Patricia Simón: "If we are afraid, it is easier to govern ourselves, submit ourselves and exploit ourselves"

Patricia Simon. Estepona, 1983. Journalist, writer and teacher specializing in International Relations. In Miedo (Debate) she analyzes the fears that in recent years have ...

Archive Read more interviews on the back cover of EL MUNDO

Patricia Simon.

Estepona, 1983. Journalist, writer and teacher specializing in International Relations.

Fear

(Debate) she analyzes the fears that have shaped our lives in recent years.

He assures that fear is what defines the 21st century.

why?

Because it is the emotion that is fueling the extreme right and populism to kidnap democracies and because it is the most effective instrument to confront the working class with each other.

He says that just before the pandemic the world was experiencing the biggest wave of protests since the 1960s. Any examples?

The protests in Iraq against the regime imposed in the illegal invasion of 2003, the very important mobilizations in Hong Kong struggling to change the geopolitics of the region, in Chile there were many people in the streets fighting against the neoliberal regime that was imposed with Pinochetism, the "yellow vests" in France led that country to its biggest institutional crisis since the 1960s... And like those, many others on the five continents.

And the interesting thing is that all these mobilizations, each one with its specific casuistry, had something in common.

What did they have in common?

Well, in most of them we find large masses of young people asking the system to give them a job opportunity to emancipate themselves.

This is a twist to the crisis facing neoliberalism.

We have a large population desperate and hopeless with democratic systems that the only thing they ask for is a job, even if it is in precarious conditions, with which they can try to build a full life.

Fear, is it easy to shake, to provoke?

Fear is very easy to feed, especially in countries like Spain, where we have been subjected to the shock doctrine, at least since the 2008 crisis. In that crisis, austerity measures were imposed that the population suffered and complied with, although there were many mobilizations against.

And yet

people have not seen their life prospects improve since then.

We find ourselves with an aged society, exhausted, hopeless and very afraid of the future, because the future does not promise them anything good.

When 14 years have passed - as we have in Spain, Greece or Italy - in which everything always gets worse, the future is a very inhospitable place.

And also fear is a very effective mechanism because it is a feeling that weakens us a lot, that makes us suspicious, distrustful and very paranoid.

When they plant the seed of fear in you, it is very easy to feed it, that is why they use it so much.

What are the great fears of our time?

In the book I address four fears, which are the ones that have articulated the history of humanity, but since the crash of 2008 they are the ones that define our time.

The first is fear of others.

This fear has a lot to do with the fact that migrants have become one of the great topics of political controversy and that they are singled out - not only from the most conservative ideological positions, but also often from progressive ones, from social democracy - as those responsible for the worsening of working conditions.

Zygmunt Bauman already spoke of the manipulation of uncertainty.

At a time when the political class is incapable of responding to major problems - we have a very weak labor market and one that is going to provide fewer and fewer opportunities due to robotization - we have a climate crisis that is presented to us as a unapproachable apocalypse, we have a very important political disaffection,

we have very weakened democracies that do not provide a solution to the needs of the population nor are they capable of generating a horizon of improvement- the easy thing is to fear the one next to you.

Not the one at the top, in the boards of directors or in supranational organizations, but the one next door, and point him out as the person responsible for this despair.

The second fear that your book deals with is the fear of poverty.

Where does it come from?

The fear of poverty is the one used by large companies to say that if you do not accept certain working conditions, nothing happens, because behind you there are hundreds of people willing to accept them.

This fear of poverty has the population exhausted, because everyone feels that they can lose the little they have gained.

This has fueled the fragmentation of our society, with the added problem of social tension and polarization that we have and that seems extremely dangerous to me.

The fear of loneliness is also pointed out as one of the great current fears... The fear of loneliness also has a lot to do with this economic system, which does not allow us to establish or maintain strong personal relationships and which cultivates distrust.

Lack of time is a terrible problem.

We have the perpetual feeling that we don't have time, we wake up feeling that we are already late.

It is very difficult to maintain relationships under these conditions of anxiety.

In addition, we feel very alone and small in the face of very big problems.

And impotence, I think, is the prelude to two things: joining a rebellion or embracing totalitarian options.

Loneliness, helplessness and frustration are, to a large extent, behind the fact that suicidal ideas and suicide attempts in those under 30 years of age, and especially in adolescents, have grown by 30% since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020 We have a very sad young population that feels very alone and feels that life has nothing for them.

And finally, the fear of death... It is one of the great fears,

It is addressed in all world literature.

But I think the pandemic showed us how silenced we had this fear.

In that eternal youth in which we lived, in that omnipotence in which we were installed, death was invisible.

And, suddenly, the pandemic made us fear not only that of our loved ones and ourselves, but the fear that we could be the transmitters of that virus and, in some way, those responsible for the death of the people we loved. .

That made us look death in the face and realize how that fear of death was also being used by those who want to kidnap our lives.

Has the pandemic fueled our fears?

Many of the people with whom I speak, very diverse people, agree that what is left in a very palpable way from the first year of the pandemic,

what was so scary, is the fear.

They are more fearful and insecure people, because of that uncertainty that the pandemic brought us and because we already came from a great feeling of helplessness and fear.

I wrote this book because I realized that we were besieged by many fears, that they were entangled and surrounding us, but we did not know very well what each one corresponded to and who profited or profited from them.

I thought that if I identified and organized them, if I put their label on them and put them on a shelf, it would be easier to understand what they do with us and learn how to fight them.