Is the development we need measured only by GDP? Is producing more and better goods and services all we need as a nation? Is the accumulation of material wealth the only sign that describes the desired development, both individual and collective? Is unleashing productive forces all that deserves attention?
It’s unlikely that the answer to these questions will be a resounding yes. With a greater or lesser level of depth in the analysis, I suppose that, instinctively, a no emerges as the answer.
Behind this instinct, let’s say deeply human and social, a wide path of conditions, reasons, meanings and attitudes opens up.
Development, beyond its reduction to the unbridled accumulation of goods described by capitalism, taken to its extreme in its current ultra-liberal stage, implies empowering human beings, not only to produce and consume, but also to produce themselves under human conditions (bread and beauty).
These definitively include the relationship, the bond, the connections, the communication, the interdependence between individuals and the communities in which they are grouped.
Our desired development will be futile, inconsistent and unsustainable if we do not attend, with equal rigor as the material conditions of existence, to the quality of our social relationships (public and private).
To analyze the country we want and the type of development that will procure it, we must investigate the contents of the social relations of production (material and spiritual) that are inherent to them.
Upon exploring this avenue of inquiry, a wide range of issues opens up, such as plurality, subjectivity, socialization, democracy, law, participation and dialogue. It is essential to place them, as a whole, within the variables that must determine the quality of development we desire as a country.
At the risk of narrowing this range too narrowly, I affirm that we will not have a better, more developed country if we do not treat each other better, which means, at the very least, listening to each other. This is the point I wish to address with this reflection.
In this relationship, in this connection, lies, in a decisive manner, a contribution that we can make daily, a not inconsiderable one, to the desired development.
To a large extent, this contribution is determined by a personal decision. This depends on our understanding of reality, on our chosen meanings in life, on the type of conduct we assume in relation to otherness, on the quality and scope of critical thinking, and on the ethical and moral (and also psychological) senses that drive our behavior.
The reactions generated by the recent interview with Cuban singer-songwriter Israel Rojas, in the program La Sobremesa, conducted by La Joven Cuba, are another warning about dialogue as a variable of the development we owe ourselves.
Dialogue is understood here in its basic sense, a conversation between two or more people who, in an alternative and respectful manner, express their ideas and/or feelings. It is understood, at the very least, in terms of listening and being heard.
It is impossible to aspire to unique understandings of reality. The diversity of perspectives is a resounding fact. Far from being a problem, it is an infinite wealth. The challenge lies in the ways of coexisting with this diversity, especially when access to public space is granted, with full rights, to express considerations on the most diverse issues.
However, it is important to observe the quality and scope of this access. What type of relationship does it contribute to? What societal proposal does this or that behavior entail? Does it contribute to the collective good, or is it reduced to the individualistic freedom (without responsibility) to say whatever and however one pleases? Is it approached with the awareness that no opinion is strictly personal? Is it recognized, paraphrasing the poet, that beneath every action lies life, history and what has been accumulated?
Within this scenario, replete with nuances, you decide which side you stand on. You decide the quality of your contribution, at least in the ways you choose to express and defend your ideas.
I’ll say the same thing in another way: ultimately, the ways in which you share your understandings in public (and private) spaces are not the responsibility of the blockade or the ineffective bureaucracy. The quality of your individual incursion is your choice, it’s your responsibility.
As a brief parenthesis, and considering that this is a precondition that limits or enhances the exchange of ideas in Cuba, it’s worth remembering the plural nature, in terms of actors and perspectives, that describes Cuban reality. If we don’t start by assuming this fact, little progress is made. I close this parenthesis.
It’s true that the ways in which we relate, the forms and scope of our interpersonal communication, are conditioned by learning; they are part of a larger logic concerning power relations; but they are not predetermined. Unlearning to learn other ways is also an eligible path.
A good attempt, when it sometimes seems there’s nothing to do, that there’s no way out of the bombardment of deafness, would be to listen to each other, at least that much.
Listening implies a willingness to observe the multitude of variables that lie beneath, or within, each other’s opinion. How can we achieve a better country without listening to what that idea/desire means to each person? How can we achieve that country with all and for the good of all without, at least, taking into account all opinions?
In a global and national scenario where human coexistence suffers from precariousness, listening to each other is an active political stance for the common good. Listening to each other is insufficient, certainly, but necessary; it is a vital starting point for thinking about ourselves in terms of development.
If the focus of listening is placed on ideas and not on the person, if argument replaces disqualification and moral lynching, if bad feelings weaken in the face of the willingness to understand, if expressing opinions is not reduced to judging, if simplicity gives way to nuances, if good values are not exclusive to a single place, if the truth is not mine or yours, but ours, if ideological purities disappear, if there is no contribution to indecency and violence, good omens will appear for the development to which we should aspire.
