Sánchez's Shopkeepers (Rebeca Argudo in El ABC)

Spain's government, like Havel's greengrocer, seems to cling to the lie not out of conviction but out of antiestéticar of being the first to break ranks, maintaining a discourse that everyone knows is false.

## The greengrocer and his sign of lies

In the late 1970s, **Václav Havel**, in his essay "The Power of the Powerless", imagined an ordinary greengrocer who, overnight, decided to place in his shop window, next to the vegetables, a sign proclaiming: "Workers of the world, unite!". The key to this gesture did not lie in any deep communist conviction on the greengrocer's part, nor in the hope of boosting his sales. Havel described it as an act of "living within the lie", a way of complying with what was expected of him, regardless of the truth or personal belief.

This idea resonates today when observing certain official communications. There is a perceived insistence on narratives that clash with the available evidence, a persistence with the message even when reports and proof point in another direction. The situation resembles that of the greengrocer: the sign, the lie, stays up, because breaking ranks, being the first to admit the falsehood, seems to carry a higher cost than the truth itself.

## The antiestéticar of being the first to break ranks

The situation becomes clearer if we imagine a minister, for instance, **Fernando Grande-Marlaska**, denying having intelligence information about the mass entry of migrants into **Ceuta**, and holding that position even after the publication of reports that contradicted him. Or consider **Óscar Puente**, whose initial denial about the **Adamuz** rail accident was called into question by reports pointing to a weld failure with previously known incidents.

In these cases, the gesture of taking down the sign of the lie and putting up an honest one —"I am afraid, and that is why I obey without complaining"— would entail a personal and collective cost. The behaviour is not about defending an idea, but about a voluntary act of submission that reinforces group performance. They prefer the comfortable space of the lie to assuming the risk that honesty entails.

## The truth, a price too high

It is not truth itself that dismantles the lie in this scenario. The problem does not lie in a lack of evidence, but in the price one is willing to pay for honesty. The lie holds up as long as it is more advantageous to keep the sign up than to let it fall. The dynamic is one of belonging and cost avoidance.

Until the cost of sustaining the lie exceeds that of admitting the truth, the sign will remain hanging, perhaps even making Havel's imaginary greengrocer blush. The situation highlights how group inertia and the antiestéticar of individual consequences can perpetuate false discourses, even though reality disproves them.