"CUANDO LAS PALABRAS DESTRUYEN" - Monique Atlan y Roger Pol Droit

“WHEN WORDS DESTROY” is a book co-authored by the French essayist and journalist Monique Atlan and the French philosopher Roger Pol Droit, originally published in 2023. Never in history have we communicated so much, and yet perhaps never have we spoken so little. Most humans today live as silent solitaries immersed in a torrent of discourse that belongs to no one. This tsunami of out-of-control phrases overwhelms us instead of liberating us. The number of speakers multiplies, but almost no one speaks to anyone, because everyone speaks without listening or responding. The more we speak, the less we speak. Quantity explodes, quality implodes. Discourses seem to flourish, and we don't realize they are deteriorating. This situation jeopardizes the very existence of humanity; there is no imaginable catastrophe more lethal than the deterioration of speech. Words are our superpower as living beings; words build and destroy. Break the silence to denounce domination, violence, or to give voice to silent victims; but also to spread hatred with impunity, to confuse lies with truth, and to replace the courts with public vengeance on social media. Nothing you say, write, or repeat is without consequences. Words spoken are not harmless, and each person must take responsibility for weighing what they say, repeat, or transmit. The problem is ethical; a choice must be made. And in that choice, the moral problem is always a human responsibility, even in the presence of talking machines so overwhelmingly present in our daily lives. They don't feel, they don't have emotions, they don't think, they don't know how to hate or do evil, they don't understand. The central point is always the place of the other, the other human being, because it is the other who speaks, and it is to the other that we address ourselves. No matter the disagreements, the fights, or the insurmountable differences, as long as the place of the other is preserved, the universe will remain human. But as soon as the other's place is erased, omitted, or dehumanized, discourse is threatened, and humanity is put at risk. See also the playlist "Books, Thought and Society"    • Libros. Pensamiento y Sociedad