"Being virtuous means putting oneself in a position to decide and therefore not easily yielding to external influences. As we can see, virtue has nothing to do with renouncing desire, but rather with controlling it in order to avoid dependence. Unfortunately, centuries of teaching renunciation have transformed what was a technical expedient – the ancients called it an exercise – into a value, to the point of making the very idea of “control of the passions” ambiguous. This has led to the identification of passions with evil, and hence to the logical consequence of eradicating them. This is an impossible task, and one in which all pedagogies that have attempted to achieve it have failed: they have not eradicated passions at all, but have only generated perversions. (pp. 22-23)"
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Salvatore Natoli
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