The growing awareness of human dignity is the repugnance in the face of unworthy acts, the philosopher Javier Gomá often explains. So this expanded dignity is the reason why we feel outraged so often in our own and other people’s flesh. As long as we know how to control our scandal so that it does not lead us to cynicism, which is the surrender of intelligence and will, the rejection of all bad things that happen is good news, because it speaks of the great importance of for us today our dignity and that of all.
Hence the disputes that these days have surrounded the Eurovision festival and the popular opposition and criticism to which the organizers have been subjected, while certain lobbies exerted pressure in the opposite direction. But in 2024, as we said months ago, no cause can stand the images of dead children. The expanded dignity of modernity is not only embodied in the boycott of many spectators at the festival due to the total absence of commitment to the Palestinian genocide, and on the other hand, in this kind of Spanish reactionary neo-Zionism – who has seen you and who he sees you – who paid calerons to vote many times for Israel.
Also, on another scale, it is expressed in the courtesy with which the RTVE announcers adjusted to the inclusive language when talking about the performers from Switzerland – Nemo – and Ireland – Bambie Thug – since both had declared non-binary gender, representing two of the countries that took their participation most seriously and whose musical, thematic and formal boldness was rewarded by the judges and the public. If Nemo presented a formidable queer statement in the form of an anthem, Bambie Thug indulged in a symphonic black mass, pentacle included, of a demented gothicism in which Neil Gaiman and David Cronenberg crossed paths.
The extravaganza is a luminous conquest of freedom – we continue to steal from Gomá’s notebook, not only because of the libertarian construction of identity (which is often more prison than horizon), but, much more importantly, because caprice, due to the absence of a productive function. When we furrow our brows and point out to the extravagant “what a need there was”, we are verbalizing how important it is to have no use. This absence of function is civilization, since progress consists in letting go of what is urgent – not dying and not being hungry or cold – to focus on what is important: morality, beauty, extravagance and the pleasant.
The archdeacon of mystery, Íker Jiménez, joked about Nemo’s non-binary condition and the use of inclusive language on RTVE. Low-intensity bullying courtesy of who may have been the odd one out in the class. And this is only the first paradox. The second is that it is very easy to believe in ghosts and Martians and to disbelieve what is in front of us. Because they exist. And they win
