Federico Reyes Heroles
Wisdom comes from listening, and regret comes from speaking.
Seneca
A mockery of the Spanish bourgeoisie of the late 19th century; a surplus grape harvest associated with good luck. The origin is unclear. But the tradition has spread: the 12 resolutions of the year. Millions practice it, and it can be a good time for personal introspection and for socializing a problem. Personal desires can become civic resolutions. I propose one that, I believe, would benefit us as individuals and as a society.
André Maurois, that great French novelist and thinker, member of the Academy, wrote a beautiful book in 1939 that has fallen into oblivion. The title seems pretentious and, at the same time, tinged with naivety: An Art of Living. His original name was Émile Salomon Wilhelm Herzog. World War II was beginning. He saw the horror coming. He returned to Pascal: “thinking well” as a responsibility to save civilizations. Doing so means recognizing prejudices, mistakes, and the scope of science, but not looking for recipes—the essence: knowing how to listen.
José Elías Romero Apis reminded us of this. For very different reasons, new technologies play a predominant role—see The Battle for Attention by Mario Campos—the result is that interruptions are now the predominant mechanism of what should be a conversation—the result: “chicken coop tables” (see Registro, Alfaguara, 2020). Everyone talks; no one listens. There is no conversation. It happens on a personal and social level. I commented to Pepe that we have reached the extreme of self-interruption, the baroque expression of not finishing anything, not even our own thoughts. Thinking takes time; it requires first listening, pondering, and informing oneself. If we have nothing to contribute, silence is better. But only with “good thinking” can we arrive at the best possible formulation.
Very often, radio or television debates are incomprehensible. Many of the hosts who try to maintain a line of argument (Pascal Beltrán del Río, López Dóriga, Loret, the great Adriana Pérez Cañedo, Leonardo Curzio, Pepe Cárdenas, Gabriela Warkentin, Paco Zea, Azucena Uresti, Ciro Gómez Leyva, and many others), who convene debates between the ruling party and the opposition, are forced to endure the shipwrecks of disqualification and the repetition of lies. The endless interruptions cancel out any progress in reasoning. Legislative debates are now also “chicken coops.” Right there, where the future of our country is decided, the multiple marches of all kinds—agricultural producers, transporters, searching mothers, health system workers, judicial workers, teachers, and countless others—are proof that no one is listening.
The ruling party’s response is already tiresome: the dark interests of enemies, traitors, sellouts, and so on. Before listening, the ruling party’s dictionary of insults is already at the ready. It forgets that the best decisions are made among many. Plurality in Congress is not only a matter of electoral justice, but also of argumentative quality. More minds with different perspectives think better. Decisions central to Mexico have been made with an offensive haste for legislators. A mockery: they did not have time to read the bills. In an intentionally exacerbated environment, the essential element of reasoning, knowing how to listen, languishes.
Exposing the President every morning, for several hours, to a wide range of questions, to which she often has no answer and should have, is not listening. In fact, it provokes mistrust; the numbers don’t add up. The middle classes—which they distrusted so much—are growing, but shortages are skyrocketing (?).
Miguel Limón knows how to listen. Let one of the grapes be an individual and collective goal: let’s rescue the art of listening.
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