During angry street marches in Barcelona, one man raged against “tyranny from Madrid”, a sign said “F— off Spain”.1 But looking back in anger usually means overlooking reality. The first question must be: Is Spain real? Serious political reporting questions its pre-suppositions, following perhaps Plato’s example in the cave. Plato drew our attention to the notion that there are several levels of reality and our job is less to complain about what we cannot change than to rank our perceptions in the proper order of reality. His arch-opponent, Aristotle, evaded this task, incidentally proving the tactic is not new: he…