El amor y Don Giovanni

Oigo en estos momentos a la opera Don Giovanni de Mozart: es un simple “morality play” pero al mismo tiempo un compendio de las formas posibles que toma el amor entre un hombre y una mujer. 

Los únicos espontáneos son los dos campesinos Masseto y Zerlina, y la escena donde ella le ofrece a Masseto un “bálsamo” para sus heridas es puro eroticismo (“¿Quieres saber dónde lo tengo…?”) Otro momento similar es el canto que hace Giovanni a la mujer escondida en el piso de arriba: se trata sólo una seducción más para él pero creo que cualquier mujer abriría las celosías para lanzarle besos tras semejante invitación. 

Las otras parejas forman un manual de lo neurótico: a) Doña Elvira que le perdone todo a Giovanni y siempre regresa, b) Doña Ana que huye del amor que le ofrece Don Ottavio (¿será que Giovanni la violó?), c) Don Ottavio que le espera con paciente pasividad (“De su paz depende la mía, lo que a ella complace me devuelve la vida, lo que a ella disgusta muerte me da…”) y así sucesivamente.

Bueno ya es pasada medianoche y Giovanni se ha ido al infierno con El Comendador. Hora de dormir.

The desintegration of the U. S. Republican Party

What has happened to the U.S. Republican Party that produced people like Abraham Lincoln and Dwight D. Eisenhower? I recognize that educated, well-meaning people are still members of this political organization, but there has been a terrible and clear disintegration in the quality of its candidates. 

Here is a possible explanation: the leaders have developed a double and contradictory loyalty: on one hand they have a natural affinity to big banks and industry because many of their ranks come from these social groups; on the other they realized that they could get support from a large sector of excluded, fundamentalist, and -to a large degree- poorly educated people that dislike liberal values such as racial and ethnic integration. This economically sidelined segment also identifies with wealth: they feel they are one noble step above the “really poor” who deserve to suffer because they are unworthy and lazy. 

These alienated people have another compatibility with big business: they tend to support a foreign policy based on armed intervention and their own “right” to own and use armament; given that the munitions industry is one of the largest in the world, these principles are well-matched with corporate values.

So what happened to the Republicans? They began to incorporate their disenfranchised base to the point of thinking like them. Many of their members distrust formal education (except as a means of climbing the social ladder), and isolate themselves from new and possibly threatening information. 

For these reasons, maybe, they cannot field a decent candidate.