My family

I have a plastic concept of family. In my case, blood relations are not a main thing to say that someone is part of my family or not. I have a mother, a grandmother, and many aunts: I grew up in a femenine world. Parents are absent in my family, but I was raised with a cousin that is like my brother. I don’t have a regular family, and I don’t think that “regular families” exist, in anycase. In my concept, family is a large concept, also made up by close friends and non-human animals, because it isn’t strictly a matter of blood, but one of love.

In my family, values like community and dialogue are important. For example, there are some Pinochet’s supporters in my family, but with all the discussions that we’ve had, that support is lower every time, because in my family dialogue is more important than personal convictions. These values are expressed in some rituals that we have as a family: every night, we have dinner, and smartphones are not used by anyone!

However, discussion about a “concept” of family is pointless, because when we define concepts, what we do is cristalize things in the world, and things like family are characterised precisely for its plasticity. This discussion is important in a juridical sense, but in daily life family is simply our relationships with others.

As I’ve said, family is a kind of relationship with others, and we can include many kinds of relationships in this, like friendship. Friends are important for us, and they can be “like” family, but in most cases we don’t live every day with friends. In this aspect, family has an important carachteristic: persons live toghether. Persons who live toghether (non-blood family too) make a special kind of link, that can be called family, because they know people in an intimate way.

In our society, concept of family is very large, and that produces more tolerance. If I were to have a family in the future, I hope that it is a continuation of family that I currently have, including my cats!

Ch-ch-changes.

A change is a kind of movement, from a point to another. We want change something to move us from a point to another, because the first point doesn’t give us satisfaction. Live in the world implies some nonconformity with how the world is, and imagine some changes is a way to express that nonconformity.

                Changes are not necessarily big. We can imagine an utopia, but also we can conceive some little changes in order to make a better world. I want to imagine three changes in our society that can the world a better place:

1. Say hi. In Chile, the neoliberal impact is brutal. Individualism is a life style and consumism is a kind of religion. Basic aspects in neoliberal life are a competition and relations with others are a rarity. This aspect is expressed in minimal details, like people in streets, public transport, elevators, or meetings, almost never say a simple “hi”. This word can change the day of someone.

2. To listen more. The relation with others begins with empathy, and empathy must be worked. Listen is a minimal consideration with others, because is a process in which we know other people and we let our private bubble to understand the life of the others. Listen is a time of silence that we give to others, a little gift that makes a better world.

3. Political participation. Individualism is the way in which society is damaged, based on false belief that we are lonely persons in a cruel world. In order to counter that expression of individualism, political participation is a way of asking ourselves for our collective kind of life. I think that political participation could be the base of a real bigger change in our society.

                In any case, changes always start with little gestures, that turn into a bigger change. We can see any change as a result, but the most important is the movement between.

My future job.

It’s difficult talk about future. We can make some plans and design a way to develop them, but life always take his own decisions. Anyways, I really want to follow an academic career. From my early universitarian life, I’ve worked in research and teaching. I studied laws, I’m a lawyer, but my real interest is political theory. Law school gave me an institutional and juridical close up to political problems, and that allowed me have a more diverse perspective in my analysis. However, I don’t want to work like lawyer (never. It’s so boooring). I want dedicate my academic carrer to philosophy, because my perspective to all theorical problems is in a reflexive and critical way.

                I chose philosophy not only like a perspective for life, but a job. All my efforts have been for construct an academic carrer with philosophy, and so make of philosophy and political theory my lifestyle. Currently, I’m doing a PhD in Philosophy, because it’s a really good place for deep researching and productive reflection. Also, I’m doing a PhD because a doctorate is the actual standard for work in universities like a researcher.

                My actual investigation is about politics and cinema: in a philosophical way, I’m doing a genealogy of the word “gestus”, like a kind of action that haven’t purpose or end, nor beggining or origin. That kind of action is especifically important for cinema, and (this is my thesis) is really important for political action too.

                I want to go to another countries to deepen my studies, like USA or Belgium. In a future, I imagine me like professor in an university and, why not, like film critic in some reviews!

Politics - Nicolás Ried, an interview about politics

How important are politics in every day?

Nicolás Ried: From my perspective, all is political. I mean, each thing what we do, act or perform, in relation to others is a way for construct the political, our polis, in a specifical sense. I think that politics is the way how we have a relation with any other person, not only the day when we go to vote for a candiate (or not). Anyways, I think that one can do things in the world of two ways: focused in constructing a relation with others, a relation with the community; or, we can be individuals that care about itself. Of course, all of us are communitarians or individualist sometimes, but we can think all our actions from this relation. Politics are important, in the sense in which we have to decide construct a community with others or not.

Do you vote? Do you believe people must vote?

NR: Yes, I vote. I believe hardly in a participative community, without this aspect of democracy we have no one. In Chile, ten years ago, participation in elections was obligatory for registered people. Then, much young people didn’t  sign up to vote, because they didn’t believe in anything. For change that mind, was implemented a system in which all are signed up to vote, but the act of voting is voluntary. This new system have provoked a massive abstention from voting, and it results in a real problem for our democracy, because representants are not elected by a real majority of people. I’m a supporter of a stalinist way in this point: obligatory inscription to vote, and obligatory duty to vote. And if we go beyond, I am really supporter of eliminate votation and select our representants in an aleatory way… But that is for another question.

How informed are people before voting?

NR: People are not very informed before voting (me too). I think that our actual political system has a trap: they say that we have to vote informed, but government programms are really big and they don’t say anything relevant! So, there isn’t a way to know the way of government of a coallition for beforehand. What we can know? Grandilocuent principles. Politics are very spectacular nowadays, in the sense in which we only can know slogans from candidates: “I’m Catholic”, “I’m from left”, “I’m pinochetist”, “I hate Pinochet”, “I will do the same of my predecessors”. In this scenario, people must to ally with candidates whose ideals are shared or similar. It results in a distance between voters and representants, distance that deals damage to our democratic principles.

What kind of change do you think could bring the most positive results to a country?

NR: It’s difficult to think in just one change for a country. Actually, I think that the question for “just one change” is a conservative trap, because in politics we don’t need to choose one way to progress. Anyways, we can think in Chile and indentify one real problem. I think that the biggest problem in Chile is a thing that I said before: Chile was defeated by a neoliberal individualism, breaking all sense of community. It’s utopical, in a way, but I think that is the nuclear problem in Chile is the neoliberal logic in all dimensions of our life, from education and health, to how we act with our neighbours and if we say “Hi” on an elevator. It’s a cultural thing, but if I could change just one aspect of Chile, it will be.