At this delicate moment in the Catalan crisis, rather than taking up one or another banner of the conflict, it is perhaps worth taking a step back to ask the question: how did we get to this point and how can we eventually heal the social, political and economic wounds and divisions that have occurred? I am not going to go through the intricate history of the conflict - I leave that to historians and those who have experienced it first hand. But I would like to glimpse one aspect of the conflict that does not always attract attention, precisely because it has become so normalized in modern politics. I refer to the role of majoritarianism as tool of social change.

The logic of majoritarianism is the logic of democracy - if 51% of the citizens want X, they have the right to X, and the 49% who don't, well, let them put up with it, because they live in a democracy. That "democratic" logic is what can lead us into irresolvable conflicts, because according to that logic, a majority bloc has every right to impose its will over a minority bloc, and those in the minority do not have adequate resources to protect their interests and to protect their sense of political and cultural identity against the "democratic" process."

In the particular case of Catalonia, this democratic-majoritarian logic is the elephant in the room, which almost nobody wants to face. The majoritarian logic is first applied when Spanish citizens claim the right to set permanent limits to the political development of one of their regions. The Spanish government jealously guards its own powers and appeals to the value of democracy - of the "sovereign will" of the Spanish people - to reject the Catalan government's repeated requests to expand its rights of self-government.

To go back to the majoritarian logic - which is often hidden under a logic of popular sovereignty, or constitutionalism - is a traditional way of closing endless political debates. But in the case of a political group that sincerely aspires to the exercise of greater political autonomy, and that insists on this aspiration over and over again, with the support of an important part of its compatriots, majoritarianism - although expressed in the language of sovereignty and constitutionalism - does not work to close the discussion, but to paralyze the dialogue and sow social and political division.

Ironically, the government of Catalonia uses the same majoritarian and sovereigntist logic of its adversary to impose its own separatist diary on a very important group of its voters who oppose separatism and who want to reconcile their Spanish and Catalan identity. Trying to carry out a constitutional, political, and social revolution, with the support of only 51% of the voters (we can assume 55%, it does not change the point) is a great moral and political mistake.

It is a moral error because it absolves the politician of the responsibility of consolidating an authentic social consensus before introducing a new political regime; it is a political error because it leads to a very harmful fragmentation of society, a fragmentation that brings with it economic instability, distrust among citizens, and the delegitimization of the government of the new regime, which inevitably loses the confidence of those who have seen their identity and their interests violated in the new regime.

With a little imagination and good will, surely we could overcome the majoritarian logic that absolves politicians of the responsibility to take into account the interests and perspectives of all sectors of society, not just "their own." Hopefully we can rethink the constituent process to find a more consensual and multilateral model for social and constitutional change - giving due priority to the parties whose interests and lives are directly involved in the result.