Posts Tagged ‘History’

“The Myth of Rupture:

September 30, 2025

Continuity as the Enabling Condition of Change”

Ricardo F. Morín
Untitled #6
Watercolor
2003

BY Ricardo Morin

September 30, 2025

Bala Cynwyd, Pa

Nothing human begins from nothing. Institutions, languages, belief systems, and works of art all arise from what preceded them. Creation is not the rejection of inheritance but the transformation of it. Every act of making draws upon accumulated perception, memory, and experience. This insight is crucial to understanding contemporary culture, where claims of unprecedented change often conceal deep continuities beneath the surface of novelty. Human beings, bound by temporality, cannot detach themselves from what has been; they can only reorder and reinterpret the materials already available to them.

The notion of invention is often described as a break with the past, a leap into the unknown. Yet even the most radical departures are shaped by what came before. The ideals of modern democracy, for example, did not emerge spontaneously. They were built upon classical Greek ideas of citizenship as a shared civic responsibility, rooted in isonomia—equality before the law—and in the belief that legitimate authority derives from the deliberation and participation of free citizens. They also drew deeply on Roman conceptions of law as a universal and rational order capable of binding diverse peoples into a common political framework, and on the Roman principle of res publica, which conceived the State as a public entity oriented toward the common good rather than the will of a single ruler. These foundational ideas, adapted and reinterpreted over centuries, provided the intellectual architecture on which modern democratic institutions were constructed. Perception frames invention. It provides the vocabulary, assumptions, and conceptual tools that make new ideas possible. What seems entirely new still carries the imprint of what it sought to move beyond. On closer examination, the products of creativity are not isolated acts of originality but reconfigurations of existing structures. Evolution, rather than spontaneous emergence, governs how ideas, institutions, and cultures take shape.

Memory underlies this process. It is not a passive record of events but an active medium through which possibilities are conceived and action becomes intelligible. Imagination draws its material from memory; it combines and redirects memory toward conditions not yet realized. This is nowhere more evident than in the idea of freedom, a concept that resists simple definition yet has long carried two complementary meanings. The first, articulated most clearly in the classical Greek tradition, understands freedom as eleutheria—the condition of living without domination or external constraint, a state in which individuals are not subject to arbitrary power. The second, rooted in the Roman legal and civic tradition, conceives freedom as libertas—the capacity to participate actively in the governance of a political community and to shape its laws and institutions. Both meanings reveal how deeply freedom depends on historical precedent: it requires language to articulate its claims, institutions to guarantee its exercise, and collective memory to frame its significance. Far from existing apart from what has been, freedom is shaped and enabled by what has already been conceived, argued, and enacted. Prior experience supplies the references and alternatives against which choices acquire meaning. Without that reservoir of knowledge, novelty would lack coherence and direction, and the exercise of freedom would collapse into arbitrary impulse. Human beings do not invent in a void; they work within the continuity of time and adapt what has been lived and learned into forms suited to what is yet to come.

This same dynamic defines the formation of identity. Selfhood is not an isolated act of invention but a continuous negotiation with what has been received. The very idea of the self has itself evolved through history: in classical philosophy, it was often conceived as a psyche—an inner essence shaped by reason and virtue and embedded within a larger cosmic order. Christian thought reinterpreted this understanding through the notion of the soul as a unique bearer of moral responsibility, oriented toward salvation and defined by its relationship to God. Early modern thinkers such as John Locke then transformed this inheritance by grounding personal identity in memory and consciousness — a conception that would later inform modern ideas of individual autonomy. Even the impulse to define oneself against the past relies on categories inherited from it. Identity is therefore neither static nor wholly self-created; it is a process of reinterpretation through which the individual positions what is given in relation to what is chosen. Human beings exist in the tension between inheritance and aspiration, between the weight of memory and the desire for renewal. That tension is not an obstacle to authenticity but its condition, for without the framework provided by the past there would be nothing from which to depart. Continuity and change are not opposing forces. Without continuity, there is no ground on which to become. Without change, continuity hardens into mere repetition. The act of becoming depends on the dynamic between the two.

Viewed from this perspective, the human condition is defined less by pure invention than by the capacity to transform. What is called “new” is the familiar reorganized with new intentions, the established redirected toward new purposes. Recognizing this does not diminish creativity. It clarifies its nature. Humanity’s most significant achievements—in politics, art, science, and thought—are not escapes from what has been. They are deliberate reinterpretations of what has been, shaped to answer new questions and confront new circumstances. In the sciences, paradigmatic shifts often described as revolutions still follow this pattern. Einstein’s theory of relativity did not erase Newtonian mechanics; it incorporated and extended its principles, a revision that revealed their limits while preserving their usefulness within a broader understanding of space, time, and motion. This same principle governs artistic innovation. The Renaissance revival of classical forms did not merely reproduce antiquity; it reinterpreted ancient visual languages to express the spiritual and humanistic concerns of a new era. The evolution of digital communication and artificial intelligence reflects a comparable continuity. The internet did not replace human interaction; it expanded its reach and scale, a transformation that altered how language circulates, how memory is archived, and how collective knowledge is formed. Similarly, artificial intelligence—often portrayed as autonomous or unprecedented—rests on centuries of linguistic, mathematical, and conceptual developments. These systems extend rather than supersede the cognitive inheritance from which they originate. The future is built in this way: not in its rejection of the past but in its continuous interaction with it.

Resistance to this understanding persists wherever the idea of evolution is denied. Such resistance is rarely a matter of evidence alone. It reflects a desire for permanence—for a beginning that is untouched by change and a truth that stands apart from time. It offers certainty where process allows none and promises stability in place of adaptation. Yet even this resistance is shaped by the forces it seeks to escape. Languages evolve, beliefs adjust, and traditions adapt, even as they proclaim their immutability. Those who defend what is fixed do so with concepts and arguments that themselves have been shaped by historical change. The very doctrines that claim timeless authority — such as the medieval conception of divine sovereignty, once invoked to legitimize monarchies and later transformed into the principle of popular sovereignty in modern constitutional systems—reveal this dependence: they persist not by remaining unchanged but by being continually reinterpreted to meet new contexts. The contrast, therefore, is not between evolution and its absence, but between recognition and refusal. The reality remains: existence unfolds through transformation, and humanity, whether consciously or not, participates in that unfolding—a truth with profound implications for how societies remember their past, shape their present, and imagine their future.

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This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is 0005.jpg
Decantation [2003], CGI by Ricardo Morín — Decantation [2003], CGI by Ricardo Morín

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I. The Speech

The air inside the old factory was thick with dust and conviction. They had scrubbed the floors, repainted the walls, and reclaimed the space from its past, but the scent of rust and oil still lingered. It smelled like work—like history.

Emil stood on a makeshift stage, elevated by wooden pallets stacked two high. His voice carried across the room, each word striking with certainty.

“This is not another failed experiment. This is not a return to old mistakes. We are forging a new path—beyond capitalism, beyond the betrayals of so-called socialism. This time, we get it right.”

Applause. Nods of approval. They had heard these words before, but this time, they believed them.

Isolde sat at the back, arms crossed, expression unreadable. She had stood in this same room decades ago, listening to a different voice, hearing the same promise. The factory, reborn each time, looked different, yet the space was always the same—a decanter of sorts, enclosing the same history, slowly pouring out its essence, again and again.

After the speech, as people gathered in small circles of animated discussion, Emil approached her.

“You don’t look convinced.”

“I don’t mistake passion for direction,” she said.

Emil smiled, as if indulging an elder. “This time is different, Isolde. We’ve studied history. We won’t repeat their mistakes.”

She exhaled, looking past him to the crowd. The factory hummed quietly behind them, a machine just starting to remember its old rhythms. “You misunderstand history. It’s not something you repeat. It’s something that returns to you, whether you invite it or not.”

He shook his head. He didn’t believe in ghosts. But the air, thick with the weight of their past, seemed to hum with the same unspoken inevitability. It reminded Isolde of something trapped within glass—preserved, yet futile in its attempts to remain unbroken. . .

II. The Experiment

The first weeks were golden.

Decisions were made by assembly. Every worker had an equal say, an equal share, an equal stake. The old machinery roared to life under new hands. They printed new posters, declaring the rebirth of labor, the death of the boss.

For the first time, they worked for themselves.

But cracks, barely visible at first, began to form.

Meetings dragged for hours, circular debates with no resolution. Some tasks were more desirable than others—some avoided the heavy lifting, citing ideological objections. “Why should one person labor while another coordinates?”

“Because someone must,” Isolde murmured to herself. Unheard.

Then came the first real crisis: a large order, a deadline, a need for efficiency. The factory moved too slowly. The assembly stalled. Arguments flared.

“We need someone to oversee production,” Emil admitted. “Just temporarily.”

A vote was cast. A mediator was appointed. He wasn’t a manager, they told themselves, just a guide. But the balance had shifted. The factory, like a vessel caught in an unrelenting tide, began to carry more than it could manage.

Isolde watched, saying nothing.

III. The Cracks

The mediator, needing to keep things moving, made quick decisions. The assembly approved them after the fact. The difference was subtle, but it grew.

Some workers were better at certain tasks, so roles solidified. Someone had to negotiate with suppliers. Someone had to ensure deadlines were met. The mediator took on these roles, because it was easier.

“We need structure,” he explained. “Not hierarchy, just order.”

Emil, exhausted, nodded. The structure, which had once felt so free, began to settle into something heavier. Something permanent. Like the decanter that holds liquid—only to release it back into the world, though it never truly escapes its confines.

One evening, alone in his office—the office that wasn’t supposed to exist—he flipped through old books. The words were familiar, but they read differently now. He found a passage from an old revolutionary text, underlined by his own hand years ago:

“The first illusion of power is that it does not exist.”

He closed the book. His fingers lingered on the edge of the paper, as though searching for something that had slipped away, like water escaping through a crack.

IV. The Collapse

The next crisis arrived without warning. A strike—among themselves. Some demanded higher pay. “Shouldn’t work be compensated by effort?” They were equals, but some were more equal in labor than others.

Emil tried to reason with them. “That’s not how this works. We’re breaking that cycle.”

“Then why do you sit in the office while we sweat on the floor?”

He had no answer.

Another vote. A restructuring. A new proposal: an oversight committee. The committee became a board. Outside investors offered financial stability. A small compromise. A necessary evil.

By the end of the year, the factory had become what it swore it never would.

Emil found Isolde in the break room, sipping tea.

“We tried,” he said. “So did we,” she replied.

Silence.

“Why does it always end this way?” he asked.

Isolde set her cup down. Her eyes met his, trapped in exhaustion, as though each glance carried the gravity of countless broken promises, like a fractured decanter.

“Because we are human.”

V. The Next Generation

Years later, Emil walked past the factory. It was thriving. Not revolutionary. Not a failure. Just another business.

Inside, a new group of young activists had gathered. Their leader, no older than he had been, stood on stacked wooden pallets, speaking with fire.

“We are not repeating the past. We are forging a new path. This time, we get it right.”

Emil did not stop to listen.

From the distance, Isolde watched.

“And so it begins again,” she whispered.

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Ricardo Federico Morín Tortolero

March 5, 2025; Oakland Park, Florida

Tags:activism, authority, capitalism, change, cycles, dystopia, factory, fiction, governance, hierarchy, History, human nature, ideology, illusion, inevitability, labor, leadership, power, revolution, socialism, utopia
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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

Tags:authoritarian expansion, Authoritarianism, autocracies, Chomsky, collapse of democracy, consolidation of power, geopolitical interests, global political dynamics, global security, History, Human Rights, ideological conflict, international power structures, international relations, lack of accountability, political decline, political influence, Politics, russia, transparency, United States, Western decline, Western decline
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“A Table Between Us”

February 16, 2025

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**Silent Diptych**
by Ricardo Morín
Medium: Oil On Linen
Size: 18 by 28 by 3/4 inches
Year: 2010

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Prologue

Silent Diptych is not an illustration but a resonance—a meditation on silence, not as emptiness, but as a state of receptivity. It is the space where judgment dissolves, where human connection lingers between words, where meaning is felt rather than spoken. In its stillness, it holds what remains unresolved. Some silences are quiet. Others are filled with history.

RFMT

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Our early dinner followed a matinee of “Parade”, a musical steeped in history, in indignity, in the weight of a life taken and a verdict that still hung unresolved. At the table, we spoke of Leo Frank, the Jewish man lynched in Georgia a century ago–pardoned decades later but never absolved. His true killer never pursued.

Three of us were Jewish. They understood, in ways the rest of us could only acknowledge but never quite embody, the particular pain of being made a scapegoat. The others sympathized but could not feel the same alienation—not in the marrow, not in the inherited way history imprints itself on some more than others.

It was a conversation of weight, but not of sorrow. We spoke with the clarity that comes when facts are long settled but their reverberations remain.

Then came the interruption.

The woman at the next table turned to us with a question, her voice cutting easily through our discussion.

“Where are the girls?”

I glanced at my companions, the six of us settled comfortably into the familiarity of one another.

“What girls?” I asked, not unkindly.

She blinked, as if expecting the answer to be self-evident.

“We’re already married to each other,” I said.

She turned away without another word.

There was no need to dwell on it. The moment was familiar. A minor encounter, the sort that barely registered after years of knowing exactly how the world could tilt in response to our presence.

To shift the conversation, I said, “Freud might say that all relationships are attempts to resolve unfinished business with our parents.”

Someone smirked. A fork was set down. A momentary silence, not of discomfort, but of consideration.

“Men with their fathers, women with their mothers,” I continued.

The responses were mixed. Agreement. Deflection. A shift in tone. Some spoke of failing to meet their fathers’ expectations. Some spoke of hatred. Some of detachment. Some of nothing at all.

I mentioned my father. His certainty that we, his children, would not know how to survive without him. He meant economically, of course. His generation had its own understanding of what it meant to endure.

“How many siblings do you have?” someone asked.

“Five,” I said. “Including my younger sister, who just passed away.” A pause. “She was angelic.” “Sixty-nine.”

There was sympathy, warm and immediate. A moment held just long enough.

And then, as if on cue, the conversation shifted—easily, instinctively. To theater. To Tony Awards. To the life and talent of voices long gone but forever recorded.

At the next table, the woman was laughing now, the moment between us already forgotten on her end.

And we, too, were laughing—at something lighter, something that did not ask to be examined too closely.

The moment stayed, unnoticed, but not forgotten.

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Epilogue

Like the painting, the moment lingered—not demanding resolution, but waiting, quietly, to be understood. The weight of history, the subtleties of belonging, the pauses in conversation where truth is felt but not spoken. Silence, in the end, is never empty. It is the space where everything remains.

Ricardo F. Morín Tortolero

February 16, 2025; Oakland Park, Florida

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Tags:Alienation, Belonging, Casual Prejudice, Conversation, Family, Fathers, Generations, History, Identity, Injustice, Jewish History, LGBTQ, Loss, Parade Musical, Reflection, Scapegoating, Social Dynamics, Subtle Discrimination, Survival, Theater, Unspoken Tensions
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“The Shroud of Perfection”

February 10, 2025

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**Silence Ten**
Ricardo Morín, Oil on linen scroll
43” x 72″ x 3/4″
2012

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Author’s Note

This is a work of fiction inspired by historical events. While the story is rooted in real-world dynamics, all characters, dialogues, and specific incidents are entirely fictional. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

This narrative is not intended to depict, portray, or comment on any real individuals or events with factual accuracy. It is a literary exploration of themes relevant to society, history, and the human experience.

Ricardo F. Morín Tortolero, February 10, 2025

Oakland Park, Florida

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List of Characters:

1. The Champions of Order and Hope:

• Aurelia: A principled guardian of constitutional values.

Traits: Wise, steadfast, compassionate. She embodies the enduring spirit of order.

• Marcos: A dedicated public servant bridging tradition and modernity.

Traits: Honest, diligent, empathetic. He upholds institutional integrity.

• Elena: A unifying presence with calm resolve and moral clarity.

Traits: Reflective, compassionate, inspiring. She acts as the moral compass of her community.

2. The Figures of Disruption:

• Soren: A brilliant yet reckless young tech savant.

Traits: Intelligent but impulsive, morally ambiguous. His actions expose the risks of unvetted innovation.

• Vera: An ambitious bureaucrat exploiting emerging technologies for gain.

Traits: Charismatic, calculating. She represents the seductive nature of power when ethics are compromised.

• Xander: A populist firebrand unsettling the established order.

Traits: Persuasive, rebellious, unpredictable. He stokes division with promises of rapid change.

• Don Narciso Beltrán: An impetuous, self-indulgent octogenarian.

Traits: Arrogant, narcissistic. He parades his delusions of “perfection,” and embodies the dangers of unchecked ego.

Ideology: Seeks to displace marginalized groups to impose his distorted vision of order.

3. The Keepers of Balance:

• Renato: A pragmatic administrator between innovation and tradition.

Traits: Level-headed, fair, resourceful. He exemplifies compromise without ethical sacrifice.

• Carmen: A seasoned advisor offering historical perspective.

Traits: Nurturing, experienced, reflective. She bridges past lessons with current challenges.

• Iker: A dedicated technician ensuring system stability.

Traits: Conscientious, methodical, courageous. He represents the unsung heroes of critical infrastructure.

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Act I

A Nation at the Precipice

The air crackles with change—raw, electric, untempered. It surges through the avenues where history’s stones, heavy with forgotten oaths, bear silent witness to promises now unraveling. Beneath the alabaster facades of institutions once tempered by order, a quiet assault spreads. The people feel it in the marrow of their days, in the uneasy hush between headlines, in the glint of urgency behind every argument.

Once, the land moved to a measured cadence, set by laws unyielding to fleeting tempers. Now, the streets pulse with a different rhythm—a fevered drive toward something new, unburdened by the slow wisdom of the past. Progress and tradition, each staking its claim, wrestle in the dust of a nation standing on the edge of itself.

In the halls of power, where marble once stood as a bulwark against unchecked tides, whispers stir—of systems too rigid to bend, of minds too restless to wait. The parchment of governance, crisp with centuries of deliberation, meets the friction of unfettered innovation. Some call it progress, others self-destruction.

Yet beneath this clash, a deeper question remains: Does a nation endure by perfecting its foundations or by discarding them altogether? The answer, suspended between past and future, waits to be spoken—if only the voices of the present dare to choose.

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Act II

The Shattering

It begins not with an explosion, but with a single breach—silent, insidious, precise. A door left ajar in the corridors of power, a signature scrawled where it should not be, a system once thought inviolable suddenly laid bare. The nation awakens to the aftermath, uncertain whether the ground beneath them has merely shifted or collapsed entirely.

In the din of speculation, two figures emerge—Soren, the architect of controlled chaos, and Don Narciso, the whisperer of gilded lies. One wields disruption as a scalpel, cutting through the sinews of governance with cold precision. The other, a master illusionist, cloaks upheaval in the fabric of righteousness and bends perception until even the most steadfast begin to doubt the contours of reality.

The people watch, rapt and confused. Some see salvation in the rise of these forces, a chance to shed the weight of old constraints. Others, those who still listen for the heartbeat of the republic, sense the tremor beneath their feet and wonder: Is this the moment when the foundation finally gives way?

The stage is set. The struggle is no longer abstract. The breach is real, and the hands that hold the future are already at work to reshape it in their own image.

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Act III

The Gathering Storm

The breach widens. What was once an isolated fracture in the nation’s foundation now spreads and courses through institutions like veins turned septic. The days grow heavier with uncertainty, and in the void where order falters, new forces emerge—some to defend, others to dismantle, and a few to navigate the shifting ground.

The Call to Defend

Aurelia moves first, a voice of clarity in the rising chaos. Where others falter in fear or cynicism, she stands unyielding, wielding conviction like a torch against the encroaching dark. By her side, Marcos, a man of reasoned strength, gathers those who refuse to let history slip into ruin. And Elena, keen-eyed and relentless, sharpens truth into a blade that cuts through the veils of distortion spun by those who seek to reshape reality to suit their designs.

The Forces of Disruption

But against them rise the architects of disorder. Soren, ever the master of fracture, feeds the discord, to ensure no side gains enough ground to restore stability. Vera, a specter of unrepentant ambition, twists uncertainty into leverage to secure power in the shadows where the law’s reach begins to blur. Xander moves openly, charismatic and mercurial, a revolutionary to some, a destroyer to others. And Don Narciso, ever the weaver of illusions, speaks in riddles that soothe even as they deceive.

The Balance Seekers

Yet not all choose a side in the battle unfolding before them. Renato, the quiet strategist, watches, waits, and seeks the threads that might yet be rewoven before the fabric tears beyond repair. Carmen, pragmatic, negotiates between factions, desperate to slow the slide toward chaos. And Iker, burdened by both past and present, works in the shadows—not to seize power, but to ensure that whatever future emerges still bears the echoes of what was once whole.

The tension thickens. Every movement, every decision, tips the scale. And as the storm gathers on the horizon, one truth becomes clear: no one will emerge unchanged.

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Chapter IV

The Masses

The masses do not lead; they follow, but with a fervor that shakes the very bones of the nation. Their cries rise in streets and squares, across glowing screens and whispered corners. What began as discontent has become something more—an anthem of anger, stripped of nuance, sharpened into conviction.

Their grievances, once tethered to reality, now drift free, shaped by the voices they have chosen to trust. Soren’s rhetoric courses through them like wildfire, his calculated fractures swelling into irreparable chasms. Vera’s ambition feeds their hunger for upheaval and promises power to those who feel unseen. Xander, the relentless provocateur, transforms their resentment into action, while Don Narciso shrouds them in visions of grandeur, while whispering to their ears that history bends to the will of those bold enough to seize it.

They speak not in dialogue, but in echoes—those that amplify what stirs their fury and silence what does not. To them, compromise is betrayal, and reflection is weakness. They are the force that makes destruction possible, not by design, but by sheer, unrelenting belief.

The Guardians of Common Sense

But against the tide stand those who refuse to be swept away. They are quieter, less visible, but no less resolute. They do not rally for glory or scream for vengeance; instead, they guard the ground beneath their feet, as they hold firm against the storm.

Aurelia’s voice reaches them, measured and unwavering and cut through the noise like a distant bell. Marcos gives them structure and remind them that reason is not passivity, but discipline. Elena arms them with truth and asserts that in an age of distortion, clarity itself is a weapon.

They are the ones who ask, What is gained? What is lost? They are not blinded by the promise of a new order nor lulled into complacency by the old. They see both the cracks and the foundation, and they stand—not to defend power, but to defend sense.

The Tipping Scales

The two factions watch each other with wary eyes, their struggles intertwining in ways neither fully understands. The Reason Without Reason surges forward to force change and break barriers, tgough often without knowing what they will build in the wreckage. The Guardians of Common Sense push back, not against progress, but against the recklessness that would see wisdom discarded in the name of speed.

And in this battle for the nation’s soul, it is neither the heroes nor the antiheroes who decide the outcome. It is these voices from below—the masses, the multitude, the unseen tide—that will tip the scales.

Which way they fall remains uncertain.

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Chapter V

The Breaking Point

The streets tremble beneath the weight of decision. What once simmered in whispers and warnings now roars in the open—ideals no longer debated but brandished like weapons. The air, thick with the residue of old promises and new betrayals, pulses with the certainty that whatever comes next will leave nothing untouched.

The antiheroes make their final gambit. Soren, the tactician, moves like a shadow to orchestrate disorder where unity threatens to form. Vera stands at the precipice, poised to seize the moment, her ambition a blade sharpened by the chaos she helped ignite. Xander, the firebrand, revels in the combustion, his voice rising above the masses as they lurch toward destiny. And Don Narciso, the illusionist, offers the vision of victory—and never reveals for whom.

Across the divide, the heroes hold their ground. Aurelia, the last sentinel of reason, refuses to yield to hysteria. Marcos, steadfast and deliberate, gathers the scattered fragments of law and order and will them into an unbreakable shield. Elena, undeterred by the tide of misinformation, hurls truth into the storm and hopes that it will land where eyes have not yet closed.

The Final Blow

The masses surge, a force neither entirely controlled nor entirely free. The Reason Without Reason, pushed to their limits, demand collapse or conquest, their fury unshaken by consequence. The Guardians of Common Sense, though fewer, stand firm, their resistance not in rage but in resolve. The weight of their struggle shifts the balance, their voices merge into a single question: Will we break the foundation, or will we stand upon it?

The Reckoning

From the depths of the nation’s memory, the constitutional order awakens. The slow machinery of governance, thought too feeble to withstand the tide, begins to move. Checks long ignored now make themselves known. Laws, institutions, the silent architecture of balance—these rise, not as relics, but as forces unto themselves. The battle is no longer merely between men and their ambitions; it is between the transient and the enduring, the fleeting impulse and the structure that has weathered centuries.

In this moment, the outcome is not determined by strength alone, nor by passion, nor even by strategy. It is decided by what the nation remembers of itself—and whether it chooses to preserve that memory or cast it into the void.

The final choice looms. And once made, there will be no turning back.

*

Chapter VI

The Restoration

The dust settles, though the echoes of upheaval still linger in the air. The streets, once filled with the clamor of irreconcilable voices, now murmur with something quieter—fatigue, reflection, the tentative steps of a people relearning their own rhythm.

The battle did not end in conquest, nor in ruin, but in something subtler: the slow, stubborn reassertion of order. Not imposed from above, nor demanded by force, but reclaimed—piece by piece—by the quiet mechanisms that have long bound the nation together.

The institutions that once seemed fragile now reveal their hidden strength—not in their invincibility, but in their ability to bend without breaking. The checks, once dismissed as relics, prove their purpose—not by preventing crisis, but by ensuring that no single force, no matter how fervent, may hold absolute sway.

The antiheroes do not vanish. Soren retreats into the shadows and wait for another fracture to exploit. Vera, calculating, pivots to survive and adapts her ambitions to the shifting landscape. Xander’s voice dims but does not disappear, a reminder that dissent, even when reckless, is never truly extinguished. And Don Narciso? He smiles, enigmatic, because he knows that perception is never fixed—it only shifts.

Nor do the heroes claim triumph. Aurelia, weary but unbowed, understands that victory in democracy is never final. Marcos, pragmatic, turns to the long work of rebuilding what was shaken. Elena, relentless as ever, ensures that truth remains the foundation upon which all else is built.

The people—the masses who had been both the fuel and the fire—find themselves changed. Some remain embittered, unable to accept that the world they envisioned has not come to pass. But others, those who stood against destruction not out of fear but out of faith in something steadier, see that the foundation still holds.

The nation breathes again. Not in perfect harmony, not without scars, but with the knowledge that it has endured. That it will always endure—not through force or fury, but through the resilience of principles that, though tested, remain unbroken.

The storm has passed. But the sky, though clearing, holds the memory of what has been.

And what may come again.

*

Epilogue

The Quiet Turning

Time does not erase conflict, nor does it promise resolution. What it offers, instead, is distance—a vantage from which to see not only what was lost, but what endured.

The nation stands, as it always has, not unchanged, but unbroken. The tides of extremism will rise again, as they always do, for there is no final victory over the impulses of fear, ambition, and unrest. The masses, shifting, will be drawn to extremes, then back toward balance, as if testing the edges of reason before returning to the center.

Yet within this ceaseless motion lies the quiet rhythm of renewal. Accountability, once threatened, reasserts itself. Balance, though fragile, holds. And hope—fragile, tested, but unwavering—persists, not as illusion, but as choice.

The shroud that once veiled perfection has lifted and reveals not flawlessness, but resilience. Not certainty, but the will to seek it. Not a world without discord, but one where unity is still possible—not through sameness, but through a shared commitment to something greater than division.

The story does not end. It continues, written in the choices yet to be made. And within those choices lies the promise that, though the storm may return, so too will the light.

*

Ricardo F. Morín Tortolero, February 10, 2025

Oakland Park, Florida

Editor, Billy Bussel Thompson,

New York City, February 14, 2025

Tags:Deliberative and Representative Democracy, fiction, History, Politics, Republic, Short Story, technology
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“The Intersection of Superstitious Beliefs in Venezuela”

February 8, 2025

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***Triangulation 36***
22″ x 30″
Body color, sanguine, sepia and Sumi ink on paper
2008

The Power of Myth and Storytelling

Storytelling has long been humanity’s way of making sense of the unknown—an enduring thread that weaves aspirations, fears, and triumphs into allegory. Myths such as those of Jupiter reflect our longing for power, resilience, and the divine; they serve as echoes of the struggles that define us. Whether in the trials of gods and heroes or the quiet ordeals of ordinary lives, these narratives offer a means to navigate the bewildering nature of existence.

Mystery drifts into the folds of nature and provokes the eternal human impulse to explain, to justify, to believe. Superstition thrives where uncertainty prevails; it offers a semblance of control, a means to interpret the ungovernable. But where does it lead? Does superstition whisper in the ears of power, does it shape the visions of those who govern? Even in nations where the media shields leadership from scrutiny, the allure of the esoteric persists, its expressions open yet its workings veiled, obscured by secrecy and the hush of conspiratorial dread.

As mythologies once shaped civilizations, superstition remains deeply woven into modern cultures. It manifests in rites and rituals, in whispered incantations and quiet observances, in the gestures of those who seek certainty where reason falters. And yet, for all its solace, does it propel or impede? A society caught between superstition and rationality is one that stands at a threshold—as superstition lingers between the past and the demands of an evolving world.

Santería and Spiritism in Venezuela

Santería and Spiritism have taken root in Venezuela and their influence surges in times of crisis. Santería, an Afro-Caribbean fusion of Catholic, Indigenous, and African traditions, finds expression in rituals meant to commune with spirits, to bridge the worlds of the living and the dead. Spiritism, too, is tethered to the supernatural, a doctrine of spectral contact and whispered revelations. The two converge and intertwine within the broader landscape of Venezuela’s spiritual consciousness.

The Religious Sect of María Lionza

At the heart of Venezuela’s esoteric traditions stands María Lionza, an enigmatic figure at the crossroads of Indigenous, African, and Catholic beliefs. She is revered as a goddess of nature, love, and harmony, her presence invoked in ceremonies that summon the spirits of those who have passed—figures as varied as the doctor José Gregorio Hernández, pre-Columbian chieftains, military titans like Simón Bolívar, and even the late Hugo Chávez.

Among the sect’s most prominent mediums is Edward Guidice, who channels the spirit of Emeregildo, a figure believed to possess extraordinary healing abilities. As Venezuela’s healthcare system falters, belief in supernatural intervention flourishes. Where medicine is scarce, faith fills the void, and María Lionza’s presence looms ever larger in the search for solace.

Superstition and Modernization

Superstition and modernity exist in uneasy proximity—the former, a refuge from uncertainty; the latter, an unrelenting tide. In Venezuela, these beliefs permeate not only the private sphere but also governance, health, and social order. Esoteric and occult forces whisper through the corridors of power, amble in the choices of those who lead, and take root where institutions crumble.

Beyond superstition lies witchcraft—the deliberate act of bending unseen forces to one’s will. It is a force feared, spoken of in hushed tones, its practitioners both sought and condemned. Unlike passive belief, witchcraft asserts itself upon the world, shapes outcomes, and influences destinies. It exists in the margins, yet its shadow stretches across every echelon of society.

As Venezuela contends with its trials, superstition remains a steadfast companion. It soothes, it explains, it beckons. Yet, between its comforts and constraints lies a question—does it fortify or does it fetter? The answer, as always, remains in the spaces between faith and reason, between what is seen and what is merely believed.

Ricardo F Morin, February 8, 2025, Oakland Park, Fl.

Editor, Billy Bussell Thompson

New York City, February 14, 2025

Tags:beliefs, education, History, Hugo Chávez, life, Politics, Spiritism, Superstition, Witchcraft
Posted in An inquiring mind, Certainty and Uncertainty, On the Nature of Perception and Human Interconnectedness, Short Story | Leave a Comment »

“The Allure of Amalfi: A Journey Through History“

February 7, 2025

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***Untitled Landscape***
22″ x 30″
Watercolors, charcoal, oil, white-out and ink on paper
2006

Prologue

This is not a historical account, but an invention—honest and emotional, a reverie spun in the baroque folds of poetic prose. It is not a logical manifesto but a sensuous invocation of a place that has haunted my imagination.

Ricardo F. Morín Tortolero,

February 10, 2025, Oakland Park, Florida

*

Ulysses knew it as the land of the sirens, a place that, during the Middle Ages, would rise to become a great maritime empire. Nestled at the foot of the towering Mount Cerreto, the Duchy of Amalfi once sought refuge here, as if embraced by a chrysalis of ancestral muses.

The tragedy of The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster, the realism of Henrik Ibsen, and the Gesamtkunstwerk of the much-maligned Richard Wagner have all echoed the fate of this legendary caryatid of pleasure, perched above the Gulf of Salerno. Amidst the cliffs, the thunderous dance of cascading mountains unfolds with grandeur; they seemed to move to the rhythm of the Podalirio butterfly to have us recall the less venerable Crusades, cloisters, and monasteries of times past. The mountains and cliffs exhale back the residue of a barbaric metamorphosis from countless civilizations. And yet, now, our restless gaze traces the genesis of the past as it discovers the seductive fragrance of la dolce vita.

Carved into a promontory at the edge of a precipice, between the villages of Cetara and Vietri—renowned for their anchovies in oil and multicolored ceramics—stands our magnificent hotel, the Cetus. In the chromatic cacophony of the rainbow and its rocky outcrops, the eternal compass guides the rowing regattas that zigzag along the coastline as they navigate from south to northwest, from the Tyrrhenian Sea to the Ligurian Sea.

Nearby, the Canneto River winds down through the Valley of the Mills, where the whisper of the wind carries Renaissance ballads written over the famed bambagina paper. As if retracing our steps through time, the fjords shrink beneath a radiant sky, caressed by the delicate mist of cold winds. We hear the hum of bees and inhale the piercing aroma of sfusato lemons from Mount Etna, while the limoncello releases its intoxicating golden essence. The depths of the peninsula exude the taste and scent of their most captivating fruits.

So intense is the essence of the Amalfi Republic that it seems to sow lava into the turquoise waters and the cliffs that have long shielded it from collapse. We sing the Falalella under the twilight haze, then float above the shimmering coastline of Salerno, Positano, and Ravello, as they are gently bathed in a cool drizzle. With the ebb and flow of life, crimson clouds gaze into the mirror of the still waters and cast their glow upon the blue bay of Salerno.

Amalfi, a jewel of Salerno, is framed by the Campania region, where the majestic sanctuaries of Herculaneum and Paestum stand in solemn grandeur to salute us. And from the ashes that wove together mythical times, the 18th-century archaeological expeditions of Pompeii unearthed, among many discoveries, ancient frescoes depict the Cycle of the Roman Mysteries, as well as the conquests of Alexander the Great.

The touch of ancient hands still reverberates through our senses. Sweet is the vision beneath the spring sun, bouncing from ravine to valley, as it sways from stairway to cascading steps, until we reach the ancestral pier. We had anchored there near the dock from which the great galleys once set sail to unknown lands. They, like my beloved and I, drifted away from it and left behind the vision of the sirens’ paradise.

*

Ricardo F. Morín, February 7, 2025, Oakland Park, Fl

Tags:amalfi-coast, art, Atrani, Capri, Cetara, Colbara, Conca dei Marini, Furore, Henrik Ibsen, History, Ischia, italy, John Webster, Maiori, Minori, Paestum, Pompeii, positano, Praiano, Ravello, Richard Wagner, S. Egidio del Monte Albino, Salerno, Scala, Short Story, Sorrento, The Amalfi Coast, The Maritime Republic of Amalfi [839 AD-1137 AD], the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli., Vietri Sul Mare
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“The Fetters of Power”

January 14, 2025

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Introduction

Power, in its rawest form, bends and distorts. It reflects the body depicted in Ascension as it strains against the scaffolding of control—and embodies the turbulent forces we inhabit.[1] These elements frame a reflection not only on Venezuela’s struggles but on the universal gravity of power that entraps us all. I wonder if blaming these forces oversimplifies a system thriving on collective complicity. Can self-compassion hold us accountable without succumbing to guilt—when despair paralyzes?

Positioned between The Stream of Emery, a fable of renewal, and Unmasking Disappointment, an upcoming essay on historical reckoning, this story continues a journey through entanglement, responsibility, and the enduring search for self-liberation.^[2]

THE FETTERS OF POWER

While my husband drove from Fort Lauderdale to Orlando, I had a conversation with my friend BBT. It was one of those unsettling conversations that reveals how vast forces can overwhelm us. He spoke of power, not as a tool, nor even as a desire, but as the primal force that pushes humanity toward authoritarian oligarchies. Greed, according to him, is secondary, a symptom of something deeper: the irresistible gravity of power itself.

I thought of Michel Foucault and his theories on power, and for a moment, I felt a flash of clarity. But the more I tried to articulate his ideas, the more inadequate they seemed. The weight of reality crushes academic musings as the world descends into ruin. We fail to recognize ourselves as creatures trapped by our own errors.

III

Then, I remembered my cousin Ivelisse’s voice, trembling while holding back tears, as she recounted Nicolás Maduro’s inauguration, January 10. For her, it was not just a political event; it was a symbol of our fall, of our dissolution as a people. Her despair was mine, and ours was Venezuela’s—a nation habitually entrusting faith in saviors who never arrive.

Across the world, power and greed—legitimized by crime or not—justify the rise of tyranny. And we, in our confusion, have no answers in the face of these tides of unchecked ambition.

BBT, ever pragmatic, said simply: “Just enjoy yourself.” His advice both stung and comforted me. But how could I? How could I enjoy anything when the world feels so fragile? Every thought circles back to the same questions: What can I do to counteract these forces? How can I make sense of this struggle?

Still, I cling to one belief: that one day, a collective awakening will emerge, a rising tide of awareness. If there is to be a better world, it will not come from saviors or struggles for power, but from an alignment of minds and hearts. My role, if I have one, is to contribute to that legacy—not for fame or ambition, but for peace.

VII

Peace is what I seek, not only for myself but for others: a legacy that transcends my own life, one that serves as a quiet resistance to the forces of greed and power. Only then, perhaps, will I find the simplicity BBT spoke of—not as surrender, but as understanding.

Postscript

It is easy to lose sight of the deeper currents that drive us, particularly when we are immersed in the tides of ambition, power, and cynicism. In moments of crisis, these forces surge, often obscuring our judgment and steering us off course. Yet, amidst their overwhelming presence, one truth remains: surrendering to love sustains us.

Ultimately, what really matters is love. It alone sustains us above all else. It can anchor us against the forces that threaten to lead us astray.

Perhaps with that recognition is where peace begins—not in the world outside or its lack of validation, but in the quiet acceptance of what we can change, and what we cannot.

~

Endnotes:

[1] “Ascension,” CGI, 2005, https://www.ricardomorin.com/06_3-D_html/01.html , Artist’s website’s repository https://www.ricardomorin.com/3-d-digital.html

[2] Ricardo Morín, “The Stream of Emery,” WordPress, December 29, 2024, https://observationsonthenatureofperception.com/2024/12/29/the-stream-of-hermes/

Ricardo F. Morin Tortolero, January 14, 2025; Oakland Park, Florida.

Billy Bussell Thompson, February 14, 2025, New York City

Tags:art, billy-bussell-thompson-bbt, biography, History, philosophy, Politics, power dynamics, Short Story, Venezuela
Posted in An inquiring mind, Short Story | Leave a Comment »

“Platonic Interactions”

August 5, 2023

Figure 1: Platonic Series # 00023 - CGI by Ricardo Morin © 2018 — **_{^{Figure 1: Platonic Series # 00023 – CGI by Ricardo Morin © 2018}}**

Within the last two decades, I have turned my pictorial interests to the depiction of regular polyhedra, their history since the classical period, and their different motivations. Plato believed that regular polyhedra represented the 5 elements of the universe and in how they were a sacred part of geometry. For modern geometers, the universe fits together into the shape of a dodecahedron, somewhat like a soccer ball.

Figure 2: «Platonic Interactions - Tessellated Composite» – CGI by Ricardo Morin– ©2023 — **_{^{Figure 2: «Platonic Interactions Composite» – CGI by Ricardo Morin– ©202}}3**

«Platonic Interactions» began with the beauty I found in Plato’s forms and how their own mathematical formations involved the proportionality of the golden mean. Their geometries stand as a unified and congruent visual harmony. Akin to mandalas for meditation, they evoke the world at large. My vision of the regular polyhedra is set by having them nested within each other in an openly latticed forest of complementary and analogous hues and shapes. Although regular polyhedra are essentially symmetrical, the rotation of their three-dimensional structures allows for a multiplicity of visual angles, with each one filled by wondrous feats of energy. «Platonic Interactions» is an orchestration of life-inspiring images, arranged to the melodic musings of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Prelude – Cello Suite 3 – as interpreted by Jon Sayles.

Figure 3: Figure 3 «Platonic Triangulation» by Ricardo Morin, 22’ x 30”. Body color and graphite on paper, ©2008 — _{^{Figure 3: Figure 3 «Platonic Triangulation» by Ricardo Morin,
22’ x 30”. Body color and graphite on paper, ©2008}}

As early as 2005, I had begun a series of oil paintings and drawings entitled «Infinity,» which were based on the premises previously mentioned. In this context, the painting’s perimeter serves the same function as the golden mean does for proportionality. The superimposition of the triangle’s right angle over the surface of the painting reinforces the golden mean. The very surface of the painting and the forms expressed on it imply infinitude.

Since 2018, no longer involved in the medium of oils, I have dedicated my attention to digital paintings. Printed and manipulated on canvas, today these digital paintings count sixty four images. «Platonic Interactions» uses fifty of these images, sequentially arranged. They are further composited into two tessellated tiles (like mosaics), one 5 x 5 squares and the other 7 x 7 squares – as in Figure 2 above.

Ricardo F Morin

Edited by Billy Bussell Thompson

Bala Cynwyd, Pa. August 3, 2023

Tags:art, Billy Bussell Thompson, biography, Digital Paintings, education, Fine Arts, Geometry and Tesselation, History, Johann Sebastian Bach, Jon Sayles, Mandalas for Meditation, Plato, Platonic Solids, Regular Polyhedra, Ricardo F. Morin, Sacred Geometry, Short Stories, Universe
Posted in An inquiring mind, On the Nature of Perception and Human Interconnectedness, On the Nature of Visual Art | Leave a Comment »

“Meditations on Ortega y Gasset”

December 19, 2022

*

Acknowledgment

First, I would like to share with my readers my utmost gratitude to Billy Bussell Thompson (b. November 23, 1942), Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Linguistics at Hofstra University, for his generosity in being a mentor and editor. His scholarly trajectory goes from 1963 to 1993. Among his most salient publications in English, we have: Relic and Literature . . .; Bilingualism in Moorish Spain; The Myth of the Magdalen . . .; etc. . . .

Since 1989, our friendship has extended over more than three decades. We have worked in close proximity on at least a dozen articles and short stories (published in WordPress). I have been fortunate to count on his frankness and support. He has never minced words. He has been blunt, when any of my drafts seemed without merit. When that was the case, the articles went into a shredder, and I was satisfied by the integrity of his prose, as well as by my understanding of my own limitations as a writer. Prof. Bussell Thompson (B.B.T.) usually compares the skill of prose writing with that of a narrowing cone of vision. This selective cone of vision is akin to the aesthetic integrity of a visual work of art. With the present endeavor, Prof. B.B.T. believed, from the very beginning, in the possibility of bringing forth this story as a team. Even though we live in different regions – geographically far apart – of the USA, we have had no trouble communicating via phone and email.

III

This narrative seeks to explain the confusion found in society and politics, and even their seeming lack of purpose. For this reason, I dedicate my narrative to the readers.

Initially, I knew not where this would lead. I submitted a five-paragraph draft to professor B.B.T. As he began to read, he paused and asked if I was alluding to Plato’s allegory of the cave. Surprised, I asked him to stop. I replied that his reference to Plato placed me in a different perspective. Gratefully, I added that his question was most welcome; at that point, I wanted to read more before continuing.

He encouraged me to reread Plato’s dialogues. To this he added that I take into account any ambiguity associated with Plato’s conception of the ideal authority of the State (politeia) or Nation. He referred to the Platonic ideas controversial in current discussions. He also recommended reading José Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955). He included The Revolt of the Masses [1929] and The Dehumanization of Art [1925]. He suggested that I be aware of Ortega’s meritocratic liberal perspective (though we believed that Ortega had not been known for openly endorsing any political ideology) and to heed the relevance Ortega gives to the man who is aware of his limitations – opposed to the man who is unaware: both the bourgeoisie and the mass man (who exemplify, for him la razón sinrazón [the reason for unreason]) – as explained in The Revolt of the Masses. And finally, I focus on the distinction between “content” and “form,” to explain the break by the avant-garde from the bourgeoisie.

Professor B.B.T. and I also had an exchange of ideas over the parallels between the Platonic and Orteguian thought. He advised me then to read anew Meditations on Quixote [1914] both in Spanish and in English. There, B.B.T. thought that I could find a significant or productive landscape of ideas on which to reflect and, thus, be able to develop my own interpretations about the nature of knowledge, its limits, and how to find the meaning of the ideal of truth.

VII

In writing my last short story, entitled In Darkness, Professor B.B.T. had already urged me to note the meaning for circunstancia¹ (“circumstance”) as defined by Ortega in Meditations on Quixote. It was clear to us that both Ortega’s phenomenological approach to “circumstance” and Plato’s thesis on the transformation of the individual (through knowledge) shared commonalities, which nurtured my own narrative.

VIII

But, the narrative journey proved to be just as challenging as Professor B.B.T. had pointed out. His criticism, even then, never ceased being constructive and energetic. His compassion was present as long as I was mindful of the necessity for clarity and precision. Often, he would cite Ernest Hemingway’s authenticity and precision.

Time and time again, I experienced enormous pain in trying to comprehend what I wished to express. Freeing my prose from superficiality was like taking a deep breath to exhale the vagueness of my anxieties. Sometimes I was unable to get away from the obvious. Other times, either I hid behind the complex, or I would cling to abstract and cryptic thinking: the reductive jargon of the social sciences. Professor B.B.T. repeatedly suggested succinctness: I needed to respect the simplicity of language and find a way to its accessibility. Bringing Plato and Ortega to the reader was my responsibility. I was not to imitate them nor to think like them, but to represent them authentically. My first obligation was to the reader. For this I had to avoid euphemisms, randomness, and diversion. The affirmation of effective communication is an objective worth the effort. I would only understand myself, if I were to understand the reader.

B.B.T.’s exhortations and criticisms, I welcomed enthusiastically. His challenge became mine. He has been exorcising my limitations for two decades: Every time we have worked together, I have discovered something new in myself. I have become more attuned to both English and Spanish. I have had to be my own translator. In these instances, I have grown more respectful of the two languages. I have had to capture their essence by comparing them: the one informs the other.

*

Prologue

In Plato’s dialogue Theaetetus [circa 369 B.C.E.], Socrates proposes that the extraordinary extraction of ideas is like bringing forth a new life and purging what is unnecessary. Likewise, the aim here is to produce and discuss what enlightenment is, and the obstacles to its achievement. Socrates has helped me in my definition of knowledge: Is morality universal, or is objective morality even possible? For these ideas I am indebted both to Plato and to Ortega y Gasset.

Ricardo F Morin, December 19, 2022

Editor Billy Bussell Thompson

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Plato, Roman marble bust copied from Greek original, 4th century B.C.E., Capitoline Museums, Rome.

*

Socrates, Roman marble bust copied from Greek original, 2nd half of the 4th century B.C.E., Capitoline Museums, Rome.

*

José Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955), detail of photograph of his impersonation of Honoré de Balzac, circa 1900.

*

One way to objectivity is to recognize one’s own subjectivity. Metaphors for understanding reality are rare. One sees the world primarily through one’s own experience. It is difficult (though not impossible) to understand what one has not experienced. Truth never rests: It is not singular, but always plural.
Anonymous

*

1 Index

1. Awareness of the Transformation of One’s Self:

The highest principle of inquiry is consciousness of one’s self. In inquiry lie the beginnings of change.

2 Index

2. The Absence of Trust:

In our age of disbelief, the stories we tell each other about the past and the present seem to be in a state of collapse. There is a lack of continuity in the social order, increasingly suffocated by misinformation and distrust. We challenge each other over what is real and what is not.

3 Index

3. The Unassailable Truth:

For most of us an ultimate truth remains unattainable and the stories we share from the past and the present no longer seem useful. Along with the disappearance of our past stories, both the person who seeks truth and the act of giving a person his due are in crisis. Our society finds itself defined by a decline in trust both in government and its institutions. Despairingly, the challenge is that the creation of new stories has become an act of preservation. Likewise, autocracy is on the ascendance. A lack of faith has sown aimlessness. What can change this course of despair? What will bring enlightenment to us?

4 Index

4. Consciousness:

Knowledge is constantly changing and the result of this destabilization carries us into greater disorder. For this reason clarity is more necessary than ever to understand ourselves. Even if clarity is not always possible, to know oneself is imperative. Thus arises the tension between continuity and change. Here lies the quest for survival.

5 Index

5. Not Knowing:

Not knowing is the essential condition of existence, despite one’s apparent desire for knowledge or for authority. To know is to inquire. Reality, though fleeting, inspires reflection. Change begins with the recognition that one is not in isolation. Not even the one (who seeks self-sacrifice for his spiritual advancement) by absolute cloister could get rid of his entanglement with the world. It is by relating to other people and his environment that this person comes to know who he is. Not even he (who despises the symbols of fear) is capable of freeing himself from his anguish. The fear of not knowing hangs over all of us. It is possible that striving without measure (in the aspiration for rationality) only leads us to end up being irrational: Here lies the origin of complexity given the absence of innocence.

6 Index

6. The Energy of Life:

In his theory of cultural attributes (Meditaciones del Quijote, Meditación preliminar; Índice 8, La pantera o del sensualismo, pág. 21), José Ortega y Gasset gives us his concept of razón vital², which means reason is expressed through life itself. Ortega parses the European mind into two archetypes: the Germanic and the Mediterranean. The former is meditative and the latter sensuous. Of the sensuous he says: The predominance of the senses usually implies a deficiency in inner powers. What is meditating as compared with seeing? As soon as the retina is hit by the arrow from without, our inner personal energy hastens and stops the intrusion. The impression is registered, subjected to civilized order; it is thought, and in this way it is integrated in the building up of our personality, and cooperates within it – Evelyn Rugg and Diego Martín’s translation – Notes and Introduction by Julián Marías – pp. 85-86. The Orteguian admonition here is to find the balance between extremes: between the excesses and deficiencies of these two archetypes.

7 Index

7. Human Agency and Its History:

A second source for my understanding of the mind and the senses is found in Plato’s Republic (politeia) – Socrates’s dialogue of the allegory of the cave at the beginning of Book Seven. There have been many interpretations. Mine differs. My purpose is to rid suffering from the mind of the freed slave. Once freed from shackles, the mind of the freed slave (who ascends to the mouth of the cave) discovers its own vision of the world. Despite the sun’s glare, the uneducated mind is transformed by the newly found ideal of truth. But the awareness by the prisoner (who has remained behind) is inseparable from the condition of the freed man: The slave (remaining in shadows of suffering) is not entirely separable from the memory of the freed man. Because of suffering, the freed man’s mind is aware of its inability to know. At the same time, the freed mind learns how its own transformation may be dependent on the new course of its history. This mind’s actions allow participation in change, and change is possible through self examination. The mind examines itself through meditating. Meditation is not an obligation, but a necessity. Meditation is the result of the mind’s freedom and it is the means to understanding its own choices in its approach to truth: But this effort is only an approximation to the infinity of truth. The freed mind (facing the visible world) is lacking here. Thus, the freed mind recognizes that neither its actions nor the course of its history is predictable. They (i.e. the mind’s actions and the course of its history) come from multiple possibilities about belief.

The freed mind realizes that time is an illusion: Time is fleeting, false, and deceitful. The mind, habitually trapped in its past, remains mired in pain. Anger (which comes from the past in search for justice) has for its sole purpose the manifestation of resentment. But anger only manages to put its existence on hold, awaiting compensation. Just as time is an illusion for the mind, the quest for emotional reparation is also an illusion. For the mind, there is no vindication by being trapped in the labyrinth of illusion. Only the rationality of active love can compensate for anger. If the mind of the lover of truth can project itself lovingly in the direction that it resents, then a liberating sense of bravery arises towards itself. Anger and sentimentality are one and the same. As the force of love sheds sentimentality, one’s desires dissipate and with them anger as well. Thereby, violence ceases to exist. Socrates’s allegory of the mind (freed from suffering) carries all these implications and comparisons towards a goal of Ideal Truth.

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8. Alertness:

In an effort to understand Ortega’s concept of circumstancia (“circumstance”), his Meditación preliminar, Indice 6, Cultura mediterránea, explains to us that when he goes through the landscape of ideas he has to meditate with alertness on the influence of his experiences. Needless to say, this includes all his past and present relations, the geographies he has occupied, and everything he has done in life. Ortega forewarns us of the risks in this act of meditation: We are accompanied by a keen suspicion that, at the slightest hesitation on our part, the whole world could collapse, and we with it. When we meditate, our mind has to be kept at full tension; it is a painful and integral effort – Index 6, Mediterranean Culture, translated by Evelyn Rugg and Diego Marín (Introduction and notes by Julián Marías [a favorite student of Ortega y Gasset]), p. 34. In Plato’s dialogues, the same “effort” is found: Through the act of meditation, Socrates’s freed man draws transformation and redemption from the narrow crevices among ideas. Meditation helps the lover of truth get closer to his existential condition; it offers him the possibility of reacting differently, and sustains him with the very energy that life provides.

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9. Faith:

For the one who fears meditation, having faith in one’s own actions and changes are not sufficient for inquiry. History is not alive for him: It is at a point of no return; it is dead. This person is in a world of despair and surrounded by the proverbial dancing of shadows. This person is bound in his own chains, is overwhelmed by a lack of confidence, and is, without trust, unable to make a leap of faith. Neither the notion of individuality nor the concept of free will seems satisfactory any longer. This person relinquishes personal power and is unaware of the forces influencing his mind and his senses. His refusal to face reality becomes a conscious decision for the suppression of truth. This refusal is antithetical to life itself. For him, life becomes enslavement and stands in opposition to the freed man, who fearlessly ponders the reality of the visible world, and passionately delves into the exploration of the unknown. The mind of the freed man represents Ortega’s concept of razón vital, desirous to be absorbed by it.

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10. Deliverance:

Distractions can be multiple. In Ortega’s playful analysis, he implies that if meditation is extraneous to the fears of the mind, it can succumb to obsession, and even fall despairingly into manias. Ortega values the relevance of every influence. He understands that a human being and his landscape are not separate. The unity of the two means his salvation by circunstancia (“circumstance”): Thus his appreciation of circunstancia: Yo soy yo y mi circunstancia, si no la salvo a ella no me salvo yo – Al Lector, Índice, pág. 41 (which I translate as “I am myself [in a world of perceptions] and also the material world that surrounds me; if I don’t save them, I don’t save myself”). Incidentally, here Ortega preempts his conclusion with what he has read in the Bible: Benefac loco illi quo notus es³ (loosely translated into English as “do good in the place where you are known”). With these remarks, Ortega reinforces the idea that he is unable to disassociate himself from his surroundings. If he is to flourish and to find salvation, it will be necessary for him to understand and protect what he shares with his environment.

Parallel to Ortega’s analysis is Plato’s Socratic allegory, which teaches us the effect that the visible world has on our mind. From these two perspectives, the mind tends to be discouraged by what it does not understand. Awareness of the visible world’s influence is for both thinkers an instinct for survival. To be aware, therefore, means to be silent, away from the deafening sound of fear. As long as there is fear, promoted by the progress of civilization, there will be no movement or separation from distractions. Confronting fear means dispersing it, making it disappear. Dispersal of fear is fundamental to the understanding of self. Releasing oneself from fear is confronting one’s not-knowing. Enslavement (at the depth of the cave) is equivalent to accepting the impositions of fear. Both, for Ortega and Plato, the opposition to indifference is found through meditation; thereby one is able to be alert and know oneself.

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11. Perception and Storytelling:

True confidence is living in uncertainty. An overriding fact is that human beings organize themselves around the making of stories. Every story we create is an act of piety that consoles the mind. Yet new stories and old ones are provisional tools that fill the gap of our faith, filling in the void of our ignorance. Whether the story be true or not, storytelling rescues us from ourselves. Storytelling is our razón vital. It seeks to expose us to the best possible meaning of ourselves: Meaning in storytelling is found by investing oneself with the willpower to exceed adversity. Meaning is found by creating something new within oneself. Meaning is found in one’s vulnerability and in the constant pain to overcome it. The process of finding meaning reveals that one cannot control Truth. Happiness depends on how one accepts the absence of control, and how we can stop disliking our limitations.

Storytelling persuades us to think that one’s actions will spread deeply into one’s consciousness. One may not always be able to defeat the element of preconception, for bias is always with us. As long as suffering, uncertainty, and the effort to overcome them exist, bias will persist. Bias lurks behind our thoughts, quiet and insidious, yet it is there for a reason in spite of its harmful effects. The irony is that if one banished preconceptions, there would be no further progress. In any story, if the hero overcomes the villainy of bias, it is because he is able to change: If one does not overcome bias, one does not grow and there is no transformation. Success is not as important as the struggle to overcome bias. Every time adversity comes to us, it is an opportunity for the recognition of those preconceptions that still reside in ourselves. Success does not provide happiness. Happiness is only possible through self discovery. As such, one becomes symbolically the whole of humanity. This is its highest expression: The creation of something new as we face adversity, and the worse the adversity, the greater the opportunity.

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12. Reasoning (sentience vs sapience):

Awareness of fiction is the appreciation of the paradox between what is and what is not. Knowledge expresses not only the awareness of one’s own intuitions and senses, but also the reasoning about those intuitions, senses, and impressions. That is, every time we examine the perception of our memory, we are editing our understanding. Thus, the way we organize and observe ourselves comes from our desires and senses at that moment, and this comes from our memories. For instance, it is difficult for us to agree on a common origin or a common thread uniting us as a species, even if that may be true. Whether we wish it or not, we define ourselves by the histories we create either in groups or in countries. In doing so, we are actually imagining separate and fragmented believes that we belong to separate locales, cultures, and races. Yet, there is an unavoidable thread that connects us as a species. Such composition is found in our common and preponderant origin, though our perception may resist being part of it. We endow ourselves with differences dictated by the conditioning of our perceptions. In The Revolt of the Masses, Ortega refers to this condition as la razón de sinrazón (“reason without reason”), which explains our deeply rooted irrationality and fragmentation. Knowledge implies greater content than what is gained through the form of our perceptions. Our minds tend to abbreviate history, even believing that it does not exist. Yet the more expansive the “circumstance” or condition of apprehending truth, the greater the maturity our existence demands from us.

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13. Maturing Emotional Intelligence:

If a human being is the measure of all things, then also one comes to appreciate that knowledge is always inconclusive. Thus, meditation strengthens our mind, our memory, our learning, our attention, and our self awareness. Meditation on the past, the present, or the future depends on emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is based on capturing the import of influences from all areas of a man’s life, from one’s behavior to one’s relationship with others and one’s environment. Ultimate reality depends on the level of maturity of a person, and it is through meditation that one matures. Hence, how a person chooses to act depends on meditation and his level of emotional intelligence. For the fanatic (obsessed with fear) meditation seems impossible. For the fanatic, doubt is not the issue. The fanatic seeks to reiterate cycles. The fanatic fails to understand that fear of change is irrational because it is inevitable that the world is constantly evolving. The fanatic seeks to change what is beyond his control. From the Orteguian point of view, this person, within a closed valuation system, does not find consolation because his mind fears what it does not understand.

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14. Our Connection to the Universe:

From Ortega’s perspective of Cervantes’s Don Quixote [1605-15], we learn that the courage granted by Love – not hate – impels us towards understanding …the useless remains of a shipwreck that life, in its perpetual surge, throws at our feet. – To The Reader, p. 31. Love is a divine architect who, according to Plato came down to the world – ὥστε τὀ πᾶν αὐτῶ ξυνδέδέσθα – so that every thing in the universe might be linked together: Separation means extinction. Hatred, which separates, isolates, and pulls apart, dismembers the world, and destroys individuality – To the Reader, p. 33.

Hence, Ortega explains that the imperative for the individual is to reflect on one’s circunstancia (in medias res), … to arouse the desire of understanding the universal in its particulars. – To the Reader, p. 31: To ignore the fact that each thing has a character of its own, and not that we wish to demand of it, is, in my opinion, the true capital sin, which I call a sin of the heart because it derives its nature from lack of love. There is nothing so illicit as to dwarf the world by means of our manias and blindness, to minimize reality, to suppress mentally fragments of what exists. This happens when one demands that what is deep should appear in the same way as what is superficial. No, there are things that present only that part of themselves which is strictly necessary to enable us to realize that they lie concealed behind it. – p. 62.

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15. A Heroic Perspective:

Knowledge comes before fanaticism. Fanaticism is, for Ortega, the rejection of the perspectives of others. Ortega points to reasoning as an act of charity, which uncovers differences, and suggests that understanding is akin to the circling of an eagle in flight. To be oneself, for Ortega, is the same as it is for Cervantes. The act of being a hero takes place through a sensitive exploration of the nature of reality. In Ortega’s view, as well as for Cervantes’s, the will of the hero belongs only to the persona of Don Quixote: Because to be a hero means to be one out of many, to be oneself if we refuse to have our actions determined by heredity or environment, it is because we seek to base the origin of our actions on ourselves and only on ourselves. The hero’s will is not that of his ancestors, nor of his society, but his own. This will to be oneself is heroism. – First Meditation, 15, The Hero, p. 149.
… I do not think that there is a more profound originality than this practical, active originality of the hero. His life is a perpetual resistance to the habitual and customary. Each movement that he has to make has first had to overcome custom and invent a new kind of gesture. Such a life is a perpetual suffering, a constant tearing oneself away from the part of oneself, which is given over to habit and is a prisoner of matter. – First Meditation, 15, The Hero – p. 149.

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16. The Fear of fate:

A Socratic life is heroic, but if unexamined, of no value. In the pain of living, one has to embrace the fact that the examination of fear is part of life. Alongside this examination, fate is never artificial. Fate does not deceive, even in our misfortunes. Fate is not illusive, though our perception of time may be. Instead, fate challenges us to change. In change, fate protects us from stagnation. What appears to be random is, in fact, an opportunity for learning. Consequently, fate exists not for attacking, but for stimulating our transformation. Fate does not move against us, but challenges us to change by confronting obstacles. Fate attacks fear, because one’s fear takes away one’s ability to make choices. Narratives of fear turn out to be self-fulfilling prophesies. Fear deceives and defines us. It hampers survival. Fear prevents our evolving, it paralices us: We resist giving up habits because of fear. Thus one languishes and fails to overcome disbelief.

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17. Boundlessness and Humility:

The shadow of shame represents one’s flaws. The shadow is what one wishes not to be, though its shadow be part of oneself. Only, when the shadow is accepted with humility, do its flaws dissolve in the act of loving oneself with compassion. Ultimately, the fanatic will recognize his incompleteness and become aware of his own insignificance: The incapacity for completeness looms over all of us. Only through risk does one learn the extent of one’s bounds and how much further one may go. We advance through humility and humility appreciates neither truth nor falsehood. Humility is the acknowledgment of one’s inexorable estrangement from an infinite truth. Only the humble voice recognizes the struggle for understanding and change. Both depend on a flight from despair. For Ortega and for Plato, the mark of the highest values is found in our vulnerability. If we surrender absolutely, then we find redemption.

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18. Epilogue:

My perspective treats Plato and Ortega outside of any theistic justification. I leave aside any application of Plato to theological thought. Likewise, I ignore any attempt to ascribe religious respects to Ortega’s theory of values. For me their notions, when applied to theology, are not credible. I understand Plato and Ortega in their search for the limits of human perception and rationality. Efforts to apply their philosophies as religious foundations are outside of my purpose.

The depth of Plato and Ortega’s thought is not to be found in a method for objective morality. Nor is it ethical relativism, nor even is it found in a claim of universality. Ideologies on morality are derived from norms dictated by theologians, seemingly unwilling to relinquish authority. The role of the lovers of truth is not to dictate virtue nor to define the godhead. Their teachings are centered on rationalism. Their humanism is based on a concept of justice that is antithetical to fixed norms. The paradigm of true knowledge – according to Plato and Ortega – is derived from love based on the originality of heroism. This love does not reside outside of the individual. This love is not found in the promise of a transcendental world. This love finds man’s salvation in the present. This love calls for self examination. And above all, this love is a liberation from the numbness of the mind.

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Endnotes:

1 For Ortega circunstancia, is a representation of the sum total of influences in the consciousness of a man, thus expressing the reason for his existence.

2 Razón vital stands as Ortega y Gasset’s philosophy which views that reason is, in of itself, an expression of life.

3 I failed to find this Biblical citation.

Bibliography:

Ortega y Gasset, José, Meditaciones del Quijote: Meditación Preliminar y Meditación Primera, (Madrid: PUBLICACIONES DE LA RESIDENCIA DE ESTUDIANTES, SERIE II.—VOL. I, Universidad Central de Madrid, 1914)

Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de. The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha [1605–1615] (Cambridge: Harvard Publishing Company, 1893. Translated by John Ormsby. 4 vols. in 8 books. Limited Edition No. 71/320. 1st edition.

Platón. Teeteto. Introducción, traducción y notas de Marcelo Boeri. Buenos Aires: Editorial Losada, 2006.

Ortega y Gasset, José, La rebelión de las masas (Madrid: Editorial Revista de Occidente, 1928). Fue publicado inicialmente en 1927 como una serie de artículos en el diario El Sol, antes de ser recopilado en formato de libro en 1928 por Editorial Revista de Occidente en Madrid.

Ortega y Gasset’s biography: https://iep.utm.edu/jose-ortega-y-gasset/

Sarmiento, Edward , “Blackfriars” (Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., August 1950), v. 31, No. 365, 356-63.

A Bibliography of Works in English By and About José Ortega y Gasset.

Fundación José Ortega y Gasset, Spain.

Fundación José Ortega y Gasset, Argentina.

Holmes, Oliver, “José Ortega y Gasset”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2011 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.).

Newspaper clippings about José Ortega y Gasset in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW

Tags:Alertness, Allegory, Anger, antropology, Awareness, biography, Boundlessness, Confidence, Connectivity, Consciousness, Deliverance, Disbelief, Distrust, education, Emotional Intelligence, Faith, Fanatism, Fate, Fear, Government, Hate, Heroism, History, Human Agency, Human Entanglement, Humility, Ignorance, Institutions, José Ortega y Gasset, Love, Maturity, Misinformation, Not-Knowing, Oneself, Originality, Perception, Plato, Politics, Reality, Reasoning, Religiosity, Shame, Short Story, Storytelling, Suffering, The energy of Life, Transformation, Truth, Uncertainty, Universality, Vulnerability
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Posts Tagged ‘History’

Continuity as the Enabling Condition of Change”

Further Reading:

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I. The Speech

II. The Experiment

III. The Cracks

IV. The Collapse

V. The Next Generation

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Prologue

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Epilogue

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Author’s Note

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List of Characters:

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Act I

A Nation at the Precipice

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Act II

The Shattering

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Act III

The Gathering Storm

The Call to Defend

The Forces of Disruption

The Balance Seekers

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Chapter IV

The Masses

The Guardians of Common Sense

The Tipping Scales

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Chapter V

The Breaking Point

The Final Blow

The Reckoning

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Chapter VI

The Restoration

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Epilogue

The Quiet Turning

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The Power of Myth and Storytelling

Santería and Spiritism in Venezuela

The Religious Sect of María Lionza

Superstition and Modernization

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Prologue

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Introduction

THE FETTERS OF POWER

Postscript

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