A different history of the world

Author: Fernando Trías de Bes

-- This summary is a personal interpretation for educational purposes. All rights belong to Fernando Trías de Bes and his publishers.--

The purpose of this publication is:

To promote financial literacy in an altruistic way
To reach the population with fewer resources
To encourage the purchase of the original book. Amazon - A different history of the world (Spanish)

- This is a content generated by the most common AIs, from the content they have in their databases. Such content can be accessed by any user, I have only compiled and exposed such information here. It is NOT my own material -

- The division and structure may not coincide with the original, and may have been adapted for its comprehension and dynamism. -

~~* The structure may not coincide with the original, and may have been adapted for its comprehension and dynamism *~~

🧭 Main Idea of the Book

Trías de Bes proposes a reinterpretation of universal history, not through great events or heroic figures, but through human impulses, collective needs, and repeated errors. His central thesis is that humanity’s most fundamental decisions have been driven more by emotional and psychological factors—such as fear, ambition, and the need to belong—than by logic or reason.

🧠 Key Pillars of the Author’s Perspective

The human being as a collective irrational creature:

Unlike traditional accounts that idealize humans as rational builders of civilization, Trías de Bes argues that many historical decisions (wars, revolutions, empires) stem from irrational impulses.

Error as a driver of progress:

Far from being negative, error is seen as an essential part of historical advancement. Humanity evolves by learning (or not) from its mistakes.

Narratives as historical constructions:

Much of what we take for granted about the past is shaped by hegemonic stories built by the victors. The author deconstructs several myths and offers alternative interpretations.

📚 Structure of the Book

The book is divided into thematic chapters addressing different periods and key events—such as the Middle Ages, colonialism, the industrial revolution, capitalism, and the rise of neoliberalism—always viewed through the lens of:

Collective motivations behind each era
The fears driving political decisions
The role of shared ignorance as a foundation of civilizations

🔎 Fascinating Points Raised:

History does not progress linearly, but rather through collective emotional imbalances
Power has never been a direct consequence of knowledge, but of the control of fear
Humanity learns far less from the past than we think: it repeats patterns in new disguises

🗣️ Key Quote from the Book:

"We are not children of reason, but of necessity, error, and shared narrative."

📖 1 — The Emotional Homo Sapiens

This chapter lays the theoretical foundation of the book: human beings are not essentially rational, as so often repeated in philosophy and historical narratives, but are profoundly emotional creatures. Trías de Bes suggests that the history of humanity can only be understood if we accept that emotions and collective impulses have guided many of the key decisions that shaped our destiny.

🔍Main Points Developed:

💥 Emotion as an evolutionary driver

From the beginning of the species, humans reacted first with emotion, then with reason.
Basic emotions like fear, anger, desire, and joy shaped early decisions: how to hunt, form groups, or when to flee.
This isn’t an evolutionary flaw, but an adaptive survival mechanism.

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Emotion as a social bond

Emotional bonds strengthen cooperation. Without them, tribes, clans, or civilizations would not exist.
Empathy, attachment, and shared fear create collective identity, more powerful than rational arguments.

🔥 Emotion as the foundation of narrative

Every culture needs an emotionally powerful story to survive: myths, religions, anthems, flags.
Reason doesn’t move crowds—but emotion does. That’s why great leaders appeal to the heart before the mind.

⚠️ The dangers of overvaluing reason

Trías de Bes critiques the Enlightenment tradition of idolizing reason.
He argues that most human decisions are emotional and collective, not individual or rational.

📌 Chapter Conclusion

The author proposes a paradigm shift: to understand humans as emotional beings who reason after acting, not before. Only with this lens can we begin to comprehend many historical decisions that seem irrational through a purely logical perspective.

🗣️ Key Quote from Chapter:

"We are human not because we reason, but because we feel."

📖 2 — The Birth of the Collective Myth

This chapter explores how collective myths—that is, the stories a community shares and believes—have served as the glue that enables large-scale human coexistence. Trías de Bes argues that without such shared narratives, humanity would not have been able to organize, cooperate, or build lasting social structures.

🔍 Key Topics Developed:

🌍 From clan to civilization: the role of myth

In small tribes and clans, coexistence was based on direct personal knowledge.
But as groups grew, it became necessary to create shared stories that generated trust and obedience among strangers.
Examples: gods, royal lineage, manifest destiny, social contract.

🛐 Religion and myth as structuring order

Religions emerged as forms of collective myth, not necessarily to explain reality, but to organize society.
Gods were not just theological concepts, but narrative tools used to justify authority, morality, and power.

📜 Myth as a useful narrative

It doesn’t matter if a myth is "true" or not—what matters is its effect on collective behavior.
Examples given by Trías de Bes include:

The divine right of kings
Capitalism as a narrative of personal progress
Even the modern idea of "freedom" as an organizing myth in the West

🧠 Myth and emotion: a powerful alliance

The success of a myth depends on its emotional charge.
Myths that generate fear, hope, or belonging are more effective.
That’s why nations, flags, and even commercial brands function as modern myths.

📌 Chapter Conclusion

The collective myth is not a lie, but a necessary tool for the organization of large societies.
History advances not by truth, but by the stories we choose to believe.
And understanding those myths is understanding how power works.

🗣️ Key Quote from Chapter:

"A society without shared myths is a society without cohesion."

📖 3 — "Error as a Foundational Principle"

Trías de Bes presents a counterintuitive thesis: the greatest historical advances have not been the result of reason or success, but of error. Errors—whether collective or individual—have acted as engines of change, forcing humanity to adapt, correct itself, and reinvent. Far from being accidental, error is foundational to the evolution of societies.

🔍 Main Axes of the Chapter:

❌ Error as a catalyst for change

History moves forward not through rational planning, but through crises triggered by prior errors.
Example: The fall of the Roman Empire was not planned, but it paved the way for new forms of social organization.

🔄 Systemic errors as opportunity

When systems collapse—economic, political, or religious—they create vacuums that invite innovation.
Many major historical turning points (e.g. the French Revolution, industrialization, world wars) are direct results of accumulated structural failures.

🧠 Collective learning is slow and partial

While errors teach, humanity rarely learns fully: it repeats patterns under new disguises.
What changes are the narratives we use to justify or reinterpret those errors.

📉 Failure as an evolutionary mechanism

🧭 Examples Mentioned:

The Crusades: strategic and religious mistakes that reshaped Europe.
The Russian Revolution: collapse of tsarism due to political errors and extreme inequality.
The 1929 crisis: a financial error that led to deep economic reforms.

📌 Conclusion of the Chapter

The author encourages us to read history without idealism: not as a path led by human wisdom, but as a story filled with missteps that paradoxically pushed us forward.
Error, more than genius, is what has brought us to where we are.

🗣️ Key Quote from Chapter:

“Every mistake humanity makes is a door that opens to the unexpected.”

📖 4 — "The Empires of Ignorance"

In this chapter, Trías de Bes asserts that collective ignorance has been one of the most effective tools for building and maintaining power. Far from being an obstacle, ignorance—when shared and structured—allows empires to form, expand, and sustain themselves over centuries.

🔍 Main Topics of the Chapter:

🧱 Ignorance as the structural foundation of power

Power has always needed a population that doesn’t question, that believes before it understands.
Dominant elites have used ignorance as a strategic resource, not as a flaw in the system.

🕍 Religion, empire, and hidden knowledge

In great empires—such as Egypt, Rome, or medieval Christendom—knowledge was reserved for minorities: priests, scribes, nobles.
This created knowledge asymmetry, which legitimized control: if you don’t know, you obey.

🧩 Functional and shared ignorance

Trías de Bes introduces the concept of “functional ignorance”: not knowing can be useful to maintain order.
Modern example: millions of people use the internet without knowing how it really works. Shared ignorance keeps the system running.

🧠 Knowledge as a threat

Throughout history, when knowledge becomes democratized, power becomes unstable.
Example: the invention of the printing press challenged the power of the Church by giving people access to ideas.

🔁 Ignorance hasn’t disappeared—it’s just changed form

Today we still live in empires of ignorance, but with an appearance of freedom.
Information overload, fake news, algorithms, and mass media have replaced older forms of structured misinformation.

🧭 Key Historical Examples:

The Middle Ages: Church control of knowledge
Colonial empires: concealment of real knowledge about conquered peoples
The digital world: massive digital ignorance that supports the technological system

📌 Conclusion of the Chapter

Ignorance is not the enemy of power—it is its silent ally. To understand past and present empires, we must look not only at what people know, but at what they don’t know—and why.
Trías de Bes invites us to view ignorance as an active element in the historical architecture of power.

🗣️ Key Quote from Chapter:

“Where there are no questions, power sleeps peacefully.”

📖 5 — "Fear as a Builder of Societies"

In this chapter, Trías de Bes argues that fear has been one of the most powerful and persistent forces in the construction of human societies. Far from being merely a paralyzing emotion, fear has served as a tool for cohesion, obedience, and order, strategically used by political, religious, and economic systems throughout history.

🔍 Main Themes Developed:

🧠 Fear as a foundational emotion

From the earliest human groups, fear of predators, enemies, or natural phenomena led to the creation of protective social structures.
This basic emotion allowed for the formation of alliances, hierarchies, and norms necessary for survival.

🛐 Religion: fear of divine punishment

Ancient (and modern) religions have used fear of hell, divine judgment, or eternal damnation to enforce obedience and control behavior.
Spiritual fear creates deep-rooted, long-lasting social submission.

🏛️ States and empires: fear of legal punishment

The development of the state relies on fear of legitimate violence: punishments, prisons, laws.
Trías de Bes emphasizes that all powerful institutions have required fear as an invisible support to remain in place.

🧾 Modern fears: economic, social, and existential

In today’s world, fear has evolved into:

Fear of losing one's job
Fear of public insecurity
Fear of being excluded from the system
These quiet fears maintain order and productivity without needing explicit repression.

🧠 Shared fear as social glue

Fear does not only oppress—it also unites.
When a society shares a fear (e.g., war, pandemic, the "other"), it becomes more homogenous and easier to govern.

🧭 Historical Examples:

Feudalism: fear of divine and military punishment
20th-century totalitarianisms: fear of internal enemies (Jews, dissidents, spies)
Contemporary politics: use of fear of terrorism, immigration, or poverty to justify authoritarian or restrictive measures

📌 Chapter Conclusion

Fear has not only served to protect—it has also structured and perpetuated power. Societies have been built not only on hope and ambition, but also on threats, punishments, and shared fears. Understanding how fear operates in any given era helps to decode the deeper architecture of power.

🗣️ Key Quote from Chapter:

“Where there is fear, there is obedience. And where there is obedience, there is power.”

📖 6 — "The Illusion of Progress"

Here, Trías de Bes dismantles one of the most deeply rooted ideas in Western culture: the belief that history progresses linearly toward a better, more rational, and fairer state. According to the author, this supposed “progress”—technological, economic, or social—is a collective illusion sustained by comforting narratives that do not always reflect reality.

🔍 Key Themes Developed:

🔁 Progress is not linear—it’s cyclical or discontinuous

Humanity does not move upward in a straight line, but rather experiences setbacks, collapses, and repetitions.
Examples: the fall of the Roman Empire, world wars, modern financial crashes.

💭 The idea of progress as collective comfort

We like to think we're “getting better” because it gives meaning to our sacrifices, efforts, and social rules.
This belief is useful for maintaining hope and justifying the status quo.

⚙️ Technological progress ≠ Human progress

We’ve built extraordinary technologies, yet we still face fear, violence, inequality, and war, much like in centuries past.
Technical development has not resolved the core emotional or power-related issues of humanity.

🧠 The myth of development

The idea that “development” will bring universal well-being is a modern myth, often used to legitimize economic models that benefit a few.
Trías de Bes compares belief in progress to a new secular religion—it is not questioned, it is believed in.

🧩 Progress as a form of control

The idea that “everything is improving” keeps people submissive, hopeful, and consuming.
Even if false or partially true, this belief is politically and economically useful.

🧭 Notable Examples:

Industrialization: increased production, but also exploitation and inequality
The internet: more access to information, but also mass manipulation and loss of privacy
Health and medicine: great advances, but new fears (pharmaceutical power, pandemics, dependency)

📌 Chapter Conclusion

Progress, as we understand it, is a useful illusion more than an objective truth. Believing in it has allowed us to build more organized societies, but also more conformist ones.
Only by questioning this idea can we aspire to a truly human-centered transformation.

🗣️ Key Quote from Chapter:

“Progress does not always lead us forward; sometimes it just takes us further away from ourselves.”

📖 7 — "Commerce as Redemption"

In this chapter, Trías de Bes offers an anthropological and emotional interpretation of commerce: beyond economics, commerce has served as a tool for pacification, integration, and collective redemption. He argues that throughout history, the exchange of goods has often replaced violence, eased fear, and channeled the human desire to belong.

🔍 Main Themes Developed:

🕊️ From conflict to transaction

As societies evolved, they discovered it was more beneficial to trade than to wage war.
Commerce became a symbolic substitute for direct confrontation, allowing the desire for dominance to be expressed through exchange.

🌍 Commerce as integration

Commerce has served as a bridge between cultures, creating networks of contact between very different civilizations.
Example: the Silk Road, where Asia, Europe, and the Middle East exchanged not only goods but ideas, beliefs, and technologies.

💸 Money: symbolic redeemer

Money emerged not just to simplify trade, but also to neutralize conflict.
Trías de Bes presents money as a structured peace instrument: he who pays avoids conflict.

🧠 Commerce as emotional stabilizer

Commerce reduces uncertainty, generates a sense of control, and allows planning for the future.
It also provides a way to channel greed without resorting to theft or violence.

🕰️ From barter to globalization

Throughout history, commerce has expanded from local transactions to a global interdependent network.
However, globalization has not eliminated conflict, only made it more symbolic and complex (trade wars, sanctions, dependency).

🧭 Historical Examples Mentioned:

Ancient Phoenicia: a society that chose trade over war
The Hanseatic League: a union of commercial cities as an alternative to warfare
Colonial era: commerce used as an excuse or cover for domination

📌 Chapter Conclusion

Commerce has acted as a form of historical redemption: a symbolic system that transforms human aggressiveness into mutually beneficial coexistence. But at the same time, it has also been used to legitimize inequality, impose dependency, and disguise new forms of domination.

🗣️ Key Quote from Chapter:

"Where there was war, commerce flourished; where there was commerce, domination was concealed."

📖 8 — "Religion, Order, and Submission"

In this chapter, Trías de Bes analyzes the structural role of religion in history, not from the standpoint of faith or spirituality, but in terms of its capacity to create order, legitimize hierarchies, and generate collective submission. Religion has been one of the most powerful tools to give meaning, impose rules, and maintain systems of power.

🔍 Main Themes Developed:

📜 Religion as a system of symbolic order

Religions offer simplified and absolute answers to existential questions (Who are we? Why do we suffer?).
By establishing totalizing narratives, they reduce chaos and provide social stability.

🛐 Religion as legitimizer of power

Kings, emperors, pharaohs, and clergy have used religion to justify their authority as “divine” or “sacred.”
Religious dogma prevents questioning—what comes from God is not to be debated.

🔒 Voluntary submission through meaning

Trías de Bes points out that religious submission is not always imposed—it is often willingly accepted, because it provides:

Meaning to suffering
Promise of redemption
A place in the world
This soothing order helps calm fear and allows life within a predictable framework.

⚖️ Morality, punishment, and self-control

Religion introduces universal moral codes, often with symbolic punishments (sin, hell).
This allows for internalized self-control, where people monitor themselves, relieving the state from needing to apply constant force.

🧠 From religious dogma to modern dogmas

Though traditional religions have lost influence in some regions, they have been replaced by “secular religions” such as:

Consumerism
Work
Personal success
These function with their own temples, dogmas, rewards, and symbolic punishments.

🧭 Highlighted Historical Examples:

Egyptian Empire: the Pharaoh as a living god
Medieval Christendom: the Church as supreme authority
Colonization of the Americas: forced conversion as a method of domination
Modern era: “faith” in the market or science as new forms of unquestioned authority

📌 Chapter Conclusion

Trías de Bes does not criticize religion itself, but rather its use as a political and social control mechanism. Religions have been essential to build order, but have also conditioned individual freedom and helped justify unjust structures disguised as eternal truths.

🗣️ Key Quote from Chapter:

“True power is not imposed; it is accepted as divine mandate.”

📖9 —"Revolutions and Collective Irrationality"

Contrary to the romantic view that portrays revolutions as moments of collective clarity and rational emancipation, Trías de Bes argues that all major revolutions arise from emotional outbursts—a mix of frustration, fear, resentment, rage, and overflowing hope. According to him, revolutions are explosions of irrationality rather than carefully crafted strategies.

🔍 Main Themes Developed:

💥 Revolutions as emotional catharsis

Revolutions rarely stem from well-structured plans. Instead, they are born from unbearable emotional build-up.
They erupt when people can no longer take it—and find a triggering event (a death, a gesture, a specific injustice).

⚖️ The myth of revolutionary reason

Official history tends to portray revolutions as acts of rational awakening against oppression.
Trías de Bes dismantles this idea, showing that reason usually comes later, when people try to justify or reconstruct the narrative.

🔥 Collective irrationality as a force for change

Massive anger, focused hatred, and utopian hope unite people who would normally remain divided.
This emotional force topples systems, but does not guarantee what comes next will be better or fairer.

🧠 The idealized memory of revolutions

After the revolution, winners build an epic, rationalized narrative to legitimize their power.
The emotional, chaotic, and often destructive component is erased from history.

🌀 The revolutionary cycle: emotion → chaos → new order

Trías de Bes describes a recurring pattern:
Emotional outburst → Social chaos → Reorganization under new rules
Thus, revolutions do not always liberate; they often reorganize power with new myths and new forms of control.

🧭 Historical Examples Analyzed:

French Revolution: emotional triggers like hunger and hatred toward the aristocracy
Russian Revolution: utopian promise fueled by decades of oppression and inequality
Arab Spring: generational frustration more than a rational political program
Contemporary uprisings: chaotic movements driven by social media and collective emotion

📌 Chapter Conclusion

Revolutions should be understood not as moments of social enlightenment, but as emotional earthquakes. They hold transformative power, yes—but they also carry deep irrationality that can build or destroy with equal intensity.

🗣️ Key Quote from Chapter:

"The people don’t rise when they understand, but when they feel."

📖 10 — "Power and Its Mutations"

Trías de Bes argues that power is never truly eliminated—it only transforms. Throughout history, power has taken many forms—theocratic, military, economic, symbolic—but always with the same goal: to maintain control over the masses, channel fear, and legitimize hierarchies. The key is understanding how power disguises itself according to historical context.

🔍 Main Themes Developed:

👑 From divine to political

In ancient times, power was of divine origin—kings and emperors were seen as “chosen by the gods” or even as gods themselves.
Over time, that legitimacy shifted to political and ideological grounds: constitutions, democracies, parties.

🧠 Power as a functional narrative

Power doesn’t rely solely on brute force—it is sustained through the narrative that justifies it.
Whoever controls the narrative controls the perception of legitimacy.

💰 From the throne to capital

In the modern world, power has shifted toward the economic and financial realms.
Capital, corporations, and markets have replaced traditional visible leaders.
Example: today’s “kings” are CEOs, investment funds, and global financial institutions.

🤖 Digital and decentralized power

In the contemporary era, power is increasingly invisible, algorithmic, and decentralized.
Data, digital surveillance, and algorithms influence political, social, and consumer decisions—without public scrutiny.

🔁 The illusion of freedom

Though we believe we live in free societies, power mutations have created new, subtler forms of dependence:

Dependence on credit
Need for social visibility
Technological dependence

🧭 Historical Examples Addressed:

Theocratic empires: absolute religious power (e.g., Egypt, Mesopotamia)
Absolute monarchies: dynastic legitimacy
Bourgeois revolutions: changes in leadership, not structure
Neoliberalism: power distributed across markets and algorithms

📌 Chapter Conclusion

Power doesn’t die—it changes its face to keep operating.
Today, we no longer see it in crowns or thrones, but in screens, contracts, data, and algorithms. And that makes it even more dangerous: it is harder to detect, to question, and to resist.

🗣️ Key Quote from Chapter:

"Power transforms not because it wants to give up, but because it wants to survive."

📖 11 — "Capitalism: Narrative or Reality"

Trías de Bes argues that capitalism is not an inevitable consequence of economic evolution, but rather a constructed narrative, collectively upheld and accepted. It is a modern hegemonic story that justifies inequality, regulates behavior, and defines values, all in the name of progress and individual freedom.

🔍 Main Themes Developed:

💭 Capitalism as a narrative of salvation

Since the Industrial Revolution, capitalism has been presented as a natural and efficient system for organizing production and distribution.
But according to Trías de Bes, this is simply a legitimizing narrative, much like religious myths—it promises salvation (prosperity) to those who believe and participate.

🧾 The invisible values of capitalism

The capitalist system imposes values such as competition, accumulation, individualism, and productivity.
These values go largely unchallenged because they are deeply embedded in modern culture and education.

📺 The spread of the capitalist story

Through media, advertising, cinema, and education, the message is constantly reinforced:

Having more means being more
Individual effort will always be rewarded
The market is fair
These ideas are symbolic narratives, not universal truths.

🧠 Mass acceptance of the system

Capitalism works because most people believe in it, even if they are harmed by it.
It is a system not imposed by force, but by emotional conviction: desire, fear, status, identity.

🔍 Capitalism as a secular religion

The author compares capitalism to a modern religion, with:

Temples (shopping malls, banks)
Saints (entrepreneurs, millionaires)
Dogmas (perpetual growth, meritocracy)
Rituals (consumption, work, debt)

🧭 Historical Parallels and Examples:

Capitalism as the symbolic successor to medieval religion, giving meaning, order, and purpose
The “invisible hand” of Adam Smith as a founding myth
Boom and bust cycles as rituals of faith

📌 Chapter Conclusion

More than an economic system, capitalism is a deeply emotional symbolic construction that organizes the world through desire, hope, and fear of failure. It is not the inevitable end of history, but the current dominant narrative—one that could also change.

🗣️ Key Quote from Chapter:

“Capitalism is not real; it is what we believe to be real.”

📖 12 —"The Era of the Narcissistic Individual"

Trías de Bes argues that we are living in the era of the narcissistic individual—a historical stage in which identity, recognition, and external validation have become the new collective obsessions.
This phenomenon did not arise spontaneously; it is the result of capitalism, digitalization, and the collapse of traditional grand narratives (such as religion, homeland, or community).

🔍 Main Themes Developed:

🪞 The self as the center of the universe

Instead of belonging to something greater (God, nation, social class), the modern individual becomes their own project.
Life is organized around the image we project of ourselves, not who we truly are.

📱 Identity as spectacle

🎭 Superficial emotionality

Modern narcissism is not genuine self-love, but dependence on external recognition.
This generates anxiety, frustration, and emotional competition, where everyone wants to stand out but no one feels enough.

🤖 Neoliberalism as a promoter of narcissism

Today’s economic system promotes:

The entrepreneur of the self
Individual merit as the ultimate virtue
Blaming those who do not “succeed”
This creates a society obsessed with self-image, blind to the collective.

🧩 The disappearance of the common

Extreme individualism has weakened:

Community
Shared purpose
Genuine political action
People feel free, but are disconnected, competitive, and emotionally fragile.

🧭 Contemporary Examples:

Influencers and self-image culture
Motivational coaching as a “religion of the self”
Wellness and productivity apps that reinforce the ideal of constant self-improvement
Politics that address the consumer individual, not the collective citizen

📌 Chapter Conclusion

Narcissism is not a psychological issue—it is a historical and cultural construct, promoted by the system.
The “self” has replaced collective and spiritual narratives, and while that creates a sense of freedom, it also isolates us, exposes us, and fragments us as a society.

🗣️ Key Quote from Chapter:

“In the era of the absolute self, we are all protagonists… but no one is writing the script.”

📖 13 — "Technology: The New Dogma"

Trías de Bes argues that technology has acquired an almost religious status in the modern world. It is perceived as an inevitable, neutral, and positive force, when in fact it is a cultural, emotional, and political construction, loaded with interests and biases. In this sense, technology functions as a modern dogma: it is not questioned—it is believed in.

🔍 Key Themes Developed:

🔮 Technology as a promise of salvation

The dominant narrative presents technology as the solution to all human problems: disease, ignorance, poverty, inequality.
This vision has messianic overtones: technological progress as collective redemption.

🧠 Technology and modern faith

Even though most people don’t understand how it works, we blindly trust algorithms, AI, devices, data, and platforms.
A secular faith in applied science has emerged, replacing religion as a source of certainty.

🕹️ Apparent neutrality, real impact

One of the biggest myths is that “technology is neutral”; the author refutes this:
All technology responds to an intention, is ideologically designed, and produces real social effects.
Example: social networks are designed to maximize addiction, polarization, and surveillance.

📉 Displacement of critical thinking

Unrestricted use of technology has weakened deep reflection and critical thinking.
The logic of digital immediacy works against the slow processes of philosophical, ethical, and political thought.

🤖 The new technological clergy

Knowledge of how technology works is restricted to a technical elite (programmers, engineers, Silicon Valley executives).
This creates a new power asymmetry, where the majority of people accept without understanding.

🧭 Examples and Parallels:

Faith in Artificial Intelligence as an "objective oracle"
Personal data as “offerings” to digital gods (Google, Meta, Apple...)
Transhumanism as a new promise of eternal life

📌 Chapter Conclusion

Technology has ceased to be a mere tool and become an ideology and mass belief system. Trías de Bes does not suggest rejecting it, but questioning it—understanding its logic, its effects, and breaking the blind obedience it has earned in the name of progress.

🗣️ Key Quote from Chapter:

“We no longer believe in gods, but we believe in algorithms.”

📖 14 — "Post-Truth as a Form of Order"

Trías de Bes argues that we have entered an era in which truth has ceased to be a fundamental value in public and political life. In its place, we live under the reign of post-truth: a logic where emotion, convenience, and plausibility matter more than factual accuracy. This distortion is neither accidental nor marginal—it is a new tool to generate cohesion, control, and stability in times of information overload.

🔍 Main Themes Developed:

🎭 Post-truth is not lying—it is emotional narrative

Post-truth doesn’t mean telling lies, but rather crafting narratives that appeal to emotions, even if they contradict verifiable facts.
People don’t believe what is true—they believe what confirms their fears, values, or hopes.

📺 Truth overwhelmed by information overload

In the digital age, the sheer volume of information disables our ability to discern the truth.
Truth no longer stands on its own—it must compete as another product in the marketplace of ideas.

🏛️ The political use of post-truth

Governments, parties, and leaders create carefully crafted discourses designed to manipulate collective emotions.
Example: populist rhetoric that appeals to “what the people feel” rather than objective data.

🧠 Order through convenient narrative

Instead of organizing society around truth, we now organize it through functional stories that maintain social cohesion.
Post-truth is useful: if it brings stability, it is accepted.

🛑 Deep risks

The abandonment of truth as a guiding value leads to:

🧭 Contemporary Examples:

Fake news during elections
Climate or health denialism
“Alternative realities” on social media
“Common sense” used to reject scientific evidence

📌 Chapter Conclusion

Truth has lost its central role in public life. Instead, post-truth dominates as a functional strategy to sustain collective narratives. It’s not that power ignores the truth—it no longer needs it to govern. What matters now is emotional plausibility.

🗣️ Key Quote from Chapter:

“In times of post-truth, it’s not about what happened, but about what convinces.”

📖 15 — "Contemporary Errors"

In this chapter, Trías de Bes analyzes the structural errors humanity continues to make today, despite the supposed “progress.” He returns to a key thesis from earlier chapters: error is a historical driver, but he stresses that our current errors are more serious, because they repeat despite accumulated knowledge.

We live with more information and technology than ever before, yet we remain trapped in old emotional, irrational, and destructive patterns.

🔍 Main Themes Developed:

🔁 Repetition disguised as modernity

The errors of the past have not been overcome—they’ve just taken on new forms.
Examples:

Imperialism → Economic neocolonialism
Censorship → Algorithmic control of information
Religious oppression → Technocratic or ideological dogmas

🌍 Global crisis as symptom

Climate crisis, inequality, war, disinformation, digital loneliness...
Trías de Bes suggests that these are not anomalies, but natural effects of an emotionally mismanaged system.
It’s not a failure of capitalism or technology per se, but of how we use them without question.

⚙️ A system addicted to acceleration

The modern world operates at a speed that prevents deep reflection or real learning.
Economic, technological, and informational acceleration magnifies errors and reduces our ability to correct them.

🧠 Collective denial of error

Unlike other times in history, we now struggle to admit we are making mistakes.
We live in an age of mass self-deception, upheld by post-truth, the cult of success, and the illusion of control.

🔍 False solutions and empty promises

Quick-fix narratives abound:

More technology
More growth
More conscious consumption
Yet many of these “solutions” are just variations of the same problem—they change the story, not the substance.

🧭 Highlighted Contemporary Errors:

Believing technology will solve ethical or environmental dilemmas
Thinking that more conscious consumption will stop ecological collapse
Equating more information with more wisdom
Confusing freedom with hyper-individualism

📌 Chapter Conclusion

Today’s errors are less forgivable than those of the past—we know more, but act the same or worse.
Trías de Bes warns that if we cannot recognize these errors as structural rather than anecdotal, we will be unable to begin a new phase of conscious evolution.

🗣️ Key Quote from Chapter:

“Today, error is not ignorance—it’s arrogance.”

📖 16 — "A New Era?"

In this final chapter, Trías de Bes poses a fundamental question: Is humanity ready to begin a truly different historical stage?
Throughout the book, he has shown how we have repeated emotional patterns—fear, ignorance, dogma, submission, error—and how we have constructed collective narratives that preserve order at the cost of freedom, truth, and awareness.

Now, he invites us to look to the future with both skepticism and possibility.

🔍 Main Themes Developed:

🧠 Collective awareness as a new threshold

True transformation will not come from new technology or economic systems, but from an evolution in collective consciousness.
This means recognizing that we are emotional beings who need stories, but also critical thinking, humility, and self-awareness.

🔁 Will we repeat, or will we learn?

Trías de Bes focuses on the ability to break cycles:

Can we create a new story without falling back into fear and blind obedience?
Can we build order without relying on submission?

🌍 An interdependent humanity

We can no longer think of the world in terms of borders, religions, or closed ideologies.
Globalization, climate change, health and digital crises force us to think as a species, not as tribes.

📱 Technology, power, and ethics

Change will only be real if technology is subjected to ethics—not the other way around.
We must recover critical thought, so we don’t worship new digital or economic gods.

🌱 Critical hope

Though the outlook may seem bleak, Trías de Bes does not fall into total pessimism.
He believes we face a historic opportunity: to become aware of the narrative that rules us—and to write a new one.

📌 Chapter Conclusion

The future is not written. But if we continue to act emotionally as we have so far, the future will just be a repetition with a new mask.
Trías de Bes does not offer formulas, but he leaves a powerful suggestion: observe ourselves as a species, accept our limits, and dare to imagine a different story.

🗣️ Key Quote from Chapter:

“We don’t need a new story. We need to finally tell ourselves the truth.”

✅ Book Closing

The author ends with a profound invitation: stop looking for external saviors (God, technology, leaders) and instead, re-examine who we are as a species—and how we’ve been telling our story for centuries.