The open society and its narrative enemies

Sometimes, public debate seems to do more harm than good. Televisions are full of people explaining why gasoline is more expensive here than elsewhere, why electricity is also more expensive, why our pricing system punishes those who use electricity instead of wood or gas, etc. Recently, it almost seems like you need an accountant and a lawyer if you want to install photovoltaic panels: facilities, taxation, and so many other things appear and disappear with a lack of predictability that is now the norm, not the exception.

Strangely, these themes are recurring – every summer there are problems with water and electricity, every winter the whole country gets blocked at the first heavy snowfall. During the day, too little electricity is consumed, and in the evening, too much... you can't help but think that, after all, with how prices exploded after liberalization, which theoretically was supposed to make energy cheap, accessible, and sustainable (as the European Commission said 20 years ago when this process was being prepared), the state and those to whom we pay for electricity should come up with a solution. Not to mention that this story about holding the citizen accountable, who, after all, pays, has become annoying. Drive less, don't use so much plastic, eat less meat... I understand accountability, especially when it comes to causes that simply need public support because they are ignored by institutions, the market, etc. But, it seems that lately, there is always an urgency, people always have to understand, and slowly, slowly, it seems that the job of institutions, but also of large business organizations, is starting to convince us of things, to promote a change in mentality, a social campaign... I repeat, within normal limits, I can understand this promotion of civic participation, but sometimes it seems that certain institutions and certain operators in critical and well-paid markets prefer to deliver explanations and admonitions instead of doing their job and finding economic and technical solutions, investing in infrastructure, lobbying at significant doors in Europe and around the world, so that I am not told in the summer that I need to turn off the lights at night, but to turn them on in the middle of the day, because only then is it cheap, but it is a lot, it disrupts the network, and the Bulgarians profit from it.

Of course, another question arises. Surely, infrastructure needs to be developed (storage, for example, for electricity and gas), but it seems that we suffer worse than others in this regard. Somewhere, it is no longer just a matter of money; it also seems to be one of planning and competence. And the reaction of the state and the actors in the energy market is to roll the debate until summer passes, the drought passes – both the water drought and the political subject drought – the parliamentarians return, and along with them, the favorite punching bag of our public discontent.

There is a good part of society that has the impression – it remains to be seen how well-founded it is – that since the crisis at the end of the 2000s, the beginning of the 2010s, the European Union has gradually drifted away from the social component and the guarantee of the prosperity of citizens and has become increasingly neoliberal, compensating or camouflaging this reaching the limits of prosperity through a rather declarative progressivism. Of course, the international context has not helped, nor has the pandemic, and we have reached, economically and politically, where we all know we have reached. The needs of the public cannot be adjusted discursively, neither through hasty actions, nor through admonitions, nor through accountability for sacrifice. Keeping proportions, it must be said that this is how communist regimes collapsed, 35 years ago. The political system must produce prosperity, not convince us to be satisfied with less, possibly also with higher prices. Until we marvel at the effectiveness of others' propaganda, open society must stop making anti-advertising.