V.- OF CATS AND PYRAMIDS

Jul112025

V.- OF CATS AND PYRAMIDS

V.- OF CATS AND PYRAMIDS

Let’s continue with parallel worlds.

The same can happen with social pyramids. In one world, the top is occupied, let’s say, by light-skinned people, and the bottom by dark-skinned people. In another parallel world, it’s the opposite: those at the top are dark-skinned, and those at the bottom are light-skinned.

You can experiment with the alternatives as you wish: men at the top, women at the bottom; Caxlanes at the top, indigenous people at the bottom; heterosexuals at the top, LGBTQI+ at the bottom; rich at the top, poor at the bottom; those who have at the top, those who don’t at the bottom, and vice versa. This way, you can accommodate the different alternatives for theoretical analysis and political proposals.

Now, if a person from one of these worlds peers into the other, parallel (and contrary contradictory, I add) world, they will conclude that in that world, the pyramid is inverted. In that other world, indigenous people are at the top and the ‘Caxlanes’ at the bottom; women dominate men; «beaners» discriminate against Anglos; Latinos conquer and subjugate Europeans; LGBTQI+ people mock, attack, and murder heterosexuals; workers exploit employers; politicians keep their promises (okay, okay, okay, I doubt that world exists); criminals are punished, and the innocent are free; and so on.

For many theories or «social sciences,» the pyramid of their world might be «natural» and «human.» «It is natural that there are people who have wealth and people who don’t»; «it is natural that those with knowledge rule and the ignorant obey»; “It’s natural for the most well-armed army to defeat the weakest army”; “It’s natural for beautiful people to command and ugly people to obey”; “It’s natural for men to dominate women”; “It’s natural for heterosexuals to violate others”; “It’s natural for ‘Caxlanes’ to discriminate against people of other races.” Of course, you can give examples that contradict this “naturalness,” but I’m being simplistic.

Around this «naturalness» is built not only a political system, but also a series of «evidences» that manifest themselves throughout a society: in the family, school, work, wealth, poverty, crime, abnormality, language, manner, communication, relationship with others and with nature, and activism.

In this way, something like the «algorithm» of society is constructed. A series of beliefs and references for good and bad, beautiful and ugly, masculine and feminine, and so on. «Evidences» reinforced by the media and social interaction in networks and spaces of study, work, transportation, politics, activism, rest, and recreation.

In short, life, death… and missing. Because the system has created a new state of existence for people: there are those who are alive, there are those who are dead, and there are those who are missing (neither alive nor dead). Just like that, without the need for Schrödinger and his cat.

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The inverted pyramid is the basis of the proposals of the avant-garde, transformations, evolutions, and revolutions. In the pyramid, there are few people at the top and many at the bottom, but those at the top possess a lot of wealth, and those at the bottom do not. The proposal is to «flip» the pyramid: for those without wealth and at the bottom to move to the top of the pyramid, pushing those who hold the wealth down.

At first glance, the inversion of the Pyramid, turning it upside down, sounds good. Those who have always been at the bottom will have their chance to be at the top. And those at the top will have to suffer the conditions at the bottom.

The point is that, since there are many at the bottom, it will be difficult for decisions to be made, so then representation appears, and that’s what the avant-garde, the political party, is for. It turns out that the pyramid didn’t «flip» but rather reproduced itself with another nomenclature: bureaucracies turned into political parties, good, bad, or worse.

Furthermore, of course, the «alternative» powers (Capital and Organized Crime) remain in their positions, renewing their agreements and relationships with the «new» top of the pyramid.

The political proposals of the various vanguards share the same offer: since those at the top have and those at the bottom don’t, what needs to be done is to turn the pyramid upside down.

For this «inversion»—in reality, just a shift among overlookers—the hologram of the «Nation State» is necessary. If justice, security, honesty, and capacity are absent, then there’s the national sports team, wrapped in the official flag, throwing itself into the abyss of reality. But the «public» no longer applauds or boos; now it makes memes.

In these attempts to «democratize» cynicism and clumsiness, political proposals resort to the creation of virtual enemies. They pit dark-skinned people against light-skinned people, liberals against conservatives, those in the middle against those below and those above, the periphery against the center, the native against the mestizo, women against men, the ‘otroas’ against the hetero, the young against the adult, the adult against the elderly, the Latino against the Anglo, those from one nation against those from another, those from any part of the world against the gringo, the resident against the migrant. And vice versa.

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Zapatismo grants the system enough destructive capacity to wipe out a planet, a world, by replacing one social organization with another. In fact, capitalism is born from a revolution. It’s not revolutions that concern it, rather, it is concerned with ensuring that they follow the same pyramidal logic: some command and others obey.

Now, in its current phase, the system is undergoing a transformation. But that doesn’t mean it will disappear. Rather, it is a readjustment, an adaptation to the new conditions of what some call the «world system.»

If capitalism is only just becoming aware of the irreversible destruction it has wrought, it’s irrelevant, or something else, depending. But, in the face of this, it tries or attempts various paths.

One is to return to the past.

We’re not just referring to the process of primitive accumulation, where the system is born, grows, and consolidates through dispossession via wars (something theorists and historians often forget). But to a kind of impossible leap backward, which is what it means to try to reconstruct the so-called «Welfare State» (a revived Keynes of Welfare). That is, a state that is equally repressive and reactionary, but with nuances of social justice or, if you will, social programs that lessen the burden on the lower level of the pyramid, its base. But the damned reality never abandons its reactionary stance and, sooner or later, breaks down the walls of that pyramid. Thus, «Regeneration» becomes a fourth-rate recycling.

There is also the attempt to «swell» (or «fatten») the middle classes, which, as the name suggests, are located between the top of the pyramid and the bottom. These «middle» sections survive by striving to climb further up the pyramid, and by fearing that the base will not be able to hold out any longer, or that their outburst will not be controlled, and that they will rebel and reveal. For both purposes, they turn to the vanguard party. To control, slow down, or outright extinguish rebellions; and to climb the social ladder through positions and advantages. Yesterday’s ultras are today’s «realist» official servants. The middle classes are the Boss’s breeding ground.

Hence the panic their spokespeople feel regarding broken windows, strikes, blockades, marches, occupations, protests, actions, and those ugly things done by the dirty, ugly, and evil people of history—who will never appear in elementary school textbooks. Their ease with being «moved» by «distant» wars? Well, it’s because they think that only happens in other pyramids.

But, contrary to journalistic evidence, opinion pieces, and thoughtful geopolitical analyses, big capital has long been considered not national. That is, it doesn’t refer to a geography. Rather, it has to do with its place in the global economy. Big capital, the Boss, doesn’t ask itself what to do in the Middle East, in Eastern Europe, or in the various flags, official coats of arms, anthems, and sports teams. No, big capital asks itself what to do and how, but all over the planet.

Big capital hasn’t yet reached an agreement, but its thinking minds foresee that what is coming is already irremediable and it is necessary to plunder as much as possible. And for this, international organizations, laws… or nations don’t matter.

The various right-wing parties, including progressivism, compete for the favors of big capital. Like two brothers, they fight for the Boss’s caress. And they use whatever they can. They accuse each other with hysterical shouts: some warn of the coming of communism; the opponents, of the resurrection of fascism. Both sides offer to keep the base of the pyramid under control. Some with blows. The others too.

But some boast, while others make faces as if saying «that is a legacy of a past that will never return» and, not without gestures of disgust, throw alms at the base of the pyramid. Alms that are transferred to Organized Crime through the extortion of the same authorities who control social programs and administer them in exchange for votes.

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Meanwhile, a word that synthesizes many things that should shame the top of the pyramid reiterates its vocation for a free life: Palestine. Today, Palestine defines the true goal of the pyramid, the deadly box promised to the peoples of the world.

There are quiet words that tread earthquakes, that sail storms, that fly hurricanes. They are only heard at dawn, when during the half-sleep everything hurts. Then they arrive and their murmur tears the skin of memory. A scar, still bleeding, is what remains. «Gaza» is one of those words, one that outrages, that rebels, that reveals.

From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast.