Title: The Medina Sidonia Case

Published by the prestigious editorial “La Esfera de los Libros” in 2008 “The Medina Sidonia Case. On Excellence. The polemic history of the red duchess, her children and her widow” is an essay that combines:

- A theoretical treatment on the Greek concept of “arête”, the virtue of excellence, what the “aristoi” of all of society have, of where the word “aristocracy” comes from. Therefore, the book awakens questions like: What is aristocracy? Who are the “aristocrats” of any society, of today in our society? Those who are born “noble” or those “excellent” of every historical moment? Is “excellence” still a fundamental value in our current society? Can a society subsist without “excellence”? Can one be “excellent” and a monarch? Can one be “excellent” and stingy? Can one be “excellent” and Christian?…

- A historical application to the most ancient “aristocratic” family of Spain, even of Europe, the Medina Sidonia. From its founder Guzmán the Good, he who sacrifices his own son defending Tarifa in the XIII century against a combined army of Christians and Moors, have played a fundamental role in the configuration of Spain throughout history. A fascinating saga of heroes and villains, of saints and rascals, of clairvoyants and dimwits, of loyals and betrayers, of devotes and of libertines…

- And the Medina Sidonia of today. Starting from the story of the youngest son Gabriel, the rest of the members of the family are interviewed, as well as many friends and witnesses of their lives, even the mother, Luisa Isabel, the red duchess, the always untamable rebel against dictatorship, who hours before dying married her secretary, so that the reader can choose his/her own perspective on how to chew on this history of family disputes, great passions, forbidden loves, improper appropriations, rebellious politics, hatreds, little love and lots of abandonment.

The book was in Spain´s best-seller list for months.

- ACTION AND ORIGIN IN TRAGEDY. The occidental theater up to today has its origin in the tragedy that is configured around the concept of “action”, and Aristotle theorizes it for the first time in his well-known “Poetic”. But this key concept does not only inaugurate a theatrical genre, it also forms a key piece in the entire posterior philosophical construction of Philosophy, which is also invented during that time.

- CATHARSIS: ACTION, PASSION OR SUBMISSION? The “religious” origin of tragedy surrounding Dionysian festivities soon becomes the fundamental “educational” element of the masses through a subtle instrument: “catharsis”. What is “education” for some is simply “propaganda” for others or modes of submission on behalf of power, as has been discussed throughout history until actuality with a Bertolt Brecht or an Augusto Boal. In any case, already since Greece, tragedy has turned into the genre par excellence of the dictatorships that finance it; while comedy, on the other hand, has turned into the genre of the rebellion against all powers, through humor and has thus been persecuted by those aforementioned powers.

- “COMEDY VERSUS PHILOSOPHY AND MONOTHEISM”, the next book to be published, will explain in depth, the lengthy battle of comedy, of laughter, against dominant censorships: that of the monotheism which condemns it as “irreverent” and “dissolute” for putting into question the divine, the human and the social; and the battle of philosophy, which has left it separate from its own official history so as to not consider it sufficiently “serious” and “profound”.

That is why, since Christianity’s rise to power, the sanctimonious is always tragedy and it is confirmed since the XIX century until today, with the inrush of socialism and communism, which continues to look down upon comedy. Because in short, socialism and communism do not cease to be secular Christianity.