Opinion articles

The elements that participate in the formation of public opinion are varied and different. In-depth academic studies on the economic, financial reality or on any aspect of society, do not necessarily affect people's criteria. It is more important for the forging of public opinion on a certain topic what people with prestige say and who come from cultural spheres that attract the majority of citizens, such as sports, entertainment, social communication and others that have great connection with people. For this reason, those who need to position criteria on any topic always consider having characters from those spaces to reach the population.

Cinema and television are traditional forms that transmit content to many people, with innumerable examples of the impact of these cultural forms on people's criteria regarding any circumstance. Science fiction films and other genres convey perspectives that reach millions, leaving that audience with certain ideas and concepts that condition approaches to these themes.

The reference to the idea of ​​Western values ​​is used recurrently in different spaces of contemporary culture. I heard it again in the voice of the presenter of the French international broadcast of TV5Monde, when he gave an account of the support of Patriarch Cyril I, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, for the war declared by Moscow on Ukraine. In his speech, the leader of this community that brings together more than two hundred and fifty million faithful urges the Russian people to wake up to fight evil, embodied from his vision, in individualism, liberalism and democracy, which according to the criteria of a professor from the University of Münster – invited to comment on this news – are values ​​that characterize the West.

The cultural approach to life is diverse on the planet. Not everyone sees and interprets the facts in the same way. In the case of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the atrocities committed in that country, this diversity of criteria is also manifest. In fact, the vast majority of the Russian population thinks that the war is legitimate and supports Putin in this way, because they consider that the invasion is necessary, in part, because it is a kind of moral struggle against what they judge to be unacceptable whims. from the West.

I tried to write about the current reality of the country from different perspectives. I thought to do it from the pain caused by the collapse of institutions and society. I desisted from capturing any idea about the chaos and decadence that devastate us. I wanted to deal with the personality types of the rulers and, from that idea, I found the direction that gave the title to this column and that marks its development.

When we reflect on what is needed in private or public life to be sustainable, the answers to this question are always related –in one way or another– to the virtues, those great cultural categories, already present in classical antiquity and later in the refined and brilliant Christian doctrine. The moral virtues are conceived by right reason as unavoidable forms of conduct for the protection of life and also for its support and projection. The considered cardinal virtues are four: temperance, fortitude, prudence and justice. If we think about what we require and the profile of those who are part of the national government in any of its functions, it must be defined, in practice, by these basic virtues.

The concept of competencies in the field of higher education was widely disseminated in the country's universities and in Latin America, from the year two thousand four to two thousand thirteen. It proposes that the training processes acquire meaning when the capacities that are going to be acquired by the students throughout their university careers are defined. The competencies that must be achieved in the educational process are determined, curricular plans are elaborated and pedagogies are established to achieve them. Professional skills have three elements that constitute them: what you have to know, or the knowledge necessary for each profession; what one has to know how to do, or the skills and abilities necessary to practice the knowledge acquired; and, what one has to know how to be, or the quality of person that a professional must be. All three components are important and closely related.

Each professional career establishes the skills that its students will acquire. Lawyers have some, engineers or doctors others, and thus, each profession has its own that are specific to it. There are also generic competencies for all professions, such as the capacity for abstraction, analysis and synthesis, social capacity and citizen commitment, or critical and self-critical capacity, among others. In this space, in that of general skills, the ability to manage personal financial resources well must be included, which is valid not only for professionals but for all citizens, not only adults, but also children and people of the elderly, who, by receiving and processing information about the importance of properly managing their financial resources, develop the ability to do so.

The statement that those who dedicate their lives to knowledge develop a high level of awareness regarding the immensity of what they do not know, "I only know that I know nothing", is a common place and represents the clarity that characterizes someone who knows something. This assertion has as its counterpart another generalized maxim, "ignorance is daring", which means that unassumed ignorance is the space-condition in which thoughtless certainties and resounding affirmations are cultivated that lead to attitudes of intemperance on the one hand and adherence to pseudo-truths on the other.

This reality is especially delicate in politics, because the decisions that are made there and involve everyone could be the product of the treachery that characterizes sheer ignorance. In the case of Ecuador, the balance is not tilted towards knowledge and yes towards the vulgar impudence of those who do not know and that is why they are grotesque and defiant. Ecuadorian politics starkly reflects us in our miseries and shortcomings. Arrogance, impudence, filth, lies, hypocrisy and stupidity are validated, because the power of humility, restraint, cleanliness, truthfulness, coherence and intelligence is unknown. It doesn't matter one or the other. The coarse challenges the one who is not, prevails by sweeping him away and is celebrated by crowds that jubilantly celebrate the triumph of ignorance and impudence.

The category "human condition" involves us all, the first inhabitants of the planet and the current ones, the people of the Far East, the Siberian steppe, central Africa, Europe, the Americas and every corner of the planet, since human beings we have common behaviors that are framed in genetically and culturally defined parameters. Extreme evil and luminous goodness are possible behaviors of each individual of the human species. Global civilization enhances charitable acts and restricts negative ones through its regulatory systems, with the intention of controlling evil as much as possible and promoting behaviors that defend life and its projection.

The rule of law is the most elaborate institutional form to fulfill these objectives. It is based on principles and values ​​recognized as essential for social life to be sustainable, among which are the protection of life, dignity of people, freedom in all its forms, equality, democracy and others that are the foundations of civilization. and also its immutable objectives, because despite being its foundations, they are never fully achieved because individualism and its derivations are always present and also play a decisive role. The rule of law is the system of coexistence that, recognizing the human condition in all its expressions, defines the behaviors and regulates the behaviors that destroy, and also their opposites.