Girandomédulas: Chronicle of a Book Rescued from the Sidewalk, a Poem for Oliverio Girondo, and Three Laps Around the Rosedal

 

«Yo no tengo ni deseo tener sangre de estatua...
Mejor reírse de uno mismo, excederse de humano»

(“I do not have nor do I wish to have statue’s blood... / 
Better to laugh at oneself, to be excessively human”)

— María del Mar Estrella, Girandomédulas, p. 37

Chronicle of the Find: An Object Released on the Sidewalk

Urban chance in Buenos Aires rarely presents itself with violence: it arrives with the stealth of things rested at the edge of the curb, half a meter from the footsteps of strangers. There, exposed to traffic, appeared the copy: Fuegos Ceremoniales (Ceremonial Fires), by María del Mar Estrella, published in 2007 by Vinciguerra under its Metáfora Collection. A textured hardcover book, the kind that invites touch before reading, with that sober paper weight that promises permanence. Someone discarded it. Someone, once upon a time, chose it.

Upon opening it, the first sign of its private life rests on the flyleaf, penned in ink with a fluid script:

«A mi querida amiga y poeta Susana, con cariño y en hermandad de palabra.»
(“To my dear friend and poet Susana, with affection and in sisterhood of the word.”)
May 2, 2015.

Eight years elapsed between the press (2007) and the author’s affectionate gesture (2015). And then, more than a decade until the copy ended up on the street.

Facing this scene, one cannot help but wonder what route the object took to the sidewalk. Four hypotheses come to mind:

1.    The dissolution of the bond. The “sisterhood of the word” expired. Letting go of the object is an attempt to erase the material proof of the link: if the gifted book no longer exists, it is as though the affection was never on the bookshelf.

2.    Death or the clearing out of a personal library. The passing of the recipient and the subsequent cleanout by indifferent heirs, who dispatch whole boxes to the public street without even opening the cover. The inscription becomes invisible to anyone who cannot read the interior of others' bonds.

3.    Implicit devaluation. The gift was never truly appreciated in its proper measure and slowly rolled toward discard: first a shelf, then a box, then the street.

4.    A ritual of detachment and circulation. The noblest and most poetic hypothesis. The book was not discarded out of contempt: tucked between its final pages was a bookmark from another publisher—unequivocal evidence that someone traversed the text all the way to the last line. Its mission fulfilled with that reader, the book was liberated so it could find the next one. It is the age-old practice of book-sowing: the work, once read, returns to the city’s flow. The bookmark acts like a message cast into the river: “I made it this far; now it’s your turn.”

There is no way to know which hypothesis is true, or if others exist that escape me, and that ignorance is part of the find. The object tells what it tells; the rest is interpretation. But the book contained more layers.

A Pantheon in Verse

Fuegos Ceremoniales has an unusual structure: each poem is explicitly dedicated to a giant of literature, and each dedication adds an attribute, as if the author were constructing a museum of busts in verse:

•    Standing before the light (To Julio Cortázar: sentiment)
•    Shadows on the wall (To Ernesto Sabato: commitment)
•    The prodigal (To Alejandra Pizarnik: anguish / tearing)
•    Night notebook (To Jorge Luis Borges: memory)
•    Terrestrial tool (To José Pedroni: hope)
•    Chance and circumstance (To Alfonsina Storni: challenge)
•    Sower of dreams (To Fermín Estrella Gutiérrez: devotion)
•    Girandomédulas (To Oliverio Girondo: irony)
•    Circle of fire (To Enrique Molina: eroticism)
•    Under the sign of a wing (To Olga Orozco: mystery)

  And so it continues with many more…

Cortázar, Sabato, Pizarnik, Borges, Pedroni, Storni, Girondo, Molina, Orozco: this is not a dedication to a “nobody,” to an indistinct figure. It is a national pantheon, and each poem seeks its place in the shadow of a giant. One of the names, however, is not an aspiration but a heritage: Fermín Estrella Gutiérrez, a Spanish-Argentine academic and poet, was the author's father. María del Mar Estrella, born in Buenos Aires in 1941, is the daughter of that poet and boasts over fifty years of uninterrupted writing and seven published books, starting with El poblador (RdC Publishing). This reframes everything: we are not before an unknown coasting on the fame of others, but a poet with her own trajectory, raised in a home where the busts of the pantheon were, at least one of them, the living room family portrait.

The Seven Pages of Validation

And then appears the other peculiarity, the uncomfortable one: at the end of the volume, under the title “About María del Mar Estrella,” the author deploys nearly seven pages reproducing praise and commentary from established authors who wrote to her throughout her career. Apparently, she didn’t just dedicate poems: she wrote in person to many of the living (this is my conjecture) and received responses. And she published those responses. One of them decrees: “María del Mar will no longer be forgotten.”

The scene thus takes on its most ironic shade: a book designed to ensure the legitimation and endurance of its author through the endorsement of literary authorities ends up abandoned on the paving stones. The phrase “she will no longer be forgotten” coexists within the very same object alongside a forgotten bookmark and a street that remembers nothing.

Before judging, a shift of focus is in order. First: the search for validation is not a personal flaw of María del Mar Estrella; it is a trait of the creative condition—of every creator who knows that ink guarantees nothing and signs the world hoping someone will sign back. She was merely more transparent than others when showcasing her pats on the back. Second: the 2015 dedication is the record of genuine affection at a given moment; that it ends up on the sidewalk speaks to the implacable passage of time, of how libraries are scattered, not to the falsity of the affection. The paradox is melancholy, almost tragic, and deserves respect rather than mockery. Third: the noblest twist of this story is the act of rescue itself. Instead of ending up in a dumpster or ruined by rain, the copy was picked up by someone who took the trouble to read it completely, analyze it, and take it for a walk. If anyone should be grateful for this ending, it is the word itself, which keeps circulating.

The street is the great equalizer: it evaporates vanity and dutiful praise, but it also restores books to their primary function: finding readers, one at a time, by chance.

The Motivation for the Walk: Turning the Marrow (Girando la Médula)

Among the first ten poems of the pantheon, one leaped off the page on its own merits: Girandomédulas, page 37, expressly dedicated “To Oliverio Girondo: irony.” It is worth transcribing a fragment:

(Through what crazy lock does it subversively penetrate
and winding up leisure
makes the blood dance on the truth of a single edge?
Immodest, perverse provocateur, irony distracts
prowling in a twilight streetcar
like a scarecrow crawling
in the masmédula of weeping.)

Ladies and gentlemen: here you have
a pin or filigree or convincing cyanide kiss;
depending on which hand releases it, which lips pronounce it
it will be a subtle feast or a crude bacchanal
scandal of puritan hypocrisy.

(Girandomédulas pulls the trigger against the ghost of doubt
fires
astride a nomadic and sharp vigil
while the girls of Flores agonize
clenching groans in their marble muscles.)

I do not have nor do I wish to have statue’s blood...
Better to laugh at oneself, to be excessively human

(and it continues)

La masmédula: The Word Buried in the Title

The title is a portmanteau word that only opens with the right key: girando (turning/spinning) + masmédula. It is not abstract anatomy: “en la masmédula del llanto” directly quotes the title of Oliverio Girondo's final poetry book, En la masmédula (1956), the deepest and most anguish-ridden work by the author of Veinte poemas para ser leídos en el tranvía (Twenty Poems to Be Read on the Streetcar). The marrow (médula) in Estrella's title isn't generic bone marrow: it is Girondo’s marrow—his final word—quoted and turned.

And the poem is stitched with Girondian nods that confirm the operation:

•    “Ladies and gentlemen: here you have” — The formula of the buffoonish lecturer that Girondo premiered in Espantapájaros (Scarecrow, 1932), the manifesto-book of his I that mocks all solemnity.

•    “prowling in a twilight streetcar” — Impossible not to read there the streetcar of his foundational 1922 title, Twenty Poems to Be Read on the Streetcar.

•    “like a scarecrow crawling” — The scarecrow, Girondo’s alter ego, reappears crawling within the tribute itself.

•    “while the girls of Flores agonize / clenching groans in their marble muscles” — An image of masmedular pedigree, baroque and piercing.

•    “I do not have nor do I wish to have statue’s blood” — The anti-statue: he who does not want to be a monument, he who chooses to laugh at himself.

Estrella does not merely dedicate a poem to Girondo: she dresses up as Girondo, mimics his syntax, borrows his bestiary, and spins it. And here lies the object's greatest irony: the poem she dedicated to the great Argentine ironist met—she, her book—the most Girondian ending possible: the sidewalk, where the scarecrow from the beginning ends up “crawling in the masmédula” of urban discard. Girondo would have signed off on that script.

The Geometry of the Concept

On that basis, the walk organized itself, because the poem and the surname trace a mental map in the shape of a circle:

•    Girondo / Giro: The surname carries rotation inscribed within it. Giro (turn/spin). Going in circles.

•    Hondo (Deep): The deep, the concave. And the deep, stretching the thread, is a pit or well; and a pit, almost by definition, is round.

•    Marrow (Médula): The center, the core, the internal axis. Turning the marrow (girar la médula) is stirring one's depths while one's feet trace the circle on the outside.

•    Rosedal / Laps: The walk materializes the concept: tracing around the lake is literally a deep turn (giro hondo) with water at the center.

The natural response to the reading was to translate the text into physical movement: the book in the pocket and laps around the Lake at Palermo's Rosedal, whose perimeter of approximately 1.6 km is the classic circuit for park walkers and runners.

Why the Rosedal: The Coincidence That Is No Coincidence

There is an extra argument, almost scandalous in its exactness: the Rosedal, designed by Carlos Thays based on a project inaugurated in 1914, preserves among its rosebushes a collection of writers' busts—the so-called Paseo de los Poetas (Poets' Walk)—with over two dozen sculptures of authors from around the world. That is to say: walking through the Rosedal is literally walking among poets turned into marble and bronze. And the book in the pocket is precisely that: a stroll of poets turned into busts of ink—“marble muscles,” “statue's blood”—each with its dedicated pedestal.

The physical stage and the stage of the book are the exact same stage. The poem's question (“Through what crazy lock does it subversively penetrate?”) finds its urban answer: the street was that crazy lock through which the object filtered out here. Add the White Bridge—the Puente de los Enamorados (Lovers' Bridge), to cross from one shore to the other without getting wet, like promised relationships—the Andalusian Patio donated by Seville in 1929 with its fountain and tiles, and facing it, the Eduardo Sívori Museum, and the apparatus is complete.

Book–Poem–Walk Relationship: The Three Concentric Laps

The journey was framed as a pedestrian essay in three laps around the lake, each with its own axis of reflection. Three times 1.6 km: almost five kilometers of circles for a book that left one circle—the printing press—and returned to another—that of the street.

First Lap: Surface and Legitimation

The Rosedal in bloom is pure surface: petals, fragrances, nature’s ornamentation organized by the landscape architect's hand. Upon that surface, the busts: marble poets who no longer breathe, monuments the park exhibits as proof of its own nobility. It is impossible not to think of the seven final pages of the book, of the pantheon of dedications, of the author taking shelter under the shadow of giants and printing their applause as a shield against oblivion.
The irony of the first lap: whoever seeks the immortality of the statue ends up on the curb. But also the reversal: the true validation of the book did not come through the signatures of the masters, but through this moment in which an anonymous walker rescues it and reads it completely. The street, which equalizes, also redeems.

Second Lap: Sisterhood and Detachment

On the second turn, the focus shifts to the handwritten dedication. “Sisterhood of the word and dispute” is the trace of a genuine affection that included its own disagreement: a bond known to be two-way. Relationships change, libraries dissolve, people part with objects, and what was once blue ink of affection is today paper baking under the sun on the curb. There is no trauma in this: there is only the passage of time.

The bookmark from another publisher between the last pages is material testimony that the reading was completed. If the abandonment was an act of surrender rather than contempt, then the second lap is walked as a ritual of detachment: someone let the book go so that the word could continue its course. Urban sowing works if someone gathers. It was gathered.

On the physical plane, this lap has its iconic moment: understanding that spaces are also dedications—the Andalusian Patio was left by Seville for Buenos Aires in 1929, and the city continues to read it.

Third Lap: The Masmédula and the Turn

The final lap integrates the entire game: Giro — Hondo — Médula — Rosedal. The lake is the pit, the deep filled with water; the marrow is the unseen center, the axis of oneself; spinning around it is the only way to encircle depth without falling into it. Walking in circles while contemplating the futility of human recognition is, literally, turning the marrow: stirring the core while the feet repeat the outline.

The poem—and with it the entire book—finds its proper scale: not that of the monument, but that of the body that turns and laughs at itself. “I do not have nor do I wish to have statue’s blood... Better to laugh at oneself, to be excessively human.” The circle closes with the Girondian decree: the book that sought to erect itself as a printed monument finds its human dimension in discard, in chance, and in the act of walking.

The Final Paradox

If the author were ever to find out, the irony would reach its peak: a poem dedicated to Oliverio Girondo about irony comes to life precisely through the most ironic event possible—discard, chance, rescue, and the walk. But there is something even deeper: the book that wanted not to be forgotten will not be remembered for its seven pages of crowning praise, but for the gap it left in a bookshelf and the knot it formed in a stranger’s pocket. The true life of the word occurred not in the fixed ink of the press, but in motion: from the press to the friend, from the friend to the sidewalk, from the sidewalk to the pocket, from the pocket to the loop around the lake.

And this chronicle is the next link in the chain. The found word keeps circulating. One open question remains, that of all sowing: when this book finishes fulfilling its mission with this reader, will it return to the street to find the next one? The bookmark already left its message: “I made it this far; now it’s your turn.”

Sources and Verifications

•    Biographical details of María del Mar Estrella (daughter of Fermín Estrella Gutiérrez, born in 1941, fifty years of writing, seven books): RdC Publishing https://rdcpublishing.com.ar/artista.php?id=167
•    Lake Rosedal Circuit, ~1.6 km: Meteored https://www.meteored.com.ar/noticias/actualidad/el-rosedal-de-palermo-el-pulmon-verde-de-buenos-aires-aire-libre.html and Pacer Map https://www.mypacer.com/es/routes/327892/lago-del-rosedal-caminar-y-correr-sendero-palermo-buenos-aires-argentina
•    Design by Carlos Thays (1914) and collection of writers' busts: Alquiler Argentina https://www.alquilerargentina.com/blog/paseos-y-excursiones/recorriendo-el-rosedal-de-palermo.html
•    Andalusian Patio (donation from Seville, 1929), White Bridge, Sívori Museum: Buenos Aires 123 https://www.buenosaires123.com.ar/paseos/rosedal.html
•    Poem Girandomédulas (p. 37), index of dedications, handwritten dedication from 2015, and publication details: transcription from the found copy itself.
•    https://www.cultura.gob.ar/oliverio-girondo-7-poemas-imperdibles_7045/
•    https://www.cervantesvirtual.com/portales/oliverio_girondo/su_obra_literaria/

Wikiloc track: https://es.wikiloc.com/rutas-senderismo/walk-through-palermo-caba-maria-del-mar-estrella-girandomedulas-book-poetry-290489244

 

With AI help. (Gemini) 

The nose ring and the bangs: rebellion or new dogma?

 

 "Doubt is the origin of wisdom." 

— Pierre Abélard

"Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know." / "Nothing is so easy as to deceive oneself." 

— Michel de Montaigne

The Nose Ring and the Bangs: Rebellion or New Dogma?

There is a group of feminists who sport a nose ring and identical bangs, like a uniform of rebellion. There is no issue with that: fashions are just that, trends that unite people under a single style. But the phenomenon goes beyond aesthetics. In those groups, there are always two or three figures who stand out: those who are active, those who possess symbolic or economic capital, those who accumulate followers on social media. They are the spokeswomen, the ones who set the pace, the ones who decide which books are read, which ideas are disseminated, and which stances are "correct."

Is it not ironic that, from a discourse that denounces top-down structures and elitist privileges, the very same hierarchies they criticize are reproduced? What happens to the horizontality and plurality they claim to defend? These leaders—or influencers—summon their followers under the banner of "critical thinking" and "independence" and/or "autonomy," but how independent can those who follow the same guidelines without dissent truly be? Shouldn't critical thinking, in fact, allow for internal questioning?

The phenomenon deepens when these figures open virtual bookstores where they sell books "recommended with a stance." It sounds like an euphemism: couldn't it rather be indoctrination disguised as commerce? They criticize capitalism and oppression (claiming that "the oppression of women and the capitalist system are inseparable"), yet they replicate its mechanisms: they monopolize knowledge, turn it into a commodity, and sell it to their own followers. Isn't it contradictory that, while denouncing the exploitation of the system, they reproduce capitalist practices under the guise of "feminist consciousness"?

The question remains in the air: is it possible to build a truly horizontal movement when, in practice, the very power schemes that are meant to be overthrown are repeated?

"Custom is a second nature, and no less powerful than the first."

— Michel de Montaigne, Essays

The New Dogma: Chronicle of a Contradiction Foretold

The phenomenon is neither new nor exclusive to any contemporary group. It is, rather, a classic of human history: the tension between egalitarian discourse and hierarchical practice. Movements that self-proclaim to be anti-system, anti-privilege, or anti-hierarchical often reproduce within themselves the same power dynamics they criticize. And they do so with a particular irony: while denouncing capitalism or patriarchy, they monetize their own critique, turn dissent into a commodity, and transform horizontality into a new form of elite.

It is not a matter of demonizing or romanticizing, but of analyzing with a skeptical eye, just as thinkers from the 16th to the 18th centuries did with surgical precision. They were already dissecting these paradoxes with a clarity that remains relevant today.

The Homogeneous Mass and the Privileged Vanguards: Horizontality or Disguised Hierarchy?

The feminist group that adopts a nose ring and identical bangs is not, in itself, a problem. Fashions are just that: symbols of belonging. But when that aesthetic uniformity is accompanied by an ideological uniformity—without visible dissent—something deeper emerges. The mass forms, but it also polices itself. And in its midst, two or three figures always stand out: those with the most followers, the most charisma, the most symbolic or economic capital. They are the ones who direct, select, and monetize what the group consumes. The enlightened ones.

Is this consistent with anti-hierarchical discourse? No, from the logic of discourse. But yes, from social mechanics. As Baltasar Gracián noted in his The Art of Worldly Wisdom (1647), in any human grouping, power concentrates in those who know how to manage appearance, opportunity, and networks of influence. These "enlightened vanguards" are no different: they have managed to make themselves necessary, turn their activism into capital, and convert their "critical thinking" into a consumer product.

Francis Bacon, in his Novum Organum (1620), spoke of the "idols of the tribe" (collective biases that align people with the prevailing opinion) and the "idols of the theater" (dogmatic systems accepted by authority). A virtual bookstore of "recommendations with a stance" functions as a small theater of idols: it does not merely sell a book, but the guarantee that the stance is the correct one. Montaigne, for his part, insisted that custom and fashion shape us more than reason. "Custom is a second nature," he wrote. Belonging to a mass that dresses alike and thinks alike does not foster independent thought; it hinders it.

"Critical Thinking" Within a Mass: Slogan or Practice?

Critical thinking requires individual autonomy, a willingness to question one's own dogmas, and room for dissent. But when belonging to a group demands a homogenized aesthetic (shared visual codes) and a rigid doctrinal adherence, dissent is punished with ostracism or cancellation.

In this context, appealing to "critical thinking" often serves as a badge of belonging ("we are the enlightened ones, the others are alienated") rather than an actual practice of open inquiry. As René Descartes would say in his Discourse on the Method (1637), the method of methodical doubt requires suspending judgment on everything received by custom, authority, or "common opinion." Truly applying it within a group that already has "recommended stances" is nearly impossible without breaking away from the group.

David Hume, for his part, pointed out that custom and sympathy (emotional contagion of the group) are forces more powerful than abstract reason. People do not reach conclusions through argumentational purity, but because their surroundings make them feel correct. Voltaire, in his Philosophical Dictionary, decried the fanaticism of sects that believe themselves to be the sole possessors of truth and convert external criticism into internal dogma. "Critical thinking" turned into a group slogan looks far too much like what he called sectarian "enthusiasm."

The Commodification of Ideology: Anti-Capitalism or Disguised Capitalism?

The creation of virtual bookstores, workshops, or reading lists "recommended with a stance" illustrates how ideology is transformed into a good of consumption and status. It is held that capitalism is the root of oppression, but at the same time, operations take place within the commercial circuit, using ideological affinity as a market niche.

Contradiction? Yes. Novelty? No. La Rochefoucauld was already saying in his Maxims (1665): "Our virtues are most frequently but vices disguised" and "Interest speaks all sorts of tongues, and plays all sorts of parts, even that of disinterestedness." Anti-capitalist or horizontal discourse can function as a moral cover to obtain economic benefits or social capital within a specific niche.

Machiavelli, in The Prince (1532), had already explained that any movement seeking to transform the existing order ends up generating its own internal oligarchies. Discursive coherence is secondary to effectiveness in maintaining power.

The Classics and Their Perspective on Power and Hypocrisy

To understand this phenomenon, it is worth turning to the thinkers who, between the 16th and 18th centuries, examined the nature of power, the behavior of the masses, and the insincerity of political discourse:

•    Étienne de La Boétie (Discourse on Voluntary Servitude, 1576): Analyzed how individuals surrender their autonomy to submit to dogmas or leaders, forming pyramids of domination where a few gain influence over the mass.

•    Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan, 1651): Argued that, in the absence of clear rules, competition for honor and status generates inequality. Moral discourses are often facades masking the desire for power.

•    Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, 1755): Differentiated between natural self-love (amour de soi) and social self-love (amour-propre, the search for approval and distinction). In closed groups, the pursuit of status (being the most "militant" or the most "visible") responds to this mechanism.

•    Voltaire: A critic of dogmatism, he pointed out that groups that consider themselves possessors of a single truth develop their own internal clergy and inquisitions, collecting the "tithe" (in this case, commercializing products with an ideological seal of approval).

The Blindness of the Enlightened Flock: Why Don't the Indoctrinated See Their Own Cage?

The phenomenon is not exclusive to feminists with nose rings and bangs. It recurs in any ideological group, whether political, religious, activist, or even academic: collectives that are born to question the status quo but end up reproducing—or even worsening—the very power dynamics they denounce. The key question is: why don't those immersed in these systems perceive their own contradiction?

The answer lies in a combination of psychological, social, and rhetorical mechanisms that have been analyzed from antiquity down to modern psychology. Skeptical thinkers, with their ruthless lucidity, already anticipated these paradoxes. This essay explores how and why the indoctrinated do not see their own cage, and how this phenomenon transcends ideological boundaries.

The "Idol of the Tribe" and the Illusion of Collective Virtue

Francis Bacon, in his Novum Organum (1620), spoke of the "idols of the tribe" as inherent biases in human nature that lead us to align with the prevailing opinions of our group. However, there is something more sinister: the illusion that, simply by belonging to a "critical" collective, one is exempt from falling into the same mistakes as the rest.

•    The Trap of Self-Justification: As La Rochefoucauld noted, "interest speaks all sorts of tongues." People within these groups do not view themselves as indoctrinated, but as "enlightened," "aware," or "advanced." Their participation in the system is not perceived as submission, but as virtue. Criticizing capitalism while monetizing ideology is not a contradiction to them, because the end ("social justice") justifies the means.

•    The Effect of Polarization: Modern studies in social psychology, such as Leon Festinger's work on cognitive dissonance, show that when a person commits publicly to a group, their brain seeks consistency at all costs. If the group sells books or charges for workshops, the minds of its members rationalize the practice: "It's not capitalism; it's sustainable activism."

Montaigne would have called it "the tyranny of custom": when everyone around you repeats the same discourse, stopping to question it becomes an act of social survival.

"Cronyism" as a New Form of Capital: Who Benefits?

In these groups, power is not exercised through formal titles, but through symbolic capital: whoever has more followers, more charisma, or more internal connections ("cronyism") defines what is "critical thinking" and what is not. As Baltasar Gracián warned, "the most dangerous power is that which cannot be seen."

•    The Illusion of Horizontality: It is proclaimed that all are equal, but in practice, those who control communication channels (social networks, virtual bookstores, events) decide which voices are amplified and which are silenced. This is no different from traditional hierarchies; it is merely disguised as moral meritocracy.

•    The Cost of Dissent: As Voltaire wrote, "fanaticism is to superstition what delirium is to fever." In these groups, questioning the core leadership is not seen as critical thinking, but as heresy. The fear of ostracism (or "cancellation") acts as a mechanism of self-censorship. The result? Dissent vanishes, and with it, the capacity for self-criticism.

Hobbes would have explained it this way: in the absence of a visible central authority, human beings do not escape the competition for status. They simply change the rules of the game. Instead of competing for money or titles, they compete to be the most "committed," the most "pure," or the most aligned with the group's dogma.

The Commodification of Rebellion: When Anti-Capitalism Becomes Business

Here lies one of the sharpest paradoxes: groups that criticize capitalism end up reproducing its most predatory mechanisms, but with a twist: the product they sell is not a physical object, but the illusion of belonging to a superior collective.

•    "Niche Capitalism": As Machiavelli noted, power is maintained not only by force, but by the ability to make others dependent on you. Virtual bookstores, paid workshops, and reading lists "with a stance" are not just revenue streams; they are tools of control. Whoever buys those books or attends those workshops does not merely acquire knowledge: they purchase belonging and validation.

•    The Illusion of Exclusivity: Rousseau spoke of amour-propre, that desire to be recognized as superior. In these groups, consuming products "approved" by the leaders becomes a way to distinguish oneself from the rest (even if that "rest" consists of other feminists or activists). It is the same mechanism that drives people to buy luxury brands: it is not the product that matters, but the status it confers.

As La Rochefoucauld would sum it up: "Virtue is nothing but vice disguised as a good conscience."

Why Don't They Realize It? Three Key Mechanisms

 
A. Cognitive Dissonance: "We are not like the others" Psychologist Leon Festinger demonstrated that when our actions conflict with our beliefs, the brain seeks justifications to reduce the discomfort. In the case of these groups:

•    Action: Selling books or charging for workshops (capitalist practice).
•    Belief: "We are anti-capitalist."
•    Justification: "It is activism, not commerce" or "the end justifies the means."
•    The Result: They do not see the contradiction because their brains have rationalized it away.

B. The Moral Superiority Bias Studies in social psychology, such as those by Jonathan Haidt, show that people tend to believe their group is morally superior. This leads to:

•    Dehumanizing critics: "Those who question this don't understand the struggle" or "They are accomplices of the system."
•    Ignoring one's own flaws: "We are not like other groups; we actually are coherent."

As Montaigne would say: "The greatest defect of humans is forgetting that they are human."

C. The Echo Chamber Effect In the digital age, social networks act as echo chambers: only voices that reinforce one's own beliefs are heard. This generates:

•    A distorted reality: If everyone in your circle repeats that "capitalism is the enemy," but no one questions that you yourself are profiting from it, the contradiction becomes invisible.
•    The illusion of the majority: As Bacon noted, "truth emerges more readily from error than from confusion." In an echo chamber, error is reinforced until it becomes dogma.

Is This Exclusive to Feminists? No. It Is Universal
This phenomenon is not exclusive to any single group. It recurs in:

•    Political collectives: Parties that promote equality, but end up as internal oligarchies.
•    Spiritual movements: Gurus who sell "enlightenment" while accumulating wealth.
•    Academic circles: An intellectual elite that criticizes elitism... while controlling who is allowed to publish or speak.
•    "Ethical" consumer groups: Brands that sell "sustainable" products at prices out of reach for the majority.

La Boétie explained it in his Discourse on Voluntary Servitude (1576): power is imposed not only by force, but through the complicity of those who submit to it. Today, that complicity hides behind the guise of "critical consciousness."

The Uncomfortable Question: Can a Truly Horizontal Group Exist?

The skeptical answer is: no, or at least not for long. As Hobbes wrote, "man is a wolf to man," and in the absence of clear structures, power always finds a way to concentrate.

However, there is a caveat: the groups that survive their own contradictions are those that allow—and even encourage—internal dissent. As Voltaire would say, "fanaticism is the enemy of reason." A movement that does not tolerate questioning is condemned to become the very thing it claims to combat.

The Manipulation of Language: When Words Become Weapons

The phenomenon is not limited merely to the reproduction of hierarchies or the commodification of ideology. There is a third pillar: the manipulation of language. Ideological groups, in their eagerness to set themselves apart and justify their existence, resort to a constant aggiornamento (updating) of terms—a semantic makeover that allows them to present old ideas as revolutionary novelties.

A. The Aggiornamento of Terminology: The Same Thing Under Another Name Language is a battlefield. Terms such as "intersectionality," "deconstruction," "privilege," or "cancellation" are not new concepts in essence, but reinterpretations of ideas that existed centuries ago, clothed in modern attire to make them appear innovative. For example:

•    "Intersectionality": The idea that oppressions are intertwined is not new. Marx was already discussing the intersection of class and gender in the 19th century, and before him, thinkers like Mary Wollstonecraft analyzed how inequalities overlapped. However, the current term is used to signal a supposed moral superiority in whoever uses it, as if its mere mention guaranteed a deeper understanding of reality.

•    "Deconstruction": The concept has roots in Derrida and post-structuralism, but today it is used so broadly and vaguely that it has lost its original meaning. It has become a rhetorical wild card: anything can be "deconstructed," but rarely is anything rebuilt from that critique.

As Gracián would say, "to do, and to make it seem so." But in this case, what is named with new terms acquires a false authority, as if the simple act of using a modern word automatically validated its content.

B. Language as a Tool of Stigmatization Language serves not only to define one's own identity, but also to exclude and stigmatize the "others." Words such as:

•    "Reactionary," "fascist," "accomplice," "performative ally," or "unconscious"

are used to disqualify those who do not share the group's dogma, without the need for actual debate. They are not descriptive terms, but rhetorical weapons.
Voltaire already warned about this: "Words are used to disguise thoughts." In these groups, the disguise is used to hide a lack of arguments and to impose silence. As Orwell noted in 1984 (though outside the era analyzed here), controlling language is the first step toward controlling thought.

C. The Illusion of Novelty The use of "updated" terms creates the illusion that the group is at the forefront of thought. But as Montaigne would say, "there is nothing new under the sun." What changes is not the essence of the ideas, but the packaging. And that packaging serves to:

1.    Distinguish oneself from previous generations (even while repeating the same mistakes).
2.    Justify the existence of an intellectual elite within the group: those who master the new language hold the power to define who is "in" and who is "out."
3.    Sell the idea of progress without the need for actual progress.

La Rochefoucauld would have summarized it thus: "We change our words so as not to change things."

Conclusion: The Golden Cage of Activism and Language as a Link

The indoctrinated do not see their own cage because it is made of the very bars they believe they are tearing down. The system they criticize (capitalism, patriarchy, top-down power) is reproduced in their own practices, but in disguise: that of moral virtue and a supposedly revolutionary language.

As the skeptics knew well, words can be just as oppressive as the structures they denounce. La Rochefoucauld wrote in one of his maxims: "Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue."
Final Skeptical View: Betrayal or Human Nature?

What is described here is not an accidental betrayal of ideals. It is the predictable functioning of human nature in groups. Discourses of horizontality and radical critique rarely survive the relative success of the group itself: when there is visibility, followers, and the opportunity to monetize, hierarchies, filters, and "authorized recommendations" emerge.

The skepticism of Montaigne, Bacon, or Gracián does not consist of denying that real oppressions exist, but of mistrusting those who, in fighting them, reproduce structures of privilege and thought control using a different vocabulary.

The test of genuinely independent thought is found neither in a slogan nor in a virtual bookstore of correct stances, but in the ability to sustain uncomfortable dissension within one's own circle. When that ability disappears, what remains is, as Bacon would say, just another idol of the theater.

This essay was prepared with the support of artificial intelligence tools: Gemini, Grok, and Mistral.

Few Things Are Impossible: Means, Perseverance, and the Condition of Achievement

 
"Few things are impossible in themselves; we usually lack not the perseverance to obtain them, but the means."
— François de La Rochefoucauld

 

Introduction

The debate regarding the boundaries of human achievement perpetually oscillates between the limitations of matter and the weakness of the spirit. Confronted with this dilemma, popular wisdom often resorts to polished adages that seek to settle the issue with elegance. However, upon dissecting these ideas, we discover that what appears to be a mere lexical dispute encapsulates a complex philosophical tension between structure and agency.
«Few things are impossible in themselves; we usually lack not the perseverance to obtain them, but the means.» This maxim, attributed to François de La Rochefoucauld, condenses one of the most persistent questions in moral reflection: what truly separates man from his undertakings? Is it the scarcity of resources or the weakness of the will?
The question is not trivial. Depending on how it is answered, the emphasis shifts toward structure or toward agency, toward the conditioning world or toward the deciding subject. This essay first examines what La Rochefoucauld actually said, then reconstructs the two positions elicited by the maxim, and finally confronts them with their critics, skeptics, and philosophical antipodes, proposing a reading in which means and perseverance are not rivals, but terms in a circular relationship.

I. What La Rochefoucauld Actually Said

It is fitting to begin with a philological clarification. The maxim indeed belongs to La Rochefoucauld and appears in his Maxims (1665), specifically number 243, the original text of which reads:

"Il y a peu de choses impossibles en elles-mêmes; et l'application pour les faire réussir nous manque plus que les moyens."
(“There are very few things impossible in themselves; and rather than the means, what we lack to execute them is application.”)

The nuance is decisive. The popular Spanish translation inverts the meaning of the original: while the version in common circulation claims that means are lacking and will is abundant, the French text asserts the exact opposite: what is lacking is l'application—application, sustained effort, disciplined attention—and not the means. La Rochefoucauld places himself, therefore, on the side that holds the individual responsible rather than scarcity.
This stance is consistent with his intellectual profile. La Rochefoucauld was not a systematic academic philosopher, but a 17th-century French moralist culturally close to Jansenism—an Augustinian movement within Catholicism that stressed human corruption after the Fall and the futility of purely human virtues without divine grace. His moral psychology revolves around amour-propre (self-love): human virtues—generosity, courage, fidelity—are almost always masks for selfishness, vanity, or self-interest. Hence his radical anthropological pessimism and disenchanted lucidity: human beings deceive themselves into believing they act out of noble ideals when they are driven by their passions.

II. The Two Stances: Structure vs. Agency

Read in its popular form, the maxim sets up two opposing interpretations.

The Lack of Means

This perspective holds that desire and will are present, but material reality imposes limits. No matter how much perseverance a person has, they cannot build a bridge without materials or pursue a degree without access to education. Socioeconomic status, geographical environment, or available time act as real barriers that mere intention cannot tear down. Success depends largely on the tools and opportunities available.

The Lack of Perseverance

The opposing stance—which, let us remember, is that of the original text—argues that means are built or found when perseverance is sufficient. True persistence involves searching for, creating, or adapting resources over time. Initial scarcity sharpens ingenuity; long-term focus compensates for a poor start. Those who abandon their goals often blame the means, when in reality they lacked the discipline to sustain the effort long enough.
Each stance hits the mark in its own way. The first demystifies the "where there's a will, there's a way" mentality: recognizing the weight of means prevents unjustified guilt when poverty, physical limitations, or a lack of access to education impose real ceilings. Without a minimum material foundation, perseverance becomes an exhausting effort against an immovable wall. The second, conversely, warns that treating means as a given leads to conformism: perseverance is not repeating an action under the same conditions, but a dynamic process of learning, negotiating, developing skills, and gradually building the resources one lacked.

III. Synthesis: A Circular Relationship

Rather than mutually exclusive positions, both represent complementary dimensions of achievement. The means establish the starting point and initial viability: they determine the speed, required effort, and objective probability of success. Perseverance determines the trajectory and sustainability: it transforms potential into reality and takes charge of seeking or maximizing the available means.
In practice, the relationship between the two is circular: perseverance allows for the accumulation or creation of means, and possessing means facilitates the continuity of effort. The key lies not in the absolute primacy of one over the other, but in the ability to realistically assess available means while maintaining the discipline to expand them.

IV. The Critics of La Rochefoucauld

The Maxims generated controversy from the moment of their publication due to their demystifying view of human nature.

Jean de La Bruyère and traditional moralists considered that reducing the entire complexity of virtue to self-interest was an excessive reductionism. Among Enlightenment thinkers, Voltaire admired the stylistic conciseness of La Rochefoucauld's sentences but criticized his radical pessimism for paralyzing social action and dismissing humanity's moral progress. Rousseau, for his part, rejected the idea that man's natural inclination was cold selfishness: society corrupts an underlying natural goodness. Nietzsche, admiring and critical at once, accepted the diagnosis regarding the falsity of traditional morality, but deemed it symptomatic of a "decadent" or resentful psychology, inherited from Judeo-Christian and Jansenist thought.

V. The Skeptics' Reservations

Confronted with the statement that "few things are impossible in themselves," the skeptical tradition—from ancient Pyrrhonism to the empiricism of David Hume—raises structural objections.
First, the illusion of omnipotence: asserting that almost nothing is impossible is an unfounded faith in human capacity; reality imposes physical, biological, and logical limits that neither will nor means can dissolve. Second, survivorship bias: we record exceptional cases where perseverance overcame adversity while ignoring the overwhelming majority who, with maximum application and means, failed due to chance or structural factors. Third, suspension of judgment (epoché): it is impossible to determine a priori whether the decisive factor was a lack of means, a lack of perseverance, or simply fortune (tyche); attributing success or failure to a single variable is an unfounded dogma.

VI. The Antipodes: Structure and Causality

Two major currents position themselves at the opposite extreme of the maxim.

Structural and Socioeconomic Determinism: Marx and Bourdieu

For the historical materialism of Karl Marx, the premise of The German Ideology summarizes it categorically: "It is not consciousness that determines life, but life that determines consciousness." Relations of production, resources, and social class condition and delimit laws, morality, and the very perception of merit. Without access to the means of production or capital, individual effort is reduced to selling labor power for subsistence. Marx would argue that the idea that "application or perseverance is lacking" is an ideological mechanism that holds the individual accountable for their fate, rendering underlying class inequality invisible.

Pierre Bourdieu deepens this critique in the sociological and cultural domain. His concept of habitus designates the system of durable dispositions that individuals internalize through primary socialization: the capacity to sustain effort, tolerance for frustration, or academic discipline are not magical attributes of the soul, but schemes ingrained by class experience. Added to this are forms of capital—economic (money and goods), cultural (embodied, objectified, and institutionalized), and social (networks and influence). Demanding the same "application" from two individuals with different initial capital is, for Bourdieu, a symbolic violence: whoever possesses adequate cultural capital has not only better means, but the habitus to use them in a way that appears to be natural talent or superior willpower.

Metaphysical Determinism: Spinoza and d'Holbach

On the metaphysical plane, fatalist philosophies maintain that free will is an illusion, which dissolves the maxim from its roots: the assertion that "we lack application" presupposes that the subject had the real alternative to apply more effort than they did.

Baruch Spinoza dismantles free will in his Ethics: everything happens necessarily by the nature of God or Nature (Deus sive Natura). His famous analogy of the conscious stone illustrates this: if a stone thrown into the air had consciousness, it would believe it was flying by its own will. Human beings believe they act out of "free will" simply because they are conscious of their desires, but ignorant of the causes that determine them. The exact amount of attention and persistence an individual displays is the necessary result of their constitution and external affects acting upon them.

Baron d'Holbach, in his System of Nature (1770), takes determinism to a radical mechanistic materialism: man is a physical entity subject to the laws of physics and biology, and his decisions and levels of motivation are nothing more than movements of the brain caused by internal and external stimuli. Under this view, reproaching someone for their "lack of perseverance" is equivalent to reproaching a flame for not burning brighter when it lacks sufficient oxygen: there is no independent "self" outside physical forces that can arbitrarily decide to "have more will."

Conclusion

La Rochefoucauld's maxim—read in its original sense or in its popularized version—has the merit of forcing us to name the two ingredients of all achievement: the means offered by the world and the application contributed by the subject. Its critics, skeptics, and philosophical antipodes fulfill a complementary function: they remind us that the will does not float in a vacuum, that structure does not explain everything, and that chance intervenes without asking for permission.

Perhaps the most honest lesson is this: before any concrete undertaking, it is wise to ask, without dogmatism, what is truly lacking. There are cases where the answer is "means," and honest effort consists of naming the structural injustice that denies them. There are cases where the answer is "application," and honest effort consists of sustaining the discipline that has not yet been deployed. Practical wisdom lies not in choosing once and for all between La Rochefoucauld and Bourdieu, or between Spinoza and the moralist of effort, but in the lucidity to distinguish, case by case, when the wall is outside and when it is inside.

Ultimately, by contrasting the popular quote with La Rochefoucauld's authentic text and confronting his view with skepticism, sociological materialism, and metaphysical determinism, the question of success overflows the simple dichotomy between means and perseverance. It compels us to realistically assess the material conditions and causal forces that shape us, while examining the responsibility with which we manage the discipline possible within our own limits.

In the classical tradition of fable literature, there are three emblematic fables that embody, from complementary angles, the tension raised by La Rochefoucauld between the availability of means and the decisive factor of application, perseverance, and effort:
 

1.    The Tortoise and the Hare (Aesop)

The supreme representation of La Rochefoucauld's original assertion ("We lack the application to make them succeed rather than the means").

o    The Means: The hare possesses all physical means to win the race: speed, agility, and favorable biomechanics. The tortoise completely lacks adequate morphological resources to compete in speed.
o    The Lack of Application: The hare loses not due to a lack of capacity or means, but due to overconfidence, distraction, and a lack of perseverance (l'application). The tortoise, through uninterrupted discipline and absolute focus on execution, compensates for a structural inferiority of means and reaches the goal.
o    Connection: Fits perfectly with the authentic version of La Rochefoucauld's Maxim 243: an abundance of means is useless if one lacks the perseverance to execute them.

2.    The Fox and the Grapes (Aesop / Jean de La Fontaine)

This fable addresses the problem from the psychological bias produced by a lack of means.

o    The Conflict: A hungry fox sees a cluster of ripe grapes high up on a vine. It attempts to reach them repeatedly, but the height exceeds its physical capabilities and means of reach.
o    The Defense Mechanism: Realizing it lacks the means to achieve its goal, the fox gives up and rationalizes its failure by saying: "They don't matter, they're sour."
o    Connection: Illustrates the distortion described by the French moralist: when human beings lack the means or application to achieve an end, they prefer to declare the goal impossible, undesirable, or unworthy, rather than recognize their own limitation or lack of sustained effort to build the ladder to reach it.

3.    The Crow and the Pitcher (Aesop)

Represents the situation where perseverance sharpens ingenuity to supply or create means that are not given beforehand.

o    The Plot: A thirsty crow finds a pitcher with a little water at the bottom, but its beak cannot reach the liquid. Instead of giving up for lack of means (a longer beak), the crow begins dropping small pebbles into the pitcher, one by one.
o    The Result: Through sheer application and patience, the water level rises until the crow can drink.
o    Connection: Reinforces the idea that constant application not only utilizes existing means, but is capable of altering the physical conditions of the environment to generate the means that were missing.

Essay created with AI assistance (Gemini; Mistral) and edited by the user.