A lot is being written PluribusVince Gilligan’s latest genius, and more will be written as a plot whose twists and turns are difficult for me to anticipate. In this newspaper, both Paloma Rando and Laura Fernández underlined that the metaphor of humanity infected by a virus that unifies all individuals in a single consciousness contains a criticism of single thinking and the illusory consensus of social networks. Rando also spoke of the misanthropy of those who refuse to participate. From this point of view alone the series is delightful.
I’m also worried about an idea that comes from it: the imperative of happiness. Although it seems a characteristic of the contemporary world, the elimination of suffering from life is the basis of all political utopias and philosophical systems. The unified humanity of Pluribus It is the perfect society dreamed of ever since Republic of Plato, without conflicts or disagreements, and with an intolerance of pain so radical that the slightest expression of hostility puts her in danger: every time Carol, the disconnected human, gets angry with them, they react by getting sick.
Social perfection leads to idiocy. Carol is a writer of trashy romance novels, whose infamous quality she is well aware of. When he asks them if they like them, the unified humans reply that they love them and put their books on the level of Hamlet. The unity of minds cancels the criterion, which can only be expressed in discussion.
Carol disturbs universal harmony. She is selfish, impulsive, wasteful, a little drunk, sarcastic and bad-tempered. It represents all of this do-goodism political censorship. But above all it does not avoid suffering. He knows that pain is an important part of life. Overcoming it and going through the pain are fundamental experiences that she does not want to erase, and which make her different: in a world that has decided to eliminate pain, whoever faces it is an alien, someone to be purged.
Political utopias become nightmares in this anesthetic delirium, in that illusion of erasing the conflict from the vital horizon and the ways to channel it without violence, such as irony, cruel humour, art or parliamentary politics. In this lies the greatness and weakness of democracy, which is the management of an imperfect world that takes on its imperfection and aspires only to manage the conflict to make it civilized, without leading us to an infernal paradise of smiles. Pluribus It portrays today’s world, but also the utopias of yesterday and those to come.
