I have always
said that the degree of freedom of a society is measured by literature, not by
religion, politics, or even philosophy, these three activities often negotiate
their own survival at the expense of human freedom, which they shamelessly
repress ―and gleefully― whenever they can. It has been said that Marx,
Nietzsche, and Freud are the hermeneuts of suspicion because they invite us to
"suspect" reality. The truth is that the work of these authors
harbors the most suspicious interpretations of reality that a human being can
encounter, if we stick, at least, to the enormously fictitious and poorly
literary dimension that triggers their entire work: utopia, barbarism, and
irrationalism. Marx leads us to utopia, Nietzsche to barbarism, and Freud to irrationalism.
Three forms of fiction that literature discarded ―as sterile― from its earliest
genealogy. Three forms of fiction that remained, respectively, in the hands of
politics, religion, and philosophy.
I insist that to defend fiction is to defend literature, and defending literature is defending freedom.
And
democracy...? You may ask. Democracy is the fiction of the 21st century...
