They teach us that we need to be consistent. If we say one thing, do that. Act according to what we think. Assume the consequences of our actions. In all areas of life we hear the same preaching, and the beliefs and ideologies of all colors converge in that praise of coherence. It seems logical, and if they all agree, the truth will be universal. Or.

But then comes reality, with its gray colors and its inconsistencies, yes, but all. Defend ecology and nature, but you like to walk in a powerful car; you extol the cultural programs but you see the telectable; you have sent the children to the Basque model, but you do it in Spanish with your husband or your wife.

We are ashamed of these contradictions. We would like to be pure and put the stain of sin on our white soul. Then, even if they are atheists, as Catholicism has formatted our mind, it has confessed the error made, it has manifested its intention to drive it back and go, guys! The tolerant will be lenient with the contradictions of others, hoping that others will also do so with theirs, while the sermoleros of all the sanhedrin are giving you fire, denouncing and continually reproaching your errors of coherence.

But what if we admitted the contradiction not as a defect of our personality, but as a part of our being? Nobody is altruistic, not selfish at all. What the Spanish press buys and gives its vote in the elections to the nationalists is often considered systematically, moreover, as a poor alienated devil who has to be corrected (or the vote or the newspaper, which will have to change one of the two once, to be consistent), but perhaps we should not describe it as abnormality, but as a nuance of someone who does not want to be confined to a particular drawer: “I’m from you, but don’t give me the shell,” he says unconsciously to the apostles of nationalism, and also “I buy their lies, but don’t think I devour them,” he says naively to the Spanish press headline.

The vote is also, in areas that have hitherto been relatively fixed, becoming variable and volatile. Some politicians are then enraged with the elector altar: “Have you defended this and this, and don’t realize that those others defend opposite values?” Others punish themselves: “What have we done wrong for voters to turn their backs on us?” Surely autoflajelations are as absurd as reproaches, but don't worry too much, it comes soon and there comes another card game, another vote, so that our contradictions become clear again, to content some and to afflict others.