Whose fault is it?

Whose fault is it?

There was a time, before the Paleozoic era, when animals spoke, conversed, and possessed a culture similar to humans millions of years later, before humanity, before the dinosaurs.

Before becoming indifferent, mute, organized, dedicated to fulfilling their daily routines, from birth to death, without social protest, without revolution, without breaking the routine, in perfect harmony and perfect socialist equality, ants were once like human beings, with social problems of inequality, hunger, poverty, envy, crises, wars, genocides, political disputes, unequal exploitation of job opportunities, unemployment, homelessness, finally abandoning liberal capitalism and embracing communism.

Before communism, thousands of religions emerged promising an end to social injustice. Ant prophets enticed their fellow ants to renounce the sins of greed, sexual fornication, envy, and avarice for wealth. They instituted the dogma of brotherhood through the indoctrination of liturgies and commitments to churches that obligated converted ants to give ten percent of their wealth and income to the religious cause, a life of total consecration to the creator of all ants, and an eternal paradise after death.

It didn't work; ant society continued to have problems with injustice and remained imperfect.

Then a new movement of giant ants emerged, promising to transform the ant species into civilized entities through extermination crusades targeting all ants foreign to the true religion. Again, it ended in nothing; ant society remained unequal and plagued by social problems.

The new attempt was to separate the good ants from the bad ones, thus giving rise to the ideology of ants as a superior species to the other inferior subspecies, who should accept their natural genetic inferiority; these were the ant-like ants.

There was a genocide of ants where, after a long war, the ant-like ants were defeated, and they harbored enormous resentment because they believed themselves to be genetically superior to the other inferior ant subspecies. Society did not resolve its social problems of inequality and imperfections.

Later, among the wise ant-like beings, a new idea arose for a perfect ant society: the adoption of a shared governance system, where every ant would become responsible for the future of all ants. They called this system "formicracy," where ant leaders would be chosen by lottery, with representatives in a parliamentary council also chosen by lottery.

Ants began complaining that they weren't being well represented by the lottery system, and that a survey should be conducted to determine who the population wanted to be represented. Each ant would write down a name, these names would be counted, and the ants with the most nominations would become the representatives. This system was also adopted to choose the leader ant, who would represent the wishes of all.

Over time, the nomination system was corrupted by ants who deceived others with fiery speeches and even bought favors with gifts to be chosen. This system fell into disrepute.

So we arrive at what we see in ants today: they have been forbidden from speaking, from expressing opinions, from choosing, from having religion, from having families, from attending schools, from having culture, and the ants simply obey routines established millions of years ago. They no longer have any social problems, nor inequality, injustice, or complaints. No ant goes hungry or lives homeless; they live in peace and total tranquility.

Roberto da Silva Rocha, professor universitário e cientista político