José Luis Hernandez, aka Pepe, or Pepe Migala, is according to himself, a YouTuber that likes to talk about politics and philosophy. The modesty through his words wouldn’t introduce himself fairly. He’s one of the creators of the cultural dissemination magazine “Migala”, and the writer and voice behind the social platforms-project “Migala”.
On November 1st, 2021, Migala’s Youtube channel delivered a video named “Imagina que tienes dos vacas…” (Imagine you’ve got two cows…), and with it officially started a country-wide politic-activist movement which has already reached a good number of states and an even greater number of citizens aligned with the ideas and ideals José has developed through his social media platforms, always holding the moto “follow ideas, not characters”.
To get to know a bit more about his ideas and the character himself, I asked Jose Luis Hernandez to join me in a Zoom call for this interview, and gently enough, Jose accepted the invitation.
Jesús Torres: José, what is philosophy?
José Hernández: The basic definition is etymological: the love of knowledge. More than the love of knowledge, I think it is a tradition of critical thinking. It is a history that, while reflecting some Western tendencies of Eurocentrism and patriarchy, remains a discipline dedicated to looking at reality and trying to ask the right questions.
JT: What is politics?
JH: It is human self-organization.
It is the art of dialogue and reaching common resolutions.
JT: Do you believe that philosophy and politics can coexist positively within the cultural, historical, and material context of the global South?
JH: In fact, I believe they should. I suppose one can study the long history of events that have led to our country, in this case, Mexico, with its political institutions.
I suppose there might be those who can observe it from their academic ivory tower and not get their hands dirty, but at some point, someone has to get involved. I couldn't just diagnose reality and then do nothing else.
JT: Many academics view current affairs from an ivory tower, as you mention. Why do you think the Academy remains detached from practical matters and community?
JH: Historically, institutions are racist, classist, and elitist; they care more about connections than your actual abilities. In the end, it gives us an academy that a colony would have, a branch, as Dussel would say.
We don't have new thinkers evolving Marx's thought; we have Marxist thinkers. We don't have new ethical thinkers evolving Kant's thought; we have Kantian thinkers. When the academy, a product of these same social dynamics, looks at its own flaws and examines its own regulatory and controlling institutions, it has two choices: it can transform itself, which means abandoning some privileges, or it can theorize about it, console themselves, and tell the story that this is necessary so that someday the poor will start a revolution.
JT: Do you believe that the Academia issue you're discussing is inherent to the global South, or is it universal?
JH: Currently, it is universal. Considering that academic institutions in the global South are based on European models. In Europe, they hold conferences on climate change where the speakers arrive in private jets to tell the people they need to emit less CO2.
In Taoism, it is said that when the Tao is lost, virtue is born; when virtue is lost, benevolence is born; when benevolence is lost, morality is born; when morality is lost, ritual is born, and ritual is the husk of true faith, the beginning of chaos.
I believe that we are currently inhabiting only the husks of some faith that once existed, but no longer correspond to our times. As a result, instead of observing reality and acting as it demands, we continue to interpret the same rituals, hoping to return to that romanticized moment of the past that never truly was.
JT: What is the ritual we experience in Western Countries?
JH: We inhabit a complex web of rituals that feed into one another. On one hand, there's the nation-state. Lenin argued that the nation-state is a relic of the 19th century that no longer corresponds to the needs of present-day society, and he was saying this in the early 20th century. What does that say about our current needs?
Work is another ritual, especially where nature is scarce. Although as a society, we have achieved an abundance that could provide a prosperous life for all its members, we still view work as a way to dignify human beings and life itself.
Basic needs are seen as something to be earned through work.
There are different rituals, and not everyone requires the same ones. Ultimately, the ritual is a product of the material conditions in which it emerges. For us, the poor, work provides us with pride, identity, and even our place in society. On the other hand, for those who possess capital, the morality is different: entrepreneurship, creation, reinvesting profits. It's a circular way of thinking that seeks infinite growth in a finite world, leading to the depletion of our planet's resources and jeopardizing the capacity to build an organized civil society.
JT: What is democracy?
JH: There's a lengthy debate about this. In Mexico we understand democracy as the order of deliberative and representative institutions that were established in the United States and later copied by Benito Juárez, the Mexican president in the mid-19th century, to create the model of the nation in Mexico.
Interestingly, the Founding Fathers of the United States were explicit in opposing a true democracy. Thomas Jefferson, in one of his letters, explained that if there were a true democracy in the new nation, the poor would use it to redistribute lands, eliminate debts, and this would lead to what he coined as the "tyranny of the masses."
To prevent this, a true aristocracy was invented. Benjamin Franklin spoke of a natural aristocracy: if the smartest individuals were making decisions to improve the smartest (and since they had more money, they believed they were the smartest), eventually, only the noblest people would reach the top. History has proven them wrong; one only needs to look at the last 15 presidents of the United States.
On the other hand, what I understand as true democracy involves horizontal and deliberative structures. Decisions aren't reached by a show of hands or by majority vote; they are achieved through consensus, through dialogue. An initiative is proposed, everyone is asked for their input, and if a considerable number of people disagree with the proposed course of action, they are asked why, and the initiative is modified accordingly. There's a dialogue.
There's no imposition of majorities. At the end of the process, no one is obligated to participate in a course of action if they're not comfortable with it. That's true democracy, and it wasn't invented by the Greeks; it's the way practically all communities of free human beings organize themselves. Anthropologists demonstrate that this is the form of organization when there's no coercive power.
JT: What is a city?
JH: It's a modernity’s failure. The city is a human invention aimed at making the day more predictable. It's where humans converge and decide to settle. It's one of the consequences of agriculture. But considering that humans lived as nomads for 200,000 years and only started creating cities 10,000 years ago... it's a recent experiment. And if we look at the results, I believe this experiment has failed.
Starting from the Industrial Revolution, driven by the pursuit of maximum profits and the utilization of the great technological achievements of the time for production, lands started to be privatized and common crops were eliminated.
The city is the triumph of private property.
It's the compartmentalization of human experience: walls enclosing walls, enclosing walls, which in turn enclose other walls, all for the sake of a more predictable, "safer," and lonelier life. The very material conditions we have built around us are shaping our minds. This turns inhabitants of cities into alienated people: fearing and lacking social skills. People are now unfamiliar with nature and its processes, leading to a fear of life's spontaneity itself. In the words of Erich Fromm, this is called "necrophilia."
JT: Do you think we can achieve a democratic city?
JH: A democratic city is achievable. It's the anarchist project: creating a society within the framework of the previous one. David Harvey talks about building human spaces within the ruins of the neoliberal city (which is what he calls the concrete deserts we inhabit).
In Mexico City, we hold neighborhood assemblies. For those who may not know, Mexico City has a future 20-year plan. According to the constitution, this plan was supposed to be established through deliberative democracy. However, instead of that, capitalism took its place.
The rulers obeyed, and without any transparency, they created a plan that aligns with the needs of capitalists and their endless expansion. We rebelled and began conducting citizen consultations, which implies that we need to change our own practices: we need to get to know each other. I do believe that a democratic city can exist, but it must emerge as an emergent property from our interactions, and as a result, these interactions need to be horizontal.
JT: To achieve this, it's necessary for citizens to genuinely empathize. Is empathy a product of our material, historical, and cultural context, or can we only have a change of consciousness that would help us have better macro processes?
JH: Think about Gutenberg's printing press. The material conditions provided the framework for the Reformation, but ultimately, without the knowledge of how to assemble a printing press, it's just sticks and ink, a material condition not much different from what already existed.
There are also conditions, to call them dialectically "idealistic" which alter the way we perceive our material conditions. Empathy is something that is practiced deliberately. It is a decision. A friend once told me that you can't tell people not to feel hatred. Of course, hatred is a reaction, and empathy is a decision. What makes us human is our ability to anticipate our reactions to make a conscious choice. Otherwise, we are merely animals fleeing from pain and pursuing pleasure.
Behavioral biology professor Robert Sapolsky from Stanford University talks about the emergent properties of complex systems. As an example, he mentions the interactions between two ants, which might have, at most, 13 rules of interaction between them. From these interaction rules arises an infinitely complex ant colony with sophisticated operations like domesticating aphids. If you look at an individual ant, it's not as complex as a human being. Humans have more rules of interaction among themselves, and from these interactions emerges human society.
We already attempted in the 20th century with a top-down approach, expecting people to follow behavioral orders from above without understanding their contexts and it led us to two world wars without truly substantial change.
I feel that we are already experiencing revolutions from the bottom up. The strong backlash from conservatives against "woke" culture is a grassroots revolution. A bunch of people on the internet agree on what they support and oppose. Although it may feel slow since we're living through it, looking back at the 1980s, you'll realize that society was very different, much more conservative.
We could make more progress. The channels that drive change, focus only on social aspects and not on other areas like economics, as these same channels need the capitalist machinery to function properly to survive.
I believe that the revolution of anti-capitalist consciousness is currently beginning.
Alternative rules of coexistence have been established outside the realm of capitalism, and I think that's much more effective and a safer path than going out and killing all the rich people in the world (laughs).
JT: Or all the poor people (laughs).
JH: Exactly! Like the President of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, seeks to do with all the poor of his country (laughs).
JT: Speaking of leaders, I've noticed that in Western communities where decision-makers are women, they tend to be more progressive. What's your opinion on this?
JH: It's normal. We live in a deeply sexist and patriarchal context. Men don't make an effort to have a platform so other people would listen to us. We experience it in project meetings: many times, men don't even come prepared, while women bring wide and clear presentations with research and evidence.
Women often prepare more for situations where we take our place for granted. It makes sense that when a woman reaches decision-making positions, they have a clearer idea of what to do while being there.
JT: I appreciate your time and knowledge, José. Do you have any final message for our readers?
JH: Of course. There has never been an opportunity to achieve so much with so little.
We are in a position that the great revolutionaries of history would envy. We have at our fingertips the wisdom and knowledge of all of humanity. On one hand, we can read the works of great thinkers practically for free, and on the other hand, we can communicate with the entire world, literally, instantly. Through capitalist media, yes, but they are going to sell us the rope with which we're going to hang them, (laughs) metaphorically speaking, because arbitrary deaths don't solve structural problems.
I would say to look at the media, watch the films, observe the institutional propaganda machine, and see how desperate they are to convince us that there are no alternatives.
We're in a paradoxical position where as the capitalist system declines, its leaders persuade us that there's no other possible path. So not only have we been left without basic means of subsistence, but we've also lost the imagination to organize ourselves differently among us.
Watch less news and explore more of our history. We've spent two hundred thousand years on this planet and we've tried almost everything: we've organized ourselves horizontally vertically, through capitalist methods, through anti-capitalist methods, in anarchist ways, and all that knowledge is available to us. I believe that now the role of the left-wing, if it can be called that, the role of revolutionaries or anti-system people, is to seek the YES and teach people that it is possible, that things can be done. Everyone is an expert in saying NO, everyone knows the reasons why things are not possible, and honestly, that conversation is quite tiresome.
Let's seek the yes. There's where the path lies.