Most
of you probably know the story of Thomas More, theologian, politician and
thinker, Lord Chancellor of England under King Henry VIII. A wise and balanced man
according to the chroniclers of the time, who had the great misfortune of confronting
his king, outraged by the policy followed by the monarch on several topics.
Among these topics, the best known and taken on several occasions to literature
and film, was the confrontation with Henry VIII because of his divorce
initiative and the resulting clash of England with the Catholic Church.
I
will not go now to assess the position of Thomas More on the fact of divorce in
particular. Probably his position, as it was, would be difficult to justify in
today's society but I want to assess the relative position of the character in
front of the prevailing power and given the historical conditions of the time.
Thomas More belonged to that minority of people who are so convinced of the
goodness and legitimacy of their positions that ended up by defending them with
all its consequences. Let me remind you that the British politician literally
had to pay with his head the confrontation with his king or, what is the same
thing, the confrontation with the dominant thinking at the time.
In
our society we tend to magnify the importance of democratic values, sometimes
in a not very successful way. Everything makes us think that the majority always
carry the reason because this is democracy. However, there are usually certain
minorities that are more deeply aware of the scientific, social or economic challenges
of our time and that lead innovation and head movements for social change. Those minorities that are able to identify
real long term trends and are able to react as opinion leaders and to put on
the table new areas for thought and action.
Those
illustrated minorities are usually those that are at obvious risk since they
are far from sharing the same uniform thinking in which the population sometimes
plunge in a not very grounded way. They are those minorities that are able to
identify the real problems and the real dilemmas but escaping from the dominant
opinions dictated by the political and media establishment. I’d like you to
think about Galileo Galilei. Who was right, that heterodox and reflective minority,
in this case represented by Galileo, or the majority that defended the dominant
thinking at that time that kept on arguing that the Earth was flat?
Those
silent minorities are the ones who dare to think differently, who dare to
propose unusual topics or to have authorities and the powerful face awkward
questions while those powerful mislead people with false dilemmas and artificially
created trending topics, usually because of their unmentionable self -interest.
We
found those minorities in diverse locations such as private companies, the
public sector, in politics, in the media, in the scientific community, in the
third sector and generally in almost any social organization. They are usually
people with a keen intuition, with a social intelligence that make their
thoughts and opinions go beyond political correctness. Many other times they
are just ordinary citizens that are simply not drawn by the mainstream and want
to exercise their right to see things differently. They are those people who,
while everyone talks about certain topics, dare to raise different questions
and see things from a different angle to that of most mortals: uncomfortable
people!
That’s
why so often those minorities are at serious reputational risk. They are
stigmatized as the " freaks " of social opinion. They are carefully
scrutinized by the “establishment” and by society as a whole. They almost never
get any reward for having the courage to ask the questions that allow progress
without being swayed by the uniform thinking so common in our Western
democracies. People whose thinking is not considered properly, who are removed
from most social debates and who are treated as nobodies by the apostles of
uniform thinking.
Perhaps
Thomas More was a predecessor of how difficult it is for certain minorities to confront
through reason and intelligence the human tendency to create those uniform and
monolithic ways of thinking that require unwavering adhesions. Thomas More paid
with his head for that. In our modern society we have also coined the
expression " cut off the head " for those who are deprived of their
positions or responsibilities for confronting the established powers.
It
is clear that we have not improved much in the last five centuries. Thus, you
should recognize that, although it's a pity that Mr More could not because the
head was separated from his trunk at the time of his burial, if Thomas More
could raise his head from the grave, he would be very disappointed of how
little things have changed, at least in regard to the topic we are talking
about. He could at least experience a partial satisfaction since today the
heads of those people who, like him, show a way of thinking that’s independent and
it’s far from the dominant social trends, are not usually severed, at least in
the literal sense of the word.
