"...Mario Vargas Llosa is in good form.
The Peruvian Nobel Laureate laughs easily as he expounds on his theories of freedom and the individual and talks about his new book, La llamada de la tribu, or, The Call of the Tribe, which argues in favor of liberal thought in reference to seven influential authors: Adam Smith, José Ortega y Gasset, Friedrich von Hayek, Karl Popper, Raymond Aron, Isaiah Berlin and Jean-François Revel.
These men belong to a school of thought that believes in the individual as an autonomous and responsible being, and freedom as the supreme asset. They defend democracy and the separation of powers as the best system available to reconcile society’s contradictory values...
...Q. And what is western democracy’s main challenge now?
A. Its biggest enemy now is populism.
No one in their right mind wants to model their country on North Korea, Cuba or Venezuela. Marxism is already on the fringes of political life but that’s not the case with populism, which shatters democracies from within.
...Q. Does political correctness threaten freedom?
A. Political correctness is the enemy of freedom because it rejects honesty and authenticity.
We have to tackle it as the distortion of the truth.
Q. Recently, the term “fake news” has appeared in our midst as though it were something new.
A. New terms for old realities.
In the case of misinformation and manipulation, communism was incredibly clever at distorting things, undermining honest people and masking lies with false truths that came to substitute reality..."
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