Essayists From Italy

"Media populism does not build community or togetherness; on the contrary, it maximizes exclusion and rejection. But the excluded and the rejected are no less spectacular than the scandalous and provocative elites! Elitism and populism thus find common ground in the experience of disgust, which has two dimensions that are, at first glance, opposite: on the one hand, it is repulsion, distancing oneself from the contaminant, delimiting a pure sphere; on the other, it is abjection, debasement, and self-degradation, proximity to the impure. (pp. 17-18)"

"Fragmentary experience is in reality an experience of the absolute: it transcends even poetry and only in love does it reveal its true face. Now, the enigma of love in general consists in this: that a single human being, empirically determined, dependent on a thousand accidents, in need of so much help and so ephemeral in his earthly existence, can be seen as something divine and sacred. (p. 110)"

"As long as we think of sexuality in terms of a curve that starts at zero, rises more or less slowly towards the climax of orgasm, then suddenly decreases and returns to the starting point, we remain victims of an attitude that experiences sexual feeling as a more or less long preparation for a very brief climax, destined to plummet to the zero point of a tension-free normality, from which it seems that we have never really moved. (p. 4)"

"Apollonian infallibility presupposes self-control: the shot is all the more perfect the steadier the archer's hand, the more devoid of violent emotions his soul. But only those who believe they have succeeded in everything they do succeed in everything: in this annulment of one's hopes, dreams, and past projects, in this complete adherence to the historical world, lies the deepest meaning of Apollonian infallibility, the essential link between Apollo and victory. (p. 98)"

"The purpose of communication is to encourage the elimination of all certainty and to acknowledge an anthropological transformation that has turned the public into a kind of ‘tabula rasa’, extremely sensitive and receptive, but incapable of retaining what is written on it beyond the moment of reception and transmission. (p. 108)"

"It seems that our age has exercised its power precisely on the level of feeling. Therefore, perhaps it could be defined as aesthetic: not because it has a privileged and direct relationship with the arts, but more essentially because its strategic field is neither cognitive nor practical, but that of feeling, of ‘aisthesis’. (p. 3)"

"Be wary, therefore, of those who cry out that the world is neither rational nor moral, because either they are ineffective, that is, they do not know the world, or they are dishonest, that is, they know it too well but in a one-sided way. Between the impotence of having to be (which is not) and the idolatry of the fait accompli (which often only appears to be so), there is a third way, which is precisely that of aesthetics. (p. 67)"

"Giving oneself as something that feels means asking that the substances that make up the partner's body be mixed with one's own, creating a single extension in which one travels for hours, for days. Taking something that feels means asking that one's clothes be accepted everywhere and always, to the point of not being recognized either by oneself or by one's partner as belonging to anyone. Thus, the difference between giving and taking falls away. (p. 13)"

"Hans Urs von Balthasar is the only one in our century to have raised the question of the essential “form” of Catholicism, a form that Balthasar finds more often in the works of certain poets or writers than in those of theologians."

"There is a secret in communication: it consists in making oneself invisible through excessive exposure. (p. 13)"

"‘Politically correct’ is based on claiming the status of victim: weakness is not thought of as something that must be changed into strength, because what matters, what makes strength, is precisely its ostentation. As one critic writes, the essence of ‘politically correct’ culture is complaining, whining; its motto is “don't step on me, I'm fragile” (Hughes 1993). This is a paradoxical strategy, because those who complain claim to win by asserting their “difference,” which consists in suffering. This cannot be transformed into joy, because in doing so the “difference” from the enemy would disappear. (p. 23)"

"Today more than ever, art leaves behind a shadow, a less luminous silhouette in which it retreats into its own disturbing and enigmatic nature. The more violent the light with which one seeks to illuminate the work and the artistic process, the clearer the shadow they cast; the more mundane and trivial the approach to the artistic experience, the more its essence retreats and protects itself in the shadows. (p. IX)"

"Mario Perniola, L'arte e la sua ombra, Einaudi, Torino, 2000."

"Mario Perniola, L'arte espansa, Mimesis, Milano, 2015."

"Mario Perniola, Il Sex appeal dell'inorganico, Einaudi, Torino, 2004 (first edition 1994)."

"Mario Perniola, L'estetica contemporanea. Un panorama globale, il Mulino, Bologna, 2011."

"Mario Perniola, Disgusti. Le nuove tendenze estetiche, Costa & Nolan, Genova, 1998."

"Mario Perniola, Transiti, Cappelli, Bologna, 1985."

"Mario Perniola, Enigmi. Il momento egizio nella società e nell'arte, Costa & Nolan, Genova, 1990."

"The importance of Burckhardt is not limited to the fact that he was among the first to realize the decline of the West. Added to this are three fundamental insights. The first concerns the recognition of the multiplicity of cultures. The decline of a civilization does not imply the end of the world: somewhere else, something new begins. In this respect, he can be considered the forerunner of a global aesthetic. (p. 196)"

"The purpose of Transiti is not to assert a kind of principle of indifference, but rather the opposite: non-identity, the difference of every reality with respect to itself, the flourishing of its virtuality, its becoming, its metamorphoses. The polemical objective of the book is, in essence, banality. In fact, the opposite of “transit” is “banal,” that which is perfectly adequate to itself, that which is incapable of transformation, that which remains identical in a state of complete and obtuse fixity. (p. II)"

"The sentiment of the twentieth century, on the other hand, moved in a direction opposite to aesthetic reconciliation, toward the experience of a conflict greater than dialectical contradiction, toward the exploration of the opposition between terms that are not symmetrically polar to each other. This whole great philosophical story, which I do not hesitate to consider the most original and important of the twentieth century, lies beneath the notion of ‘difference’, understood as non-identity, as a dissimilarity greater than the logical concept of diversity and the dialectical concept of distinction. (p. 158)"

"If we no longer recognize ourselves in a historical place, we do not even live in nostalgia for a place inhabited in the past or in hope for a place where we will live in the future. Past and future, homeland and utopia, seem to be ignored by an experience that knows only one time, the “present,” and only one place, the “presence,” and which takes place entirely “hic et nunc” (here and now). (p. 8)"

"Implicit in the concept of form is the reference to something objective and stable, which seems to suit the essence of the work of art very well: in the face of the continuous and unstoppable flow of time, the appeal to form manifests the urge to overcome the ephemeral, transitory, perishable nature of life. (p. 47)"

"In cognitive aesthetics, philosophy does not make the effort to understand what is other than itself, but seeks and finds itself. Self-reference, self-referentiality, and circularity seem to constitute their surreptitious presupposition: when speaking of other things, they are actually speaking of themselves, because ultimately they believe that true knowledge is self-awareness. It follows that the truth of the arts does not lie in themselves, but in the philosophy that interprets them or, better still, that philosophical thought is the bearer of a truth that art could not reach on its own, or at least of which it cannot be fully aware without the help of philosophy. (p. 85)"

"Mario Perniola, Contro la comunicazione, Einaudi, Torino, 2004."

"A long tradition, dating back to the ancient Greeks, links art to action in various ways. In Homeric epos, the exploits of heroes constitute the content of the poems; in tragedy, the action takes place in the presence of the audience: both the former and the latter have an effect on the audience. Finally, poetic, artistic, and literary activity itself has often been thought of as a form of action, a particular type of action that is sometimes more effective than military, political, or economic action. In modern thought, it was Hegel who thought most deeply about the connection between art and action. (p. 121)"

"If one of the specific aspects of philosophical thought is to think about its own object in its extreme outcomes, another more radical notion must be introduced into its premises and methods: ‘artification’. Nothing is ‘art’ in itself. It becomes so through many factors: the way in which the author thinks about his own activity, the work of hermeneutic mediation to which it is subjected, its reception by the public and critics, the manipulation to which the mass media subject it, and the preservation of what has been done. It follows that art is all this set of actions and reactions, theories and initiatives, objects and stories, documents and materials of the most varied kind. (p. 45)"

"The “fringe” turn in art does not only concern what is the object of its artisticization, but starts from an intuition that is itself “fringe,” and therefore has the ability to socialize, expand, and find resonance. It has a relationship of consonance, congeniality, and deep affinity with the internet and its viral effects. Unfortunately, those who are alternative or marginal tend to neglect or even detest technology, thinking that voluntary disconnection from networks is the best way to demonstrate the purity and authenticity of their ‘revolutionary’ choice. They do not realize the difference between the society of spectacle, which is anchored to traditional mass media communication (newspapers, radio, television), and the World Wide Web. (p. 47)"

"The speculative bubble of that “art world,” which began in the late 1950s and was characterized by the cultural solemnization of the historical avant-garde, whose patron saint was Marcel Duchamp, has finally burst. It had created a cultural microenvironment that sought to continually renew itself for five decades, resorting to a whole series of more or less ephemeral fads that presented themselves under provocative names and were concerned only with maintaining the control of a few gallery owners, collectors, and rapacious mediators, with the complicity of public institutions, the right to legitimize and consecrate products that could only nominally be defined as “works of art,” but were in reality artistic fetishes. (p. 3)"

"Artistic and theoretical strategies have so far sought to keep Outsider Art separate from institutional art. With the ‘fringe’ shift, this fundamental distinction has fallen away. (p. 66)"

"What does the question of the purpose of life have to do with aesthetic experience? Doesn't the teleological question belong rather to metaphysics or ethics? To say that the aesthetic question consists in reflecting on the meaning of individual and collective life seems provocative. Yet aesthetic reflection on life is precisely connected with this challenge: it therefore tends to identify itself not only with teleology, but also with the philosophy of history and metaphysics. Whether one affirms that life has meaning or denies it, the horizon within which this question is placed has, in contemporary times, very often been closely connected with aesthetics, which has thus had the audacity to pose the fundamental problem of existence. (p. 14)"

"Mario Perniola, Del Sentire, Einaudi, Torino, 2002 (first edition 1991)."

"Art can never dissolve into communication, because it contains an incommunicable core that is the source of an infinity of interpretations. (p. 15)"

"Umberto Cerroni, Il pensiero politico italiano, Il sapere, Tascabili Economici Newton, Roma, 1995. ISBN 88-8183-265-8."

"The idea of national unification matured in Italian political thought at the end of the 18th century and in the early decades of the 19th century under the weight of new foreign invasions and the failure of new political experiments such as the Neapolitan Republic and the Napoleonic Republic. These new disappointments eroded the remnants of the rhetorical tradition and put political speculation and reflection on the customs and public spirit of Italians to the test of realism. (chap. 6, p. 60)"

"Resistance to political unification was not Italy's only problem. This was certainly the primary problem, but it was also the result of a profound process of disintegration following centuries of fragmentation. Literary culture had long been sterile and remained so at least until Parini; philosophical and scientific culture was more a constellation of individual personalities, sometimes brilliant but almost always isolated and persecuted. In many respects, the condition of culture was the same as that of the Italian language: refined, but little connected to the everyday communication of Italians. (chap. 6, p. 62)"

"Overall, the three great figures of Bruno, Campanella and Sarpi attest that in Italy the distinction between civis and fidelis, opposed by the Church, had established itself in the highest consciences, laying the foundations for the sovereignty of modern states and also for freedom of conscience and religion. (chap. 5, p. 47)"

"[...] Machiavelli is the first great Italian political thinker completely and definitively freed from any cultural dependence on theology and Catholic culture: he is also the first entirely secular European political thinker, who no longer refers to the sacred scriptures, to which Hobbes and Locke will still refer. (chap. 4, p. 35)"

"Poised between a last, desperate attempt to outline a strategy for the construction of a unified state and the dramatic awareness of the political impotence to which the Italians are reduced, Machiavelli is a great, solitary witness to the political decline of a highly intellectual civilisation. He has something of Dante in him, a passionate politician and disdainful exile, and of Luther. He is the last great voice of our realistic tradition and the first modern reformer of Italian consciousness. (chap. 4, p. 36)"

"The Cold War created serious ideological divisions, and the growing intrusiveness of political parties, encouraged by the proportional electoral system and the lack of alternative governments, led to clientelism, corruption and inefficiency. Land parcelling, hidden financing and parliamentary consociationalism led to a regression of the parties, prompting the intervention of the judiciary. Almost all parties, subjected to serious ideological erosion, had to change their names, symbols and leadership as a difficult transition to a new majority political system began. (chap. 7, pp. 83-84)"

"The role played by the Catholic Church in Italian history and culture has generally been assessed from a highly ideological perspective. The main emphasis has been on the spiritual role played by the Church in inspiring Italian culture and art. Less attention has been paid to analysing the political and institutional role played by the Church. In particular, the role played by the “'Papal States”', the only case of temporal power in the West, has been completely overlooked. Instead, emphasis is placed on the balancing function that it is said to have played in Italy, which was in fact inspired by the Church's desire to protect itself from any attempt to unify the Italian peninsula. (chap. 1, p. 11)"

"Fascism in Italy brought together disparate social forces from a wide range of political backgrounds (socialists, anarchists, revolutionary syndicalists, clerical Catholics, nationalists, atheist republicans, former monarchist officers), united by their discontent with the agitation of workers and peasants and the peace treaty. There was also a lack of serious programmatic elaboration because fascism originated as a street movement organised by squadrist actions and “punitive expeditions” carried out in retaliation against leagues, chambers of labour, socialist sections and newspapers. (chap. 3, p. 36)"

"A notable cultural impulse to Catholic political and social thought came from the Modernist movement (Adolf Harnack, Alfred Loisy, Ernesto Buonaiuti), which proposed a profound renewal of religious traditions in the face of new trends in science, liberalism and socialism. (chap. 3, p. 45)"

"Controversial with populist traditionalism, Lenin argued that new social forces had to take the lead in the modernisation process by fighting for representative democracy and political freedoms. This analysis prompted the economist Lenin to devote himself to political action. And it was certainly this analysis that led to the development of his theory of socialist leadership of the democratic movement in a peasant country. (chap. 1, p. 13)"

"Umberto Cerroni, Il pensiero politico del Novecento, Il sapere, Tascabili Economici Newton, Roma, 1995. ISBN 88-7983-971-3."

"Italian politics left the European stage, becoming vulgarised in partisan competitions, and culture was saved only by distancing itself from politics and living in a national political vacuum."

"Based on the observation that the economic conditions of the proletariat had improved, thanks in part to political struggles, Eduard Bernstein set out to “revise” the entire Marxist tradition. He rejected the “theory of collapse” of capitalist society due to the impossibility of overcoming crises of underconsumption. From there, Bernstein went on to deny the need for a revolutionary transition to socialism and argued for the possibility of social transformation through reforms. Reformism and the introduction of universal suffrage would deliver power to the workers. (chap. 1, pp. 10-11)"

"For Vyšinskij, the state remained a mere instrument of the party's political will, and the law could be nothing more than an expression of that will. Strongly opposing his theoretical adversaries, Vyšinskij did not fail to assert the argument of force as Attorney General in Stalin's trials. (chap. 4, p. 54)"

"Frederick II's attempt was part of the European process of forming the first modern states, which culminated first in the Battle of Bouvines (1214) and then in the bitter clash between secular powers and the Church. In this conflict, which led to the conquest of full secular sovereignty by France and England, Frederick failed. He failed as emperor but also as unifier of Italy. He was, after all, Italian, the son of a Sicilian mother, heir to the Norman kingdom of the South, educated in the nascent Italian culture of which he was a promoter and also a protagonist."