The morbid jelly of Italian country: vile corruption, ethics-annihilating viruses and the shining paradigm of the classic greek-roman Titans

First posted: 24  february 2010

Today some people said me that I tend to despise Italian culture and to sign the praises of the foreign one. They also try to point how, instead of the outlanders, we have got a direct descent of the great Roman empire.

Probably when I speak I can give the wrong idea that I’ve got this “forma mentis” but, if I have to be honest, what I despise is the present Italian society, certanly not the ancient, quite another thing.

My answer to this appointment, therefore, was: “I’ve got nothing against ancient cultures, neither Latin nor Greek, which I love, but, in Italy, we don’t know them well and, very often, people abroad is more interested in a specific way about them and they’re able to drain from and actualize the teachings including them in their society. Do you want to talk, I don’t know, for example, about Seneca, Petronius or Cicero or any other Latin author?”.

Currently the grammar high school is scorned and offended because it’s judged like an environment where people study the “dead languades”, or with a terminal illness. I wonder, then, why, for example, Nietzsche or Heiddeger have taken inspiration by the Greek language and culture if it was so senseless as it seems to italian people.

Perhaps it is the study in our schools based purely on learning mnemonic versions of the translations done in classes (or clearly copied/pasted from the Internet) and, later, attached to the tests without an explanation about the text (I would say the exegesis or contextualizing but they’re teminologies unknown by the teachers themselves)?

It looks like that we don’t understand what exactly the ancient cultures offer, and continue to teach, showing how to live in an ideal way, and I’m not surprised that this point is completely misunderstood by Italian people.

I have noticed that some people get really annoyed while hearing around (in people talking) about how our country, considered as a formal “society” (what a significant word… how many euphemisms i am using here! I wonder why…), is going to fall into complete ruination (such as being corrupted by an  infectious disease orby the typical “bacillus” currupting and spoiling books pages…) and about how we are currently deeply criticized by foreign countries, blaming the collapse of our ethics, for example: we give up realizing (and getting aware of) where we are gradually directing our steps (in a sort of no mans lands, where “licet” and not “licet” are the same, where there is no difference between morality and immoral acts, between ethics or illicit behaviours), and we are unable to realize that just because we ourselves are made of “debris and ignorance” (please try to feel the sound of the spelling in my original language, italian, “we are made of “macerie e ignoranza”, translated into italian… isn’t it like the sound of ruination itself?).

Fed up by television programs (just like chickens being stuffed) and sparkles, fragments  taken from italian news (daily “chronicles” contained in the most common and sold newspapers), we tend to miss all the real facts happening around the world, being news from the outer world something “missing” in our major newspapares and tv programs (there is an italian journalist, who has written a very significant and important boom about that, entitled “La scomparsa dei fatti”, “The vanishing of the news and facts”, translated by me; this journalist’s name is Marco Travaglio, a master of true journalism). We happen (sometimes) to hear or read about the news and facts coming from all over the world, but those news are reported manipulated or filtered by the “Big Brother” of our news agencies, so most of the news are altered and reported with no accuracy or precision.

Coming back to an old problem, already discussed by me (forgive my self-quoting hypertrophy), I am wondering about how many persons really know english language here in Italy… and I am wondering whether people educated in english, here in Italy, are used to reading english newspapers (or listening to their tv news broadcasting) or not.

Some days ago I bumped into an article reporting that Beppe Grillo (an italian famous comedian and a blogger whose mission is to divulge the most important facts and news without altering or censoring them) has been invited to Oxford university to “lecture” in comunication, diffusion of culture, the media, the italian problems and contradictions, about the “humus” surrounding our country. Apart from the fact that the italian embassy tried to diffuse some information against the reputation of this person (who is honest, sincere and guided by common sense), trying to make him appear less reliable and authoritative, they also quoted some of the comedian-blogger most famous opinions and words, blaming him for being a “dangerous” paradigm of an “anti-politicians” provocative troubles maker (accusing him of being a sort of professional “provocateur”). Some sentecnes and words of this famous comedian-blogger talk about how many italians, while living in foreign countries, are sure that they don’t want to come back to Italy, looking things from another point of view, from another alternative perspective, conscious of the faults and problems stuck and attached to the social/political pattern of our society and country. According to Beppe Grillo’s recurrent critical opinion, some italian, living in foreign countries, feel like “exiled” human beings, clinged to the “kindness of strangers” while being welcomed by foreign countries. Many italians cannot stand anymore the endemic state of corruption of our country, often hurt and “slaved” by criminal organizations (mafia, camorra, ’ndrangheta, etc.) and by illegals acts committed by the political bureau. (I think you all can recall the so-called “Tangentopoli”- the crisis of italian political/social system due to the curruptions and financial crimes, called  polis, city, of the bribes-that culminated into a series of trials directed by the famous Milano’s pool, whose members were for example Francesco Saverio Borrelli, Antonio Di Pietro, Davigo, Colombo, etc.

So after the eclipse of common sense,of rational thinking,of critical toughts many italians are sinking into the aberration of the nonsense, symbolized by the gossip news, by the lacking of true informations, by the meaningless and pathetic reference to our latin (greek) roots and traditions, as if italian people were all fond of learning about our cultural origins, as if our cultural traditions (the greek-roman source of knowledge) could be learned by osmosis or treasured into ourselves just like a sort of genetic “acquisition”.

The dark side of spiritual teachings

First posted: 17 september 2009

After I wrote the previous post, in Italy, the discussion about religion in our tv programs was hot.

Some days after that, in Friuli Venezia Giulia (a region in North-East of Italy) an eighteen years old girl, of Muslism origins, was killed by her own father. So, you can image how the italian journalists (I don’t know how they can be considered reporters because they very often don’t speak well in their own language and they seem to be “employees” paid by the political and institutional systems, so they’re not free to write what they really think) developed news on this event.

The attorney of Pordenone (the city where this has happened), listening to the declarations of family and her friends, that it was a religious issue and problem that caused the happening of this crime, as well as the age difference, in her relationship with a thirty-one Catholic male (hurt by her father trying to save her from father’s fury).

This isn’t the first case, and surely it will not be the last, in which religion played a very important role in pushing a human being to committ murders

In particular, the Muslim religion, currently, is the first to suffer blaming words due to the fact that some of its followers are somtimes fanatics (that alter the spirit of true and pure spiritual faith): stuffed like turkeys with informations shaped by some religious groups with the  purpose to build a society suitable to their conventional and dogmatic conceptions and strict principles, unable to understand that these informations are completely misunderstood and absent in their sacred text, that is the sacred Koran.

The problem that we should understand is that the Muslims people, like Catholics, often don’t know their religion in a  clear way and they are blinded by misleading interpretations.

All this, including also a tendency, typically Italian, of not acceptance of a different culture, foments and nurtures a kind of racism and hysteria, dangerous, inclined to “attacking” anyone because judged a Moslem, and so, a priori, a fundamentalist.

It’s well known how the media and individual persons often happen and tend to judge and consider a particular type of crime against the law just by referring the crime itself to the religious beliefs and also to the national origins of a persons,as if, for example, a muslim should be always tought to be a fanatic or a lunatic persons because he/she respects the principles and spiritual teachings of the islamic sacred texts and traditions. And here in Italy nowadays arabian persons are blamed for being bad muslims, as if every muslim had to be born in Saudi Arabia or something like that and this fact could imply that he/she is inclined to commit crimes just inspired by his/her beliefs and spiritual, religious faith.

If the same act is committed by an Italian, by nature, is examined regardless of religious faith, recognized as a clinically deviance of a sick person, without connecting the nature of the crime to the dictates of the biblical book of Leviticus or another one.

Italian school: the religion hour

First posted: 10 september 2009

A day in September I was fooling around the web and, by chance, I found one of the latest interviews of the italian minister of education and school, Gelmini, who was talking about the issue of Catholic (Christian) doctrine in schools. She was referring to the teaching of this Catholic faith in schools, expecially asserting that christian doctrine should be predominant and exclusive.

The minister, one of the least appreciated by the students and not overrated or “rated” at all, (students probably would see her as a full time worker in a fast-food) underlined, how much important is to teach the Christian doctrine in schools as one of the most important subjects.

I quote (similar to the original text) in synthesis some of her phrases (compositions abandoned to the law of inertia), just to give you an idea:

1. “It’s not correct or advisable to teach comparative history of religions in schools; we have to focus just on the Christian/Catholic faith and doctrine”.

2. The minister added that comparative studies of religions isn’t attended in Muslim school system; and our religion isn’t just a faith or a doctrine, but a cultural principle and moral value”, (and we can say that we can’t be bothered to listen to this kind of words anymore)

3. “because in our country the Catholic religion cannot be compared to the other religions. It has a greater significance, it’s practiced by the majority of the population and it has got a valuable and worty tradition. We can’t make it equal to the other religions, which they must be respected” (to following a religion as a practice: does it mean treating the garden plants, making the Swedish square or biblical hermeneutics, which are things that require some practice?).

Currently the hour of religion as far as I can see, watch and learn from some other sources (for ex. high school students who still follow this lesson) is limited to an hour time completely abandoned to random disquisitions about teenagers subjects, suitable for stereotypes and recurrent positive themes (such as ex. “if you’re a teenager then it’s a right thing to be in a group, arguing with mom and dad or not, sitting up in some place all day long, thinking about  problems that appears to be unbearable, but in reality they aren’t, and things like that, included going to discoes, having fun, etc, we can say that “Junior Woodchucks Guidebook docet”), or similar issues that, at the best hypothesis, are referred to religious matters in general or are slightly connected to civic and ethical principles or sentimental education; often they turn to be  monologues of teachers chatting. We don’t talk about religion whether Catholic or not, but mere banalities related to everyday life (“human, all too human”).

Now I wonder, why did Gelmini intend to use the religion of Islam as a comparative field to make our own religion (Catholic and Christian) rise over other doctrines? I should think that here, in my country, the Muslim religion is not understood and it is degraded to serve as a simple point of reference (to adfirm the predominance of Christian faith). Perhaps because there are, in her extensive knowledge of philosophy, only these two religions and did the others decay in the filaments of the cobwebs in the attic? How many religions does she consider? And what about the new age and the new cults (included the self-made religions, crossbreeding, melting pot)? Why so much obstinacy?

A true fact is that “the Catholic religion strongly influenced our culture” but in the past, not now (we can notice it by looking around our selves: when do we study or practice or follow the religious teachings in everyday life? and in which way?).

At this point it could originate a new article parallel to this one so I’ll try to avoid it here, maybe I’ll do it in another post. For the moment I invite you to look for an answer.

Why did we have to discriminate students, who for a personal choice or for their family, decide to defend the right not to attend at the religion hour, depriving them of the opportunity to gain credits or any benefit, in the final text, about the examination and the average mark signed by the religion teacher?

Perhaps a solution could be found in what the Gelmini throws away, that is an equal education of the various religious currents (carried out by competent teachers and through a right training process) introduced like a philosophy rather than an unnecessary and confused belief (if you haven’t got a faith).

How much could be interesting, for example, if religion professor started to talk about not only our religion but also the oriental ones, finding the differences and similarities, facilitating to understand how all religions are somehow linked.

Moreover, why in the traditional high schools, for example, where there are classical matters with their possibility to face in the original language and, in detail, the cultural context of the periods like pre-Christian, Catholic, Christian, more and more often, this historical period, at the best, underestimated or skipped, and generally overlooked?

It’s absurd and senseless that in a branch of studies like that where we can find the instruments to face the culture, the development and specific origins of the greek-roman origin of the Christian religion the teachers don’t invite their students to investigate these main themes.

We should stop imposing the religion lesson as a set of dogmas and faith principles, offering, instead, a course about the comparative history of religious movements understood as cultural systems and ethics, soaked with ideals and prospects of an education to civility.