God, country and market. All this is seen in the speech of the economist Antonini de Jiménez. “Spain needs more Mercadonas and fewer tax inspectors. The Saints of the 21st century will be businessmen or they will not be,” the president enthusiastically proclaims this Saturday. youtuber Sevillian in which they attend the Awakening. An event that brings together some of the most famous names of the new conservatism born outside the orbit of the parties and with great echo on the internet. De Jiménez himself, Juan Soto Ivars, Jano García, René ZZ, Izanami Martínez, Juan Manuel de Prada and Ana Iris Simón are the speakers at this meeting that raises an antagonism between the supposed free thought and the morality of the left. Their interventions will be structured in three acts: silence, dialogue and the act.
These are writers, lecturers and regulars on social networks who have the virtue of capturing the interest of generation Z in the midst of attention capitalism. They capitalize on the discontent of the , with their criticism of a unique theoretical thought linked to progressivism. The event takes on a spiritual dimension when the French priest Jacques Philippe, an expert in leading retreats and a regular collaborator of the Hakuna Catholic youth movement, appears on stage. “In each of us there is a need for peace, for silence, but we are afraid of emptiness, loneliness, of being bored. What happens is that we try to avoid contact with ourselves,” says the religious man, clad in a habit. The dim light inside the stadium is reflected on the faces of the attendees.
“God exists!” someone in the audience shouts with great conviction. Before getting on the stage, Ana Iris Simón concedes that “no one would be surprised” if this were an event “only with progressive intellectuals.” “It is worth asking why we assume that as the normality of things,” suggests the columnist of this newspaper and in which she revolts against the precariousness of her generation. The writer was one of the first to collaborate with It’s time to think, the ideas laboratory behind The Awakening. Founded by a couple of young people after the pandemic, this think tank began to organize small meetings with intellectuals, scientists, artists or figures from politics and finance. These are the so-called thinkglaos: 18 minutes of presentation and 45 of debate followed by a meal with pizza and beer courtesy of Damm.
The guests at thinkglaos They are announced well in advance, while the topic of their conference is kept a jealous secret until the last moment. Although it is true that most of the speakers could fit into the right, and artists without known political affiliation such as Dani Martín, el Niño de Elche or Dani Rovira. The organizers claim that their goal is to “take philosophy to the streets” and think outside the box. El Despertar is his most ambitious project and, at the same time, an unequivocal take of sides in the cultural conflicts of this time. The event is supported almost entirely by the public (each ticket costs 27.10 euros), as explained by Javier Roca, one of the promoters, and has the support of Infojobs, Mahou and the La Caixa Foundation.
The audience is similar to the one that packed Puerta del Sol in December to listen to Hakuna’s Catholic pop. Between presentations, messages that appeal to faith and others that praise a generation with self-awareness are projected on the Vistalegre screen. “If someone wants to understand what Spain is, they have to go through Christian values,” economist Jano García, author of The triumph of stupidity (Plaza & Janés), where he attacks some of the most established consensuses on the left: equality, social justice, solidarity between generations and multiculturalism. Faced with what he considers imposed values, he proposes a religious morality that “allows good from evil to be discerned.” “A country in which one has to explain that agreeing with the political arm of a terrorist group is wrong is a country that is dead,” he emphatically ditches, later giving way to Juan Soto Ivars.
The latter is perhaps the most notable author of a new right capable of filling stadiums and accumulating hundreds of thousands of followers on the networks. Already planted on stage, Ivars defends: “This is a society that is lonelier than ever, which confuses freedom with disconnection and dialogue with shouting louder. We have lost ties, trust and a common ground.” The writer and journalist has recently signed for the newspaper ABC after years in The Confidential dstated the democratic asphyxiation that, according to him, identity politics generates in The hanged man’s house (Debate, 2021) and now. In the essay, he criticizes a supposed lack of presumption of innocence for men accused of abuse.
His detractors have accused him of eroding the credibility of women and trivializing machismo. In his speech, Ivars claims understanding between different people and “ending the trenches.” It would seem that the common denominator of those who denounce polarization is that they never recognize their responsibility for it. “We young people feel helpless politically and by the administration,” says one of the attendees, Beltrán Cardona (25 years old), during the break. “We are looking for references, to root ourselves and live life as close to the truth as possible, a truth that is free and without complexes,” adds the young man, who arrived from the Salamanca neighborhood and who declares himself a follower of Antonini de Jiménez. They are united by a complete certainty: God, country and market.
