10 quotes found
"I well understand how Wikipedia represents an Enlightenment dream of describing the world, which, however, clashes with the difficulties of accrediting itself as a credible compendium of knowledge, while maintaining anonymity, flexibility and continuous openness to new contributors. At the same time, this 'utopia' overturns the dream of the traditional encyclopaedia, understood as an authoritative, organic and integrated construction of knowledge. In fact, Wikipedia is like a living organism: it grows (at the rate of 7 per cent every month), it 'falls ill', it is subject to internal compositions and decompositions, to continuous growth and reduction. But above all, Wikipedia conceals another, in its own way, ambiguous utopia: the absolute democracy of knowledge and the collaboration of multiple intelligences that gives rise to a kind of collective intelligence. This utopia could hide a new form of 'tower of Babel', which has its Achilles' heel not only in unreliability, but also in relativism. [...] His 'utopias' arise, radicalising them, from the profound needs of human knowledge, which the wíki, in general, help transform into concrete projects: knowledge understood as a dynamic process, open to all, and the fruit not only of individual commitment, but also of profound collaboration and intense confrontation between minds willing to share skills and intelligence."
"It is a common experience to have frequented a library. Entering the reference room is like crossing a threshold between the world of noise and the world of silence. The people one meets appear, in general, concentrated on what they are reading with an attitude of body that seems to express deep attention. The surroundings, the silence, the concentration that one 'breathes' in the air seem to recall, in some respects, entering a church and praying. The man who studies and the man who prays seem to assume similar attitudes. This analogy is very fruitful for reflection and leads one to naturally think of a spirituality of study. The Christian scholar is strongly urged to ask himself how his activity and prayer can coexist in his inner life."
"Christianity is not an encyclopaedia of contents and values, nor a list of battles to be fought, but an openness to the surprise of God. Without the experience of his Real Presence, without the encounter with the person of Christ, Christianity becomes a rigid ideology. But beware! God is to be sought and found everywhere in the world. He is present and active in the world and in history. He is not necessarily where we think He is."
"The model we have before our eyes, that of Francis de Sales, is therefore that of a journalism that communicates passion and has an intent of involvement, participation, education. The same attention to 'truth' is not a simple and cold focus on 'objectivity' or 'neutrality', but on understanding the value of things."
"I believe that in Internet there is a highly spiritual dimension. I would like to mention at least one person, a great Jesuit, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, who with his books, with his insights, his idea of the noosphere anticipated the idea of the Internet... We are talking about a Jesuit who lived in times when the Internet was not even conceivable, but he largely anticipated this phenomenon. I would also say that, in my opinion, the Internet is a reality that has strong spiritual potential."
"Digital technologies allow people, today more than ever, to stay connected and communicate, overcoming many distances. And with a technological system for communicating and thinking, a kind of intelligence distributed everywhere and growing all the time is being formed at the same time. The Internet, in fact, involves the sharing of resources, time, content, ideas. The now classic example is Wikipedia, which beyond any evaluation is the fruit of the convergence of many people, connected together across the planet, who think and write. Intelligence is distributed wherever there is humanity, and today it can be easily interconnected. The network of this knowledge gives rise to a form of 'collective intelligence' or common consciousness. [...] The Net is called from being a place of 'connection' to becoming a place of 'communion'. The risk these days is to confuse the two terms. Connection in itself is not enough to make the Net a place of fully human sharing. Working towards this goal is the specific task of the Christian."
"Interviewer: Well Salvini out of government? Antonio Spadaro: It is not clear how this will end. In any case, Salvini's role in the League's sovereignist mutation, after twenty years in which the party has expressed real capacity for government rooted in the territory will have to be investigated. From green it has turned black. For me the question, after the bathing coup, is the relationship between Salvini, a charismatic personality who has absorbed the party into himself, and the League itself. The question is what the right in Italy can be. A question that has never been resolved."
"[...] we live in times in which we run the risk of losing the meaning of study and seeing it only as functional to a job. Certainly study 'serves' man and also helps him to find his place in the world as a worker. The risk, however, is that of living study in an occasional and functional manner, and no longer as a strong and valuable life experience. The Christian presence in a study environment such as the university must therefore first and foremost aim not to add activity to other activities, but to help the young student live his main activity: study, in a Christian manner. Much less can Christian formation and academic study be considered in competition with each other."
"There is always a vulnerable point in Pavese's life, a point that exposes him to the beauty and intuition of the taste for life, but this seems to find no possibility of development."
"The Internet is no longer an agglomeration of isolated and independent websites, albeit connected and networked, but is to be considered as the whole of the technological capabilities achieved by mankind in the field of disseminating and sharing information and knowledge."