Cuba: The Global Centre-Left Panopticon in tandem with Castrism.
“Since revolution means the interests of the entire nation, no one can reasonably claim a right against it, I think this is very clear. What are the rights of revolutionary or non-revolutionary writers and artists? Within the revolution everything, against the revolution, no rights.”
- Fidel Castro.
There is this erroneous idea that when it concerns ideology and politics Truth is more likely to be found at the center of two opposite extremes than at any of these extremes, if by extremes we mean opposites viewpoints which might or might not end up as the most extreme. Obviously, for a centrist, two opposite viewpoints are extreme enough to justify the centrist stand.
This centrist-panoptic position from an economical viewpoint is based on the traditions of long-held trading practices in which both parties might lose and win some things for as long as they voluntary trade-in in search of mutual benefits.
This centrist-panoptic position from a political viewpoint is based on the traditions of long-held government practices in which, under the umbrella of justice and balance, it has tried to coerce equality among unequal people. That is why for a centrist- panoptic position to be valid it should not be so much about reaching a center as converging to some degrees towards such center depending on the skills, opportunities, and leverage each party has over the other, just as it happens with the economical stand on the same centrist-panoptic viewpoint.
But what happens when one of the extreme viewpoints has more leverage and so it is more likely to be more extreme than the other and going towards the center would tend to favors the most extreme in one of them, which mean zero losses and maximum gains for one, while some losses and little gains for the other.
When the most extreme gains terrain one of the parties is allowed to stay in the game for as long as it is kept to a bare minimum while the other would be kept only in the game if it has some minor losses but thrive every time more to a “reasonable” maximum. It is this imbalance that creates the most extreme in one of them until a certain threshold of maximum gain is reached and then one of the extremes becomes parasitic and tyrannical, namely, it becomes the most extreme.
The politics of going towards the center and being a centrist would not be a viable strategy for people with little leverage when their opponents are certainly trying to maximize gains by all means. The centrist strategy is only a valid strategy when the leverage of one over the other is not higher enough to end up in one of the extreme positions always having the upper hand and often ending up in the most extreme which literally means enslaving one of the extremes under the false assumption of a win-win situation and false endorsement of tolerance: this is the centrist-panoptic viewpoint at its best. Centrism in this sense goes hand in hand with panoptic-ism since centrism has a high propensity to showing or seeing the whole at one view (viewpoint) just like Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon would do.
A win-win situation or what is better known as a non-zero-sum-game is not so when one of the parties has far greater leverage than the other to the point that what is won by one is just the bare minimum to be able to trade or negotiate with the other.
Winning the bare minimum to be able to trade or negotiate is not per se an unfair beginning, it just becomes so when one of the party consistently and deliberately casts away the other party from the possibility of even trying its luck and improving their odd to thrive maybe not like the other but at least better than its previous self.
Going towards the center can also be a short-lived viable strategy for a party with a great deal of leverage just to keep its opponents to a bare minimum so that it is willing to cooperate. Fortunately, we are not just like insects, which accept “unfair” strategies. We do question the terms of the contract after a reasonable time has gone by. It is not hard to notice that we humans aim to thrive beyond any initial arrangements. Hence, eventually, those who were willing to cooperate over the acceptance of the bare minimum, will not cooperate if their gains do not bring them also surplus benefits compare to their previous contract.
The centrist-panoptic position, contrary to most people’s beliefs, is based on a zero-sum-game approach. To be in the center for a centrist is not to be left or right, where they believe the losing teams are, but to be where the winning team is, right at the center, seeing it all, pan-optically.
For as long as there are continuous lines with each defining two extreme endpoints converging towards one center, the center would never be a good place to be for neither of them. And the rule is simple. 1- If both or one is trying to maximize gains, 2- If both or one is centrist and 3- If both or one is by design meant to cast away to a bare minimum of gains the other, that centrist-panoptic system is doomed and is doomed if only one of these three rules applies. Namely, suffice one for the other ones to follow in an interwoven braid of looping mechanisms.
But a sensible question raises. Is it possible to discourage one of the extreme viewpoints from going into the most extreme (maximize gains, becoming centrist-panoptic and cast away oppositions) without the other extreme catching up and surrendering to the most extreme?
It is possible, but the center has to be found elsewhere away from the existing extremes, away from their seductive lock-down and feedback loops converging both extremes towards the most extreme in an almost never-ending deadly panopticon.
Hence, a center elsewhere is not really a center but the birth of a side elsewhere from the center where the conflict of two extremes ensues. If the center that calls for the elsewhere is in one of the extremes that extreme holds the Truth, which is the true calling from the center to the elsewhere.
The so-called “center” is never a center from the panopticon of the existing extremes but a center from a side elsewhere and yet called by one of the extremes, a one-sided-call.
This side that holds the Truth is also the side that does not hold the most extreme viewpoint but neither the less extreme viewpoint. It simply holds an extreme, whichever it is. Truth is by nature one-sided and that is how it reaches and can only reach universality. This is what centrists will always have a hard time understanding, be them center-left o center-right.
Truth also rejects a center, any center, unless that center is a call for an elsewhere. An elsewhere not of a synthesis of two extremes or of many extremes for that matter, but an elsewhere that transform both extremes and bring a truce. This truce does not dissolve the extremes but makes them both anew and thus Truth regains its whole, a whole, the non-panoptic whole in which any extreme can thrive unequally depending on which side Truth has come to settle in for a while.
This philosophy of Truth also holds that the most extreme should be discouraged whenever possible and it cannot be a horizon for deterrence. The emphasis here goes to “whenever possible” since sometimes and at some point in our life, the most extreme will take place and we might have to stand by it.
The most extreme, however, is literally beyond any horizon of Truth and of a Truth, the human Truth. Heidegger’s being-towards-death does not apply here. As much as we as humans struggle to stay alive, living is not just being-towards-death but also being-towards-life even when death still remains an insurmountable horizon. Being-towards-life has the same pathos and ethos as Heidegger’s being-towards-death, it is just its opposite force.
Thus, Truth is Truth wherever it is and sometimes it might be at a center and other times at any extreme viewpoint but Truth is not a blueprint for politics of middling centrists nor politics of the most extremes. Still, Truth, human Truth will always be found at one extreme, a one-sided extreme.
Often when people see conflicts between two opposite ideas, they naively believe that if they play a third option as a kind of middle, mediator, or center they would be more “objective” and so, closer to the Truth.
The Truth of the matter is that Truth more often than no is not “impartial”. This in no way means that Truth is “subjective”. On the contrary, Truth is objective but is partial and will always be one-sided even in its own universality. In other words, Truth always takes sides, and taking sides doesn’t make Truth any more subjective.
We can have two opponents and they can be both rights in some things and be both wrongs in some others. Do not let this kind of situation lead you to a blind alley in which you feel forced to believe that there must be some kind of a third option acting like a synthesis as if there always have to be a centrist viewpoint able to create a balance aiming at a 50% / 50% fair validity of ideas in conflict. No, one side might be 100% valid and the other or others 0% valid. One side might be 70% valid and the other or others 30% valid. There is not a balancing act in human Truth and in its very universal condition human Truth is not “subjective” but one-sided and partial. Impartiality, in that sense, is just a reference to some wide and universal application of partiality.
When two ideas or more are at war with each other, that doesn’t automatically mean that the solution to such war is more likely to be found in a balancing act between the two or many. The solution often is in one of them without any balancing act nor trying to be “fair” with each side’s contribution.
Again, it is important to insist on this. Truth is narrowed and one-sided in its universal stand. It is useless to try to middle it, to be a centrist. And it is not that we cannot be centrist but that we can only be centrist in a one-sided and partial manner.
Let’s think for a moment about this centrist position in today’s politics, in particular, the centrist position of the American Democrat Party represented by its liberal-progressive branches, and let’s contrast it with the emerging centrist position of Cuba’s current liberal-progressive politics which are opposed to the communist official politics.
It would be ludicrous if not insane to think that the American Democrat Party is a socialist party. In fact, official parties in American politics are not allowed extreme views or policies and who would deny that Socialism, and I mean Marxist-Socialism, represents one of the most extreme political systems in history?
However, we know that socialist ideas today in Western societies are more rooted in hardline ideological and moral stands than in economical ones even when the radical policies they promote (Green New Deal, Universal Healthcare, and free education) are just the facade to the government’s hardline take-over.
But then, how can we define the current American Democrat Party as a party of extremes when by definition it is not a Socialist-Marxist party? This is one of those cases in which “the spirit of the law does not match the letter of the law” and yet the spirit acts as if they do and as if such spirit were law.
The spirit of the Democrat party ideology, as its membership has grown with more and more progressive views, has outgrown its letter to such extent that this outgrowth has increasingly become its very letter. In other words, there has been a steady transition in the Democrat party from taking morality in its classical liberal sense to reinforcing it morally as if it were law and almost criminalizing in spirit (and sometimes in the letter of the law) any deviation from their ideological stands.
It has been labeled a “witch-hunt” and it has specifically developed codified jargon, like safe spaces, rape culture, systemic racism, gender fluid, patriarchy, reparations, cancel culture, woke culture, globalism, multiculturalism, etc.
How the Democrat Party's main classical liberal ideology has been taken over by these progressive views is still anyone guesses, but the liberal ideology that once represented the general values of Democrats is euphemistically becoming more and more Socialist-Marxist even when it still insists on operating under the umbrella term, of Liberal-Progressive.
Not surprisingly a question still haunts us, why call it Socialist-Marxist when the American Democrat party does not hold such extreme ideology? It does not hold it in the letter of its ideology but it holds it in its spirit because what it holds in its spirit of moral value is ready to criminalize in spirit even when once confronted, it pays lip-service to deny it.
Yet, there is no doubt that the Democrat party is not a Socialist-Marxist party and yet in spirit, it acts so. When the moral nature of wrongdoing is criminalized in spirit even when legally is rejected as a crime but publicly shamed as if it were a crime we are witnessing the totalitarian nature of socialism as an ideology. However, this is a hybrid, a transvestite Socialist-Marxist party that still has the name of Democrat as a false “cis” (as opposed to “trans”) sell out of its own political dysphoria.
This hybrid, transvestite ideology is not an extreme ideology in the clear-cut sense of what is meant by extreme. It is not any extreme, it is the most extreme right at the center but as a hybrid, as a transvestite extreme. It is a failed centrist position that for the mediocre nature of its neutral, impartial, and balanced position ended up worse than it expected and yet from the center.
This hybrid, transvestite ideology does not end up in the center-left as many in the Democrat party would have it. To be center-left or center-right for that matter, you have to truly remain left (liberal), but the Democrat party hybrid, transvestite ideology actually promotes political dysphoria. In other words, they know they are capitalist and will remain capitalist but they love to look so much like socialists that they will resort to ideological “hormones” therapies to “fix” their political dysphoria and look more like socialists. They do not have any natural remedy to their socialist wannabe malady.
While this liberal-socialist hybrid shift is taking place in American Democrat Party in Cuba the reverse hybrid is also being born. This hybrid is the direct result of two political hardliners. One is the institutionalized and widely normalized political far-left of Cuba’s current communist regime. The other one is also the institutionalized and widely normalized political far-right in anti-communist Miami.
It is hard if not almost impossible to reference Cuba’s political opposition history since 1959. It is like reference books that have not been published by the only existing publishers. Artworks which has not been exhibited by the only existing galleries. Music that has not been released by the only existing music labels. Movies that have not been shown by the only legally accepted film industry. Entrepreneurship that has been banned by the bureaucracy of the only market, the government. Ideas that are criminalized by the existing institutions as if they were against the law, any basic rules of decency, and even common sense.
There is a very peculiar situation in Cuba that transcends its political framing no matter how much we try to contextualize the situation in a strictly political sense. Any Cuban with a basic level of education could easily acknowledge that the sun is the center of our planetary system, this is like common knowledge, right? Well, the political reality of Cuba is based on the fact that acknowledging the immense beneficial contribution of Fidel Castro to Cubans is common knowledge at the same level of knowledge that the sun is at the center of our planetary system.
There are other moments in human history in which this flat identification between political truth (socialism) and natural truth (planetary system) has happened (Catholic missions, French Revolution, Bolshevik Revolution) but in Cuba, it has taken place in moments in which such identification has been many times have proven false elsewhere (collapse of socialism in Europe), or has it? Since the boom of the internet, the world has become a local-village and each region in it turned also local, so “each local-village to its own” became a mantra. Hence, “each socialism to its own” became also possible (Vietnam, North Korea, China, Cuba).
However, Vietnam, North Korea, China y Cuba are what I would coin “cis” socialisms, namely, socialisms in societies which “anatomically” have naturally evolved into it because they did not have the infrastructure to modernize directly via capitalism in which individual freedom and free-market made more sense.
In the same way as giving freedom to slaves from their masters was a process by which societies’ infrastructure had to evolve to allow for “foreign” individuals to freely roam in a kingdom far away from their ancestors (slaves also became serfs in the Middle Ages), giving freedom to labor forces away from the State is a process by which socialism’s infrastructure had to evolve to allow for “state-owned” individuals to freely do businesses in city spaces away from the government’s bureaucracy.
This “cis” socialism (Cuba), which is in direct contrast with the “trans” o hybrid socialism of the American Democrat Party has its own ecosystem of values in which politics acts like a panopticon, holding an omniscient centrist-panoptic position. This not only means that science, religion, art, literature, jurisdiction, economy, and every other field of human competence have to pass the approval of the political elite, but that politics itself does not operate really at the level of ideology in terms of being a debatable option.
Politics in socialist Cuba is like Newton’s laws but with coercion as a fundamental means to enforce it not really like a “belief” but as the natural and commonsensical “state-of-affair” of any civilized citizens who love their country. Hence, if anyone objects to such a panopticon principle of politics is most certainly because they do not love their country, are uncivilized and anti-social. “Within socialism everything, against it nothing”. That was Fidel Castro’s mantra.
Thus, we are faced not really with an ideology as such or at least not just with an ideology, but with the gestalt (an organized whole that is perceived as more than the sum of its parts) of society as a macro Echo Chamber. Such gestalt is not any different than that of the American Democrat Party, or Google or CNN ecosystems as corporations. Compared to Cuba’s socialist gestalt they are just micro Echo Chambers gestalt.
For the communist regime in Cuba to be against socialism when you are Cuban is to be anti-Cuban in the same way as James Damore, Google engineer, was fired for writing a manifesto on women’s ‘neuroticism’ in the workplace. In James Damore example is not the whole of society but just the micro gestalt of Google’s Echo Chamber acting as an ideological panopticon. The same would apply for CNN and Democrats hardliners.
When we refer to a corporate ecosystem like Google and CNN including also the Democrat party we assume that we are referring to center-left politics and certainly, there is a great deal in that direction, but there is more. The term, “center-left politics” has become a wildcard term to be politics-fluid (from gender-fluid) enough to fence off hypocrisy, contradictions, conflict of interests and have the license to have it not only both ways but anyway. Yet, this wildcard term is “wild” in methods but not in objectives.
For all these great “center-left” influencers, Google, Facebook, Twitter, CNN, CBS, NBC, Bloomberg, The Economist, The Washington Post, The BBC, The New York Times, The Guardian, what really matters is to capture raw social trends, be their voices and monetize them. However, raw social trends do not necessarily relate to real social needs. These “center-left” influencers more than inform us of social markers actively manufacture consent. Manufacturing consent has no other objective than creating Echo Chambers to speed up monetization. Yet, news outlets are supposed to monetize by delivering information, not unbiased, but at least with a minimum optimal bias. That’s the trick of the label “center-left” when we omit the panopticon.
In Wikipedia we find this entry for Echo Chamber:
“…refers to situations in which beliefs are amplified or reinforced by communication and repetition inside a closed system and insulated from rebuttal.”
Then, the Oxford dictionary tells us:
“an environment in which somebody encounters only opinions and beliefs similar to their own, and does not have to consider alternatives.”
Doesn’t this sound familiar if we think of the ideological panopticon associate with socialist Cuba? How is it possible that a center-left politics in the USA led by all these capitalist giants is able to have, at an ideological level, so much in common with the far-left politics of a socialist country like Cuba?
Just think about it for a minute, the Cuban communist regime is not considered a far-left politics regime by the communist elite nor by the Cubans supporting it, even when it is. They actually consider themselves as center politics, not left, not right, just center politics but a radical center. That center is not really considered a center but the balancing point where Truth will always be located. Here you can see how the ideological gestalt of American so-called “center-left” media outlets and corporations are in tandem with the socialist “center-politics” of the current communist regime in Cuba.
In a world of fake news or a world of post Truth politics, where does Cuba's communist regime fits in? Contrary to popular belief fake news not only refers to conspiracy theories or Trump's characterization of mainstream media outlets. Fake news is also the constant denial of mainstream outlets to recognized their tunnel vision in broadcasting and constantly curating and cherry-picking news to accommodate their heavy petty political biases even in mainstream media which are considered as center or center-left, in spirit, they do not act nor broadcast as such but according to their own left-leaning narratives.
CNN, for instance, with all its history of “raw” and “on the edge” journalism in term of being in the frontline of advocating independent, transparent, and brutally honest journalism particularly in The Middle East has become a giant corporate Echo Chamber of hardcore left-wing journalism amidst all the façade of being center-left journalism.
CNN in that sense does the same journalism as Cuba’s Noticiero Nacional de Television in terms of this last one being also mainstream and curating every single news under the false veil of impartiality and transparency. Cuban journalism is also believed to their own stakeholder center-left or even beyond left and right politics. The main difference here is that CNN cannot do, no matter how much they wished, banned any other news outlets as it happens in Cuba’s communist regime, but watch out, they would if they could. That is why is so important what opposition side Cubans are taking for a future Cuban with freedom of expression and civil liberties.
In an interview with Cuban Democrat representative, Yadira Escobar, to Cuban leftist historian, José Tadeo Tápanes Zerquera, who currently lives in Spain he tells us:
“Considering that I have moved quite a lot in intellectual circles, I have the feeling that when people are great intellectuals when people have dedicated themselves to studying seriously and cultivating their mind, they usually always escape from extremist positions, whether right or left. The thinking, learning to study always places you in much less radical positions because you always understand that the realities are always more polyhedral, much more diverse, and that there are many points of view. So, culture, knowledge, cultivating the mind usually takes you to more centrist positions, and to positions from which democracy is understood much better because it will never kill anyone, it will never demonize anyone and you will never hurt anyone because of your political positions.”
Tadeo, no doubts, leave things clear for us. He honestly and decisively believes that a centrist position, not just in politics, but in ideas in general, is where the Truth of things is more likely to be found. Again, it is hard to assess by the quote above if his “centrist” position is a panoptic one in relation to Cuba but once we find out that Tadeo is in charge of www.cubainformacion.tv which is one of the foreign Cuban voices outside Cuba presenting Cuba’s reality using the filter of the communist regime, Tadeo “centrist” position is clearly a panoptic one even when in an eclectic manner he defines himself just as a leftist. Nothing surprising here since, as I said before, any “center-left politics” has become a wildcard term for politics-fluid viewpoints.
Yet, one thing is clear, anyone who defends Cuba’s communist regime whether they are Cuban or not, communist or not can only do it from a centrist-panoptic viewpoint. I say it again; you do not have to be a communist to hold a centrist-panoptic viewpoint. We have already seen how center-left influencers like Google, Facebook, Twitter, CNN, CBS, NBC, Bloomberg, The Economist, The Washington Post, The BBC, The New York Times, The Guardian hold a centrist-panoptic viewpoint without being communists. However, not being communist does not exclude having a great deal of socialist-Marxist tendencies.
The centrist-panoptic viewpoint does not require a leader, it can be based just on structures and power apparatuses designed to manufacture consent. However, having a leader is one of the centrist-panoptic politics flavors. We read on Facebook the common Castro fan mantra:
“Fidel is a giant, his slender figure is defended by his people and much of the world, he could have everything in wealth and chose the most difficult job that of a revolutionary, all those who offend him will join the list of deplorable because Fidel is Cuba, and it cannot be said any simpler, I am Fidel, I am Continuity.”
This is what I call Synecdochian Political Syndrome (SPS). The part is confused with the whole and the whole with the part. In this case, Fidel Castro with the people, and as an extension, the people with the communist regime and communist regime with the people. We can’t deny that this identification of the part with the whole is possible but to keep it as a blueprint to be enforced and coerced by the ideology in power just invalidates the natural conditions in which a rare phenomenon like this is supposed to happen. The synergy of such magnitude only happens spontaneously and not by indoctrination as it turned out to be in Cuba.
But there is nothing new here, this is common in totalitarian systems. Others prefer to describe it as Acute Political Dysphoria (APD) or literal identification with a crooked illusion. In other words, Cuba literally embodies only Fidel Castro and the communists in a kind of anatomically impossible embodiment in which any other embodiment is seen as a perversion of Cuba's identity. Not even Marti has this status. Fidel is a leading symbol to Marti and not the other way around. Marti as a national symbol feels almost care-free or even laissez-faire in the sense that if as Cuban you do not feel Martian and feel anti-Martian that is your problem while if as Cuban in Cuba you feel anti-Fidel that is the regime problem and they will hunt you down.
Funnily enough, in the USA if you do not feel Anti-Trump the Democrats have created the Trump Accountability Project to hunt down and get rid of every Trumpist voice from the face of the land of the free. It makes sense that many spokespersons of the Cuban communist regime are in favor of Biden-Harris nomination to the White House and this goes beyond them wanting a change to the current embargo policies set by Trump’s administration.
Biden-Harris is the perfect embodiment of the centrist-panoptic position that could come out of the Democrat party although we are missing as a focal point Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, and Rashida Tlaib, better known as The Squad. This centrist-panoptic position preaches the same Castro’s spirit back in 1961 when addressing artists and intellectuals:
“Since the revolution means the interests of the entire nation, no one can reasonably claim a right against it, I think this is very clear. What are the rights of revolutionary or non-revolutionary writers and artists? Within the revolution everything, against the revolution, no rights.”
Fidel knew perfectly that revolution is a wider concept compared to socialism. Fidel also knew perfectly that socialism is a very specific concept to refer to a political system that not all nations require as a condition to be nations. In other words, the very definition of a nation does not include socialism as a condition to be. What Fidel actually made perfectly clear is that revolution and nation are the same things and I really do not have a problem with that if the concept of revolution includes all the diversity that any nation is supposed to have.
Nowhere is clear in Fidel’s statements that revolution is socialism and so socialism is a nation. We know however that he expected us to imply so. This is precisely the manipulative side of Fidel’s speech. He knew that a nation, as a whole, cannot be identified with a particular political system of beliefs, and yet Fidel made of socialism, without saying it, a concept as wide as nation knowingly that that is not true.
You would be surprised to know that most if not all Identity Politics movements currently operating in the USA, Canada, Europe, Australia and representing a wide spectrum of left-wing politics including the Democrat party endorse similar political reasoning as that of Fidel Castro back in 1961.
Black Lives Matter follows the mantra: “With black people everything, against black people nothing.” Most feminist movements endorse a similar slogan: “With women everything, against women nothing.” Most animal rights activists endorse a similar slogan: “With animals everything, against animals nothing.” Most environmentalist activists endorse a similar slogan: “With nature everything, against nature nothing.” Facebook, Twitter, and Google also endorse a similar slogan: Within left-wing politics everything, against left-wing politics nothing.” The list goes on and on according to which political left-wing spectrum we are talking about.
The truth of the matter is that Fidel Castro’s slogan as much as those of Identity Politics movements do not stand up to thorough scrutiny. We can’t validate properly a statement like “With X everything, against X nothing”. Such a statement is too vague and general and so it lends itself to justifying stubborn dogmatism and encourages a lack of rigorous observation of specific data that can invalidate on a-case-by-case such formulaic slogan. To be against something does not necessarily mean to not allow its legal and constitutional rights to exist. To be in favor of something does not mean not to have the right to harshly criticize it if and when the case might require it.
I hope these correlations between left-wing politics in Western societies and Cuba communist dictatorial regime bring Cubans closer to a better understanding as to why an opposition in Cuba, which is complaisant with Identity Politics and the American Democrat Party, is only going to move the political panopticon from one center-left of power to another one without truly resolving the very freedom of expression issues affecting currently Cuba and most Western societies. As Patrick Geddes once said, “Think globally, act locally.”
The San Isidro Movements and also those from the 27N protest in the Minister of Culture seems a political opposition relatively distant from the Biden-Harris centrist-panoptic position. Perhaps, they hold the initial torch of hope for a truly free Cuba.
