Sunday, March 29, 2026
Un modo de las consecuencias del fracaso de la educación en México
Monday, March 23, 2026
El laberinto de la beatitud intelectual
Supongamos que existe un instante en que la mente humana, privada de pasión y de miedo, se contempla a sí misma como quien contempla un mapa antiguo: cada línea, cada trazo, es simultáneamente verdad y misterio. Ese instante es la beatitud intelectual que Baruch Spinoza describe en la Ética, un estado que trasciende la efímera satisfacción de los sentidos y se instala en la geometría silenciosa del entendimiento. La beatitud, según Spinoza, no es un premio otorgado por los dioses ni un sentimiento pasajero: es el fruto de la confluencia de la razón y del amor hacia lo eterno.
Spinoza distingue tres géneros de conocimiento. El primero, la imaginación, nos ata a la apariencia; nos hace esclavos de la confusión y del error, y sin embargo, paradójicamente, nos permite sobrevivir. El segundo, la razón, nos libera parcialmente: establece relaciones necesarias, descubre conexiones entre las cosas, pero aún así se detiene ante la superficie del ser. Solo el tercero género, el conocimiento intuitivo, conduce al hombre a la plena comprensión de sí mismo y de la divinidad —o, como él la llama, la sustancia única—. Este conocimiento no necesita demostraciones ni cadenas lógicas: es un reconocimiento inmediato, un relámpago que ilumina el orden del universo y nos permite fundir nuestra conciencia con él.
Desde un punto de vista borgiano, el conocimiento intuitivo es el espejo en el que el tiempo se fragmenta y se reúne a la vez. Saber algo por intuición es acceder a un archivo secreto donde cada hecho, cada emoción, cada sombra de pensamiento, se guarda con exactitud infinita. El mundo, en su caótica multiplicidad, se revela como un libro ya escrito y leído simultáneamente. La beatitud intelectual, entonces, es la lectura que no puede terminarse, pues leer implica comprender, y comprender es participar de lo eterno.
Spinoza nos enseña que la felicidad no se encuentra en los eventos que nos afectan, sino en la relación necesaria que descubrimos entre nosotros y la sustancia del universo. Así, el hombre que alcanza la beatitud intelectual ya no es un ser temporal: es un punto en la geometría infinita, un vértice de eternidad que, por un instante, contempla el todo y sonríe con la certeza de quien ha descifrado un laberinto que nadie más verá jamás.
Quizá sea esta la ironía más sutil: cuanto más nos aproximamos a la claridad absoluta, menos necesitamos palabras, más sentimos que el universo entero es un espejo que refleja nuestro entendimiento, y que la divinidad y la razón, lejos de separarse, son simplemente nombres distintos de la misma luz y de la misma visibilidad.
Tuesday, March 17, 2026
Pluralism, Power, and Tragic Choice: Reflections on the War Between the United States, Israel, and Iran
In discussions of modern war, one encounters a persistent temptation: the belief that behind violent conflict lies a single error, illusion, or moral failing that, once identified, would dissolve the tragedy into clarity. Wars, in this view, are ultimately the result of ignorance, fanaticism, or miscalculation; the proper application of reason, it is assumed, would reveal the correct path and eliminate the conflict. Yet history, when examined without the comforting simplifications of ideology, suggests something more troubling. Some conflicts arise not from the absence of rationality but from the pursuit of ends that human beings have reason to value—and which nevertheless cannot be reconciled.
The war between the United States and Israel on one side and Iran on the other appears to illustrate precisely such a condition. It is commonly described in the language of strategy, deterrence, and national interest, but these terms conceal a deeper moral structure. Beneath the visible struggle of armies lies a collision of values—security, sovereignty, dignity, independence—each regarded by those who pursue it as indispensable. The difficulty is that these values cannot always coexist.
It is tempting to believe that political questions, like mathematical ones, possess a single correct solution. If one merely identifies the proper principle—justice, liberty, order, equality—then all conflicts could be resolved through its consistent application. Such beliefs have exercised a powerful attraction throughout modern history. They promise coherence, certainty, and the elimination of tragedy. Yet they depend upon an assumption that is rarely justified: that all genuine human values form part of a harmonious whole.
Experience suggests otherwise.
Human values are many. They emerge from different historical experiences, moral intuitions, and forms of life. While they may coexist peacefully under certain conditions, they often conflict in ways that cannot be fully reconciled. The desire for liberty may clash with the need for security; the aspiration to equality may conflict with the preservation of excellence; the independence of one nation may threaten the survival of another. These conflicts are not necessarily the result of confusion or wickedness. They arise because the goods themselves are genuine.
The present war reflects such a collision.
Israel’s political consciousness has been shaped by an acute awareness of vulnerability. Its history—marked by persecution, exile, and catastrophic violence—has created a national psychology in which security occupies a central place. For a society formed in the aftermath of annihilation, the possibility that an adversary might acquire the means of destruction is not experienced as an abstract geopolitical concern but as an existential danger. From this perspective, preventive action against perceived threats appears not merely justified but morally required. To fail to act would be to gamble with the survival of the state.
The United States approaches the conflict from a different but related standpoint. Since the middle of the twentieth century, American foreign policy has been guided by a belief—sometimes explicit, sometimes implicit—that global stability depends upon the maintenance of certain strategic arrangements. Alliances, deterrence systems, and the protection of international economic routes form part of what American policymakers often describe as a liberal international order. Within this framework, threats to regional stability are interpreted as dangers that must be contained or neutralized, lest disorder spread and undermine the broader structure.
Iran, however, interprets these same arrangements through another lens. Its political identity since the revolution of 1979 has been shaped by resistance to external influence and by a powerful narrative of national independence. The memory of foreign intervention—economic, political, and military—has contributed to a perception that the presence of American power in the region represents not stability but domination. Israeli hostility, meanwhile, reinforces the sense that Iran faces encirclement by adversaries determined to limit its autonomy. From this standpoint, defiance becomes a matter not merely of strategy but of dignity.
Thus three historical experiences—vulnerability, responsibility, and resistance—intersect in a manner that makes reconciliation extraordinarily difficult.
None of these experiences is entirely imaginary. Each contains elements of truth grounded in historical memory. Yet when translated into policy, they generate demands that cannot easily coexist. Measures undertaken by one state to guarantee its security may appear to another as aggression. Efforts to maintain international order may appear to others as the imposition of external authority. Acts of resistance intended to defend sovereignty may produce instability that threatens neighboring societies.
It is precisely in such circumstances that political judgment becomes most difficult. If one assumes that only a single value is legitimate—if security alone, or sovereignty alone, or stability alone is regarded as absolute—then the problem appears simple. All obstacles must be removed in the name of that value. But this solution comes at a considerable cost. To elevate one value above all others is to risk ignoring the legitimate claims that other values make upon us.
Indeed, the history of political thought contains numerous examples of doctrines that promise harmony through the supremacy of a single principle. Some have asserted that freedom is the highest good and that all political arrangements must be subordinated to its expansion. Others have argued that equality must override competing considerations. Still others have insisted that order or national destiny must take precedence over individual rights. In each case, the aspiration is similar: to discover a unifying principle that resolves the apparent contradictions of human life.
Yet such monistic doctrines frequently produce the opposite of what they promise. When one value is treated as absolute, the suppression of other goods becomes not merely permissible but necessary. If security alone matters, then liberty may be sacrificed indefinitely. If sovereignty alone is sacred, then the suffering of neighboring societies may be disregarded. The attempt to eliminate moral conflict by asserting a single ultimate principle often leads to the erosion of the very human goods that political life exists to protect.
The war between the United States, Israel, and Iran illustrates this dilemma with particular clarity. Each participant appeals to values that are difficult to dismiss. Israel invokes survival and security; Iran invokes sovereignty and independence; the United States invokes stability and the defense of its alliances. None of these claims is entirely illegitimate. Yet their simultaneous pursuit creates a situation in which the realization of one value threatens the realization of another.
This is the essence of tragic choice.
Tragedy, in the political sense, does not consist merely in suffering or destruction. It arises when individuals or communities are forced to choose between alternatives that are both morally significant yet mutually incompatible. The loss involved is therefore unavoidable. Whatever decision is made, some genuine good will be sacrificed.
In the context of this war, such tragic choices manifest themselves repeatedly. A state may decide that its security requires military action, even though such action will inevitably cause suffering and instability. Another may conclude that defending its sovereignty demands resistance, despite the risks of escalation and devastation. External powers may intervene in the name of order, yet their intervention may intensify the very conflict they seek to control.
The recognition of these dilemmas does not imply moral relativism. To acknowledge that multiple values exist is not to claim that all actions are equally justified. Certain policies may indeed be reckless, cruel, or destructive beyond necessity. But understanding the plural nature of human values encourages a form of political humility—a recognition that the world cannot be arranged according to a single, perfectly coherent blueprint.
Humility of this kind is often absent from moments of ideological fervor. War tends to sharpen moral distinctions and encourage the belief that one side embodies virtue while the other represents evil. Such beliefs possess obvious psychological advantages: they simplify complex situations and provide a sense of moral clarity. Yet they also obscure the fact that adversaries frequently pursue goals that, in other contexts, might appear entirely reasonable.
This does not eliminate responsibility. Political leaders remain accountable for the choices they make, and some choices are unquestionably worse than others. But a sober understanding of pluralism encourages caution in the use of power. When one recognizes that the pursuit of legitimate ends may produce irreparable harm, the appeal of uncompromising solutions begins to fade.
In international politics, this caution often takes the form of restraint—an awareness that the attempt to impose definitive solutions through force may create new conflicts rather than resolve existing ones. The desire for finality, for the decisive elimination of threats or adversaries, is understandable. Yet history suggests that such ambitions frequently exceed human capacities. Political problems, particularly those rooted in historical memory and identity, rarely admit permanent resolution.
The Middle East provides numerous examples of this pattern. Conflicts persist not merely because of territorial disputes or strategic rivalries but because they involve deeply embedded narratives of identity, honor, and historical injustice. These narratives cannot be erased through military victory alone. Even when one side achieves temporary dominance, the underlying tensions remain.
What, then, follows from this recognition?
It would be naïve to imagine that philosophical reflection can prevent wars or dissolve entrenched hostilities. States will continue to pursue their interests and defend their security. Nevertheless, the acknowledgment of value pluralism may exert a moderating influence upon political conduct. It encourages the recognition that even adversaries may act in the name of goods that possess genuine moral weight.
Such recognition does not require agreement with those adversaries. One may judge their actions misguided, dangerous, or unjust. But understanding the values that motivate them provides a clearer picture of the conflict and may help prevent the moral absolutism that so often intensifies violence.
Ultimately, the tragedy of the war between the United States, Israel, and Iran lies not only in the destruction it produces but in the structure of the conflict itself. It reveals a world in which legitimate aspirations collide and where no arrangement can fully satisfy all claims at once. The hope for a perfectly harmonious order—a world in which all values align without tension—remains an enduring human dream. Yet the evidence of history suggests that such harmony is unlikely to be achieved.
The political world is instead characterized by plurality: a diversity of ends, experiences, and moral commitments that resist reduction to a single formula. Recognizing this fact does not solve our dilemmas. But it may encourage a more cautious and humane approach to them—one that accepts the persistence of conflict while striving, insofar as possible, to limit its destructive consequences.
For if there is a lesson to be drawn from the tragedies of modern history, it is that the pursuit of absolute solutions in a plural world often leads not to peace but to catastrophe. And the acknowledgment of this uncomfortable truth may be the beginning of political wisdom.
Sunday, March 15, 2026
The Veil and the Shadow: An Essay on Oppression in Iran
In certain corners of the world, history seems to have frozen in an iron moment. It is not that time ceases—calendars continue to fall like leaves—but human life becomes trapped within a ritual circle where authority pretends to be eternity. In the Islamic Republic of Iran, power has claimed to be destiny: a theocracy that proclaims itself the interpreter of the divine, deciding, in God’s name, over the body, the voice, and the silence of its people.
The first territory conquered by that authority is the body of the woman.
The mandatory veil is not merely a piece of cloth; it is a political sign. A fragment of fabric that, by covering the head, attempts to cover freedom itself. The laws enforcing it do not simply recommend a religious norm: they impose punishments ranging from fines and imprisonment to flogging—or even death—for those who defy the rules of the hijab. The fabric becomes law; the law becomes punishment; the punishment becomes a pedagogy of fear.
But Iran’s story is not only the story of fear.
It is also the story of those who break it.
In scenes that seem drawn from modern myth, thousands of Iranian women have taken to removing the veil in public. Some burn it; others wave it like a black flag announcing the end of obedience. The death of young Mahsa Amini in 2022, after being detained by the so-called morality police, sparked a revolt that was not just political but existential: the cry “Woman, Life, Freedom” became a universal slogan.
This cry reveals a profound paradox.
The Iranian regime was born proclaiming a spiritual revolution against the decadence of the modern world. Yet, like so many revolutions that absolutize themselves, it ended up turning faith into a tool of surveillance. Drones, cameras, and facial recognition have been used to monitor compliance with the veil in public spaces, as if morality could be reduced to an algorithm.
Religion, when it becomes an instrument of power, ceases to be a path to the sacred and becomes a technology of obedience.
The victims of that obedience are many: women who walk unveiled, students who protest, journalists who write, sexual minorities who simply exist. Prison becomes, in turn, an educational institution—a place where the state attempts to teach virtue through confinement. Activists like Yasaman Aryani or Saba Kord Afshari have been sentenced to long prison terms for gestures as simple as appearing in public without covering their hair.
Yet, it is precisely in that gesture that rebellion resides.
Removing the veil is not just an act of fashion or youthful defiance; it is a philosophical act. It asserts that the individual precedes the law when the law denies human dignity. It reminds us that the body belongs neither to the state, nor to tradition, nor to clerics, but to conscience.
Tyranny fears precisely that: conscience.
That is why repression extends beyond women. Dissidents—intellectuals, artists, sexual or political minorities—live under a regime where disagreement is interpreted as heresy. Politics merges with orthodoxy; criticism becomes sacrilege. When power speaks in God’s name, any opposition seems blasphemous.
Yet history shows that even the most rigid theocracies contain an invisible fissure.
That fissure is the human desire for freedom.
The Iranian woman who cuts her hair in the street, the student who writes a forbidden poem, the young person who refuses to repeat the regime’s slogans—they all participate in a silent revolution. Not an armed revolution—though the state suppresses it as if it were—but a moral one.
True revolutions begin in the imagination.
And in Iran, the imagination has already begun to disobey.
The state can control squares, universities, and prisons. It can impose laws, shut down newspapers, and monitor streets with cameras. But there is one thing no theocracy can govern: the intimate moment when a human being decides to stop being afraid.
It is in that moment—invisible to the state, imperceptible to the police—that all tyrannies begin to fall.
Saturday, March 14, 2026
¿Ataques iraníes a países musulmanes?
Wednesday, March 11, 2026
La sombra y el desierto más allá del petróleo
Muerte Arrastrándose, Zdzisław Beksiński, óleo sobre madera contrachapada, 1973
Toda guerra comienza mucho antes del primer disparo. Empieza en el lenguaje. En las palabras que simplifican al otro hasta convertirlo en una idea fija: enemigo, hereje, invasor, liberador. Así, el mundo —que es plural y contradictorio— se reduce a una geometría brutal de bandos.
En el siglo XXI, la tensión entre las democracias occidentales y ciertas teocracias autoritarias del mundo islámico no es únicamente un conflicto de ejércitos o territorios. Es, sobre todo, un choque de imaginarios. De un lado, la convicción —a veces sincera, a veces interesada— de que la libertad individual es el fundamento del orden político. Del otro, la certeza religiosa de que la ley divina debe regir la vida pública. Dos absolutismos que se miran con desconfianza.
La paradoja es antigua: las civilizaciones que proclaman la libertad suelen defenderla con armas, y las que invocan a Dios lo hacen con el poder de los hombres a través del fundamentalismo. Entre ambas aparece el desierto, no sólo como paisaje físico del Medio Oriente, sino como metáfora. El desierto es el lugar donde la fe se vuelve absoluta y donde la historia parece repetirse como una tormenta de arena.
Estados Unidos representa la modernidad tecnológica, la velocidad, el poder de las instituciones y del mercado. Israel, por su parte, es un país donde la historia bíblica convive con la ciencia de punta, una nación que vive entre la memoria y la amenaza constante. Frente a ellos se levantan regímenes que justifican su autoridad en la interpretación sagrada de la ley religiosa, donde la política se funde con la teología.
Pero las guerras ideológicas tienen un defecto esencial: creen que los pueblos son doctrinas. No lo son. Ninguna nación es un concepto puro. En cada sociedad conviven creyentes y escépticos, rebeldes y obedientes, poetas y soldados. La guerra, sin embargo, borra esas diferencias y convierte a millones de personas en símbolos.
En el fondo, toda confrontación entre civilizaciones es también un diálogo fallido. Las culturas, como los individuos, se reconocen primero a través del conflicto. La pregunta trágica es si ese reconocimiento debe pasar necesariamente por la destrucción.
La historia moderna está llena de guerras que se anunciaron como cruzadas morales. Algunas prometían liberar pueblos; otras, defender la fe; otras más, preservar la seguridad del mundo. Con el tiempo descubrimos que ninguna guerra es tan pura como su propaganda ni tan simple como sus mapas.
Quizá el problema no sea la diferencia entre civilizaciones, sino nuestra incapacidad para aceptar que el mundo es plural. Las ideologías —sean religiosas o seculares— tienden a convertir su verdad en destino universal. Allí nace la brutalidad.
Al final, las guerras terminan, pero dejan tras de sí algo más difícil de erradicar: la memoria del agravio. Y la memoria, cuando se alimenta de humillación, se vuelve semilla de futuros conflictos.
Tal vez la verdadera batalla de nuestra época no sea entre Occidente y el Islam, ni entre religión y modernidad, sino entre dos maneras de imaginar el mundo: una que admite la diversidad humana y otra que busca imponer una sola verdad.
El porvenir dependerá de cuál de esas imaginaciones prevalezca. Porque las armas conquistan territorios, pero las ideas —para bien o para mal— conquistan el tiempo.



