We should have learnt long ago to think with two minds: the mind of the inevitable and that of the unpredictable. It is from this dual perspective that we should consider the spring of 2027, when the countries of Mediterranean Europe – Italy, Spain, France and Greece – will go to the polls.
We cannot be sure of anything when we consider the future course of the storm currently raging – not even that we will still be here in the spring of ’27, nor that the minimum conditions of civilisation required to hold political elections will still exist at that time. Russian and Ukrainian nationalism, Zionist Nazism and the Trumpist warmongering mafia are clenching the continent’s fate in a fist, whilst from within a black wave is rising and racists are preparing to deliver the coup de grâce in Germany and the United Kingdom.
But let us suppose that in a year’s time we are still here: in that case, in the Mediterranean region we must expect the possible triumph of a sinister form of idiocy, unless some unforeseen political innovation emerges – something of which the existing left is, evidently, incapable.
Given how the game is unfolding, and given the contenders facing off in it, I would say that the bleakest of prospects seems inevitable: accelerated rearmament, war, recession, a proliferation of racist attacks, deportations, and the collapse of social conditions. But whilst this may seem inevitable, someone must address the unpredictable.
How is this done? The psychoanalyst Paul Watzlawick and the anthropologist Gregory Bateson speak of paradoxical therapy for those situations in which it seems impossible to cure a pathology resistant to all treatment: a therapeutic approach that consists of redefining the field and altering its boundaries, of disregarding the rules of the game and of blurring identities: paradoxical pragmatics.
Watzlawick referred to this as “restructuring the field”, and this restructuring involves changing the premises and the meaning we attribute to words, and delineating an unexpected framework for action that allows us to escape the trap posed by the established rules.
Restructuring does not alter the concrete facts, but rather the meanings attributed to the situation, and in this way establishes a “new game”.
Let us try to apply this methodology of paradox to the specific context of the upcoming general election, in which a racist and warmongering right wing is preparing to take over the entire continent and put an end once and for all to any hope of a tolerable life. For the sake of democracy and society as a whole, the existing left should have the courage to declare its own extinction in order to give rise to an unprecedented form of emergency electoral front that unequivocally denounces war, racism and slavery.
On Life and Death
The European left, particularly in Italy, has contributed to the ongoing catastrophe: it has encouraged the privatisation of social services, handed migrants over to Libyan concentration camps, condoned the illegal employment of migrant workers, and supported policies of war. Why on earth should we vote for people like Marco Minniti, a democratic executioner who implements the very same policies as Matteo Salvini?
The left has lost all credibility and cannot be reformed; but a radical question now arises that demands political forms different from those the left can conceive of.
In fact, the problem is not a temporary one, but a structural one: the left could win when the conditions for workers’ unity existed. Ultra-liberal globalisation has destroyed this possibility forever: the liberalisation of the labour market has introduced constant competition amongst workers, and immigration has led to a fragmentation of labour that eliminates any bargaining power.
Migration is an unstoppable phenomenon, ethically justified because the poor in the South are poor as a consequence of European colonisation, and economically necessary to offset the ageing and shrinking population of the North. Nevertheless, it must be recognised that the integration of migrant labour has led to a breakdown of the labour front that cannot be repaired in the name of abstract solidarity. Migrant labour has led to a fall in wages, and the ethnic, linguistic and cultural stratification of the workforce has caused fragmentation as well as internal mistrust within the world of work. No political effort can counteract this profound collapse.
Consequently, the Left can no longer win and, moreover, has no alternative project to capitalism.
The social question has by no means disappeared, but it is no longer an arena in which it is possible to mobilise energies of solidarity. However, another question arises: that of life or death. At this crossroads, the task is to draw new dividing lines, to devise programmes far more radical than those of the current left.
Happy mythologies versus sadistic mythologies
The right is winning on all fronts because it puts forward a mythology based on security, property, competition and the nation.
Myths are not debunked by critical reasoning, but only by alternative, different myths: soothing myths against aggressive ones, sensual myths against spiteful ones; paradoxical myths against the banality of evil.
What is needed is an implausible, unreal programme: an absolute limit of thirty-six hours’ work per week, with penalties for companies that fail to comply; equal pay rises for all; the elimination of military spending; economic sanctions against those who produce and distribute plastic; and the regularisation of five hundred thousand migrants.
Spain has done this, and the Spanish economy is the only one in Europe that can boast three per cent economic growth. However, according to the polls, in Spain too the right is highly likely to win the elections in the spring of 2027.
How can we explain this weakness on the left?
Because common sense is not enough in the face of madness. Therefore, it is on the terrain of madness that the battle must be fought.
When neoliberalism gave way (as was to be expected) to racist aggression and authoritarianism, the left attempted to resist the “black wave” by adopting a moderate, reasonable and polite tone, having supported devastating neoliberal policies for thirty years.
By rejecting extreme rhetoric (rejecting doomsday rhetoric as if it were a lack of style), the left has avoided putting itself on the same level as the right, and in this it has been completely mistaken, because the right’s alarmist rhetoric resonates with the deep-seated sentiment of the majority, and leads to decisions that exacerbate the situation and bring the apocalypse closer, with the result that the rhetoric can be toughened even further and increasingly devastating measures implemented. Alarmist prophecies are self-fulfilling and give rise to ever more destabilising policies.
The left, by contrast, tastes like hospital grub: its bland, rational message fails to resonate with the overexcited collective unconscious. The unconscious does not recognise moderate tones.
The left does not dare to tell the truth about climate collapse; it merely suggests measures that are then always postponed because there are more urgent matters. More urgent than anything else is war. And the left is very careful not to denounce the imminent danger of an apocalyptic outbreak of war in Europe, so as not to frighten the masses.
But the masses are frightened because the right-wing is responsible for ratcheting up the rhetoric, and because, in any case, anyone who is not stupid realises that the danger of a military, environmental and social catastrophe is growing by the day.
Pedro Sánchez is the only European leader who has so far managed to contain the spread of fascist-like aggression. He has done so through courageous decisions on the economy, immigration and, above all, against war and Zionism. Although isolated, he has managed to hold his ground because Spain is the most culturally open, wealthiest and also least depressed country in Europe.
But there is now a risk that, because of this isolation, even the Spanish left may lose power.
An apocalyptic culture of the left must emerge. It is the last hope, the last chance to escape the apocalypse.
It takes courage to present voters with a realistic picture of what lies in store for Europeans in the coming years, crushed as they are between Russian nationalist aggression and US imperialist aggression which, having used Ukraine for its own ends during Biden’s presidency, is now abandoning Ukraine and Europe, without defusing the fuse that could set off a nuclear powder keg on a continental scale.
We must have the courage to describe the social consequences being caused by the senseless war driven by Epstein’s Zionist-American coalition: growing poverty, the dismantling of entire sectors of European industry, and the economic collapse of Germany and Italy.
A unrealistic programme, just like reality
Above all, we need the courage to launch an unrealistic programme. Since contemporary reality is unrealistic, only unreality can capture the unconscious mind that oscillates between panic and depression.
Is it a reckless programme?
Of course it is.
But for ten years we have been witnessing the victory of reckless programmes, the triumph of deranged individuals who win over voters by brandishing a chainsaw and declaring they will use it against them. For ten years we have been witnessing the rise of warmongering forces that stoke fear and hatred.
Only those who have the courage to counter fear and hatred with a discourse of radical pacifism, only those who oppose the conspiracy of good to sadistic delirium, only those who promise to restore the living standards and wages that workers enjoyed fifty years ago and which the betrayal of the left has wiped out – only those who have the courage to raise their voices in the name of reason and life will have any chance of halting the race towards the abyss.
We reclaim the mythologies of the Mediterranean in the face of the sombre Nordic mythologies from which Nazism drew inspiration in the past and from which it draws inspiration once more today. We reclaim the joy of living, sensuality. We reclaim the legacy of the syncretic cultures of antiquity and the Middle Ages. Renaissance Florence would not have existed without the contribution of the Greek Gemistus Plethon, and the University of Bologna would not have been founded without the contribution of the Arab and Germanic migrants who gathered in the shadow of the two newly built towers (which today are at risk of collapsing). Córdoba and Granada could not have become the centre of a peaceful and prosperous civilisation without the blend of Jewish, Christian and Islamic elements.
Are these trivialities? Of course they are.
Against the perverse trivialities of racists, we set the good trivialities of those who prefer peace to war and life to death.
Dixi et salvavi animam meam
(Source: CTXT, 25/05/2026 and Lobo suelto, 22/07/2026)
Franco “Bifo” Berardi: An apocalyptic left-wing culture must emerge
We should have learnt long ago to think with two minds: the mind of the inevitable and that of the unpredictable. It is from this dual perspective that we should consider the spring of 2027, when the countries of Mediterranean Europe – Italy, Spain, France and Greece – will go to the polls.
We cannot be sure of anything when we consider the future course of the storm currently raging – not even that we will still be here in the spring of ’27, nor that the minimum conditions of civilisation required to hold political elections will still exist at that time. Russian and Ukrainian nationalism, Zionist Nazism and the Trumpist warmongering mafia are clenching the continent’s fate in a fist, whilst from within a black wave is rising and racists are preparing to deliver the coup de grâce in Germany and the United Kingdom.
But let us suppose that in a year’s time we are still here: in that case, in the Mediterranean region we must expect the possible triumph of a sinister form of idiocy, unless some unforeseen political innovation emerges – something of which the existing left is, evidently, incapable.
Given how the game is unfolding, and given the contenders facing off in it, I would say that the bleakest of prospects seems inevitable: accelerated rearmament, war, recession, a proliferation of racist attacks, deportations, and the collapse of social conditions. But whilst this may seem inevitable, someone must address the unpredictable.
How is this done? The psychoanalyst Paul Watzlawick and the anthropologist Gregory Bateson speak of paradoxical therapy for those situations in which it seems impossible to cure a pathology resistant to all treatment: a therapeutic approach that consists of redefining the field and altering its boundaries, of disregarding the rules of the game and of blurring identities: paradoxical pragmatics.
Watzlawick referred to this as “restructuring the field”, and this restructuring involves changing the premises and the meaning we attribute to words, and delineating an unexpected framework for action that allows us to escape the trap posed by the established rules.
Restructuring does not alter the concrete facts, but rather the meanings attributed to the situation, and in this way establishes a “new game”.
Let us try to apply this methodology of paradox to the specific context of the upcoming general election, in which a racist and warmongering right wing is preparing to take over the entire continent and put an end once and for all to any hope of a tolerable life. For the sake of democracy and society as a whole, the existing left should have the courage to declare its own extinction in order to give rise to an unprecedented form of emergency electoral front that unequivocally denounces war, racism and slavery.
On Life and Death
The European left, particularly in Italy, has contributed to the ongoing catastrophe: it has encouraged the privatisation of social services, handed migrants over to Libyan concentration camps, condoned the illegal employment of migrant workers, and supported policies of war. Why on earth should we vote for people like Marco Minniti, a democratic executioner who implements the very same policies as Matteo Salvini?
The left has lost all credibility and cannot be reformed; but a radical question now arises that demands political forms different from those the left can conceive of.
In fact, the problem is not a temporary one, but a structural one: the left could win when the conditions for workers’ unity existed. Ultra-liberal globalisation has destroyed this possibility forever: the liberalisation of the labour market has introduced constant competition amongst workers, and immigration has led to a fragmentation of labour that eliminates any bargaining power.
Migration is an unstoppable phenomenon, ethically justified because the poor in the South are poor as a consequence of European colonisation, and economically necessary to offset the ageing and shrinking population of the North. Nevertheless, it must be recognised that the integration of migrant labour has led to a breakdown of the labour front that cannot be repaired in the name of abstract solidarity. Migrant labour has led to a fall in wages, and the ethnic, linguistic and cultural stratification of the workforce has caused fragmentation as well as internal mistrust within the world of work. No political effort can counteract this profound collapse.
Consequently, the Left can no longer win and, moreover, has no alternative project to capitalism.
The social question has by no means disappeared, but it is no longer an arena in which it is possible to mobilise energies of solidarity. However, another question arises: that of life or death. At this crossroads, the task is to draw new dividing lines, to devise programmes far more radical than those of the current left.
Happy mythologies versus sadistic mythologies
The right is winning on all fronts because it puts forward a mythology based on security, property, competition and the nation.
Myths are not debunked by critical reasoning, but only by alternative, different myths: soothing myths against aggressive ones, sensual myths against spiteful ones; paradoxical myths against the banality of evil.
What is needed is an implausible, unreal programme: an absolute limit of thirty-six hours’ work per week, with penalties for companies that fail to comply; equal pay rises for all; the elimination of military spending; economic sanctions against those who produce and distribute plastic; and the regularisation of five hundred thousand migrants.
Spain has done this, and the Spanish economy is the only one in Europe that can boast three per cent economic growth. However, according to the polls, in Spain too the right is highly likely to win the elections in the spring of 2027.
How can we explain this weakness on the left?
Because common sense is not enough in the face of madness. Therefore, it is on the terrain of madness that the battle must be fought.
When neoliberalism gave way (as was to be expected) to racist aggression and authoritarianism, the left attempted to resist the “black wave” by adopting a moderate, reasonable and polite tone, having supported devastating neoliberal policies for thirty years.
By rejecting extreme rhetoric (rejecting doomsday rhetoric as if it were a lack of style), the left has avoided putting itself on the same level as the right, and in this it has been completely mistaken, because the right’s alarmist rhetoric resonates with the deep-seated sentiment of the majority, and leads to decisions that exacerbate the situation and bring the apocalypse closer, with the result that the rhetoric can be toughened even further and increasingly devastating measures implemented. Alarmist prophecies are self-fulfilling and give rise to ever more destabilising policies.
The left, by contrast, tastes like hospital grub: its bland, rational message fails to resonate with the overexcited collective unconscious. The unconscious does not recognise moderate tones.
The left does not dare to tell the truth about climate collapse; it merely suggests measures that are then always postponed because there are more urgent matters. More urgent than anything else is war. And the left is very careful not to denounce the imminent danger of an apocalyptic outbreak of war in Europe, so as not to frighten the masses.
But the masses are frightened because the right-wing is responsible for ratcheting up the rhetoric, and because, in any case, anyone who is not stupid realises that the danger of a military, environmental and social catastrophe is growing by the day.
Pedro Sánchez is the only European leader who has so far managed to contain the spread of fascist-like aggression. He has done so through courageous decisions on the economy, immigration and, above all, against war and Zionism. Although isolated, he has managed to hold his ground because Spain is the most culturally open, wealthiest and also least depressed country in Europe.
But there is now a risk that, because of this isolation, even the Spanish left may lose power.
An apocalyptic culture of the left must emerge. It is the last hope, the last chance to escape the apocalypse.
It takes courage to present voters with a realistic picture of what lies in store for Europeans in the coming years, crushed as they are between Russian nationalist aggression and US imperialist aggression which, having used Ukraine for its own ends during Biden’s presidency, is now abandoning Ukraine and Europe, without defusing the fuse that could set off a nuclear powder keg on a continental scale.
We must have the courage to describe the social consequences being caused by the senseless war driven by Epstein’s Zionist-American coalition: growing poverty, the dismantling of entire sectors of European industry, and the economic collapse of Germany and Italy.
A unrealistic programme, just like reality
Above all, we need the courage to launch an unrealistic programme. Since contemporary reality is unrealistic, only unreality can capture the unconscious mind that oscillates between panic and depression.
Is it a reckless programme?
Of course it is.
But for ten years we have been witnessing the victory of reckless programmes, the triumph of deranged individuals who win over voters by brandishing a chainsaw and declaring they will use it against them. For ten years we have been witnessing the rise of warmongering forces that stoke fear and hatred.
Only those who have the courage to counter fear and hatred with a discourse of radical pacifism, only those who oppose the conspiracy of good to sadistic delirium, only those who promise to restore the living standards and wages that workers enjoyed fifty years ago and which the betrayal of the left has wiped out – only those who have the courage to raise their voices in the name of reason and life will have any chance of halting the race towards the abyss.
We reclaim the mythologies of the Mediterranean in the face of the sombre Nordic mythologies from which Nazism drew inspiration in the past and from which it draws inspiration once more today. We reclaim the joy of living, sensuality. We reclaim the legacy of the syncretic cultures of antiquity and the Middle Ages. Renaissance Florence would not have existed without the contribution of the Greek Gemistus Plethon, and the University of Bologna would not have been founded without the contribution of the Arab and Germanic migrants who gathered in the shadow of the two newly built towers (which today are at risk of collapsing). Córdoba and Granada could not have become the centre of a peaceful and prosperous civilisation without the blend of Jewish, Christian and Islamic elements.
Are these trivialities? Of course they are.
Against the perverse trivialities of racists, we set the good trivialities of those who prefer peace to war and life to death.
Dixi et salvavi animam meam
(Source: CTXT, 25/05/2026 and Lobo suelto, 22/07/2026)