The Privilege of Not Needing a Favor

Can you make it in life without connections?

Yes.

Millions of people do it every day.

They study. They work. They apply. They get rejected. They try again. They move to another city. They change careers. They build businesses from scratch. They take exams, lose opportunities, and keep going until eventually something works.

No powerful friend makes a call.

No family name opens the door.

No one whispers their name into the right ear.

And yet they move forward.

We tend to forget these people because their success doesn't make a good story.

In a culture obsessed with connections, it's much more satisfying to believe that everyone who gets ahead must know someone.

It isn't true.

But there is an important distinction we rarely make.

Connections are not the same thing as favors.

Knowing people matters. Reputation matters. Networking matters. A trusted introduction can change a career.

If someone tells an employer, “You should meet this person. They're smart, reliable, and good at what they do,” that's not necessarily corruption or nepotism.

That's a recommendation.

Someone is putting their reputation behind you.

If you fail, they may lose credibility too.

That's very different from saying:

“Hire this person. They're one of ours.”

The first opens a door.

The second can bypass the test.

And that's where the uncomfortable question begins.

What is a person worth when someone else's influence has to substitute for their own ability?

That's why, in the most negative sense of the word, the person who lives entirely by favors is not necessarily the privileged one.

They may actually be the most dependent person in the room.

A favor can become a debt

This is the part nobody likes to talk about.

A favor doesn't always come with a contract.

Sometimes it comes with memory.

“I got you in.”

“Don't forget who helped you.”

“I made that call for you.”

Maybe nobody ever asks for anything in return.

But you remember.

And because you remember, you may feel obligated.

That's the hidden cost of being handed an opportunity.

The job may be yours.

But the favor belongs to someone else.

And that can become a strange kind of psychological debt.

The person who helped you may eventually need something from you.

A vote.

A signature.

A phone call.

A favor of their own.

And suddenly what looked like privilege starts to look like dependence.

Some professions don't tolerate incompetence for long

There are careers where connections can get you an opportunity but cannot manufacture competence.

A doctor may be introduced by a powerful person, but patients still need treatment.

A surgeon may come from a prominent family, but nobody can operate on a patient for them.

A pilot may have influential parents, but an airplane still has to land safely.

An engineer may have an impressive network, but a bridge does not stay standing because of someone's last name.

A lawyer may get an introduction to a prestigious firm, but eventually they have to know the law.

A scientist may get access to a laboratory through a connection, but the research still has to survive scrutiny.

The same is true in countless ordinary professions.

A contractor can get a job through a friend. An electrician can be recommended by a neighbor. A consultant can get a meeting because someone knows them.

But if they consistently do bad work, people eventually find out.

A connection can open the door. It cannot permanently negotiate with reality.

The real test comes later

That's why the most revealing moment isn't when someone gets the job.

It's what happens afterward.

The boss changes.

The company changes.

The political climate changes.

The person who made the introduction retires.

The powerful friend loses influence.

The family name no longer carries the same weight.

And suddenly there is no one left to make the call.

Then comes the question that cannot be avoided:

What can you actually do on your own?

If the answer is “a lot,” then perhaps the connection was simply an introduction.

If the answer is “not much,” then the connection didn't build a career.

It only postponed the moment when the person would have to prove themselves.

The family that refused to use its power

I once came across the story of an important, well-connected family that could easily have used its influence to establish its children.

They knew the right people.

They had the social standing.

They had access to doors that most people would struggle even to find.

They could have made the calls.

They could have asked for favors.

They could have kept their children close and placed them comfortably within the family's own professional and social circle.

Instead, they did something almost counterintuitive.

They sent their children away.

Away to study.

Away to build professional networks.

Away from the environment where their last name already meant something.

Not because the family lacked influence.

Precisely because it had influence.

They understood something many powerful families don't.

Every favor creates the possibility of an obligation.

Every shortcut can become a form of dependency.

And sometimes the greatest gift you can give your children is not a door you can open for them.

It's the freedom to discover whether they can open one themselves.

There is dignity in starting somewhere nobody knows your name

Imagine walking into a room where nobody knows your father.

Nobody knows your mother.

Nobody knows your family.

Nobody cares who your friends are.

Your last name means nothing.

Your résumé has to speak for itself.

Your work has to speak for itself.

Your character has to speak for itself.

It can be harder.

It can be slower.

You may fail.

You may have to start again.

But if you eventually succeed, something belongs entirely to you.

Not the opportunity, perhaps.

Not the circumstances.

But the reputation you built afterward.

And that is a kind of wealth that cannot be inherited.

Social capital isn't the problem

This is where the debate about networking and privilege often becomes simplistic.

We shouldn't pretend that relationships don't matter.

They do.

Nobody succeeds entirely alone.

Everyone benefits from teachers, mentors, colleagues, friends, clients, partners, and people willing to vouch for them.

That's human society.

The problem begins when relationships stop amplifying merit and start replacing it.

That's the line.

A good network can make your abilities visible.

A favor can make an unqualified person look qualified.

A strong reputation can create opportunities.

Nepotism can create positions.

Those are not the same thing.

And perhaps the healthiest form of social capital is not having hundreds of powerful people you can call.

It's knowing that you could call them—and choosing not to.

Some people would rather owe themselves

There are people who simply don't like owing anyone.

They would rather work harder.

They would rather wait.

They would rather move.

They would rather send out a hundred résumés.

They would rather fail an exam and take it again.

They would rather hear “no” ten times than know that their “yes” came from someone else's influence.

Not because they're morally superior.

Not because they're naïve.

Because they want something very simple:

to know that what they have is theirs.

That's why I find the story of that family so interesting.

They had the power to make life easier for their children.

Instead, they used their power to give their children distance from that power.

They didn't necessarily make their children richer.

They made them more independent.

And independence may be the most valuable inheritance of all.

The freedom to say: I did this myself

Perhaps that's the real difference between social capital and dependency.

Social capital says:

“Let me introduce you.”

Dependency says:

“Let me get you in.”

Social capital says:

“Someone should know about your work.”

Dependency says:

“Don't worry about whether you're qualified.”

One creates opportunity.

The other can create entitlement.

One can strengthen a person.

The other can leave them permanently dependent on the person who opened the door.

So yes, you can live without connections.

It may take longer.

It may be harder.

It may not always be fair.

But it is possible.

And there is a particular kind of freedom in being able to look at your life and say:

Nobody got this for me.

Maybe somebody gave you advice.

Maybe somebody introduced you.

Maybe somebody believed in you.

That's fine.

But you did the rest.

You built the skills.

You earned the reputation.

You survived the failures.

You stayed when it got difficult.

And when the powerful people disappear, when the phone stops ringing, when nobody is there to put in a good word, you still have something left.

You.

Maybe that's not the shortest road to success.

But when you finally get there, you don't owe the destination to anyone.

When You’re Born Outside the Networks: Building Your Own Life When Nobody Hands You the Keys

Let’s take our discussion of social capital one step further by imagining the life of a person who is born into a modest family, grows up on the outskirts of a less-developed region, and, despite having personal abilities, education, and ambition, spends his entire life dealing with a social network that is much weaker than the one other people inherit.

Let’s say his family isn’t completely without assets. Perhaps they are a family of small property owners, people who own a home and maybe a few other modest assets, but who have never built a particularly strong social network. And the problem isn’t necessarily that they don’t know anyone. The real problem is that those relationships are not necessarily made available to everyone in the family.

Inside the extended family, there may be intense competition, but there can also be something subtler and perhaps even more common: the tendency to keep useful contacts for oneself.

An uncle might know an influential person, have a valuable professional connection, know an executive, a business owner, a politician, or someone who could provide access to an opportunity. Yet that connection is used for his own children, his daughter-in-law, or his son-in-law. When it comes to helping the child of a brother or sister, a niece, or a nephew, suddenly the family relationship seems to lose all its value.

It is almost as if, within the same family, there are several smaller families, each one concerned with protecting and advancing only its own branch.

Our protagonist therefore grows up in a situation where the family name and bloodline give him a sense of belonging, but not necessarily access to opportunities.

And that distinction is crucial.

Because a family can be large and, at the same time, possess very little shared social capital.

Eventually, this person studies, acquires skills, develops expertise, and tries to build a better life. But when he starts looking around, he realizes that something doesn’t add up. He discovers that talent does not automatically translate into social mobility. He understands that there is a gap between being capable and being able to turn your abilities into opportunities.

And this is precisely where marriage enters the picture.

Not, however, in the way we normally think about social climbing.

Our protagonist does not use marriage as a social elevator.

He does not look for a wife from a wealthier family. He does not look for a husband from a higher social class. He does not choose a partner because of the family name, wealth, connections, or social access that person might bring into his life.

Instead, imagine that he falls in love and marries someone who actually comes from an even more modest background than his own.

If he comes from a family of small property owners, she might come from a family of renters. If his family owns at least a home, hers might have spent their entire lives renting. If he inherits a few modest assets, she may bring virtually nothing into the marriage in terms of wealth or social connections.

From the standpoint of social mobility, therefore, this marriage does not represent a move upward.

And that matters because it shows that not everyone experiences marriage as a strategy for social advancement.

For our protagonist, marriage is simply marriage. It is the decision to build a life with someone he loves, not a strategy for entering a more powerful family.

But precisely because of this, he gives up—consciously or unconsciously—one of the ways in which people have historically expanded their social capital.

He does not acquire a wealthier family.

He does not inherit new connections.

He does not automatically enter a higher professional environment.

He does not suddenly find himself surrounded by people who can open doors for him.

His marriage may be perfectly happy and, at the same time, completely neutral from the standpoint of social mobility.

And that distinction is worth emphasizing, because it allows us to separate two things that are often confused: the success of a life and the success of a social-mobility strategy are not necessarily the same thing.

At this point, our protagonist may try to compensate for this lack through other avenues.

He might turn to politics.

But even there, he may encounter a particular problem. Imagine that he lives in a region where the major institutions are controlled by a political camp completely different from his own.

He might be a person on the political left living in a region governed by the right—or, conversely, someone on the right living in an area governed by the left.

If he wants to participate in politics because he genuinely believes in its ideas, of course he can support the opposition. But if his goal is also to build a network capable of generating professional or institutional opportunities, the situation becomes more complicated.

Not because people in the opposition are incapable of helping anyone. They certainly can. But when someone is looking for opportunities that depend, directly or indirectly, on institutions, proximity to those who actually hold power can become an important resource.

And this is where a very particular temptation can emerge: pretending to belong to an environment in which you do not actually recognize yourself.

He might join a political party, spend time in its circles, build relationships with people in that political camp—not because he has changed his beliefs, but because he hopes that proximity will eventually lead to a recommendation or an opportunity.

At that point, however, the issue is no longer simply social.

It becomes a question of identity.

How much is a person willing to sacrifice in order to build social capital?

Is he willing to pretend to be someone he is not?

And above all, if he has to give up his convictions in order to obtain an opportunity, what has he really gained when that opportunity finally arrives?

It is possible that this contradiction will convince him not to use politics as his primary vehicle for advancement.

He may decide that he does not want to be anyone’s client.

He does not want to spend his entire life owing something to a politician.

He does not want someone to be able to remind him forever that his success came through their favor.

And so another, much harder path remains: building an independent network.

Not entering someone else’s network, but creating his own.

Here too, however, he may run into a problem.

He can try joining associations, clubs, organizations, communities, and established groups. He may even look toward much more closed organizations, including those commonly associated in the public imagination with Freemasonry, paramasonic groups, or restricted forms of membership.

But even then, there is no guarantee that the organization exists to advance his goals.

An established structure already has its own hierarchy, its own history, and, above all, people who arrived before him.

And so something apparently paradoxical can happen: he joins an organization because he hopes to receive help, only to discover that before he can receive anything, he has to help those above him.

He has to work for the group.

He has to prove his loyalty.

He has to contribute to the prestige of the people occupying higher positions.

And perhaps, after years have passed, he discovers that the social capital he has accumulated is not really his own. It belongs to the leader, the senior figure, the president, the mentor, or whoever happened to occupy the top of the hierarchy when he arrived.

He entered thinking he would use the network and discovers that he has become one of the network’s resources.

There is no need to imagine conspiracies to understand this dynamic. It is enough to observe how human hierarchies normally work.

And so our protagonist may reach a conclusion: perhaps he needs to build a network that is entirely his own.

The problem is that this is the slowest path.

Social capital cannot be built at the same speed as money. Trust takes time because people first have to get to know you, then understand how you behave, and finally have reasons to trust you and introduce you to other people.

You can decide today to build a network, but you cannot expect to have a community of fifty people willing to support you tomorrow.

Social capital grows slowly, through years of encounters, cooperation, reliability, and reciprocity.

And this creates a particularly difficult situation for someone who starts late.

A person may realize at forty that he needs a stronger network, but he cannot immediately make up for the twenty years of relationships that someone else inherited from their family.

At that point, he may begin thinking about changing his environment.

He may start thinking about geographic mobility.

If opportunities are scarce where he grew up, perhaps he can go somewhere where there are more of them. If the region he lives in is characterized by narrow networks heavily shaped by family ties, perhaps he can look for an environment where relationships are more numerous and the possibilities for building a new reputation are greater.

In a small community, everyone may know who you are, yet nobody may really need what you can do.

In a larger environment, the opposite may happen: nobody knows you, but someone may need exactly the skills you possess.

And this is where moving can become a form of social mobility.

Not because changing cities automatically makes someone richer or more important, but because it changes the environment in which their abilities are tested.

The problem is that even this option may be unavailable.

Imagine that our protagonist has elderly family members who depend on him.

This is not simply an emotional bond. It is a concrete responsibility. If there is no one else available to take care of them, moving to another region may become practically impossible.

And so a paradox emerges.

He knows that he might have more opportunities elsewhere, but he cannot leave.

He knows he needs to build a network, but building one will take years.

He does not want to use marriage as a way into a higher social class.

He does not want to turn his political beliefs into a bargaining chip.

He does not want to surrender himself to an existing organization.

And he cannot simply pack a suitcase and start over somewhere else.

At this point, we are no longer talking about someone who is simply “not trying hard enough.”

We are looking at someone who begins from a position in which many of the conventional paths to social mobility are simultaneously weak or closed.

And perhaps this is precisely where the concept of social capital reveals its real importance.

Because inequality is not only about what you own.

It is also about who you know, who knows you, who is willing to introduce you to someone else, and how large the social world is in which you are able to move.

Our protagonist did not inherit a strong network. He did not acquire one through marriage. He does not want to obtain it through political or organizational affiliation, and he cannot easily change his geographic environment.

So he is left with a much slower, but also much freer, path: building his own network.

And this is where the question becomes genuinely interesting.

The issue is no longer simply how to advance professionally.

It is how a person can build a social environment in which their abilities finally have the chance to produce opportunities.

Perhaps they will have to build that network through their work, culture, the internet, personal projects, writing, and random encounters that, over the years, become friendships, collaborations, and new connections.

They may have to do something nobody ever taught them to do: stop waiting for someone to introduce them into someone else’s world and start building a small world of their own—one that, eventually, other people will want to enter.

Because in the end, the problem is not simply escaping your social class.

The problem is escaping the social network you were assigned at birth when that network is not strong enough to accompany you toward the life you want to build.

And perhaps real emancipation begins at the moment a person realizes that they do not necessarily have to become part of someone else’s network.

They can try to become, slowly, the point from which a new network begins to form.

It will not be easy.

It will not be fast.

And there is no guarantee that it will work.

But at least, for the first time, that person will no longer be looking for someone to open a door for them.

They will be building a house with doors they can eventually open for other people, too.

Relational Capital: In Life, It’s Not Just Who You Are — It’s Who You Know

We’ve been told a beautiful story our entire lives.

Study hard.

Work hard.

Become good at what you do.

Make something of yourself.

And sooner or later, your time will come.

That is the promise of a meritocratic society: if you have enough talent and determination, you can move up.

But there’s a question I’ve often found myself asking:

Move up where? And more importantly, who opens the door for you?

Because the more I observe society, the more I realize that there is a form of wealth we talk about far less than money, real estate, and financial assets.

It’s called relational capital.

Put simply, relational capital is the wealth contained in the people you know, the families you belong to, the circles you move in, and the relationships you can draw on when you need something.

It doesn’t mean having a lot of friends.

You can know half the city and have almost no social influence. Or you can know a handful of people and be part of a network capable of opening doors that remain firmly closed to everyone else.

And that’s where things get interesting.

You Can Have a Great Résumé and Still Have No One to Call

Imagine two young people with the same degree, roughly the same level of education, and the same desire to work.

One graduates and starts sending out résumés. Ten, then fifty, then a hundred. He waits for calls, goes to interviews, gets rejected, and starts over.

The other has a father who knows a business owner. His father makes a phone call. The business owner makes another call. A few days later, an interview is waiting.

Someone might say, “Well, maybe the second person was actually better.”

Maybe.

But that misses the point.

The difference appeared before either person had a real chance to prove their merit.

One had to go looking for an opportunity.

The other already had someone pointing him toward one.

And that may be one of the most underestimated differences in our society.

Not everyone starts from the same line.

And some people don’t even know where the starting line is.

Relational Capital Is Inherited

What I find even more interesting is that relationships, just like money and cultural capital, can be passed from one generation to the next.

A child might grow up in a family where the father knows the local business owner, an uncle is a professional, a cousin works in banking, a family friend is an executive, and an old schoolmate of the parents now holds an influential position.

That child probably doesn’t think of any of this as wealth.

To them, it’s simply normal life.

They grow up watching people meet, phone calls being made, favors being returned, invitations arriving, doors opening.

Without even realizing it, they learn how that world works.

Another kid can be just as intelligent and just as capable, yet grow up completely outside that network.

As an adult, that person first has to discover that such a world exists, then figure out how to get into it, and finally find someone willing to recognize them.

One person was given a map.

The other has to draw the map while walking.

And then someone has the nerve to say the first person got further because they simply worked harder.

There Are Families That Are More “Family” Than Others

You can see this very clearly in small towns.

You don’t need to live in New York, London, or Washington.

You don’t even need to be in a major city.

Spend enough time in a small town and watch how people interact.

Sooner or later, you notice something.

Some families are more “family” than others.

Not necessarily because they have more money.

Maybe they simply have a longer history, a familiar name, an established position, relationships built over decades.

They are the families that always seem to know someone.

If you need a professional, they know someone.

If a business is starting up, they know someone.

If there’s a problem, they know someone.

If you need access to a particular social circle, they know someone who can introduce you.

And when they don’t personally know the right person, they know someone who knows someone.

That is the power of a network.

You don’t have to know everyone.

You just have to know enough people to be able to reach almost anyone through them.

And Then There’s Marriage

This is where the subject becomes even more uncomfortable, because now we’re talking about something deeply personal: choosing a partner.

For centuries, families understood perfectly well that marriage wasn’t simply the union of two individuals.

It was also the union of two families, two fortunes, and—perhaps most importantly—two networks of relationships.

Today, we like to think that all of this belongs to the past and that marriage is simply about love.

And of course, love matters.

But it would be naïve to ignore the fact that we still tend to meet people within the environments we already inhabit.

We attend certain schools, universities, workplaces, clubs, restaurants, neighborhoods, and social circles.

And so, almost inevitably, we meet people who come from worlds similar to our own.

No conspiracy is necessary.

Nobody has to decide from above who should marry whom.

It’s enough for society to be organized into circles.

And when two people get married, it isn’t always just two individuals who come together.

Two networks meet.

Two families.

Two sets of assets.

Two reputations.

Two groups of connections.

And sometimes those two networks merge into something considerably more powerful than either one was before.

That’s Why Some People Would Rather Stay Single

There’s an interesting behavior that can seem strange if we look at relationships only through the lens of romance.

Some people would rather remain single than enter a relationship with someone they perceive as being too far removed from their own social environment.

It isn’t always snobbery.

Sometimes it’s simply an unconscious awareness that a relationship can change your position within society.

A partner can bring you into a new world—or pull you away from one.

They can introduce you to new people.

They can change how others perceive you.

They can even change the opportunities available to you.

And above all, they can shape the social environment in which your children will grow up.

At that point, marriage is no longer simply a private matter.

Whether we like it or not, it can also become one of the mechanisms through which social capital is passed on to the next generation.

The Social Elevator Isn’t Free

This is where the rhetoric of social mobility starts to crack.

We imagine the social elevator as something public.

You walk in.

You press the button.

You go upstairs.

But maybe society is more like a huge building filled with doors.

The elevator exists.

The problem is getting into the building.

And, more importantly, getting inside.

Because you can have talent, education, and ambition, but if you don’t know anyone and don’t even know where to knock, an enormous amount of your energy will be spent simply trying to find the entrance.

That’s the part of meritocracy we talk about the least.

Merit may help you win the race, but first you have to be allowed into the race.

And not everyone gets the same invitation.

The Power of a Phone Call

Think about a simple sentence:

“I’ll introduce you to someone.”

It sounds like almost nothing.

But it can completely change the situation.

Because when someone introduces you, they transfer a little of their own credibility to you.

I know you.

You know him.

I believe you’re someone worth listening to.

So I’ll introduce you.

From that moment on, you’re no longer a complete stranger.

That is relational capital.

It’s the phone call made before the résumé is sent.

It’s the dinner you were invited to.

It’s the group chat someone added you to.

It’s the professional who introduces you to another professional.

It’s someone saying, “I know your father.”

It’s, “Aren’t you so-and-so’s son?”

These sound like ordinary phrases.

But behind them there may be thirty, fifty, or even a hundred years of family history.

The Real Wealth of the Elite

Maybe we should stop thinking about elites simply as people who have a lot of money.

Their real wealth may be something far less visible.

It may be the list of people they can call.

A house can be sold.

A company can go bankrupt.

A bank account can be emptied.

A relationship built over decades, however, can continue generating opportunities.

One person introduces you to another.

That person brings you into another circle.

There, you meet more people.

One of them offers you an opportunity.

The opportunity generates money.

Money generates status.

Status gives you access to new circles.

And those circles generate new relationships.

The cycle feeds itself.

And perhaps this is how relational capital slowly turns into financial capital.

And What About the People Outside?

This is where we reach the part I find most uncomfortable.

People who are born outside these networks often have to build three things at the same time:

skills, money, and relationships.

Someone born inside a network may inherit at least part of all three.

That doesn’t mean their life will be easy.

It doesn’t mean they are incompetent.

It doesn’t even mean they won’t have to work hard.

It simply means that when they arrive at a door, they may already know someone on the other side.

And that is an enormous advantage.

Because one person may spend ten years building a network that another person received for free at birth.

The Capital You Can’t See

Perhaps that is precisely why relational capital is so difficult to recognize.

It doesn’t show up in a bank account.

It isn’t listed on a résumé.

You can’t see it in someone’s apartment.

It doesn’t have a stock-market price.

And yet it can follow a person throughout their entire life.

It’s knowing who to call.

It’s being recognized.

It’s being invited.

It’s having someone willing to say, “Come with me. I’ll introduce you.”

It’s having a last name someone recognizes.

It’s being able to walk into a room where other people don’t even know the meeting is taking place.

And perhaps that is the real difference between someone who possesses relational capital and someone who doesn’t.

The person without it has to search for opportunities.

The person who has it is often told that the opportunities exist.

In the End, It’s Not Just Who You Are

I’m not saying merit doesn’t exist.

I’m not saying everything is controlled by families.

I’m not saying every wealthy person is a beneficiary of nepotism and every poor person is a misunderstood genius.

Reality is much more complicated.

I’m saying something much simpler.

When we judge someone’s success, we usually see only the final result.

We see the successful professional, the entrepreneur, the politician, the executive, the prosperous family.

We don’t see all the people that person met along the way.

We don’t see the doors that opened.

We don’t see the introductions.

We don’t see the advice they received.

We don’t see the relational capital accumulated before that person ever began building their financial wealth.

So perhaps the question shouldn’t simply be:

“How much is this person worth?”

Maybe we should also ask:

“How much is the network they belong to worth?”

Because in life, we can inherit a house.

We can inherit money.

We can inherit a business.

But we can also inherit something far more subtle:

the people our parents know.

And maybe, in the end, the real social elevator isn’t the one that takes you from the ground floor to the top floor.

It’s the one that lets you meet the people who own the elevator.

The Great Lie of Self-Help: They Teach You How to Run, But Not Who Starts Ahead

For decades, someone has been telling us how to become successful.

The names change. The books change. The motivational gurus come and go. But the promise remains essentially the same:

If you work hard enough on yourself, you can change your life.

Dale Carnegie taught us how to win friends and influence people. Napoleon Hill taught us to think and grow rich. Then came the modern motivational industry: personal development programs, life coaches, seminars, neuro-linguistic programming, visualization, manifestation, positive thinking, and an entire economy built around the idea that our destiny is, at least to a large extent, in our own hands.

So we learned to set goals.

Wake up at five in the morning.

Take cold showers.

Write down our goals every day.

Stand in front of the mirror and tell ourselves that we are destined for success.

Raise our standards.

Coach ourselves.

Eliminate negative people.

Visualize the life we want.

Believe in the law of attraction.

The problem is that this may be only half the story.

Because there is a question the self-help industry rarely puts front and center:

What happens when someone works relentlessly on themselves but starts from a completely different position than the people already at the top?

Not Everyone Starts at the Same Starting Line

Imagine two people.

They have the same talent, the same ambition, and the same discipline.

One is born into a financially secure family. If they lose their job, their parents can help. If they want to start a business, the family might be able to provide seed money. If an investment goes wrong, someone can help them recover. If they want to enter a particular professional circle, they may already know someone who can introduce them to the right people.

The other person has none of that.

If they lose their job, they may not be able to pay the rent.

If they start a business and fail, they may end up deeply in debt.

If they decide to change careers at forty, there may be no family willing to finance two years of transition.

If they make the wrong decision, there may be nobody behind them to catch them.

And yet both people are given exactly the same advice:

"You need to be more courageous."

Really?

Maybe the problem isn't always a lack of courage.

Sometimes it's the amount of protection available while you're taking the risk.

The Real Privilege May Be the Ability to Take Risks

This is one of the things the self-help industry doesn't talk about nearly enough.

Taking risks is much easier when you can afford to lose.

Someone from a wealthy family can take an unpaid internship, move to another city, attend an expensive graduate program, launch a company, invest in a risky project, or walk away from a mediocre job.

Why?

Because if things go badly, there may be a safety net.

Not necessarily a conspiracy.

Not necessarily anything illegal.

Sometimes it's simply a family.

A house.

A trust fund.

A loan.

A connection.

A piece of advice.

An introduction.

An opportunity.

A second chance.

The difference can be enormous.

For someone without that network, the same mistake can have far more serious consequences.

And suddenly, the famous advice to "get out of your comfort zone" takes on a very different meaning.

For some people, leaving their comfort zone means giving up convenience.

For others, it means risking financial ruin.

The Invisible Network

The difference becomes even more significant when we look across generations.

A family that has spent decades inside the same professional or social environment accumulates something that doesn't necessarily appear on a balance sheet.

Social knowledge.

They know how certain institutions work.

They know whom to call.

They know who matters.

They understand the language of particular professional circles.

They know the unwritten rules.

They know which opportunities exist before they become widely visible.

They know which mistakes to avoid.

And, most importantly, they pass that knowledge on to their children.

This is a form of capital that doesn't necessarily get transferred through a will.

It is transferred through conversations at the dinner table.

Through the friends of one's parents.

Through the schools one attends.

Through the environments one grows up in.

Through familiarity with worlds that outsiders may not even know exist.

Call it social capital.

It can be extraordinarily powerful.

Professional Dynasties and Revolving Doors

We can see versions of this phenomenon everywhere.

Families of academics.

Families of lawyers.

Families of doctors.

Families involved in politics.

Families deeply embedded in government.

Business dynasties.

Families that seem, generation after generation, to produce people who somehow find their way into the same influential institutions and professional circles.

Of course, we shouldn't turn this observation into the simplistic claim that every child of a successful professional got their position through corruption or nepotism.

That would be both unfair and intellectually lazy.

Family advantages are real in much more ordinary ways.

Children inherit knowledge.

They inherit expectations.

They inherit cultural habits.

They grow up knowing which doors exist and how to approach them.

They learn the rules of the game long before someone else even discovers that the game is being played.

But that is precisely what makes the issue so interesting.

When family advantages become systematic, it becomes increasingly difficult to separate individual merit from the environment in which that merit was developed.

And suddenly, meritocracy becomes much more complicated than the motivational books suggest.

But That's Still Only the First Level

And here we reach the more uncomfortable part.

The family network is only the most visible layer.

Some people can rely on their parents.

Others inherit professional networks.

Others inherit wealth.

And then there are levels of access, influence, and connectivity that most people never encounter directly.

We don't need to imagine a secret room where a handful of powerful people sit around deciding everything.

Reality can be much more ordinary—and precisely because of that, much harder to see.

People who occupy the same circles tend to recognize one another, recommend one another, finance one another's ventures, exchange information, and create opportunities for one another.

Networks create more networks.

Capital creates more capital.

Prestige creates more prestige.

Connections create more connections.

And someone standing completely outside those networks can be extremely intelligent, disciplined, talented, and motivated—and still have access to a completely different set of opportunities.

The Perfect Hamster

This is where self-help becomes almost paradoxical.

It teaches individuals to become increasingly efficient competitors inside the existing system.

Work on yourself.

Become more productive.

Wake up earlier.

Work harder.

Improve your skills.

Build your personal brand.

Be resilient.

Stay positive.

Don't complain.

Don't blame others.

Keep moving.

And millions of people become incredibly good at running.

But hardly anyone stops to ask:

Where are we running?

More importantly:

Who built the track?

And perhaps the most important question of all:

Who started fifty yards ahead of us?

The danger is that personal development can become a gigantic training program in which individuals are taught to compete more effectively against one another without ever seriously examining the structure in which that competition takes place.

The hamster doesn't necessarily need to be happy.

It just needs to keep running.

The Missing Half

None of this means that self-help books are useless.

Discipline matters.

Communication skills matter.

Setting goals can be valuable.

Improving your abilities matters enormously.

Building confidence can genuinely transform a person's life.

The problem begins when these things are presented as sufficient conditions for success.

They aren't.

They are part of the equation.

The other part includes your starting conditions, wealth, education, family background, geography, relationships, institutions, opportunities, and the social networks to which you have access.

Perhaps we should start teaching that too.

Not only:

"Work on yourself."

But also:

"Build your network."

Not only:

"Raise your standards."

But also:

"Learn to recognize the structures in which you're playing."

Not only:

"Have the courage to take risks."

But also:

"Ask yourself who will catch you if you fall."

Because the greatest privilege may not simply be having more money.

It may be having the ability to fail without being destroyed by failure.

And no cold shower at five in the morning can give you that.

You can work to become the best version of yourself.

You can become more disciplined, more intelligent, more skilled, and more determined.

But intellectual honesty requires us to acknowledge something:

Personal development can make you a better player. It doesn't necessarily change the rules of the game.

And above all, not every player enters the field from the same starting point.

Maybe it's time to stop talking only about how to run faster.

And start talking about who owns the track, who controls the entrances, and who has someone waiting to pick them up when they fall.

The Price of Defiance: When Sovereignty Ends Where Fear Begins

There is something I think we talk about far too little when discussing sovereignty: fear.

Not the kind of fear that politicians admit to on camera. I mean something deeper, almost instinctive, that has always been part of international politics: the fear of losing the protection of the system you belong to.

A country can be formally sovereign. It can have a parliament, an elected government, a constitution, and an army. But that does not necessarily mean it can do whatever it wants. Legal sovereignty is one thing. Real sovereignty, when countries confront one another within an international balance of power, is something else entirely.

And when I look at the history of the Western sphere of influence, that distinction is difficult to ignore.

Take Mohammad Mossadegh. In 1951, Iran's prime minister nationalized his country's oil industry, challenging enormous British interests. Two years later, he was overthrown in a coup involving the CIA and British intelligence. This is not conspiracy theory. Operation Ajax is a documented historical event.

Then came Salvador Allende.

Again, we are looking at a government that pursued a political and economic course deeply opposed to American interests. The United States intervened extensively in Chile and in the events surrounding the 1973 coup. Allende died inside the presidential palace, and Pinochet took power.

These are obviously different stories. But they tell us something remarkably simple: when the interests of a hegemonic power collide with those of a country within its sphere of influence, the balance of power matters more than declarations of principle.

And then there is Italy.

Bettino Craxi was neither Mossadegh nor was Italy in the 1980s comparable to Iran in 1953. It would be absurd to suggest otherwise. But Sigonella remains, in my view, one of the most revealing episodes for understanding what it means to pursue an independent foreign policy while remaining part of the Western alliance.

In 1985, Craxi effectively told the Americans that Italy was in charge on Italian soil. He prevented U.S. forces from taking direct custody of the hijackers responsible for the Achille Lauro incident and asserted Italian sovereignty.

It was a moment of confrontation.

And this is where the story becomes more disturbing.

Investigations into illegal political party financing did not begin in 1992. That system had existed for years. It was known, practiced and, in many cases, tolerated. Then came Tangentopoli.

Suddenly, the system that had sustained Italy's First Republic for decades began to collapse.

I am not saying that someone simply ordered prosecutors to go after Craxi. My argument is different: Craxi gradually lost the political protection that had helped give him room to pursue a degree of autonomy.

And when protection disappears, things that were once tolerated can suddenly become much harder to sustain.

This dynamic does not require an all-powerful control room somewhere in the shadows.

In fact, that is precisely what makes it more powerful.

The most effective form of power is not the one that constantly has to issue orders. It is the one that makes people understand, in advance, where the boundaries lie.

No one necessarily needs to call a prime minister and say, "Don't do this."

The prime minister already knows the price of defiance.

He knows what it means to break with his country's most powerful ally. He knows what international isolation can look like. He knows how much his country depends on military alliances, intelligence, technology, energy, finance and trade.

And so he stops before crossing the line.

In my view, this is one of the most sophisticated forms of power.

Not censorship. Self-censorship.

And this is where the argument reaches Italy today.

On the one hand, we have governments that call themselves sovereignist and constantly invoke the national interest. On the other, we have a country deeply embedded in the Western political, economic and military architecture, with a dependence on the United States that extends far beyond defence.

Take energy.

After the break with Russia, Europe was forced to radically reshape its energy supply system. A significant share of Russian gas was replaced by other sources, including American LNG.

The question we should be asking is not simply whether that decision was right or wrong.

The question is: how free is a country to choose when its energy security depends on a particular geopolitical system?

The same applies to military security.

Italy is a NATO member. Italian territory hosts military infrastructure that is deeply integrated into the Western strategic architecture. Our armed forces rely on weapons systems, technology and infrastructure embedded in a network in which the United States has enormous influence.

We can call it an alliance.

We can call it cooperation.

We can call it Western solidarity.

But one thing does not change: relations between allies are not based on solidarity alone. They are also shaped by power.

And this is where modern sovereignism runs into a curious contradiction.

You can be sovereignist toward Brussels. You can defend national borders, speak about Italian identity and invoke the national interest.

But what happens when Italy's national interest genuinely collides with America's?

That is the moment of truth.

Not when speeches are delivered.

Not when flags are waved.

But when you have to say no to an ally that is vastly more powerful than you.

That is when sovereignty is actually tested.

And that is precisely why the stories of Mossadegh, Allende and Craxi remain interesting, at least as an interpretive framework.

Not because they are the same story.

They are not.

But because all three can be read as variations on the same question: what is the price of autonomy?

How independent can a country afford to be when it belongs to the sphere of influence of a great power?

How far can a government raise its head before the system begins to push back?

And above all: how much does sovereignty have to be exercised before we can actually call it sovereignty?

Perhaps the point is not that the United States directly controls every decision made by its allies.

That would actually be too simplistic.

The point is that there is a structure of power in which some countries possess vastly greater capacity to influence others. And everyone knows it.

Governments know it.

Diplomats know it.

Military establishments know it.

Foreign ministries know it.

And the people governing Rome know it too.

That is why the most important fear is not necessarily the fear of ending up like Mossadegh or Allende.

It is something subtler.

The fear of losing protection.

The fear of being left alone.

The fear that the moment you decide to go against the current, all those protections that once seemed natural may suddenly disappear.

And perhaps this is the most modern form of hegemony.

You do not need to constantly tell others what they must do.

It is enough for them to know what might happen if they choose not to.

At that point, sovereignty continues to exist on paper.

Parliament continues to vote.

Governments continue to govern.

Elections continue to take place.

But the real boundary of sovereignty is no longer simply the one written into the constitution.

It is the invisible line separating what a country is capable of doing from what it can actually afford to do.

And perhaps that is where we should look for the difference between formal sovereignty and real sovereignty.

The Dark Legends of Power: Why We Turn Elites into Monsters

 From David Icke's reptilian theories to the Epstein files, from Bohemian Grove to the ritualistic atmosphere of Eyes Wide Shut, and from Freemasonry and occultism to Satanism, black magic, and secret gatherings, a powerful mythology has grown around the world's elites.

It is a mythology populated by unimaginable wealth, mansions, yachts, private jets, exclusive parties, rooms ordinary people will never enter, and, above all, rituals that seem to belong to another world.

Sometimes these stories begin with real events. Sometimes they grow out of half-truths, coincidences, unverifiable testimonies, or highly speculative interpretations. And sometimes they are simply legends.

The problem is that, once they enter the collective imagination, all these elements tend to blend together.

And that raises a much more interesting question.

Not simply: Do satanic elites really control the world?

But rather: Why do we keep telling stories in which powerful people become something fundamentally different from the rest of humanity?

The Power We Cannot See

Perhaps it begins with something very simple: power, by its very nature, operates partly in places we cannot see.

Ordinary people see the outcome of a decision, but rarely witness all the conversations that came before it. We see a law being passed, but not necessarily all the pressure, negotiations, interests, and relationships that may have shaped it.

We see a public figure, but not necessarily the entire network surrounding them.

And whenever there is a gap in our knowledge, imagination tends to fill it.

If we know that extremely wealthy and influential people meet in exclusive places away from public scrutiny, it is perfectly natural to wonder what happens behind closed doors.

The problem begins when the question automatically becomes an answer.

If we do not know what happens, we start imagining that something terrible must be happening.

And the more exclusive the place, the more extreme the fantasy can become.

From Reality to Legend

Bohemian Grove is a perfect example.

The Bohemian Club is real, and for decades it has brought together politicians, business leaders, industrialists, and other prominent figures. At Bohemian Grove, the club also stages the Cremation of Care, a symbolic ceremony performed before a large owl statue.

The ritual is real.

But from that fact, it is possible to make an enormous leap: turning a symbolic performance into evidence of a secret cult controlling the world.

That is where legend begins.

And what makes this especially interesting is that the mechanism is far older than the internet, social media, and modern conspiracy theories.

Throughout history, groups perceived as powerful, different, or foreign have often been accused of meeting in secret, performing forbidden rituals, and plotting against society.

The narrative structure is remarkably consistent.

First comes the outsider.

Then comes the secret.

Then comes the ritual.

And finally, the monster.

When the Powerful Become Another Species

David Icke takes this mechanism to one of its most extreme conclusions.

According to his theory, some of the most powerful people on Earth would not simply be corrupt or unscrupulous human beings. They would be reptilian beings capable of taking human form.

It is a fantastical answer, in the literal sense, to a very human question.

How can someone possess immense wealth, live surrounded by luxury, and apparently remain indifferent to the suffering of others?

It is easier to believe that such a person is a monster.

Because if he is a monster, we no longer have to understand his psychology.

He is simply something else.

And that is one of the oldest mechanisms of demonization: turning an adversary into something that does not truly belong to the same moral community as ourselves.

The reptilian is therefore much more than a fantasy creature.

It is an extreme representation of the idea that absolute power can turn a human being into something inhuman.

The Forbidden Room in Eyes Wide Shut

Then there is Eyes Wide Shut.

Kubrick portrays a mysterious, aristocratic world of masks, sex, wealth, ritual, and anonymity.

It is not a documentary, nor does it prove the existence of a secret society controlling the world.

But the film deliberately takes us behind a door that normally remains closed.

That is precisely what makes it so powerful.

The idea of a room where powerful people do things we are not allowed to see belongs to one of humanity's oldest fantasies.

The mask becomes a symbol of hidden identity.

The ritual becomes a symbol of belonging.

Wealth becomes a symbol of privilege.

And the closed door becomes the boundary between our world and the world of the initiated.

It is hardly surprising that, over the years, the film has been used as a kind of interpretive key for countless theories about the elites.

Fiction is gradually reread as revelation.

When Reality Becomes More Disturbing Than Fantasy

Then comes Jeffrey Epstein.

And this is where things become considerably more complicated.

Because Epstein does not belong solely to the world of legends.

There were real crimes, real victims, court documents, testimony, and connections to extremely powerful people.

This is the realm of facts.

But precisely for that reason, another logical leap must be avoided.

The fact that a powerful person had contact with Epstein does not automatically mean that person participated in his crimes. A name in an address book, a photograph, a flight record, or a document is not, by itself, proof of criminal involvement.

The Epstein case nevertheless had an enormous impact on the collective imagination for one particular reason.

It demonstrated that some things that might once have seemed to belong exclusively to the world of conspiracy theories can, at least in part, have a real foundation: extraordinarily wealthy and influential people can indeed move through opaque social circles in which horrific crimes are committed.

And that creates a strange feedback loop.

Reality feeds fantasy.

A real event becomes the seed from which a much larger story can grow.

The Need for a Puppet Master

Perhaps the heart of all these theories is the figure of the puppet master.

If the world is complicated, someone must have organized it.

If things happen that we cannot understand, someone must have planned them.

If enormous concentrations of wealth and power exist, there must be someone pulling the strings.

It is an incredibly seductive explanation.

Reality, however, is often much more chaotic.

Interests can coincide without there being a common plan.

People can cooperate on one issue and fight each other on another.

Economic elites may have interests completely different from political elites.

Governments make mistakes.

Companies fail.

Crises can emerge from a chain of unrelated events.

In other words, the world can be shaped by chaos, self-interest, competition, and mistakes as much as by deliberate planning.

But that explanation is far less exciting than a grand conspiracy.

Conspiracy Theory as Identity

There is an even deeper dimension to this.

A conspiracy theory does not merely offer an explanation of the world.

It offers an identity to the person who accepts it.

The implicit message is:

You have seen what others do not want you to see.

Others are asleep.

You have awakened.

Others believe the official story.

You know the hidden truth.

That is psychologically powerful because it transforms uncertainty into knowledge and confusion into an ordered narrative.

And, above all, it creates a clear division between "us" and "them."

We are the ones searching for the truth.

They are the ones hiding it.

Elites Do Not Need to Be Reptilian

And perhaps this is where the subject becomes genuinely interesting.

We can criticize elites without turning them into a demonic species.

We can talk about the concentration of wealth.

We can talk about conflicts of interest.

We can talk about lobbying.

We can talk about corruption.

We can talk about the revolving door between politics and major corporations.

We can talk about personal networks of influence.

We can talk about tax havens, tax avoidance, privilege, and inequality.

All of these belong to the real world and can be investigated through documents, data, and evidence.

We do not need reptilians.

And perhaps that is the most disturbing part.

Because reptilians are reassuring.

A monster is easy to recognize.

An elegant, intelligent, polite, perfectly respectable human being is much harder to understand.

Evil does not necessarily need horns.

It does not need blood on its hands.

It does not need a mask.

It can wear an immaculate suit, have an enormous bank account, and enjoy an impeccable public reputation.

It can be completely human.

Why We Keep Creating Dark Legends

Perhaps the "dark legends" surrounding elites arise precisely from this need.

We struggle to accept that power can be simultaneously enormous and imperfect, organized and chaotic, rational and irrational.

We prefer to believe that there is a central intelligence behind everything.

A group.

A cabal.

A secret society.

A puppet master.

Someone who knows exactly what they are doing.

It is a simpler story.

But reality may be far more ordinary—and, for that very reason, far more disturbing.

There may simply be human beings with enormous concentrations of power.

Human beings with ambitions, fears, desires, egos, economic interests, and the ability to influence other people's lives.

They are not necessarily demons.

They are not necessarily saints.

They are human beings.

And perhaps that is precisely what makes them so difficult to judge.

Because if we turn elites into monsters, we can easily convince ourselves that we have solved the problem.

We have found the enemy.

We have found evil.

We have found the reptilians.

But if we remove the mask and find ordinary human beings underneath, the question becomes much more serious.

Because then we are no longer asking how to defeat the monsters.

We are asking how human beings can be prevented from turning power into domination.

And that may be a much harder question.

But it is also a much more important one.

The Victory of Narrative and the Escape from Reality

Reading Marcello Veneziani’s reflection on the “culture war that never happened,” I found myself wondering whether we need to take his argument one step further. Veneziani argues, following Alain de Benoist, that the progressive left has lost without the conservative right ever truly winning, because neither side has produced the profound cultural transformation that a genuine war of ideas should ultimately leave behind. I find that argument convincing, but perhaps the problem is even more radical than that. Perhaps what we are witnessing is not simply the defeat of one side and the failure of the other to win, but the triumph of something that is gradually replacing politics and even political culture itself: narrative.

In other words, perhaps what we have witnessed was never really a culture war, but an endless war of competing narratives.

The distinction is more than semantic. A genuine culture war should eventually produce a transformation of reality, because when an idea is truly capable of conquering a society, sooner or later it should be reflected in institutions, social behavior, educational models, ideas about family, work, community and human nature. It should leave visible traces in people's everyday lives.

Instead, looking back over the last few decades, what we see above all is an almost endless succession of competing stories: the right describing its struggle against the left, the left describing its resistance to the right, populists portraying themselves as rebels against the elites, sovereignists promising the return of the nation, progressives celebrating the transcendence of old identities, and conservatives calling for a return to tradition.

And while everyone is telling their story, reality simply moves on.

This may be one of the most striking features of our age: we have developed an extraordinary ability to produce interpretations of reality while gradually losing the ability to confront reality without first turning it into a narrative that allows us to feel we are on the right side.

Reality is deeply uncomfortable because it refuses to obey our categories. It does not know left or right. It does not appear on talk shows, use hashtags, or care whether it confirms our beliefs. People continue to be born and die. Families continue to form and fall apart. Human beings continue to grow old. Work is changing under the pressure of technology. Societies are aging. Wars produce consequences that no propaganda can completely control. Markets alter the balance of power. Artificial intelligence is already transforming entire areas of the economy and human knowledge without waiting for politicians to develop a theory about what is happening.

And yet, in the face of all this, we continue to spend most of our time discussing the stories we tell about these phenomena.

That is where what I would call the escape from reality begins.

Narrative as the Great Collective Theater

This is not simply propaganda, which has always existed, nor political manipulation, which is as old as power itself. The contemporary phenomenon is deeper. Today, the representation of reality has become a permanent component of reality itself. We no longer merely experience events; we experience them simultaneously through their media, political and digital representations.

An incident that takes place on the other side of the world can become a global symbol within hours. A word can acquire an importance completely disproportionate to the phenomenon it is supposed to describe. An image can generate millions of reactions before anyone has even had time to understand what actually happened.

Modern society has built a gigantic narrative machine that must operate continuously because its very functioning depends on the constant production of attention. Every day there must be something to discuss, someone to accuse, someone to defend, a new outrage, a new scandal, a new confrontation, a new episode capable of dividing the audience into opposing camps.

And here a question arises that perhaps we should have the courage to ask.

Who benefits from all this?

If we assume, without turning the argument into a conspiracy theory, that there are governing, economic, financial, technological and institutional elites at the top of society whose ability to influence events is vastly greater than that of the average citizen, then we can observe something fairly simple: the wars of narrative rarely reach the point of seriously challenging the deeper structures of power.

And this is the point that interests me.

The Great Video Game Beneath the Elites

We could almost imagine contemporary society as one enormous video game.

Billions of people are playing underneath.

They divide themselves into teams.

They choose their symbols.

They argue.

They insult one another.

They accuse each other of being fascists, communists, globalists, nationalists, woke, anti-woke, progressives, reactionaries, populists, radicals or conservatives.

Every day brings a new match.

A new issue.

A new enemy.

A new emergency.

A new scandal.

And millions of people invest an enormous amount of emotional energy in the game.

But the fundamental question is this: how much does the game actually challenge those who stand above it?

Perhaps very little.

In fact, the opposite may happen.

The more the players are absorbed in fighting one another, the less attention they pay to the rules of the game.

That is a crucial distinction.

Because you can argue endlessly about which team should win without ever asking who built the field, who sets the rules, who controls the infrastructure, who owns the means of communication, who possesses the resources necessary to shape public opinion and, above all, who has the ability to keep playing even when the teams change.

That may be the most sophisticated form of power.

Not preventing conflict.

Allowing conflict, provided that it remains confined within certain boundaries.

The Conflict That Does Not Threaten Power

A genuinely threatened power structure would have reason to fear a culture capable of challenging its underlying assumptions.

But if dissent can be transformed into identity, spectacle, entertainment and media consumption, the problem changes.

The dissident can become a celebrity.

The rebel can become an influencer.

The protester can become a market niche.

Opposition can become a product.

Even rebellion can be monetized.

And so a person can spend ten hours a day denouncing the system while simultaneously feeding, through their own outrage, the very system they claim to oppose.

It is an extraordinary paradox.

But perhaps this is precisely what makes narrative so powerful: it can absorb even its own opposition.

There is no need to eliminate the enemy if you can turn the enemy into part of the show.

Right Against Left: An Endless Match

From this perspective, the permanent confrontation between right and left takes on a different meaning.

This does not mean that the right and left are identical. They are not, and their differences can be significant.

But we should ask how often those differences actually translate into a different distribution of real power.

Because if every political alternation produces a new narrative while leaving the fundamental economic, technological and financial structures of society largely intact, then citizens may experience themselves as living through permanent conflict while, at a higher level, continuity remains far stronger than change.

The protagonists change.

Governments change.

Words change.

Election campaigns change.

But the game continues.

And perhaps that continuity is the real phenomenon we should be studying.

Narrative Has a Political Function

Narrative does not merely exist to persuade.

It can also distract.

It occupies mental space.

It transforms structural problems into identity conflicts.

If a society is constantly occupied with arguing over which group is morally superior to another, it may have less time to ask who actually owns wealth, who controls technological infrastructure, who sets economic standards, who has access to strategic information and who can influence decisions that affect everyone.

The mechanism becomes remarkably simple.

I give you an enemy.

You focus on the enemy.

Meanwhile, the structure of power remains in the background.

There does not even have to be a single central command. And that may be the most interesting aspect of all. A system can produce this result without anyone having consciously designed every step. Interests can converge spontaneously. The media need attention. Social platforms need engagement. Politicians need votes. Markets need consumption. Users need to feel that they belong to something.

In the end, everyone can contribute to the construction of the same gigantic narrative machine without anyone necessarily being its director.

The Most Extraordinary Thing Is That the Game Can Be Enjoyable

And perhaps that is precisely why it works so well.

The political and cultural game does not necessarily harm those who participate in it.

In fact, it can be entertaining.

It can provide identity.

It can provide friends and enemies.

It can provide a sense of purpose.

It can allow someone to feel like a fighter without actually being required to change their life.

You can fight a culture war from your phone, comfortably sitting on your sofa.

You can destroy governments, ideologies and political systems with a post.

You can denounce the elites while continuing to live inside the same platforms, markets and technological infrastructures that those elites help control or influence.

It is an extraordinarily engaging activity.

But precisely for that reason, it may be harmless to those who actually occupy the top of the system.

The player believes they are fighting.

The system simply records another match.

The Real Problem Is Not Leaving the Game, but Seeing the Game

Perhaps the first form of emancipation does not even consist in choosing the right team.

It consists in understanding that there is a game.

Because as long as we keep asking whether we should side with the right or the left, with progressives or conservatives, with one camp or the other, we remain trapped within the logic of confrontation.

The questions should become different.

Who sets the rules?

Which structures remain unchanged when governments change?

Which forms of power remain independent of electoral alternation?

Which transformations take place regardless of which party wins?

And above all: what are the issues we are encouraged to debate, and what are the issues we rarely debate at all?

That may be a far more interesting question than the usual question of who won an election.

And in the End, There Is Reality

Because however sophisticated the game becomes, it eventually encounters a limit.

Reality.

We can construct infinite narratives, but we cannot prevent people from growing old. We can create ever-new identities, but we cannot eliminate the human need for belonging and love. We can promise almost unlimited technological progress, but we cannot abolish the physical limits of nature. We can talk about politics for hours, but we cannot transform an economy that does not work or a society that can no longer reproduce itself simply by changing the words we use.

And above all, we can argue endlessly about who should govern, but we cannot indefinitely avoid asking who actually holds power.

Perhaps this is the great escape from reality of our time: we have turned politics into a video game in which millions of people engage in furious battles without realizing that the fundamental question is no longer which team will win, but who designed the field and who continues to make the rules.

I do not know whether there is a single control room, nor do I believe that we need to imagine one.

But I do know that concentrated power exists, that elites exist, that organized interests exist, and that the distribution of power does not automatically coincide with the distribution of electoral support.

That is precisely why we should stop, at least for a moment, looking only at the spectacle taking place on the stage.

We should look behind the stage.

Because perhaps the greatest victory of narrative is not that it has convinced us that one particular story is true.

It is that it has convinced us that the story we are watching is the whole of reality.

And while we choose our team, argue with the opposing team and convince ourselves that we are taking part in some great historical struggle, someone may simply be continuing to run the theater.

Perhaps the real culture war never began.

Something far more effective began instead: a great narrative video game in which the players fight one another while power remains outside the arena.

And perhaps the first truly revolutionary act is not to choose a different team.

It is to stop playing for long enough to finally see who built the game.