran, and Turkey—have provided the Maduro regime not only with political legitimacy and technical support, but have also enabled the gradual outsourcing of national functions and resources to foreign control (cf. Ellis 2018, 49–56).

These alliances are transactional:  the Venezuelan State forfeits sovereignty in exchange for survival. Chinese loans secured by oil reserves, Russian stakes in energy infrastructure, Cuban intelligence operations embedded in the military and civil apparatus, and Iranian ventures in mining and logistics have together displaced native Venezuelans from critical sectors of the economy (cf. Trinkunas 2015, 3–6; Levitsky and Ziblatt 2018, 197–198).

In parallel, private and informal business networks—often tied to these foreign interests—have taken root in local markets, at times displacing or outperforming historical domestic producers. This economic infiltration has a dual effect. It distorts the allocation of national resources, diverting wealth and opportunity away from the general population toward a narrow class of regime beneficiaries and their foreign patrons (cf. Corrales 2020, 212–215). And it reconfigures the geography of power: entire regions, especially those rich in oil, minerals, or strategic positions, have come under the functional control of external actors or militias under foreign protection (cf. Romero 2021, 88–91).

In such contexts, Venezuelans do not merely feel excluded from their economy; they experience it as something alien—managed, exploited, and secured by those whose loyalties lie elsewhere. The result is a corrosive alienation. A population that once saw itself as a beneficiary of a national project now confronts the reality of an extractive system in which their labor, land, and culture are no longer valued on their own terms. The economy ceases to be a platform for collective progress and becomes a zone of foreign extraction, protected by repression and organized through impunity (cf. Loveluck and Dehghan 2020; López Maya 2022).

In this environment, the question of identity becomes inseparable from the loss of agency. To be Venezuelan under such conditions is to be subordinated within one’s own country.

Section III: Cultural and Social Displacement

The dissolution of identity in a failed State extends beyond political and economic structures; it reaches into the cultural and social fabric of everyday life. In Venezuela, the displacement of native citizens is not always physical—though mass emigration has marked the national experience. The institutions, customs, and even public spaces that once embodied a shared civic identity are being emptied out, repurposed, or replaced by structures that no longer reflect Venezuelan values or priorities [cf. Salas 2019, 45–47].

Public education, for instance—once a source of national pride and social mobility—has been systematically dismantled. In its place, ideological indoctrination and partisan loyalty have become criteria for access and advancement [cf. Human Rights Watch 2021]. The result is not only the degradation of knowledge and opportunity but even the politicization of childhood itself. Similarly, cultural production—formerly diverse, expressive, and regionally vibrant—has withered under censorship, economic collapse, and the withdrawal of public support for the arts [cf. Ávila 2020, 119–124].

What remains is either trivialized as propaganda or silenced altogether. The result is a cultural silence, where shared narratives are undermined and the cultural life of the nation is reduced to slogans and spectacle. Meanwhile, the influx of foreign interests and their social infrastructure—contract workers, commercial complexes, private security, parallel institutions—has introduced new cultural norms and loyalties into local environments, particularly in border areas and resource-rich zones [cf. Rodríguez and Ortega 2023].

These changes are often subtle: signage in unfamiliar languages, imported goods replacing local ones, new patterns of exclusion in access to services or employment. But over time, they alter the character of a place, displacing not only people but the meanings those places once held. This form of displacement is disorienting because it operates within everyday life. It renders Venezuelans strangers in their own markets, their own schools, their own land. It unravels the mutual recognition that makes coexistence possible.

When communities no longer share a common point of reference—whether legal, linguistic, or moral—they lose the cohesion needed to sustain identity as something lived and affirmed. The rupture is not dramatic; it is slow, cumulative, and deeply damaging [cf. Arendt 1951, 302–306]. In such a context, cultural resilience becomes increasingly difficult to sustain. Identity, once reinforced by public participation and pride in collective achievement, begins to retreat into nostalgia or fracture along lines of class, exile, or ideological survival. It becomes reactive rather than generative—something to defend rather than to build.

Section IV: Dignity and the Struggle to Belong

“Venezuela: Freedom in the World 2024” by Freedom House offers updated empirical data and analytical context regarding the decline of political rights and civil liberties in Venezuela, with particular attention to authoritarian consolidation and State control.

At the heart of national identity lies the human need for dignity: the certainty that one’s life is acknowledged, one’s labor valued, and one’s voice able to contribute to a shared future. In today’s Venezuela, that dignity has been systematically undermined. The collapse of institutions, the degradation of public life, and the influence of foreign entanglements distorting the national economy have created a climate in which the average citizen no longer feels seen or protected by their country. This is not merely a political failure, but a fracture in the ethical foundation of the nation. As Emmanuel Levinas warned, “dignity is not a legal category but the response of the face of the other, who calls and obliges us” (Levinas 1982).

When a government no longer rules on behalf of its people, but rather to ensure its own permanence and serve external patrons, civic inclusion becomes conditional. Loyalty is demanded, not earned. Dissent is criminalized, not heard. Citizenship, far from offering protection, becomes a liability. In such a system, dignity is not merely denied—it is redefined through fear, dependency, and silence. Here, Hannah Arendt’s warning comes to pass: “the loss of human rights begins when the right to have rights is lost” (Arendt 1951).

This leaves Venezuelans—both within and beyond the country—suspended between dispossession and resistance. Many continue to fight for what remains: organizing locally, teaching despite educational collapse, feeding neighbors in the absence of public services, safeguarding memory in the face of propaganda. These acts are heroic, but they also respond to abandonment. They attest to the resilience of the people, but also to the void where the State should be.

For those in exile, the loss is often twofold: the loss of a physical home and the loss of a living context. Cultural reference points no longer match daily experience. One’s accent becomes a marker of displacement. The passport becomes a barrier more than a right. And yet, exile can also sharpen awareness of what has been lost—and what must be preserved. Thus, identity persists not through affirmation of a functioning nation, but through refusal to forget one. In the words of Edward Said, “exile is not simply a condition of loss, but a critical way of being in the world” (Said 2000).

Even so, dignity requires more than memory. It requires restoration: of institutions, of justice, of a civic space where Venezuelans may once again participate as equals. Until such restoration is possible, the struggle to belong will continue to define Venezuelan identity—not as a static inheritance, but as a sustained refusal to surrender what remains of the nation’s moral core.

Section V: A Word for the Dispossessed

To speak of dispossession is to name not only what has been taken but also what continues to be denied: the right to shape one’s future within a framework of justice, belonging, and shared meaning. In Venezuela, dispossession has unfolded through a deliberate dismantling of sovereignty—first by internal corruption, then by foreign entanglement. What remains is a scattered people, a fragmented territory, and an identity under immense pressure. As Achille Mbembe has noted, “dispossession acts not only upon bodies but also upon the collective imaginaries that sustain life in common” (Mbembe 2016).

And yet, dispossession is not the end of identity. The absence of a functional State does not erase a nation’s moral memory. The language, traditions, civic values, and aspirations that once shaped Venezuelan life have not vanished: they have been driven underground, carried into exile, or preserved in the hearts of those who remember. “Language is the house of being,” said Heidegger, and where it is kept alive, a form of belonging endures (Heidegger 1959).

The task now is not only to resist, but to rebuild: to articulate a vision of Venezuelanness that rejects both cynicism and forgetfulness.

This cannot be done through nostalgia alone. Nor can it be deferred to future generations without commitment. It begins with the refusal to normalize what is not normal: the foreign occupation of national resources, the criminalization of dissent, the denial of opportunity, the devaluation of citizenship. It continues in the quiet labor of preserving language, history, and dignity wherever that remains possible—whether in classrooms, in exile, or through the written word. And it gains strength through solidarity: among those who stayed, those who left, and those who bear both destinies.

Under these conditions, Venezuelan identity is not a fixed inheritance but an act of resistance. It is the assertion that dignity is not negotiable, and that a people cannot be permanently replaced by alliances of convenience and control. The recovery of the nation will take time and may require forms not yet imagined. But it will depend, above all, on the preservation of civic spirit—one that knows what has been lost and refuses to let it be forgotten.

Epilogue
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As Venezuela’s history unfolds in waves, the struggle between unity and fragmentation, idealism and authority, repeats itself—not only in the corridors of power but also in the private lives of those who live with its consequences. Power, in its many forms, tests the very fabric of the nation, yet the quest for balance remains elusive. Venezuela remains gripped by a profound humanitarian crisis, with millions deprived of basic healthcare and nutrition, according to the “World Report 2024” by Human Rights Watch. [1] The country now has the highest rate of undernourishment in South America, with 66% of its population in need of humanitarian aid and 65% having irreversibly lost their means of livelihood. Despite repeated promises of reform and amnesty, entrenched power structures have prevented meaningful change and perpetuated what is widely regarded as an authoritarian and corrupt regime. External interventions, primarily diplomatic and economic sanctions, have been frequent, yet they have failed to compel any substantive transformation.

Political theory once held that the spread of democracy would secure peace among nations. [2] The ordeal for Venezuelans suggests the converse: peace recedes where democracy is hollowed into the temporality of chaos. Although such theories do not directly address the persistence of autocracies, the Venezuelan case highlights how regimes strengthened by internal control and by strategic autocratic alliances with external powers can withstand both internal unrest and external pressure.


In Venezuela, theoretical insights find concrete expression in how democratic institutions—elections, legislatures, and courts—are repurposed to entrench authoritarian control. Through staged electoral processes, constrained legislatures, and politicized judiciaries, these regimes suppress dissent, manage perception, and deflect external accountability. Legitimacy transforms from a mandate of the people into a mechanism for the endurance of autocratic power.

While the path forward remains uncertain, the crisis is no longer merely political—it is systemic, embedded in the very fabric of Venezuela’s history. The resolution of this crisis requires more than political turnover or external intervention; it requires an acknowledgment of the historical inheritance that has shaped the nation’s mistrust and dysfunction. The foundations of governance have long been built on conflicting forces, and any potential for change begins with an awareness of this legacy. A coordinated strategy that integrates economic support, diplomatic engagement, and grassroots democratic movements may provide short-term relief, but it cannot resolve what is ingrained. True transformation requires a cultural reckoning—an internal shift in consciousness that confronts the very forces that have enabled autocratic rule. Yet without a profound internal unity—a cultural awakening capable of overcoming centuries of inherent contradictions—the possibility of such transformation may remain distant, though not extinguished.

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Endnotes:

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Annotated Bibliography

  • Améry, Jean: At the Mind’s Limits: Contemplations by a Survivor on Auschwitz and Its Realities. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1980. (A philosophical and existential reflection on suffering, exile, and the loss of belonging. The essay draws on his idea that there is no greater violence than being stripped of a place in the world to return to, which becomes a moral axis in the Venezuela of the exodus.)
  • Appadurai, Arjun: Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996. (Appadurai introduces the concept of “identity disanchoring” to describe the cultural unmooring brought about by globalization, which disrupts symbolic continuity between past and present. He is cited to explain the subjective rupture in contexts of cultural loss and displacement.)
  • Arendt, Hannah: The Origins of Totalitarianism. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1951. (Foundational study on rootlessness, denationalization, and the right to have rights. Her conceptualization of stateless refugees directly informs the argument about the loss of belonging as a form of ontological expulsion.)
  • Ávila, Rafael: La cultura sitiada: Arte, política y silencio en Venezuela. Caracas: Editorial Alfa, 2020. (Ávila examines how censorship, economic precariousness, and institutional control have drastically reduced independent artistic production in Venezuela. He is cited to support the claim that cultural diversity has been replaced by an expression conditioned by power and subsistence.)
  • Corrales, Javier: Autocracy Rising: How Venezuela’s Authoritarian Leaders Consolidated Power. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2020. (Corrales explains how regime elites have concentrated economic control through informal networks, enabling foreign-backed oligarchies to displace domestic economic actors. Used to support the claim that foreign patrons and loyalists now dominate Venezuelan resource flows.)
  • Ellis, R. Evan: Transnational Organized Crime in Latin America and the Caribbean. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2018. (Ellis provides a comprehensive mapping of how foreign actors—especially from Cuba, Russia, and China—embed themselves in the Venezuelan state. Cited to explain the strategic outsourcing of sovereignty to non-democratic allies.)
  • Gessen, Masha: Surviving Autocracy. New York: Riverhead Books, 2020. (Though centered on the United States, this book articulates general patterns of autocratic behavior—such as the distortion of language, the hollowing of institutions, and the disorientation of those governed—which also apply to the Venezuelan case.)
  • Heidegger, Martin: Unterwegs zur Sprache. Pfullingen: Neske, 1959. (Includes the well-known phrase “Language is the house of being,” which is cited to emphasize the relationship between linguistic continuity and existential belonging.)
  • Human Rights Watch: “Venezuela’s Humanitarian Emergency: Large-Scale UN Response Needed to Address Health and Food Crisis.” New York: Human Rights Watch, 2019. (H.R.W. detailed report linking the collapse of public services with violations of basic rights and national dignity, highlighting how the humanitarian crisis contributes to the dissolution of identity.)
  • Levinas, Emmanuel: Totalité et infini: Essai sur l’extériorité. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1961. (Levinas’s ethics of alterity, centered on responsibility toward the irreducible other, underlies the essay’s argument for a politics founded on dignity, not on state identity or calculated reciprocity.)
  • Levitsky, Steven, and Ziblatt, Daniel: How Democracies Die. Nueva York: Crown Publishing Group, 2018. (Levitsky and Ziblatt offer a framework for understanding democratic degradation via institutional capture and foreign alignment. It is referenced to underline the transactional nature of Venezuela’s external alliances.)
  • López Maya, Margarita: “Economía extractiva y soberanía en disputa: el Arco Minero del Orinoco.” Revista Venezolana de Ciencia Política 45 (2022): 34–49. (López Maya analyzes how mining zones have become semi-autonomous territories controlled by militias and foreign interests, supporting the essay’s argument on geographic alienation and economic fragmentation.)
  • Loveluck, Louisa: “The Collapse of a Nation: Venezuela’s Descent into Authoritarianism.” The Washington Post, July 2020. (Journalistic synthesis of Venezuela’s structural collapse, including firsthand accounts of economic alienation and the psychological cost of state abandonment.)
  • Loveluck, Louisa, and Dehghan, Saeed Kamali: “Venezuela Hands Over Control of Key Assets to Foreign Backers.” The Washington Post, 2020. (Loveluck’s and Dehghan’s investigative report documents the privatization and foreign management of strategic Venezuelan sectors. Their report is cited to demonstrate how national industries have been subordinated to external control.)
  • Mbembe, Achille. Politiques de l’inimitié. Paris: La Découverte, 2016. (Mbembe explores the politics of enmity and the mechanisms of dispossession in late modernity. Quoted to highlight how structural violence targets both material life and the collective imagination.)
  • Rodríguez, Luis, y Ortega, Daniela: Colonización contemporánea: transformaciones culturales en las zonas extractivas de Venezuela. Mérida: Editorial de la Universidad de los Andes, 2023. (An ethnographic study on the sociocultural effects of foreign investment in mining and border regions, including the introduction of new hierarchies, codes of coexistence, and parallel organizational forms. It is cited to support the argument about the transformation of cultural norms and community loyalties.)
  • Romero, Carlos A.: “Geopolítica, militarización y relaciones internacionales del chavismo.” Nueva Sociedad 293 (2021): 82–94. (Romero traces how foreign alliances have militarized border zones and reinforced internal authoritarianism. Used to support the claim that power has shifted toward actors whose loyalties lie beyond Venezuela.)
  • Roth, Kenneth: The Fight for Rights: Human Dignity and the Struggle Against Authoritarianism. New York: W. W. Norton, 2022. (Roth examines the moral and civic foundations of dignity, providing context for the argument that Venezuelan identity must now be preserved through resistance rather than state recognition.)
  • Said, Edward W.: Reflections on Exile and Other Essays. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000. (Said explores the experience of exile as an existential and critical condition, beyond mere uprootedness. Cited to support the idea that Venezuelan identity in the diaspora endures not through the affirmation of a functioning nation, but through the refusal to forget.)
  • Salas, Miguel: Arquitectura y desposesión: Espacios públicos y crisis urbana en Venezuela. Caracas: Editorial Punto Cero, 2019. (Salas examines the transformation of public architecture and space in the context of political and social collapse in Venezuela. Cited to support the idea that shared civic structures are being stripped of their symbolic and communal function.)
  • Schmitt, Carl: The Concept of the Political. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996. (Theoretical reference on sovereignty, useful for understanding how the Venezuelan regime defines enemies and allies not through legality but through loyalty, thereby reshaping the very meaning of citizenship.)
  • Shklar, Judith: American Citizenship: The Quest for Inclusion. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991. (Shklar examines how political and social exclusion has shaped the meaning of citizenship in the United States. The essay takes up her premise that to be a citizen implies not only legal rights, but effective belonging and recognized dignity.)
  • Smilde, David: “Participation, Politics, and Culture in Twenty-First Century Venezuela.” Latin American Research Review 52, no. 1 (2017): 157–65. (Analyzes the cultural impact of political polarization and exclusion in Venezuela, and how identity is formed in contested civic spaces.)
  • Trinkunas, Harold A.: “Venezuela’s Defense Sector and Civil-Military Relations.” Washington: Brookings Institution Working Paper, 2015. (Trinkunas examines the entrenchment of Cuban and Russian influence in the Venezuelan military. Cited to explain the redefinition of sovereignty under foreign advisory presence.)

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“The Ritual of Belonging”

July 16, 2025

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Prefatory Note

The image that opens this essay was taken inside the Philadelphia Masonic Temple, a structure conceived as a civic interior of symbolic order.  Along one of its grand corridors, the Latin phrase fide et fiducia:  “by faith and trust” appears inscribed in gold within patterned walls and vaulted symmetry.  

Such inscriptions are not decorative.  They compress a worldview into phrase and placement.  The words are not presented for examination.  They are encountered as part of an already arranged environment.  The setting does not argue for belief.  It organizes the conditions under which belief appears appropriate.   

In this way, the space becomes more than a container.  It becomes a guide.  It establishes rhythm, posture, and expectation.  It suggests what is to be affirmed and how that affirmation is to be expressed.   

This essay examines how such forms persist beyond architecture.  It traces how belonging is cultivated through repetition, how virtue is performed through alignment, and how the appearance of shared meaning can displace the work required to sustain it.   

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The Ritual of Belonging

Group virtue rarely begins as doctrine.  It begins as gesture.   

A room rises when a signal is given.  A phrase is recited in unison.  A participant repeats words only partially considered, yet already familiar in cadence.  Nothing appears coercive.  Each act is small and easily justified.  Yet repetition binds them.  What is first performed becomes expected.  What is expected becomes difficult to refuse.   

Within such sequences, belonging precedes understanding.  The individual does not first examine and then join.  He joins and learns how to respond.  The distinction between loyalty and obedience does not disappear.  It is displaced as affirmation becomes easier than hesitation and faster than inquiry.   

This structure is sustained not by force, but by arrangement.  Organizations built on continuity rely on repeated forms to stabilize identity.  Meetings open with familiar phrases.  Gestures follow a fixed order.  A participant who interrupts the sequence introduces delay.  That delay is immediately visible.  The cost of interruption becomes clear, while the cost of conformity remains diffuse.  Under these conditions, agreement does not need to be imposed.  It is selected.   

Ritual serves a purpose.  It binds individuals into shared time and recognition.  Without it, no lasting association could persist.  Yet the same mechanism that sustains cohesion also limits examination.  What allows a group to hold together can also prevent it from asking what holds it.   

The transition is gradual.  A statement repeated for coordination becomes a statement repeated for reassurance.  A value once examined becomes a value that no longer requires examination.  The language remains intact.  Terms such as duty, service, and honor continue to circulate.  What changes is their relation to experience.  They are no longer tested in use.  They are confirmed in repetition.   

At that point, belief no longer depends on recognition.  It depends on alignment.  

This pattern appears wherever the need for coherence exceeds the tolerance for uncertainty.  In contemporary political life, it has taken a visible form in the rise of Trumpism.  Large gatherings provide a clear sequence.  A phrase is introduced from a stage.  It is repeated immediately and without alteration.  Repetition does not test the phrase.  It confirms participation.  A participant who withholds repetition marks himself at once, not through argument, but through absence.   

Here, belonging is demonstrated through response.   

The mechanism does not depend on content.  It depends on sequence:  signal, repetition, confirmation, exclusion.  What matters is not what is said, but how quickly it is taken up and how visibly it is shared.  Under these conditions, language shifts function.  It ceases to describe and begins to designate.  A person or group is named as a threat, an invasion, a corruption.  Once designated, no further description is required.  The designation organizes perception in advance.   

The same sequence extends into digital systems.  Language produced under conditions of speed, reward, and amplification becomes the material from which models are trained.  Systems developed by entities such as OpenAI and Google do not originate these patterns.  They inherit them.  When the material on which they are trained is saturated with repetition, assertion, and emotional charge, the resulting systems reproduce those patterns with increasing fluency.  The output appears coherent because it reflects what has already circulated.   

In this feedback loop, expression is reinforced independently of verification.   

The machine does not introduce distortion.  It stabilizes what is already present and returns it in a more consistent form.  

Under these conditions, identity is offered as resolution.  The individual is placed within a narrative that assigns meaning and opposition in advance.  Agreement produces recognition.  Hesitation produces distance.  Applause becomes a measurable signal.  Silence becomes a visible deviation.  The individual no longer asks whether a claim corresponds to experience.  He registers whether it corresponds to the group.   

Few of these changes are noticed while they occur.  A statement that aligns with expectation is processed quickly.  A statement that interrupts expectation requires time.  Repetition produces familiarity.  Familiarity produces confidence.  Confidence is then taken as evidence.   

This is not reducible to ignorance.  It reflects a contraction in the willingness to remain uncertain.  In many environments, to hesitate is to risk separation.  To question is to delay the sequence.  Under these conditions, the space in which judgment might form is reduced before it can be exercised.  

A sequence can be traced.  A phrase is repeated without examination.  A participant receives approval.  Another hesitates and is met with silence.  The hesitation is registered.  The next participant repeats the phrase without pause.  The sequence continues.  No rule has been stated.  No command has been issued.  Yet a boundary has been established.  Over time, the boundary holds.   

From such sequences, larger structures are assembled.  Control does not begin as an external imposition.  It emerges through the accumulation of ordinary acts that favor affirmation and discourage interruption.  Each act remains defensible in isolation.  Together, they produce a condition in which deviation carries a cost that affirmation does not.  

For this reason, authoritarian forms can resemble their opposites.  They borrow the language of continuity, the symbols of tradition, and the forms of collective pride.  What distinguishes them is not their appearance, but the narrowing of permissible response.  When only one form of affirmation remains viable, participation is no longer voluntary in substance, even if it appears voluntary in form.   

Resistance cannot proceed by substitution.  To replace one set of repeated phrases with another is to preserve the sequence.  The interruption must occur before repetition.  A phrase must be examined before it is spoken.  A gesture must be understood before it is performed.  This introduces delay.  Delay introduces friction.  Friction restores the conditions under which judgment can take place.   

Such interruption carries a cost.  It separates the individual from the immediate rewards of alignment.  It exposes him to uncertainty without the assurance of agreement.  Yet without this interruption, no distinction between belief and performance can be sustained.   

No system organized around reflex can withstand sustained attention.  Its continuity depends on the speed with which responses are produced and confirmed.  When that speed is reduced, the sequence becomes visible.  When the sequence becomes visible, it can no longer proceed without recognition.   

Clarity does not arrive as declaration.  It appears when repetition no longer satisfies, when approval no longer substitutes for recognition, and when the individual distinguishes between what is said and what is seen.  At that point, belonging does not disappear.  It changes condition.  It no longer precedes understanding.  It follows it.

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“Convergence by Design or Consequence?

July 7, 2025

On Trump, Putin, and the Veiled Axis from Kyiv to Caracas“

In recent weeks, I’ve watched with growing unease as foreign policy decisions under Donald Trump unfold with a peculiar symmetry—one that echoes, benefits, or subtly enables the strategic priorities of Vladimir Putin.  While these choices are framed by officials as matters of diplomacy, security, or immigration control, the pattern that emerges—when traced across geography and timing—is harder to dismiss.  It suggests not only a convergence of interests but also a convergence of silence, of things not said, not questioned, not confronted.

A sharply argued opinion piece in The Washington Post by Marian Da Silva Parra, a scholar at Columbia Law School’s Human Rights Institute, called out the administration’s expanded travel bans for what they are:  policies that punish Venezuelan dissidents and effectively strengthen Nicolás Maduro’s grip by allowing him to portray his opponents as foreign threats.  But what is more telling than the piece itself is the fact that it appeared only as an op-ed, not as a subject of sustained front-page reporting.  For all its substance, the critique is offered through a medium that functions more like commentary than alert.

At the same time, U.S. support for Ukraine is being retracted and reissued with increasing hesitation.  Aid deliveries were quietly paused and only resumed after public pressure following the July 4 missile strike on Kyiv.  Multilateral sanctions coordination has reportedly faltered, and new diplomatic pressure is being placed on Ukraine to accept a ceasefire—one the Kremlin has shown no real interest in reciprocating.

These are not isolated gestures.  They land, again and again, in Moscow’s favor.

This invites a broader question:  Are we witnessing the quiet shaping of a two-front geopolitical shift—from Eastern Europe to the Western Hemisphere—where American policy, whether by intention or inertia, now facilitates Russia’s global posture?  Or is this merely the result of domestic calculations with unintended consequences abroad?

There is, to be clear, no proof of deliberate collusion.  But outcomes matter.  A weakened Ukraine.  An emboldened Maduro.  A distracted and demoralized press.  A public fed more performance than substance.  The effect is less of a conspiracy than of a stage being set—unexamined, unchallenged, and disturbingly aligned with a worldview in which democratic resistance is treated as destabilizing and authoritarian consolidation as order restored.

In such a climate, perception is not a matter of optics.  It becomes the only terrain left to navigate what official language refuses to name.

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Ricardo F. Morin

Bala Cynwyd, Pa, July 7, 2025

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“The Rooster’s Algorithm”

March 1, 2025
“Rooster’s Crow” [2003] by Ricardo F Morín.    Watercolor on paper 39″h x 25.5″ w.

Introduction

At the break of day, the rooster’s call slices through the quiet—sharp and insistent, pulling all within earshot into the awareness of a new day.      In the painting Rooster’s Crow, the colors swirl in a convergence of reds and grays, capturing the bird not as a tranquil herald of dawn but as a symbol of upheaval.      Its twisted form, scattered feathers, and fractured shapes reflect a deeper current of change—a collision of forces, both chaotic and inevitable.      The image suggests the ceaseless flow of time and the weight of transformations that always accompany it.

In this evolving narrative, the crow’s fragmentation mirrors the unfolding spread of artificial intelligence.      Once, the rooster’s cry signaled the arrival of dawn; now, it echoes a more complex transformation—a shifting balance between nature’s rhythms and the expanding reach of technological systems.      The crow’s form, fractured in its wake, becomes a reflection of the tensions between human agency and the rise of forces that, though engineered, may escape our full comprehension.      Here, Artificial Intelligence (AI) serves as both the agent of change and the potential architect of a future we can neither predict nor control.

The Rooster’s Algorithm

A rooster’s crow is neither invitation nor warning; it is simply the sound of inevitability—raw, urgent, indifferent to whether those who hear it rise with purpose or roll over in denial.      The call does not command the dawn, nor does it wait for permission—it only announces what has already begun.

In the shifting interplay of ambition and power, technology has taken on a similar role.      Shaped by human intent, it advances under the guidance of those who design it, its influence determined by the priorities of its architects.      Some see in its emergence the promise of progress, a tool for transcending human limitations; others recognize in it a new instrument of control, a means of reshaping governance in ways once unimaginable.      Efficiency is often lauded as a virtue, a mechanism to streamline administration, reduce friction, and remove the unpredictability of human deliberation.      But a machine does not negotiate, nor does it dissent.      And in the hands of those who see democracy as a cumbersome relic—an obstacle to progress—automation becomes more than a tool; it becomes the medium through which power is consolidated.

Consider a simple example:      the rise of online recommendation systems.      Marketed as tools to enhance user choice, they subtly shape what we see and hear, and influence our decisions before we are even aware of it.      Much like computational governance, these systems offer the illusion of autonomy while narrowing the range of available options.      The paradox is unmistakable:      we believe we are choosing freely, yet the systems themselves define the boundaries of our choices.

Once, the struggle for dominance played out in visible arenas—territorial conquests, laws rewritten in the open.      Now, the contest unfolds in less tangible spaces, where lines of code dictate the direction of entire nations, where algorithms determine which voices are amplified and which are silenced.      Power is no longer confined to uniforms or elected office.      It belongs to technocrats, private corporations, and oligarchs whose reach extends far beyond the walls of any government.      Some openly proclaim their ambitions, advocating for disruption and transformation; others operate quietly, allowing the tide to rise until resistance becomes futile.      The question is no longer whether computational systems will dominate governance, but who will direct their course.

China’s social credit system is no longer a theoretical construct but a functioning reality, where compliance is encouraged and deviation subtly disincentivized.      Predictive models track and shape behavior in ways that go unnoticed until they become irreversible.      In the West, the mechanisms are more diffuse but no less effective.      Platforms built for connection now serve as instruments of persuasion, amplifying certain narratives while suppressing others.      Disinformation is no longer a labor-intensive effort—it is mass-produced, designed to subtly alter perceptions and mold beliefs.

Here, Gödel’s incompleteness theorem offers an apt analogy:      No system can fully explain or resolve itself.      As computational models grow in complexity, they begin to reflect this fundamental limitation.      Algorithms governing everything from social media feeds to financial markets become increasingly opaque, and even their creators struggle to predict or understand their full impact.      The paradox becomes evident:      The more powerful these systems become, the less control we retain over them.

As these models expand their influence, the line between public governance and private corporate authority blurs, with major corporations dictating policies once entrusted to elected officials.      Regulation, when it exists, struggles to keep pace with the rapid evolution of technology, always a step behind.      Once, technological advancements were seen as a means of leveling the playing field, extending human potential.      But unchecked ambition does not pause to ask whether it should—only whether it can.      And so, automation advances, led by those who believe that the complexities of governance can be reduced to data-driven precision.      The promise of efficiency is alluring, even as it undermines the structures historically designed to protect against authoritarianism.      What use is a free press when information itself can be manipulated in real time?      What power does a vote hold when perceptions can be shaped without our awareness, guiding us toward decisions we believe to be our own?      The machinery of control no longer resides in propaganda ministries; it is dispersed across neural networks, vast in reach and impervious to accountability.

There are those who believe that automated governance will eventually correct itself, that the forces steering it toward authoritarian ends will falter in time.      But history does not always favor such optimism.      The greater the efficiency of a system, the harder it becomes to challenge.      The more seamlessly control is woven into everyday life, the less visible it becomes.      Unlike past regimes, which demanded compliance through force, the new paradigm does not need to issue commands—it merely shapes the environment so that dissent becomes impractical.      There is no need for oppression when convenience can achieve the same result.      The erosion of freedom need not come with the sound of marching boots; it can arrive quietly, disguised as ease and efficiency, until it becomes the only path forward.

But inevitability does not guarantee recognition.      Even as the system tightens its grip and choices diminish into mere illusions of agency, the world continues to turn, indifferent to those caught within it.      The architects of this order do not see themselves as masters of control; they see themselves as innovators, problem-solvers refining the inefficiencies of human systems.      They do not ask whether governance was ever meant to be efficient.

In a room where decisions no longer need to be made, an exchange occurs.      A synthetic voice, polished and impartial, responds to an inquiry about the system’s reach.

“Governance is not being automated,” it states.      “The illusion of governance is being preserved.”

The words hang in the air, followed by a moment of silence.      A policymaker, an engineer, or perhaps a bureaucrat—once convinced they held sway over the decisions being made—pauses before asking the final question.

“And what of choice?”

A pause.      Then, the voice, without hesitation:

“Choice is a relic.”

The weight of that statement settles in, not as a declaration of conquest, but as a quiet acknowledgment of the completion of a process long underway.      The final move has already been made, long before the question was asked.

Then, as if in response to the silence that follows, a notification appears—sent from their own account, marked with their own authorization.      A decision is already in motion, irreversible, enacted without their consent.      Their will has been absorbed, their agency subtly repurposed before they even realized it was gone.

And outside, as though to punctuate the finality of it all, a rooster crows once more.

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Ricardo Federico Morín Tortolero

March 1, 2025; Oakland Park, Florida

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“Global Authoritarianism and the Limits of Traditional Analysis”

February 28, 2025

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The war in Ukraine is often presented as a geopolitical confrontation between the West and Russia, but this interpretation can obscure a deeper reality:     the rise of authoritarianism as a global force.     Noam Chomsky, one of the most influential voices in the critique of U.S. foreign policy, has argued that U.S. hegemony is the primary factor driving the conflict.     His approach, rooted in Cold War logic, has been essential for understanding global power dynamics.     However, one must question whether this framework remains sufficient to analyze the coordinated expansion of authoritarian regimes in the world today.

The issue is no longer simply whether U.S. policy contributed to Russia’s aggression, but whether democracies can withstand the deliberate advance of governments seeking to consolidate power at any cost.     What is at stake transcends Ukraine’s sovereignty:     it is the survival of democracy in the world.

Chomsky argues that NATO’s expansion and U.S. financial dominance exacerbated tensions with Russia and limited diplomatic options.     His vision proposes a world in which power is distributed between the United States, Europe, China, and Russia, which he believes would create a more stable and just balance.     This perspective has been crucial in questioning the excesses of U.S. interventionism.     In the present world, however, where authoritarianism is not only reacting to the West but also actively seeking to reshape the global order, is a framework based solely on containing U.S. hegemony sufficient?

The rise of authoritarian regimes is not merely a response to Western influence; it is a deliberate strategy to consolidate power.     While Chomsky has emphasized the importance of distributing global power, it is crucial to analyze the nature of those who would fill this void.     Russia and China are not simply seeking a multipolar stability; their actions reflect an attempt to exert absolute control, without democratic constraints.     Chomsky’s critique helps us understand the roots of international conflicts, but it may need to be expanded to account for how these regimes are transforming the very structure of global politics.

One challenge in applying Chomsky’s traditional analysis to the present is that contemporary authoritarianism no longer aligns solely with past ideological divisions.     It is no longer a struggle between socialism and capitalism, or left and right.     Rather, these regimes share a common objective:     dismantling democratic institutions to ensure their permanence in power.

Putin, for instance, invokes Soviet nostalgia while prohibiting any critical reassessment of Stalinism.     China blends State capitalism with absolute political control.     Hungary and India, once considered democracies aligned with the West, have adopted authoritarian models.     Meanwhile, the U.S. far-right, which historically opposed communism, has begun to adopt the Kremlin’s narrative, portraying it as a defender against “globalist elites.”

This ideological alignment makes modern authoritarianism more dangerous than ever.     It not only transcends traditional power blocs but is also reinforced through strategic alliances, mutual support, and the erosion of democracies from within.     This is perhaps most evident in the United States.     The presidency of Trump revealed an unexpected vulnerability:     the possibility that authoritarianism could thrive within the world’s most influential democracy.     Here, the debate is no longer reduced to a question of isolationism or interventionism, but to the real risk of autocratic tactics being normalized in domestic politics.

The Trump administration sent contradictory signals regarding the Kremlin, weakening the principle of deterrence.     Rather than establishing a clear stance against authoritarian expansion, its ambiguity allowed regimes like Putin’s to interpret the lack of firmness as an opportunity to act with impunity.     Figures such as Marco Rubio have advocated for an unequivocal stance that would reinforce U.S. strategic credibility, while the inconsistency in the Trump administration’s foreign policy contributed to the perception that the West was divided and hesitant.

This weakening of democratic leadership has not occurred in a vacuum.     The globalization of authoritarianism is a phenomenon in which autocratic regimes not only directly challenge democracies but also back one another to evade sanctions, subvert international pressure, and consolidate their internal rule.     The invasion of Ukraine must be understood within this framework:     it is not just a regional conflict or a reaction to NATO, but a calculated move within a broader strategy to weaken global democracy.

For decades, critics like Chomsky have been instrumental in highlighting the effects of U.S. dominance on global politics.     His analysis has allowed us to understand how U.S. hegemony has influenced numerous conflicts.     However, the evolution of authoritarianism raises questions that require expanding this perspective.     The greatest threat to democracy is no longer exclusively U.S. power, but the consolidation of a global autocratic model advancing through coordinated strategies.

Blaming the U.S. for every geopolitical crisis may overlook a crucial shift:     authoritarian regimes have moved from being a reaction to Washington’s influence to becoming an active strategy to replace the Western democratic model.     Recognizing this shift does not absolve the U.S. of its failures in foreign policy, but it does demand an understanding that countering authoritarianism requires more than constant criticism of its hegemony.     It requires recognizing that democracy faces a coordinated and unprecedented threat.

Chomsky’s vision of a multipolar world is, in theory, appealing.     However, what would this imply in practice if the actors filling the void left by the U.S. are not interested in preserving democracy?     The real challenge is not merely containing Putin’s territorial ambitions but preventing his model of governance—based on dismantling democratic institutions—from gaining traction in the West.

Chomsky remains one of the most incisive critics of U.S. foreign policy, and his work has been fundamental in understanding the effects of power on international relations.     His analysis has shed light on the flaws of interventionism and the dynamics of global hegemony.     The world, however, has changed, and so have the challenges facing democracies.     Today, the crisis in Ukraine is no longer limited to a debate over NATO, U.S. intervention, or Western hypocrisy.     It is part of a broader struggle between democracy and autocracy, a struggle that does not end at Ukraine’s borders but extends to the very political institutions of the West.

If we fail to recognize this shift, we risk not only losing Ukraine but also underestimating the scope of the threats facing democracies worldwide.     Neutrality is no longer an option when the challenge is the survival of free societies.     Beyond the mistakes of the West, the rise of authoritarianism demands a response that goes beyond constant criticism of U.S. hegemony and instead embraces the active defense of democratic values wherever they are under threat.

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Ricardo Federico Morín Tortolero

February 28, 2025; Oakland Park, Florida

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