Que nos hablen como adultos

Perhaps the revolutionary, or what is now referred to as punk, is escaping from the excesses of cheap caricature, ridicule, and scorn, and presenting oneself as a well-mannered individual, with the sober and cordial education that Saul Bellow described in Spanish travelers during the 1950s. Perhaps what is extraordinary today is to speak with truth, to speak for all, to write for all, to express oneself with the aim of being understood.

Perhaps the most pressing question politicians should ask themselves in today's most urgent situation is to come out of hiding without the pretense of representing a character, striving for intelligence to shine rather than wit. I think about language. Perhaps the most pressing matter for the left is how to convey its program, but what I hear is a language filled with clichés that feeds on cocktail parties, academic jargon, or advertising.

Maybe the reason is that in Spain we all drink from the same source, to the point that those politicians who participate in cocktail parties (I find this incompatible) end up talking like the cocktail party attendees themselves, and the cocktail party attendees, like Sunday clergy. One can have the radio on in the background and hear expressions that show an alarming uniformity in public language, speeches that denote a great mental laziness.