Despite the prevailing gloom caused by a virus that has divided us more than united us, We're also faced with health measures that dictate our conversation topics and vocabulary, and an inability to project ourselves into the future,
Despite the new taboos, particularly those linked to Covid, which have been added to a list of old taboos that haven't really disappeared, or are even coming back with a vengeance, such as those conveyed by the various contemporary puritanisms (hello freedom of expression around the Christmas turkey),
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Despite all these navel-gazing indignities that claim to be political (such as the recent pressure on French actress Claude-Inga Barbey or the arrival every five and a half days of a new letter of the alphabet in the «LGBTTQQIAAP» label) and those political debates that just don't happen (either because it's «too complicated», «too polemical», or because the other side is dishonest),
Despite this passivity, This is despite our hypocritical attitude towards the GAFAs, to whom we blame for stealing our data and the monopoly they represent, when we, as consumers, are largely responsible for both (and we'll be glancing at our phones every minute on the 31st, yes we will),
Despite falling standards in compulsory schools and universities, A lack of historical, philosophical and institutional culture among the young and not-so-young, which is going to cost us dearly, a lack of high standards on the part of the teachers and trainers who have... formatted them, and the same goes for the professional world (and what if 2022 became the year of the return of effort, merit, humility and self-improvement?),
Despite the lack of curiosity we all indulge in to a greater or lesser extent, while the Internet and mobility offer us immense possibilities in terms of access to knowledge, opportunities to express ourselves, discovering other people, their ideas, their experiences, their talents, their beauty, their shortcomings that are just waiting to be filled,
Despite a lack of respect in stores, restaurants and on public transport, And despite this poor taste in clothing, even on the big nights (that's my bad temper talking, forgive it, forgive me),
And above all, despite the fashion for wishing us all «happy holidays» (God, it's incarnate!)., to avoid the risk of evoking Christmas, which could exclude non-Christians, when this holiday is so important for our civilization and its children (us), whether believers or atheists, Orthodox or Jewish, of European origin or not, and despite the stupidity of the European Union's Commissioner for Equality, Helena Dalli, who wanted to enter the «secular» version of the vows in the EU's official communication,
In short, despite everything, or rather precisely for these reasons, because this holiday invites us to come together... Merry Christmas!
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