Uncertainty, which stops the rush forward and gnaws at the spark of the spirit and the genius of the heart, has been linked to the risk of slipping into forms of harsh conservatism and ideological extremism, according to studies.
A conservatism that is mainly identified with tradition and supranationalism, with closed worlds that repel the different point of view, the progressive ideas, the values of the Enlightenment. And not at all a non-partisan conservatism that cultivates decency and respect for common goods and the public interest, that builds strong social bonds and coherent values, relationships that protect the public space from destructive catastrophic violence.
A shocking example of a deep slippery conservatism and its ideological extremism is US Judge Samuel Alito’s blueprint for overturning the landmark ruling in the highly-regarded Roe vs. Wade case, which gave American women fifty years of constitutional immunity. Following the death of the legendary Judge Ruth Bader Ginsberg, with the appointment by former US President Donald Trump of another super-conservative judge in the US Supreme Court, the majority in favor of the Conservatives rose from five to four to six to three. If the draft Alito is decided, the right of American women to choose for themselves when and if they will become mothers will be restricted or abolished in at least twenty-six States, opening the door to the abolition of other rights.
Because the descent may not stop at the very serious issue of the abortion ban, with its frightening legal moral and socio-economic accessories, with the flourishing of the illegal abortion industry, the blow to the lower income strata, the additional legal inconveniences of immigrant women, the narrower female gates to higher education, the well-paid jobs, excellency, etc. It threatens to demolish a number of other conquests of 20th and early 21st century respectively. Like those of the freedom of heterosexual married couples to take contraceptives, respect for diversity, anti-homophobia arrangements, and discrimination against individuals in the LGBT community, religious freedoms.
Decisions that invade people’s privacy destroy the precious geometry of personal decisions, savage cruelty and unfree reality, creating a new despotic world. Under the guise of issues that have divided American society for decades, of popular legitimacy, of conditions that foster immorality and social decline, a superconservative social body could claim an exception to any applicable rule and impose its own religious and ideological views.
American society is not far from that. The retreat from reality and logic spreads like oil that irrigates even the most remote corner of society. It is deeply disheartening to take away from the next generations the freedoms and social conquests enjoyed by the previous generations, to fight struggles that have been won for a long time, while there are still so many battles to be fought, so outdated perceptions, extreme utilitarianism and inequalities to be healed, so many insulations of the soul to be removed.
Everything that we would like to be, everything that would upset ominous prospects for the human species, remains in front of us. The return to rigid ideologies and fixed anchorages are fragmenting our already explosively polarized world as they expand the social fronts. They do not diminish but instead reinforce the value and cultural fluidity, confusion, atomocracy, and narcissism that destroy what we need most today: the common orientation for all.
