Anthropological damage in Cuba: concept, misunderstandings and healing
By: Dagoberto Valdés Hernández - 27/07/2026
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There is a growing awareness of how difficult it will be to heal the anthropological damage that is undoubtedly the deepest and most lasting disaster caused by communist totalitarianism in Cuba.
Some, without having studied the subject, even claim that the damage is so severe as to be irreversible, impossible to heal. In this column, I would like to share some of the findings from my doctoral thesis on "Anthropological Damage and its Healing in Cuba," which has already been published and is available on Amazon.
I believe that these clarifications could help to rectify early on some errors that, as with any new concept, accompany its dissemination.
The concept
I believe the first thing is to remember and establish the concept we arrived at in the doctoral research:
“The anthropological damage caused by totalitarianism in Cuba is the weakening, injury or breakdown of the cognitive, affective and volitional faculties, as well as the ethical, social and spiritual dimensions of the human person, all or in part, depending on the depth of the deterioration or disorder caused, however, the essence of the human person and their dignity always subsist” (Valdés, D. 2019).
It is good to clarify here, even further, what has been identified in this concept:
– Damage has three levels of depth: weakening, injury, or breakdown. Not everyone has suffered the same severity of damage. Not everyone will heal in the same way.
The damage is inflicted on some or all of the three faculties of the human person: cognitive, emotional, and volitional. Not everyone has suffered the same damage to their ability to think, feel, and act. Sometimes we notice the difficulty in thinking for ourselves and observe the dulling of critical awareness and discernment. Furthermore, we see a lack of the necessary emotional intelligence, a weakening of willpower, and a lack of perseverance in doing good.
– The damage can also impact the three dimensions of the human person: personal ethics, social coexistence, and spiritual-transcendent development.
– However, the same concept clearly states that, despite all the harm that anthropological damage may cause: “the essence of the human person and their dignity always remain.”
Misunderstandings and inaccuracies
We frequently find that the dissemination and use of the term anthropological harm has been mixed with some misconceptions and inaccuracies such as:
– That anthropological damage affects the very essence and dignity of the injured person. This is an error that ignores what is stated in the concept itself and that can have very serious consequences such as crimes against humanity, extermination, and violations of inalienable human rights, due to the false notion that, by being seriously damaged or broken, the person loses their essence, their human “being,” and their inviolable dignity.
Another inaccuracy has been the assumption that, because this investigation has been limited to the anthropological damage caused by totalitarianism in Cuba, it does not exist in other systems, historical periods, or geographical locations. It must be clear that limiting the investigation to a specific phenomenon, cause, time, and place to determine whether there has been harm to human beings does not exclude or deny the possibility of other types of harm in other sociopolitical systems, in other countries, and in other periods of human history. Conversely, affirming the existence of similar phenomena in other places and systems neither denies nor justifies their existence in Cuba specifically under this system.
Another misconception would be to assume that the harm inflicted on Cubans began solely or exclusively with the emergence of the totalitarian system in Cuba. While it is clear that previous periods and systems left their own negative mark, this neither negates nor justifies the harm caused by the current regime, which we specify when studying the causes and consequences that distinguish this type of anthropological damage.
Another mistake would be to confuse or identify the causes and consequences of anthropological harm with traits of Cuban identity and idiosyncrasy: “That’s just how we are,” “These harms are part of our ethos,” of our Cuban “being.” This is false, because if it is harm, it is not a matter of identity, although all identities, cultures, and idiosyncrasies, precisely because they are human, are limited and imperfect. One reality is this imperfection, and another reality is harm inflicted from outside the human person by a political, economic, and social system that goes against human nature, denies the truth, establishes life in lies and post-truth, rewrites history, and establishes totalitarian control over each and every sphere in which the person lives and develops.
– And, lastly and most seriously, it would be to consider that the anthropological damage is irreparable, irreversible, condemning us to the fatality of the failure of the human condition.
Healing
Nothing could be further from our research: we consider that the “subsistence of the essence and dignity of every human person” is the main foundation and starting point of the three stages of recovery from anthropological damage:
1. Anthropological conversion: which is the awareness that we have been harmed, the discernment of which faculties and dimensions we have been harmed in, and the decision that we want to change and heal ourselves.
2. Anthropological healing: which is a “root healing”, from the root, eliminating the causes that caused the damage, seeking ethical, civic and spiritual remedies that contribute to healing the consequences of the damage.
3. To advance towards integral human development through a personal and community educational process that strengthens the experiences of a human and national project: personalist, ethical, social and transcendent, as bequeathed to us by Varela and Martí.
These proposals are a possible roadmap for healing the anthropological damage caused by totalitarianism in Cuba.
The family, the Church, and other educational spaces and projects have an enormous and very serious responsibility to encourage, safeguard, and guarantee a deep and lasting healing of anthropological damage so that it does not become an obstacle to living in freedom, democracy, and material, moral, and spiritual progress.
Cuba deserves it.
«The opinions published herein are the sole responsibility of its author».