We had a destructive and self-destructive attitude. Self-destruction was the science we knew best, the discipline that we practiced most assiduously. Even those who studied seriously or attended a gym on a regular basis, and thus seemed to be interested in strengthening their mind or their body, would end up distorting them both, generating maniacal thoughts or bowing themselves down under a heavy blanket of muscles. There seemed to be only two paths: either reject all exercise, or else take it to a fanatical extreme. Whichever path you took, the result was unharmonious.

We were out to conquer the world, or actually, the universe, but before doing that, we had to beat the closest adversary, even if it was just at a game of cards: there, your deskmate, that’s who you had to defeat, destroy him—but at the same time, help him. That’s what they taught us at SLM. The weakest must be defeated and, at the same time, helped.

It’s the same contradiction we encounter so frequently these days in politicians’ speeches, when in the same breath they claim to be fighting “for a meritocracy,” but also to ensure that “no citizen is left behind,” when it’s plain as day that the first thing excludes the second. (The Catholic School)