Sunday Sheet 10-JANUARY-2021 An individualistic society like ours tends to be very aggressive, because it looks at its neighbor as a stranger and even as a competitor. Instead of opening up to the joy of having the other person as a brother, they view them with fear and suspicion, which causes aggressive behavior. This is what Pope Francis has denounced in the Encyclical “Fratelli tutti”: “Consumerist individualism causes a lot of abuse. Others become mere obstacles to one’s own pleasurable tranquility. Then they end up being treated as nuisances and aggressiveness grows” (n. 222). Pope Francis detects this aggressiveness in various environments. It is present, without a doubt, in the media and social networks, in which respect for others seems to have been lost. The networks favor “the boiling of unusual forms of aggressiveness, insults, mistreatment, disqualifications, verbal whippings until destroying the figure of the other, in a debauchery that could not exist in body-to-body contact without ending up destroying each other” (n.44). The entire digital world causes the loss of human contact and encourages contempt for others, especially the weakest. The worst thing – says the Pope – is that Christians also enter into this game of verbal violence through the Internet or digital exchange forums, forgetting the very essence of their faith. But there is something more, because all that violence and discontent can be used to manipulate the human being. Digital platforms favor closed groups that spread false news and encourage prejudice. Through them, people’s consciences and the democratic processes themselves can be manipulated in a subtle but invasive way (cf. no. 45). The second form of aggressiveness that the Pope detects is politics, as practiced in many countries. To dominate consciences, hopelessness is sown and distrust is aroused. Then “the political mechanism of exasperating, exacerbating and polarizing is used. In various ways, others are denied the right to exist and have an opinion, and to do so they resort to the strategy of ridiculing them, suspecting them, surrounding them. Their part of the truth, their values, is not collected, and in this way society is impoverished and reduced to the arrogance of the strongest” (n. 15). Unfortunately we have experience of this way of turning politics into a petty game of disqualifications whose objective is to destroy others. A third form of aggressiveness is seen by the Pope in what he calls “closed nationalisms”, that is, those that lose social meaning and promote new forms of selfishness, which are presented as if they were the good of the nation (cf. n. 11). These nationalisms cause closure within themselves and are incapable of welcoming others. “The immigrant is seen as a usurper who offers nothing” (n. 141). It is naively thought that a people can develop independently of the ruin of others and that by closing themselves off from the rest they will be more protected. Out of fear of the other, defensive walls are created (cf. no. 146). To confront so much aggressiveness, we must go beyond primary reactions and encourage calm reflection, which leads us to realize that the other is not an enemy, that we need each other and that we must take care of each other. † Francesc Conesa Ferrer Bishop of Menorca
29
Sep
