Hijos de Ápate

When Pandora opened her famous box and the goddess Ápate escaped from her prison, deceit and lies spread throughout the world. Since then, Ápate has lived among us and, as Gescinska argues in this essay, we all descend from her. But as children of Ápate we can rebel and resist the temptation to lie, which has never been more necessary than in these times of post-truth, alternative facts, and fake news. The real problem of our era is the lack of authenticity and veracity, concepts that Gescinska defines, respectively, as sincerity with ourselves and with others. What determines the quality of a statement is the intention of the speaker. For this reason, to combat the proliferation of lies, it is not enough to offer more tools with which to verify the facts. Without a new commitment to authenticity and truthfulness, democracy is further threatened, and with it, we risk losing our most precious asset: freedom.