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Category: United states
Posted on 30/08/2010 by manofroma	· 31 Comments
The Mafia and the Italian Mind (2)
Murals against the Mafia realised by students in Catania, Sicily. Click for credits
While in Russia I had a few dinners with two Frenchmen from Northern France who lived and worked in Moscow.
Claude, whose job contract was about to end, told us: "I've been offered a job in Toulouse. Alain, do you picture me in Toulouse, with all that mafioso mentality?"
Toulouse. Click for credits and to enlarge
Toulouse is in the deep French South. We passed to other topics in our conversation and dinner flowed pleasantly. Alain had brought a few bottles of Bordeaux from France. Good wine is awfully expensive in Russia. Of course Claude didn't refer to 'mafioso' in the sense of 'belonging to the mob'.
'Mafia' is in fact used both in a broad and a narrow sense.
According to the Dizionario Treccani 'mafioso' is:
1) either a criminal belonging to a mafia-like organization;
2) or one who "to the rule of law [including the laws of market, I guess] tends to replace the power of his/her own interests or of a small group and indefinitely defends his/her friends to the detriment of others."
Now I am well aware that cliques & personal networks exist everywhere. In Russia and China they have respectively blat and guanxi relations and obligations. In Russia I heard of professionals like doctors or dentists that preferred to build a network of 'useful contacts' instead of being paid by each of their clients.
Cliques are terribly pervasive in the Mediterranean. In every Western country good contacts count to get things done, to find jobs etc. But here especially they represent a serious obstacle to modernization, by systematically promoting mediocrity over merit, by polluting the political arena – votes exchanged for favours, collaboration among politicians even from opposite sides by the exchange of favours etc.
Sheets commemorating Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, two Italian magistrates killed by the Mafia. White sheets are a symbol of protest against the silence that protects the Mafia
Some areas of the Italian South are permeated by a mafioso mentality which often connects economical political and criminal activities into a choking whole and which from those areas radiates to the rest of the country.
Giuseppe Mazzini's prophecy [Mazzini is one of Italy's founding patriots,] that "Italy will be that which the Mezzogiorno will be", proved true, at least in some respects.
I wonder how many researchers have connected ancient Roman behaviours with the mafiosi behaviours (of any kind) that we find in Mediterranean coastal areas and in Italy. In the Mezzogiorno I see something reminiscent of the ancient Roman system of social relations [our next post tries to throw some light on this matter.]
But let's first review how a mafia network in the narrow sense is built.
One common mistake – we had written – is that of considering the mafiosi as simple gunmen to defeat. Don Vito Cascio Ferro had no guns. He was one of the first godfathers who operated both in Sicily and in the United States. His force lay in his cynicism and intelligence and in the network he was able to create thanks to well ingrained traditions. He distributed favori, favours, to everybody, but something was asked in return.
This passage from Mario Puzo's The Godfather is even clearer:
"Don Vito Corleone was a man to whom everybody came for help, and never were they disappointed. He made no empty promise (…) Only one thing was required. That you, you yourself, proclaim your friendship. And then, no matter how poor or powerless the supplicant, Don Corleone would take that man's troubles to his heart (…) His reward? Friendship, the respectful title of "Don" (…), some humble gift – a gallon of homemade wine etc.
It was understood, it was mere good manners, to proclaim that you were in his debt and that he had the right to call upon you at any time to redeem your debt by some small service."
So this exchange of favours seems an important element of the culture underlying the mafia. Ingrained in traditions that are centuries old it creates a network based on reciprocal dependence.
We'll tentatively see how all this can somehow be connected to ancient Rome.
[to be continued]
A Cultural Battle
The Mafia and the Italian Mind. Was Julius Caesar a Godfather? (3)
Is The Human Mind Like a Museum?
"Italians are Cynical, Amoral, Religiously Superficial"
Traces of Paganism in Italians
Is America Too Young to Maintain its Cultural Hegemony in the Long Run?
Sarah Palin. Click for credits and to enlarge
This is the end of a series on Antonio Gramsci. I am beginning here where I left in my previous post.
The title and the post are meant to provoke a bit, and I know I risk being considered a snobbish, or a chauvinist, European.
The United States – I was saying – exert today a cultural hegemony over the planet at a high and a popular level of culture [for the high level, suffice it the sheer excellence of their universities in the scientific, technological and humanities fields, not to mention the number of Nobel prizes attained by Americans]
One can speak of a new American Renaissance, with fantastic contributions offered to the world – the Internet, a great revolution, being just one of them.
Which affects both the American culture and those cultures exposed to American influence – basically ALL of them, at diverse degrees.
[By culture I mean both:
1) the set of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional features of a group (the Unesco definition);
2) the general knowledge, values etc. an individual can attain through education (linked to the Ancient concepts of Humanitas & Paideia.)
Also culture quality has to be considered. If I enjoy Shakespeare better than soap operas, I am not a snob, I am simply better educated and my mind is more powerful]
Gramsci, reflecting on the US soon after the 1929 depression, considered America culturally hegemonic already at his time (the 1930s) although to him such world-wide hegemony presented a few cracks for being, the US, too virgin and too young as a nation, with a melting pot of too many 'cultures' (see above the meaning 1 of the term.)
Now, following Gramsci's reasoning – and considering his notions of 'intellectuals', 'cultural hegemony' and 'national-popular' culture (see our posts on Gramsci 1, 2 and 3)– we can ask ourselves:
In our rapidly changing world, with powerful civilisations about to re-surface, is America seductive enough at a world-wide scale [ie 'culturally hegemonic' world-wide]?
I'll say my opinion right away: the cracks Gramsci was mentioning seem today particularly evident (at least to many Europeans) at a pop culture level [update: whatever the reasons for this.] A civilization doesn't export its high culture only. It exports the sentiments of its whole people with its books (quality works and blockbusters), films, TV serials etc. and when its tourists, business people, soldiers & the men of the street wander about the planet.
[A Gramscian national-popular notion of culture is where the intellectuals – artists, writers etc. – express at a higher level the elementary sentiments of the common people who thus emotionally and intellectually participate. The examples he indicates of 'national-popular' may clarify this Gramscian crucial concept: the Elisabethan theatre, the Greek tragedy or the Italian opera.]
I mean, when Rome conquered Gaul, Romanization occurred deeply without any organized effort by the Romans. That is, the Roman 'culture' was felt as superior and seduced the Gauls who became the French – not only the culture of the 'intellectuals' (big politicians, generals, writers etc.) was seducing, but that of the merchants, of the soldiers, of the simple citizens as well.
Do you also think that American world-wide hegemony's weak point is a low-level and too pervading pop culture (due to consumerism, to making money being what only matters nowadays etc.) and also the "erasure of any high-pop culture distinction"? [see Lichanos' comment on this]
Trekkies at Baycon, 2003. Click for credits
Do you also think that, to quote Andreas Kluth, a 'high culture' perceived as snobbish only "is a tragedy" and that – I'd add – the tea parties, the Sarah Palins and US widespread anti-elitism will make America pay a price in the long run in terms, again, of world cultural hegemony?
Finally – be patient, I dislike Star Trek – what do the Indians, the Chinese, the Persians, the rest of the world population – often belonging to ancient civilizations – think of the thousands of Star Trek conventions and clubs that have spread all over the globe? Will it benefit America's image?
Note. I had discussed 'West and US Seduction' with my commentators (among other themes) at the time of Culture, Kultur, Paideia and The Last Days of the Polymath. Those discussions were among the best in this blog in my opinion.
Here just a few ideas from those discussions.
As for culture (in the sense of individual general knowledge & refinement) Lichanos had lamented the erasure of a high-pop culture distinction in the USA. To him more than the 'youth factor' a role may be played by America being often "the first to represent trends that are going world-wide", ie America is just ahead of Europe in mass-culture and consumerism, which explains why a superficial pop culture is so pervasive in the US.
To Andreas Kluth a 'high culture' perceived as 'snobbish only' is "a tragedy" and due to many factors among which a too widespread anti-elitism ("Sarah Palin and all the rest").
Other posts on Gramsci:
American Engineer, German Philosopher & French Politician: Gramsci's Ideal Blend for the Modern Leonardo da Vinci
Seven Aspects of Antonio Gramsci's Thought
America, the Greatest Collective Effort Ever existed". Antonio Gramsci
Democracy, Liberty & the Necessity of a Solid Education of the People
Culture, Kultur, Paideia
The Last Days of the Polymath
New York. Click for credits and to enlarge
While replying to Thomas Stazyk's comment on a post on Antonio Gramsci I realised it was more convenient to write a new blog post instead.
I usually reply to my readers one by one. Tomorrow it will be the others' turn.
Explaining Paris Hilton
Thomas. Thank you for an interesting and insightful 795 words! For me, Gramsci adds the needed dimension to Marx that is required to understand/explain contemporary culture. I think his ideas of cultural domination and hegemony go far to explain everything from the Tea Party to Paris Hilton, and maybe Facebook and Twitter as well, but the whole technology thing needs more thought. I'm worried that saying that social media (and reality TV) are vehicles of cultural domination might sound too much like a conspiracy theory. But they certainly do support Gramsci's view that hegemony is achieved and maintained by consent of the subordinate class.
MoR. "Gramsci adds the needed dimension to Marx that is required to understand/explain contemporary culture."
You may refer to Gramsci's study of Marx's superstructure. Gramsci criticises the notion of a superstructure as simple 'skin' of a society, and of a socio-economic base, the 'skeleton', that is what really matters by determining the conscience etc.
"Women – Gramsci said – fall in love with the skin, not the skeleton". Seduction, again, ie cultural hegemony.
[Update: ie people are 'seduced' by the 'skin' or cultural elements (superstructure) more than by the 'skeleton' – socio-economic class structure. It is a metaphorical way of stressing the importance of cultural hegemony, of men's choices – free, non mechanically predetermined by the economical class structure – and of 'intellectuals' in history.]
I think his ideas of cultural domination and hegemony go far to explain everything from the Tea Party to Paris Hilton, and maybe Facebook and Twitter as well.
I'll get to Facebook and Paris Hilton. But I've got to follow a long forgotten reasoning.
Since the core of Gramsci's reflection is the superstructure – intellectuals being like the agents of it –, by analyzing both the high and the pop culture(s) of several countries he strongly advocates a blend of the two levels.
The intellectuals, he argues, should not be separated– as it always was the case of Italy – from the 'elementary passions' of the common people. A folk should be culturally united, as a tendency at least.
Greek Tragedy & Shakespeare
Such culture [update: of a high level, where the 'intellectuals' and the common people interact in a two way process] he calls 'national-popular' (complex notion to say the truth.) Among the best examples of it Gramsci indicates the Greek tragedy and the Elizabethan theatre, where the majority of the people were involved in a great experience. To him the only Italian example of such 'artistic unity' of the people [update: high-low interaction] is the Italian opera (I may possibly add, since I saw it with my eyes, the 'popular' love for Dante one can still experience in many parts of Tuscany and elsewhere.)
The Italian Renaissance to him, though sublime, was too elitist [update: ie no participation of the populace, no high-low interaction] and one cause in the end of the Italian decline. The protestant Reformation saw instead great popular participation (Renaissance-Reformation are to Gramsci also dialectic metaphors – in the Hegelian sense of thesis and antithesis – that he uses abstractly.)
Even if at first the Reformation – Gramsci argues – was like a return to the dark ages, it later liberated people's energies by reaching higher levels of culture and contributing to the construction, among the rest, of the American nation.
US Cultural Hegemony
San Francisco Fire Department Engine 22 (1893). Click for credits and to enlarge
The first British immigrants to the New World were in fact an intellectual and especially moral elite – Gramsci argues. Defeated religiously in their fatherland but not humiliated, they brought to the New World great will, moral energy and "a certain stage of European historical evolution, which when transplanted by such men into the virgin soil of America, developed – and continues to develop – the forces implicit in its nature but with an incomparably more rapid rhythm than Old Europe", where the relics of the past generated opposition giving to every initiative the equilibrium of mediocrity …
We all know what happened, how Europe went down and how the US have become the dominant power.
Following Gramsci's reasoning, the United States exert yet today a cultural hegemony over the world, at both a high and a popular level of culture. Their universities are excellent in all fields (they even have among the best Dante's specialists!) etc., intellectuals are not that detached from the people (they tend to 'disseminate' knowledge in their books, not like here in Italy although things are changing a bit – while France, a not at all bad 'national-popular' place in the 19th century – see 19th-century French literature! – is nowadays possibly even more elitist than we are, but I'm not sure.)
Not concluded. Tomorrow, Thomas and you folks. I am European, not American. And my dog Lilla is recovering but she is 15 years old.
See next installment:
More on Antonio Gramsci:
Andreas Kluth, the Hannibal man, asked me to write something about Gramsci in 300 words. I failed. These are 795 words.
I studied Gramsci in my twenties and he surely helped me greatly. I think important to say his thought to be:
1) in progress, more formative to me than any sedentary conclusions, building up upon a list of themes & reflecting on them in fragmentary notes from thousands of different viewpoints and within a dreadful context – fascism arising, jail isolation, uncertainty for his own life. All so compelling and mind expanding;
2) dialogic and dialectic.
Dialogic. G's ideas bounce on one another also in relation to other authors' even-opposite ideas – Gramsci 'discusses with the enemy' so to say. A solitary dialogue though, since jail solitude brought him to solipsism, which creates like a tragic, bewitching (and a bit claustrophobic) atmosphere.
The many 'tools' he created such as 'cultural hegemony' (close to 'seduction'), or his notion of 'intellectuals', stem from such inner dialogue, which can be baffling to people used to clear definitions – I well understand – but, such brain storming is contagious and the attentive reader is taught to form his / her mental dialogues on anything he / she researches.
Dialectic. It refers to Heraclitus & Hegel, implying that all in history is 'becoming' & a contradictory process with actions, reactions, conciliations etc. Gramsci's dialectic is concrete, anti-idealistic. For example, the Rousseauesque pedagogy – the 'laissez-faire' of 'active' schools – was seen by him as a reaction to the coercive Jesuitical schools, so not good or bad 'per se'. But he tried to favour an education where both the elements of discipline and fascination were present.
Antonio Gramsci's ashes in the Protestant 'Cimitero degli Inglesi' in Rome
Any idea had to be seen in its historical context and was hence transient (Marxism included.) When the Russian revolution burst he wrote it was a revolution 'against the Capital' (ie against Marx's theories,) a scandal within the Comintern.
In many respects he considered America much more progressive than Stalin's Russia;
3) polymathic. Gramsci is wide-ranging, like the men of the Renaissance. Besides there are similarities between his ideas and Leonardo da Vinci's, and their writing styles too;
4) anti-platonic. Nature is ruled by blind forces, with no intelligent design. He follows the Italian tradition of Lucretius, Vico, Leonardo, Machiavelli, Leopardi, in contrast with the Platonic (and hegemonic) tendency expressed during the Renaissance by Marsilio Ficino and Pico della Mirandola;
5) anti-élite. Anti-chic, and certainly not the 'smoking Gitanes and wearing black turtlenecks' type of intellectual – to quote Andreas -, to him knowledge & refinement are not classy and must be spread to everyone. Born to a backward Sardinian peasant milieu he had succeeded in becoming a great European intellectual, which made him believe that everyone could be a philosopher at various degrees, and that a solid education of the working class was possible;
6) greatly written. Croce, Gramsci, Gobetti, Gentile were all great writers, like Hegel and Marx were. G's texts are like permeated by a Hölderlin's Heilige Nüchternheit (sacred sobriety.) As Giorgio Baratta observes, "his style, sober and exact, opens wide spaces that make the reader fly, but the flight is not grandiloquent." His works have been recognized since they were first published as masterpieces of our language and literature. His Prison Letters have the depth of Tolstoy, an author close to him in many respects;
7) historic. Italian, European and world history are considered, from the end of the ancient Roman Republic onwards, and innumerable aspects are analysed. For a young Italian like me it meant an invaluable know-yourself experience. What I had passively learned at school could finally bear some fruit, also the teachings of my father, that I could fully appreciate only after reading Gramsci.
Gramsci's history is as close to us as family's history can be. It's his magic. It touches the soul deeply.
It is also the concrete history of ideas circulating in the various socio-economic groups at a given time, with catalogues of magazines, newspapers, movements, intellectuals (often categorized with humorous nicks: it's his peasant culture showing now and then), with the aim of understanding the currents and exact mechanisms of cultural hegemony.
He does that as for Italy, other European and non European countries. He analyses the elements that, in his view, make the United States the 'hegemonic force' in the world and also identifies like some cracks in this hegemonic structure, in their being too virgin and too young as a nation, with a melting pot of too many cultures.
Too long a story. Americanism in Gramsci is so crucial I'm thinking of a post where, in a dialogue occurred in the 30s, a few fictional European characters try to explain to readers their view of America, ie Gramsci's view.
The United States – as Gramsci put it – are "the greatest collective effort ever existed to create with unheard of rapidity and a consciousness of purpose never seen in history a new type of worker and man."
Note. An inspired introduction to Gramsci is Giuseppe Fiori's Antonio Gramsci: Life of a Revolutionary (1970).
PS. Gramsci and Croce are well known in the English-speaking countries. The British ex prime minister Gordon Brown said Gramsci was one of his mentors. No idea if this is complimenting Gramsci or not… 🙂
Sex & the Anglo Saxons. What's the Matter With You People Out There?
Christine Keeler, in an iconic portrait by Lewis Morley, was the key figure in the British Profumo scandal (1963) that sacked the Tories. Fair use – click for credits
Last night I watched Scandal (1989) together with my wife. It is a British film on the Profumo affair – a big political and sexual scandal in the 60's UK -, well done and especially instructive to me in some way. I needed reflection and data. A few days ago I realised in fact how some readers of the MoR were like disgusted, or scared, by my earlier post "Decameron Reloaded. That the Fun begin".
I also received 8 mails expressing total dissatisfaction, to put it mildly, AND a few people on the other hand – following my invitation to write stories with some 'licentia' – sent me a few original porn stories (2 of them very well written) I will not publish because my blog is not a porn site.
Man of Roma is puzzled. His public is mainly from the English-speaking countries. Given the culture (society) MoR is in, he's therefore willing to raise his voice a bit and say:
"What's the matter with you people out there? Why the hell sex is so scary?"
Of course, in the said post some innocent, playful fun between humans and bears occurred, true, but it's not that I believe people think I find polar bears sexy. No. I am puzzled for the lack of any in-between thing so far arriving to my mailbox, eg, outrage, dissatisfaction etc. – or porn. Nothing outside that.
Frankly, this to Man of Roma is strange.
While I am waiting from some insight from my readers, I guess it's high time for 'Sex and the city (of Rome). Season 2' new posts. We need some explaining, in other words.
I did by the way receive an interesting e-mail from a very nice US student of archaeology, complimenting me for my blog and all and asking me thought-provoking questions, such as:
[Your opinion about] "the different ways that Roman sexuality is viewed by Americans and Europeans". For some Americans especially – she argued – "the ancient Romans and modern Italians become the same people. When telling a friend of a friend about all the 'sexual' souvenirs that could be bought — replicas of herms and phalli, calendars and postcards featuring Pompeii's erotic art — the woman's reaction was something along the lines of 'What kind of people would sell those sorts of things,' to which I was quite taken aback. But she clearly viewed the ancient Romans as sexually deviant, and thus by association modern Italians."
I replied to these and other questions with 2 (3?) LONG letters that will provide materials for the new Sex and the city (of Rome) season. I didn't though focus on erotic art only (of which I know so little). Being a dilettante polymath, I am afraid I have totally confused (plus disappointed) her.
Sex and the City (of Rome). 1
Sex and the city (of Rome). A Conclusion
Sex and the city (of Rome). Season II. 1
Caesar, Great Man (and Don Juan)
An earlier post kicked off an interesting conversation on the meaning of the word 'culture'.
Dev, Lichanos, Andreas Kluth, the Commentator, Paul Costopoulos, sledpress, Rosaria, zeusiswatching – all were so nice to participate.
Being 'cultured' – we discussed – does it make any sense today? Why does it call up "stuffy, out-of-date rich people in drawing rooms?" in the English-speaking countries (Lichanos,) while it is still (a bit) appreciated in Italy France or Germany?
Apart from any possible European snobbery, elitism – being a 'man of culture' is not bad in my view and it is not elitist in that it can now be extended to the great number, this great number now watching realities – while they could buy a library only kings could afford in the past: something like a failure to me, not many doubts about it.
Only less than a century ago the Marxists, in their utopian folly, desired the totally developed man for everybody, which Antonio Gramsci adapted with his mass Leonardo da Vinci concept, that I always found fascinating.
The problem now is that a modern (mass or non mass) Leonardo is less viable because we know a lot more in so many more fields.
So the big gurus or maîtres à penser, providing the big picture people are so hungry for, are disappearing. Void is advancing and people, more and more confused, fall into the hands of organizations like Scientology and similar.
However, is this trend really inevitable, one may wonder?
Here is a conversation over at Lichanos' – Journey to Perplexity.
It is about the death of the polymath and it started around Lichanos' excellent review of "2001 a Space Odyssey" by Stanley Kubrick.
Lichanos. Dev, thanks for the kind words, and I am very happy that you find my reviews interesting! I am a civil engineer – no connection to the film industry at all, but I came to my profession by way of studying philosophy and art history, so I am not, so I am told, a "typical" engineer.
Such a background used to be unremarkable for engineers, say, 60 or 100 years ago, but today, at least in the USA, it is unusual.
Dev. I know what you mean. I think that's unusual every where in the world nowadays. Even considering the fact that all science and engineering had it's foundation in philosophy earlier. I mean many scientists in the earlier times were originally philosophers.
But, I'm sure you are a very good civil engineer too.
Should I tell you that I studied Electronics Engineering in my undergrad too. 🙂
But I never worked as an engineer..
Anyways, I look forward to go through many of your earlier posts -especially the film/literature related ones- in the coming days.
Man of Roma. Lichanos, you are definitely not a 'typical' engineer. Dev, I don't know you enough to say something.
We are shifting from Kubrick, but you are both evoking the polymath, he who knows a lot about a lot. This essay The Last Days of the Polymath is a good read (though Western-centric) and describes how the polymath is disappearing.
We Europeans had always the impression that this prevalence of specialization is due to America and her big influence. Although it may be simply necessary, with a corpus of knowledge so greatly expanding.
It seems clear, Dev, that by today's standards many scientists of the past were polymaths.
Polymath is an English term. In Italy we say 'tuttologo' etc. Polymathy is still a bit ingrained in the Latin countries curricula. The 'Liceo classico' in Italy still educates the young in this way, probably because the universal-man ideal, the 'homo universalis', was developed during the Italian Renaissance – one example, I like to think, where being provincial could be an advantage.
I was hit in fact some time ago by a review on a book, Genes, Peoples, and Languages by Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza. The review was written by Jared Diamond, an American I think. Cavalli-Sforza is an Italian who started at Stanford a revolution in human genetics from the 1960s onward and basically proved that 'races' do not exist.
"It would be a slight exaggeration – argues Jared Diamond – to say that L.L. Cavalli-Sforza studies everything about everybody, because actually he is 'only' interested in what genes, languages, archaeology, and culture can teach us about the history and migrations of everybody for the last several hundred thousand years."
The Indians should be naturally born polymaths, due to their holistic approach, although today, with the speed of their economic development, they seem somewhat obliged to imitate the Westerners and be monomaths as well. But there are so many polymaths over there!
Man of Roma. My comment was not a paean to my country. It was a paean to the Greek Paideia and the Roman Humanitas, where the Renaissance man comes from.
Polymathy as a tendency is also dangerous, it encourages flitting around, dabbling, people who cannot stick at anything (I know it too well), Giacomo Casanova (mentioned in the essay) being a high-level example of it: he was good in mathematics, in philosophy and theology, but not too good.
A metaphor in the said essay that I liked: flirting, promiscuity – they are no good. It's the real polygamy, the numerous & deeply lived marriages that make a real polymath.
I digressed. I'll then add Kubrick was a genius and had a tendency towards polymathy, as the amazing variety of his films attests – Spartacus, Lolita, Dr. Strangelove, 2001, A Clockwork Orange etc. – as well as his passion for music, photography, he also being a great producer & marketing man (I heard at the radio he used to commercialize all the gadgets of his movies by himself, the heart-shaped glasses Sue Lyon wore, for example.)
Lichanos. Dev, MoR: No need to apologize for digressing here! If not here, where can we let our minds and conversation wander?
I love that word tuttologo!! Better than polymath, which sounds so dry to my ear. As for being spread too thinly, comme une dilettante, in English there is a saying, "Jack of all trades, master of none…" Still, the culture of the amateur and the dilettante are attractive to me as long as there is not too much superficiality.
I recall reading a critique of Voltaire once, I forget by whom, that railed against him: "The man has opinions on everything!" The implication was that he was flippant and felt the need to pronounce on all topics, even if he was formulaic. The size of his collected works was presented as evidence. Perhaps something there, but he was quite deep enough of the time to redeem himself, perhaps.
Regarding the engineering profession, I must say, 1st: I never could understand electrical circuits beyond the most basic. I understand water systems, and everyone says that they are similar, but not for me! 2nd: My father, retired, is an electrical engineer. He once drove me past an old industrial building in downtown Brooklyn where he said he worked at one of his first jobs after WWII. They build a computer there and had to knock down an exterior wall to get it out!
Louvre Pyramid, Paris, by architect I. M. Pei. Click to enlarge and for credits
In the pre-WWII days, "patrician" familes were happy to send their sons to engineering school. Now they only become lawyers or MBAs. It was a status profession. Some say that the dominance of corporate industry after WWII succeeded in capturing the educational institutions and molding them to its own ends, i.e., the production of ready-made technicians in large supply to keep wages lower. There is something to it. Within my sort of engineering, there is still a sort of envy of doctors and lawyers who used to be seen as gods, and are still, on TV at least, seen as worthy of celebrity and dramatic presentation. They tend to earn a lot more too! On the other hand, architects, a definite prestige profession here, get paid much less than engineers and always cut each other's throats competing for business. I think the solution to this economic, status "problem" is to make it harder to become an engineer, to require additional liberal arts training in addition to the technical curriculum. This would restrict supply, but this is not popular position. Thus, the griping about "low status" and complaints that "nobody really knows what engineers do," go on.
I conclude with a favorite quote of mine from volume I of the Gulag Archipelago:
An engineer? I had grown up among engineers,and I could remember the engineers of the
twenties very well indeed: their open shining intellects, their free and gentle humor, their
agility and breadth of thought, the ease with which they shifted from one engineering field
to another, and, for that matter, from technology to social concerns and art. Then,
too, they personified good manners and delicacy of taste; well-bred speech that flowed evenly
and was free of uncultured words; one of them might play a musical instrument, another dabble
in painting; and their faces always bore a spiritual imprint.
Dev. MoR and Lichanos, wow, what a discussion and exchange of thoughts going on!
MoR: Thanks for sharing your views on polymaths. I agree with you that for most people trying to be polymaths is not a good idea. I mean one life is hardly long enough to do one thing properly, so dabbling in various things is never easy. But then, the best of the people have been, in some ways, polymaths. You are very right that Kubrick was in a sense a polymath. Each of his films were so different from each other in terms of genre, treatment etc. What made him special was that he was a chameleon. Nobody could really guess what to expect from his films. He was an excellent photographer and editor too. Plus, as you mentioned, he took great interest in the marketing of his films, even designing the promos and posters.
Lichanos: Nice to read your views. My father is a civil engineer and was a good one. Well, understanding circuits was never easy for me either. I guess I concluded it years back when I finished my engineering that most people are not ready to become an engineer at the tender age of 18. I somehow finished my degree in time and tried to get away from the engineering side of things as soon I got an opportunity. Not because I looked down at engineering, rather I thought it deserved so much respect and discipline that I'm not ready for it. Sadly, most engineering schools across the world just make assembly line engineers who can get decent jobs and raise a family. But, not really nurturing questioning/scientific minds.
Similar to what you quoted in the end, even when my father graduated in the late 60's in India, they used to be proud of their engineering degrees; even more than the doctors or even the bureaucrats of those times. This is not really true anymore.
Man of Roma. Dev and Lichanos: you both then confirm that engineers are declining socially. Damn. My youngest daughter is graduating in civil engineering! 😉
Lichanos. Dev: On Engineers – yes, I think you hit it right on the head. BTW, I didn't go to school to get an engineering degree until I was 23 or so. I NEVER could have made it at 18, even if I'd wanted to!!
MoR: I'm sure your daughter will do just fine. Everyone wants things built right! If she works in the field, on-site, it's very much in demand, but a very demanding job! I could not stand it, I'm sure. I look out my window at the World Trade Center site and think, "How the HELL do they get everything to come together on time?" I'd have a nervous breakdown.
Previous installment:
Days ago I was revising my blog's categories. I realized how lazy I had been.
'Culture' for example indicated both:
the set of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional features of a society or group (it's the Unesco definition) and
the general knowledge and refinement a person can attain through education.
The former, anthropological, relates to groups, while the latter, humanistic, relates to individuals. So my category 'culture' has been split in two: culture and knowledge & refinement.
I'll tell you, my impression is that 'culture' in English has progressively lost meaning num 2, which was instead well alive in the past if we have to believe J. C. Shairp, a Scottish man of letters, who wrote in the 19th century:
"What the Greeks expressed by their paideia, the Romans by their humanitas, we less happily try to express by the more artificial word culture."
Well, if paideia and humanitas were better, culture is better than nothing in any case.
Of course European cultures (anthropological) are very much interrelated. In countries such as France Italy and Germany, for example, people continue to refer to culture also as personal, individual refinement: we have 'cultura' in Italian, 'culture' in French and 'Kultur' in German, which the German Duden dictionary explains with Bildung and verfeinerte Lebensart (refined way of life.)
I'm wondering why the English-speaking countries have retained only the anthropological use of culture. Don't they like gli uomini di cultura generale any more?
According to my friend jurist cultura was a high culture ideal that mirrored social elitism, so the English-speaking countries, basically more pluralistic, bit by bit moved on. Very good point, but I'm not entirely convinced, there must be something else too.
This thing being more complicated than it seems, I am now asking my readers for insight.
In the meanwhile, I'll soon post a nice discussion occurred a few days ago where some kind of replies have surfaced: a dialogue among a civil engineer from NYC, an Indian Canadian from Quebec – about to start a career in the film industry – and MoR.
Arrivederci a presto dunque.
Al Pacino as Mike Corleone in Godfather part II. Click for credits
The theme of the Mafia has come out in many discussions. While reading up on it I was surprised how well the Mafia seems to fit into the topics of this blog.
Here just a few notes freely based 1) on the book Padrini, by Roberto Olla, Mondadori 2003, Milano [translated into English with the title Godfathers], and 2) on the novel The Godfather by Mario Puzo.
Men of Respect, Intelligent and Cynical
The word "Don" is used in Italian when referring to a priest or to an aristocrat. A godfather is in fact a man of respect. He is an aristocrat of crime, a prince of evil, no matter his appearance or his clothes – this may be one reason why Hollywood movie-goers have found the Mafiosi so attractive.
One common mistake – argues Roberto Olla – is in fact that of considering the Mafiosi as simple gunmen to defeat. Don Vito Cascio Ferro had no guns. He was one of the first godfathers who operated both in Sicily and in the United States. His force lay in his cynicism and intelligence and in the network he was able to create thanks to well ingrained traditions. He distributed favori, favours, to everybody, but something was asked in return.
In short, mafia had/has history. How a Mafia network was / is built is well expressed by Mario Puzo in The Godfather:
"Don Vito Corleone [Puzo's fictitious character] was a man to whom everybody came for help, and never were they disappointed. He made no empty promise (…) Only one thing was required. That you, you yourself, proclaim your friendship. And then, no matter how poor or powerless the supplicant, Don Corleone would take that man's troubles to his heart (…) His reward? Friendship, the respectful title of "Don" (…) some humble gift – a gallon of home-made wine etc.
This network implied protection, various forms of exchange but also ruthless exploitation (for example the pizzo or protection money one could not escape).
Sicily, a photograph from the Nasa Multimedia Gallery
Long centuries of oppression or absence of the state had favoured in Sicily a kind of anti-state or alternative organization. The American police officers and the 'nordic' Italian state found themselves unprepared – Olla continues.
Focusing on America, "the US policemen were searching in the underworld. But it was in the upper world that they should have searched. They should have searched among the 'similar' and not the 'unlike', since those men came from an ancient culture."
How to Face Aliens From an Ancient World?
Let us try to better understand. America at that time – Olla observes – distinguished between the good guys and the bad guys, and reacted severely to the latter. When though meeting the 'men of respect' the US found themselves facing unheard-of souls. They were unprepared when fighting these mafiosi who were too similar to the people from the upper world. It was not a matter of jacket and tie or of wearing a social mask.
"It was a blend of morality and immorality which produced people able to commit the most ferocious crimes and, at the same time, to show respect for religion. People capable to plan a massacre while in everyday life they defended the good principles and healthy traditions."
An unheard-of humanity? Well, my readers know well what I mean: we are dealing here in my opinion with alien moral codes stemming from pre-Christian, Greco-Roman antiquity, something more or less unknown to [more truly Christian] northern Europe where the American culture mostly came from.
The mafioso had to be seen – as Giovanni Falcone, a famous Sicilian magistrate killed by the mafia in 1992, once said – like the old sage who administered justice sitting under the big oak tree in the name of a non-existent state.
The Irish had no Chance
"Morality and immorality, respect and abuse, honour and violence." When the Italian and the Irish organized crime faced each other in the American ports [Olla, again], the latter didn't have any chance, regardless of the many advantages the Irish had had – they had migrated earlier, they spoke the language, and some of them were perfectly integrated: Irish crime had to face a more ancient and mysterious culture.
Surprise attacks, great speed and extreme determination in their raids – behind the big godfathers I remember Mario Puzo flashing the shadow of the Roman emperors [imperatores], with their ruthlessness and organization. It is exaggerated, but certainly the Mafia the Americans had to fight had already in its genes some formidable military qualities, among the rest.
Different from the Irish is the case of the Jewish criminals, some of which (like Meyer Lansky associated with Lucky Luciano) well integrated themselves into the Italian Mafia (due to their common Mediterranean origins? It is tempting to think so.)
Joseph Petrosino, a New York City police officer, pioneer in the fight against the Mafia (1860 – 1909)
It is not by chance that the first serious blows to the Mafia were given by Italians, like the police officer Joe Petrosino and many others, who were able to understand the intricacies of the Italian mind.
Related posts and blog themes:
Is Berlusconi's Power About to Decline?
The whole world is chatting about the Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi's lifestyle. The news are full of details regarding alleged wild parties in his luxurious residences (see below Villa Certosa in Sardinia.) According to these reports all sorts of women attended these festas, including alleged under-age girls and paid escorts (see above Patrizia D'Addario) attracted to a possible career in TV or in politics (see Wikipedia for details.)
Berlusconi, sometimes depicted as a decadent Roman emperor (Mary Beard in the UK Times compared him to Tiberius,) is seen by many as possessing in ways grotesque the flaws usually ascribed to Italians, a lack of sexual restraint and a loose morality, among the rest.
And in fact many Italians voting for him say they like his way of life and admire him for being rich, powerful and for the number of women in his court. This is the way I am – he said replying to journalists asking if he was planning on changing his lifestyle after the scandals – and I cannot change at my age. Italians want me like that and support me.
Other Italians however vote for him because they prefer the right-wing coalition program to a left deprived of ideas and of real leadership. The opinion of a right-wing Italian fellow blogger, Wind Rose hotel, is that being a conservative doesn't necessarily mean to be a fan of Berlusconi. I'm sure these Italians would prefer a more prudent behaviour by our Prime Minister, although it is to be noted that Berlusconi's success owes a lot to his frankness which makes him different from the average byzantine Italian politician.
Traditionally Italians care little about a politician's private life, his private vices being easily forgiven whenever his political action is deemed effective (we have discussed Italian cynicism and some possible historical causes.)
Many Italians are though starting to get embarrassed, to say the least. The line between the private and public sphere seems blurred to them if it is true that women's sexual favours were /are later rewarded with a political career in the Italian or the European parliament. Someone is talking of Berlusconi's possible resignation.
"Mr Berlusconi's court – writes the British Independent – has no soothsayers to warn him of the Ides of March, but the sudden emergence of hostile noises from the Catholic Church is the modern Italian equivalent of that – especially as the Catholic Church continues to hold immense sway over public opinion."
We are going to see how far Italian cynical indifference will go. Personally I don't think Berlusconi will resign easily, unless something unprecedented occurs. He is still very powerful, though weakened, and he controls much of the Italian media, plus a lot depends on whether he will succeed in keeping the Italian economy going.
Whether these scandals are doing any real damage to him or not, the uneasiness of the Catholic Church – whose realpolitik is hard put to it – should not be under evaluated, although an additional element has to be considered in my opinion.
Berlusconi's ambition of playing as a separate negotiator with Russia, Iran and the Middle East is irritating both the EU and the USA. An example is Berlusconi's support of Russia's South Stream gas pipeline, seen as a rival to the planned Nabucco pipeline backed by the USA and the EU. The South Stream (see image below) is in fact considered dangerous by them since it would extend Russia's blackmail influence over Europe.
A good example of Berlusconi's foreign politics. He is so proud of being a personal friend of Putin, although it remains to be seen whether this friendship (or any other independent move) will prove profitable in the long (or even short) run.
South Stream gas pipeline project map
If you want to know more:
Sex and the City (of Rome) which regards Italian sexuality and links to posts on this matter.
"Italians are Cynical, Amoral, Religiously Superficial", on the possible roots of Italian cynicism.
On Roman, Italian and Latin Roots. Italy and the New World
The discussion over the third from last post had focused a) on a different vision of Italy by Italians from Italy and by North Americans of Italian origin; b) on Italian and Roman roots and the survival of ways which the Roman actress Anna Magnani epitomizes.
This post is mainly reporting the discussion over the second topic. I hence apologize to those readers whose comments have been omitted. I also apologize since all published comments have been edited out for the sake of brevity. Here you can read the original discussion.
MoR. When I wrote this post I had some headache and I later realised a few words were not just right. For example, Anna Magnani "weird mixture of nobility and abjection …" was overstated. I changed 'abjection' with 'crudity'. Such crudity, not deprived of nobleness, is present almost only in Rome in my view. I'm sure the great and unusual past of the eternal city has something to do with it.
Joe@italyville. In my opinion, you must be critical of your country. What would have happened if there was no criticism of Mussolini or Bush. If we didn't criticize the handling of New Orleans or the trash in the streets of Napoli. [Joe's blog]
The Commentator. These videos and songs remind me of my close friend Flavio who is, like me, Canadian born and my age. In the 1990s, I devoured Italian and French films ad nauseam. In the case of Italian films two defining characteristics stood out for me: humor, as in using humor to deal with the hard side of Italian life. The other was realism. Italians faced their decadence through film. My close friend Flavio made the exact same remarks about Romans as you said in your post. He found them to be crude. [The Commentator's blog]
MoR. Well, Rome is so beautiful that those who have produced such beauty cannot be defined as just 'crude'. There must be something else.
Joanne at Frutto della Passione. As a Canadian of Italian descent, living in Italy I know without a doubt that my view of Italy is very different from my father's (Italian born, immigrated to Canada) who views it as the motherland and has romanticized it and all of his memories. My view? It changes almost daily. Somedays I love it beyond words other days it frustrates me to the point of tears. [Joanne's blog]
MoR. I understand your difficulties, despite your roots. Well, here in Italy habits survive that puzzle many foreigners, historical remnants whose disadvantages towards 'modernity' seem clear. Are they only disadvantages? Foreigners from North America surely don't come to Rome or to Naples to admire how scientifically organized traffic is. They come to enjoy other stuff (and not just the monuments.)
Commentator. Just would like to add something else. While there's no doubt many still look fondly back on Italy, there are still others who don't. I've known and met many Italians who wanted to forget everything about the old country and wanted nothing to do with it. Such was their anger towards her.
MoR. As I told Joanne, some survivals are real obstacles to progress. The "patron-client" relationship, for example, present here in disgusting ways: in universities, in state institutions and in the civil society of areas of the country. I don't think it's by chance that 'patronatus', 'patronus', 'clientes' are Ancient Roman words and concepts. I mean, favouritisms, recommendations etc. are here so ingrained that the best brains fly to countries where there is more meritocracy.
Paul Costopoulos. Dear MoR, "favouritism" exists everywhere. Here, we call it the "Old boys network" or "le patronage", in Québec. Merit certainly enters the equation somewhere but «knowing the right person» is of great help. What my women friends of all origins were bothered by in Italy was the ogling and buttocks pinching they endured. It seems Italian males have restless hands. Maybe that is what Frutto della passione is writing about. Fruit of passion…very evocative. [Paul's blog]
MoR. Ah ah ah, Paul, you made me laugh! Yes, you made me laugh but then you depressed me (even though I'll say aloud to my female readers that I don't go around pinching buttocks.)
Paul. Cheer up Man, certainly the sun and warm Mediterranean climate is responsible for all that. All those provocative sculptures that ornate your squares, fountains and even churches are probably the main culprits. They overstimulate and induce into temptation even the most hardy souls as so many popes attest to. The Medicis popes surely are eloquent examples.
MoR. Yes, Paul, yes, even the most hardy souls, no doubt.
Paul. You show great fortitude.
MoR. I do, Paul.
[See a post on Italian Don Juanism, an irritating behaviour now declining, to tell the truth]
Commentator. Quebec functions very much like a Latin country (corruption, patronage etc.), like Italy – only it's not so overt.
Paul. Commentator, it's not only less overt, it's also less. Under Maurice Duplessis, from 1936 to 1960 it was rampant and well organised, since then checks have been put in place…
Commentator. Here's yet another thing regarding M. Anna Magnani. I was observing her and couldn't help but notice she shares a common trait with how Italian women are generally perceived here. There are more "Anna's" than women with the sensibilities or accent of a Northerner. Here, it's all Rome and south. I went to school with many tough, joyous "Anna's." And you know what? There was indeed a certain way to them. What came off as crude didn't mean there wasn't a typically Italian panache to them. Shoot, in my family alone we have a gal that pretty much is Anna.
Mor. People in fact migrated from the most traditional areas of this country. I too like this crudity: it has verve, dash. Wow, so you have an Anna in family. Well, I do also, to a certain extent. These Annas I call 'ancient'. Fellini said Anna (Annas) is/are a symbol and a survival. This he also meant by "She-wolf and Vestal, aristocratic and tramp, dark and buffoonish;" (listen to him saying it to Anna in the film "Roma".)
I'm sure the perception of the artist is sometimes superior to that of the scholar. On the other hand, in my opinion, a peasant from the Italian South (or from Greece) is closer to the Greco-Romans than any historian of antiquity.
Moreover it could be that in the New World – and you seem to confirm it – some primordial traits are preserved, like hibernated, while here they can disappear: take archaisms in language (US 'gotten' instead of the more recent UK 'got'), or cultures like the Amish in Ohio & Pennsylvania.
Actually I met a stunning Anna from Chicago here in Rome. This post tells about her .
Commentator. We are caught in an "Italy from a time past." My friend went to Sicily in the early 1990s and they laughed at his accent. "We don't speak dialect any more!"
MoR. Which makes the New World even more fascinating to me!
Paul. Man of Roma, the so called New World is a reservoir of cultures. The USA has strived to homogenize, the others such as Canada have taken pain to recognize, and even preserve, the cultures of their immigrant citizens. Thus our Anglophones speak a Victorian English, dans plusieurs régions du Canada les francophones parlent la langue de la province française de leurs ancêtres. The others tend to bunch together often by villages or towns they come from and keep the traditions and languages, at least the second, and at times third, generation. Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver all have strong ethnic neighbourhoods where you find restaurants, stores, groceries, newspapers all catering to the native tongue of their inhabitants. It's the Canadian mosaic…and I love it.
MoR. The Commentator had told me a bit about this USA – Canada difference. I have to get to Canada some day. I think I have a friend living in Toronto. I might love Montreal better though. Some students had told me Montreal is like a world-wide francophone hub, thence my interest.
Exposrip. As for melting pot versus multiculturalism I think I break with Paul here. Personally, enshrining multiculturalism in the Charter is nonsense. [Exposrip's blog, warehouse of Commentator's stories]
MoR. I see your point about multiculturalism: you care more about a Canadian identity, which I can understand. Although, call it selfishness, I like that somewhere things are preserved.
Paul. Go to Little Italy around La Madonna della Diffesa and you won't know you are in Montreal. You may even not hear a word of French or English, but maybe lots of Abruzzi and Calabresi. As for food well you will judge. Caffe Italia may also please you.
Commentator. I think MOR would want to observe French-Canadian culture in action on rue St. Denis.
Paul. I agree with The Commentator, St-Denis and the Latin Quarter aroud UQAM are French Montreal "par excellence".
MoR. I'll be there Paul.
Paul. Welcome, and let us know, perhaps we could arrange a little informal meeting…however risky that may be…you know the Web and all that.
MoR. Thank you for saying that Paul. Oh … of course Paul, the risky chat encounters … I'll bring my 4 bodyguards.
Paul. Sounds like a Maffia boss, I may hide. Ha! Ha!
MoR. Ah ah ah
(*Silly Roman laugh…making a phone call in search of the four boys*)
Italian Songs. Anna Magnani, Dean Martin, Pavarotti and the Three Tenors
Pre-Christian Rome lives
Experiencing All
Reema has tagged me for a post that should present a few melodious and soulful songs in Italian and in another language of my choice. So I chose some Italian songs from Rome and Naples (sung often in their respective dialects) and some Italy-related American songs sung in English by Dean Martin, the great charmer of Italian descent. I'm sure Reema, this nice and spunky Indian lady, will vigorously protest saying some of these songs are not soulful or melodious enough. Well they are, but in their own way.
Anna Magnani, the Heart of Rome
Lupa and Vestal (a chaste priestess), aristocratic and tramp, dark and buffoonish: this is how the Italian director Federico Fellini depicted Anna Magnani. Anna was not a perfect beauty but she had more than beauty. Here she sings Quanto sei bella Roma (Rome how beautiful you are) composed in 1934 by Bixio. The film is Abbasso la ricchezza, (Down with Riches), directed by Gennaro Righelli in 1946. I adore Anna's low pitch rich-textured voice.
I wonder if you noticed Anna's joyful laughter. In the video next to the one below you might better perceive how mocking, tragic and a bit crass it can also be. It's the typical (and complex) Roman laughter from a town both noble and vulgar, I know I'm blunt about it. This – please allow me – is possibly due to remnants of ancient mores and to a peculiar history: the base ways in which the Roman populace was entertained (with gladiators etc.) to be kept quiet might have left traces, for example. Sounds a bit like the world of today, with vile Tv and movies ruling, doesn't it.
Born in the Roman slums in 1908, Anna displays this weird mixture of nobility and crudity, of impudence and extreme moral strength. She is the perfect symbol of Rome. Here she sings Scapricciatiello, a Neapolitan song by Ferdinando Albano (1894 – 1968). The film is The Secret of Santa Vittoria (1969) and the guy playing the guitar is Anthony Queen, her husband in the plot.
Now a stornello romano from Mamma Roma (1962), with French subtitles, starring Anna Magnani and Franco Citti. A stornello is a Roman folk song where each strophe often begins with 'fiore di' (flower of…), the rest being improvised, which allows the man and the two women in the video to mock one another in ways, well, typical from here.
Anna plays the role of a prostitute during the post-war period, when Italians were struggling for survival. In this scene she is very upset because her pimp (Citti, with a moustache) has married the other woman. Directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini the film was judged immoral by critics and the public due to swearing.
Sweet Feelings of a City
Getting closer to the sweetness of the city, the Roman folk singer Gabriella Ferri sings Roma forestiera, (Stranger Rome), 1947, a song lamenting the post-war social transformation of Rome. The original Youtube movie inserted showed scenes from the films Mamma Roma and Roma città aperta, directed by Roberto Rossellini, probably one of the best Italian films ever produced. The movie is no longer available on Youtube for copyright infringement. Here another one with the same song Roma forestiera sung by Gabriella Ferri.
Now Arrivederci Roma, a song composed by Renato Rascel and sung by Claudio Villa, my favourite Roman folk singer. Born in Trastevere Villa has a wonderful voice but languages are not his forte (he pronounces 'goobye' instead of 'goodbye'). Very beautiful pictures of Rome (but much better ones in the video next to this).
Another song by Renato Rascel, Roma nun fa' la stupida stasera (Rome please behave tonight), sung by a bunch of artists – see credits at the end – and with a set of pictures among the most beautiful I've ever seen.
Here the core meaning of the song: (the man) "oh Roma, be as romantic as possible and help me to make her say yes to me;" (the woman) "oh Roma, be as unromantic as possible and help me to say NO to him!"
Italy in America. Dean Martin
And now our great Dean Martin (Dino Paul Crocetti) who sings a Neapolitan song Torna a Surriento (English title Take Me In Your Arms.) This man and ALL the songs in this post really remind me of my first youth, I've got to thank Reema for it. Enjoy also some nice pictures of the Sorrento area, where – allow me again – the Romans first mixed up with the Greeks.
Listen now to On an Evening in Roma (Sott'er Cielo de Roma), one of Dino's great Italian love songs (1961). The video is full of Rome's great pictures.
Naples and the Three Tenors
We'll finish with two beautiful Neapolitan songs. Here is Parlami d'amore Mariu' (Talk me of Love Mariu') by the Neapolitan composer Bixio. It is performed by the three tenors Luciano Pavarotti, José Carreras and Placido Domingo in Paris (1998).
Finally, as the cherry on the pie, Non ti scordar di me (Don't forget me) by the Neapolitan composer Ernesto De Curtis. It is sung by Luciano Pavarotti in Budapest.
I know, I have dedicated so much space to music on Rome, but this is the Man of Roma's blog, after all.
I'll though say here aloud what it is already well known: the tradition of the Neapolitan song is much greater than that of Rome.
France, Italy and the Legacy of Rome
Rome's legacy is greater than we think – "language, literature, legal codes, government, architecture, engineering, medicine, sports, arts, etc." – and the Roman Empire has been a powerful myth in the course of the centuries.
After Rome's fall in 476 CE, the Holy Roman Empire, thus called since 962 CE, started to develop in 800 CE when Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne in Rome as 'Emperor and Augustus of the Romans'.
Such Empire, Frankish, Germanic (and later Austrian, dissolved in 1806 only) considered itself as the heir of the "First Rome" (the Western Roman Empire,) while the Hellenized Eastern Roman Empire, Byzantium, was called the "Second Rome" and remained unconquered until 1453 CE.
When also Byzantium (Constantinople) fell, even the Islamic conqueror Ottoman Mehmed II thought he was continuing the power (and idea) of Rome and tried to "re-unite the Empire" although his march towards Italy was stopped in 1480 CE by both the Papal and Neapolitan armies.
After the fall of the Second Rome someone began to refer to Moscow as the "Third Rome", since the Russian Tsars felt they were the inheritors of the Byzantine Empire's Orthodox Christian tradition.
[2014 update: allow us to remind that the sovereigns of the two great continental empires dissolved in WWI, the German and the Russian, both bore the name of Kaiser and Tsar, id est Caesar.
So many heirs of Rome! Seems like a futile historical game.
Let us see how other nations went on claiming the Roman heritage.
The Victorians, the Italians and the USA
The British Victorians, for example, who felt they were somewhat the spiritual successors of the Romans.
Or both the Italian patriots, who unified Italy, and later the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini.
They felt like the heirs of ancient Rome and the creators (again) of a "Third Rome": after the capital of the Pagan world – they argued – and after the capital of Catholicism, Rome was now to become the capital of a totally New World.
A disproportionate idea, without a doubt.
And the Americans? They also like today to find similarities between their might and the superpower of the ancient times (try to google America, new, Rome: you'll get an interesting number of results.)
We will though today talk about France (skipping Spain for the sake of brevity.)
Can't France in fact lay claims as well?
The First French Empire
France inherited many elements from Rome, after the conquest of Gaul by Julius Caesar: language, food habits, behaviours, genes, technologies and a fundamental aestheticism, among the rest.
We have already mentioned the connection between Charlemagne and the birth of the Holy Roman Empire. Less obvious are similarities like that between the French Foreign legion and the Roman legions as for training, combat habits, management of terrain (construction of roads etc.) and so on.
Much more significant though is the state tradition of Rome which, according to some scholars, has been preserved in the French monarchic centralism and in the state national spirit of the French people.
The person who shaped this centralism (later continued by Napoleon) was probably Louis XIV (1638 – 1715, see image above,) one of the greatest kings ever. He was called the Sun King (le Roi Soleil) and was associated with Apollo Helios, the Greco-Roman god of the Sun. He also encouraged classicism in the arts and Voltaire compared him to the Roman Emperor Augustus.
Other great personages such as Napoleon Bonaparte (or even Charles de Gaulle, why not) bear the traces of the Roman heritage. Napoleon was inspired first by the Roman Republic. Roman-like, he became First Consul of the French Republic.
Then, after receiving the crown from Pope Pius VII (in Paris, this time) on December 2 1804, he became Emperor of the French people and encouraged a classicist Empire style in architecture, decorative arts, furniture and women's dresses based on Ancient Hellenic attire (see below,) a style soon popular in most parts of Europe and its colonies.
Napoleon identified himself with Caesar, was continuously studying his works and succeeded in becoming one of the greatest generals ever, like Caesar and Alexander.
Two dresses, ca. 1810. Courtesy of http://www.metmuseum.org
The French and the Italians.
Who Envies Who?
Antonio Gramsci, in Notebook IX of his Prison Notebooks, reflects on some words written by Victor Hugo (1802 – 1885) in Histoire d'un crime:
"Every man of heart has two fatherlands in this century: the Rome of the past and the Paris of today … This ancient fatherland – Gramsci argues – associated with the modern one supposes that France is the heir of Rome. Something that was said, and is especially said, today, to displease no small number of people."
Well, something said to displease whom? Our philosopher probably referred mainly to the Britons and to the Italians.
Focusing on the Italians, one can wander and wonder with Gramsci whether a real francophilia ever existed in our country (Notebook XXVIII.)
France was always admired in Italy – Gramsci observes. France meant the French Revolution, the participation of a large share of the population to the political cultural and state life, it meant a decorous parliamentary activity and many other things that the young Italian state could not exhibit. The Italian francophiles have often concealed a strong dislike and a substantial envy.
I would add that some envy is also felt today by our French cousins when they behold our historical richness, the beauties of our towns etc.
This envy surfaces every time we do something better: with soccer, Ferrari, with the world-wide diffusion of our cuisine & fashion – and so forth.
But let us do ourselves a favour. Let us be honest.
If the French may envy us, we envy them more.
Stress and Joy. Conquest and Sorrow
Julius Caesar's Conquest Of Gaul. When West / North Europe & The Mediterranean 'Embraced' (1)
The Roots of Cynicism
A comment by Maryann on the Roman Goddess Fortuna post had kicked off an interesting discussion.
Her grandmother from Apulia – Maryann wrote – had a deep disregard for fortune tellers "and wouldn't even tolerate us visiting one for fun at the Italian festas. I wonder where this came from."
I had replied that her grandmother's behaviour probably derived from the Catholic Church's reaction against possible survivals of Paganism.
"Italians – I argued – were highly civilized long before (9-10 centuries earlier) Christianity arrived, while many Northern Europeans entered instead civilization together with Christianity (or nearly.) This couldn't happen without consequences. It made us a bit more pagan, them a bit more Christian."
At this point the Commentator (Exposrip) had popped up:
"I never thought – he had observed – of the historical angle of Italians being civilized before Christianity thus making them a bit more pagan. Of course, the Romans were pagans!"
"Let me ask you : where do the Italians derive their realistic and cynical posturing? Did it begin after the fall of Rome? Did Machiavelli instil it? Was it years of foreign conquering?"
I think Roman survivals – I had replied – exist in various regions of Europe (like England, Germany, Poland etc.) but here in our country such remnants are more marked.
Cynicism. If you ask about this within a discussion on Italian pagan survivals you probably suspect there is a connection. I am convinced there is, although it can't be easily proved.
A long history of glories and defeats, foreign conquering, the influence of intellectuals like Machiavelli – all this must have contributed. Although Machiavelli, to me, is more like the product of a culture. He reinforced elements that were already existing.
Did these 'elements' develop after the fall of Rome or did they stem from the previous Greco-Roman culture, or both things? Both, in my view.
What we mean by 'cynicism'
Let's first see what we mean by cynicism today:
A. Cynicism is "a disposition to disbelieve in the sincerity or goodness of human motives and actions." (Oxford and Webster dictionaries).
B. Cynical is "the person who, with acts and words, shows scorn and indifference towards the ideals, or conventions, of the society he lives in." (Dizionario Italiano Treccani).
[I may be wrong, but there's a difference between the 'Anglo-Saxon' definition (A) and the Italian one (B). To the former, values seem more like a given, while the latter appears more relativist: values are historical, not eternal]
In any case. Isn't it possible that behaviours seen as indifferent and cynical according to certain values appear only such because partially obeying to diverse (alien) moral codes coming from the Greco-Roman antiquity?
Let us have a look at these alien codes then.
No Conflicts of Conscience
Which is no easy task, the Greco-Roman philosophers were divided into different schools, plus the Ancients behaved differently according to the different ages.
Thus said, I basically agree with what the British historian C. P. Rodocanachi wrote about the Athenians of the V century BC (which on the whole and to a certain extent applies to the Greco-Romans.)
"[Absence of conflicts of conscience: the Greeks were quit] of this inhibiting and agonizing struggle. Their morals were civic and not religious. Their sense of duty was directed exclusively to the city …
They knew nothing of the Christian idea of good faith, of intentions conditioning acts in such a manner that the most law-abiding citizen may feel himself a great criminal at heart…
[They] may be considered as being intrinsically amoral and this very amorality was a powerful constituent of balance of mind which they could never have attained if their conscience had been torn, as ours is, between the conflicting forces of good and evil, virtue and vice, pleasure and sin.
They could enjoy beauty, taste the delights of life without a pang of conscience. So long as they were faithful to the laws and interests of the city they had no damnation to fear, either in this world or the next."
By intention Rodocanachi meant that just the thought of a sin is almost like committing the sin itself [these two articles – 1 and 2 – may help further.]
Not Torn Between Pleasure and Sin
Esquiline Venus, in all her voluptuousness, found in 1874 on the Esquiline Hill in Rome (from the Horti Lamiani possibly). Capitoline Museums, Rome. Click for credits (Flickr)
Ok. So what's the conclusion of all this?
The conclusion equals the beginning, ie we get back to where we started.
Rodocanachi compares the Greek and the Christian (or Protestant) attitudes. Italians definitely belong to the former, to the 'Greek' cultural area.
Almost any Italian would confirm that we are not that torn between virtue and vice, pleasure and sin, that we do not much fear damnation (and almost never speak of hell.)
Even if Italians captained for centuries the switch from the Pagan religion(s) to Christianity, their Christian feelings are superficial, no matter how false (or outrageous) this may sound (see note 3.)
Even among Catholics, when taking the Italians and the Irish for example, we are not that strict compared to a lot of things.
The Lewinsky scandal, President Bill Clinton's trial and this whole Scarlet Letter atmosphere literally sent Italians rolling on the floor laughing – I hope I won't offend somebody saying that.
The Epicurean Rome of the Renaissance
"Your religion is not serious, you are cynical, indifferent!" was the comment by many North Europeans that travelled about Italy during the Renaissance. Their feelings were halfway between admiration and condemnation.
The splendid epicurean Rome of the Renaissance (admire above Villa d'Este) appeared often repulsive to them, one reason why the eternal city was brutally sacked by protestant troops in 1527 AD (this comment develops MoR's peculiar approach to Italian Renaissance.)
Truth is, our mind is like a museum, which makes us appear cynical, indifferent.
We are inclined to live the joys of life and sometimes do bad deeds without those self-punishment mechanisms that stem from breaking fundamentalist moral codes. Our flexibility (and confusion) springs from ancient mores that contribute to make us the way we are.
In some regions of our mind, it may be liked or disliked, we are still pagan at heart.
The ideas in this and other posts cannot be considered as demonstrated, and need further research.
1) Quote from C. P. Rodocanachi , Athens and the Greek Miracle, Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, London 1948.
2) My answers to Maryann and Exposrip have been further processed since their questions have kept bugging my mind (original texts here.)
3) In Notebook IV of Antonio Gramsci's Prison Notebooks we read: "There is no doubt that Italian religious feelings are superficial, as there is no doubt that religion here has a character which is mainly political, of international hegemony." So it seems that also the pre-Christian role of government of peoples still survives: Imperial Rome is resurrected into Catholic Rome. Gramsci wrote this note in a period between 1929 and 1935. He was a Marxist. We are not. His stimulating ideas went though well beyond Marxism and G. is now appreciated by Marxists and non Marxists, by left-wing and right-wing thinkers all the world over.
Pre-Christian Rome lives (where this movie by Fellini grotesquely unveils aspects of papal Rome's pagan nature)
Survivals of the Roman Goddess Fortuna
Gods are Watching with an Envious Eye
Knowing Thyself
Man of Roma
Constitutional Happiness by Australia Felix
The Mafia and the Italian Mind
Posted on 05/10/2008 by manofroma	· 8 Comments
Oranges in California
"California is a fine place to live – if you happen to be an orange."
(Fred Allen, American humorist)
I'll link this jest to the sense of emptiness I perceived while staying for a while in Venice, Los Angeles (see picture above,) some time ago.
One of the social milieus I stumbled upon was this weird bunch of people who, while hoping to find a job in the entertainment industry, had this everybody-sleeping-with-everybody type of lifestyle who puzzled me because of its total nihilism and emptiness, or so it appeared to me.
Not that the writers that have lived in LA have greatly contributed to better this image of pointlessness and malaise, from Aldous Huxley, to Raymond Chandler (with his marvellously depressed Philip Marlowe) and the more recent James Ellroy (The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere etc.).
So maybe what Fred Allen said is kinda true.
Only if you happen to be an orange. Or a movie star … (what about a porn star?)
Fresh Idealism
But I also keep the most beautiful souvenirs of San Francisco, northern California. I was close to my twenties and I had never been to SF or America before, to tell the truth. Didn't have to. They simply materialised before my eyes in Trastevere, Rome, in the years between the 60s-70s, via the cute face of a half-Mexican girl from SF, her name Mariza, who worked for an airline company out there and who totally bewitched me and accepted to share a small and cheap flat in via della Lungara.
This place soon attracted a long series of eccentric individuals: a gay pianist from Kansas City (of German origin, his Bach was pure magic), a lesbian paintress from Santa Barbara, a Vietnam vet from SF as well, a bit spaced out and hopelessly addicted to alcohol, plus this intense actress from Chicago (the link tells about her) together with many other odd American characters.
Mariza was one of my sweetest experiences, intelligent, attractive and cultured. Those were the days of the hippies who had found in the San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district one of their homes. She introduced me to SF's counter-culture from a high-level angle and we were singing the beautiful Scott McKenzie's song "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair)":
Such a strange vibration,
There's a whole generation
With a new explanation
People in motion .. people in motion
A new explanation …such big words!
And Trastevere became our Haight-Ashbury (see below its main piazza and gathering place, S. Maria.) We felt all brothers, no matter the race, the religion or the country. Such an extraordinary place, Trastevere, not yet so trendy at that time and populated by these unconventional expatriates plus of course the locals, real Romans beyond any belief.
Oddly enough, on the stage of this ancient theatre I first met young America and its sparkling fresh mind. Not only my English began to improve.
But we were not hippies. Being not saints either there was not much place though in our experiences for nihilism or malaise.
So full we were of our romantic dreams, whether our naïve ideals were guiding or misguiding still remains to be seen.
Buddhism, Science and the Dalai Lama
We talked in the previous post of a decline of the Roman Empire type of situation here in the West. Omitting economical and political aspects this time, we rather concentrated on some cultural aspects of today's Western (America + Europe) decline which resemble a bit what was happening in the minds of the inhabitants of the Ancient Roman empire: new sects and religions gaining ground, void, ethical confusion etc. with, at the end, a winning new religion, Christianity, conquering the population's hearts (with a little help from the Emperors) and soon becoming the official religion of the Empire.
(Needless to say, it is only for the sake of analysis that people usually separate economical, political, social and cultural phenomena. Actually they are tightly interrelated and belong to the same sphere: Man)
Let's now zoom in on one of the non Western religions that are gaining ground, Buddhism. We will consider some of the reasons why this belief, compared with the Abrahamic religions, could be more endowed to confront with modern science, which might further favour its penetration (at the top of the page, a Buddhist temple at Fréjus, France; above, the current Dalai Lama).
In some books the current 14th Dalai Lama reveals his position on science and on the relationship between scientific rationality and religious irrationality. "If scientific analysis conclusively showed that certain beliefs of Buddhism are false – argues the Dalai Lama – it would be necessary to accept those scientific discoveries and abandon those beliefs." Wow, what a big difference, we should be honest to admit, vis-à-vis the presumptions of infallibility asserted by our Catholic religion …
Buddhism seems better equipped in its approach to science since, as the Dalai Lama says, "it grants maximum authority to experience, secondly to reason and only lastly to scriptures" while the Religions of the revealed Books (the Abrahamic religions) seem to consider these elements in a reversed order.
Additionally the encounter between Science and Buddhism seems also favoured by a fundamental disposition common to both: they do not believe in God or even in a soul, since Buddhism prefers to concentrate, among other things, on conscience. Buddhism and science "share a fundamental reluctance to postulate a transcendent Being as origin of all things." Basically it is the denial of any metaphysics.
A Rescue Guide in Times of Crisis
In general I believe this simple thing: science provides a lot of answers but still voids are left (what is the meaning of life? How do we choose between right and wrong? Are there any absolute values? etc.) that might progressively be filled up, although so far they are not, thus leaving those who rely on science only with questions unanswered and inner tranquillity precarious. Humanities are able in fact to make up for further answers (philosophy) and for reconciling our soul through beauty (art).
(The problem is complex and it is discussed in the debate regarding the two cultures – the sciences and the humanities – and regarding the so-called third culture)
As far as we are concerned, in fact, novels, poems, music, paintings, philosophy, all humanistic culture, in conclusion, can somehow fill these voids. And religion? Of course religion can fill these voids too, but, although we have a lot of respect for those who have a faith, we are not religious (agnostic, not atheist), our position being that of the Roman philosopher and poet Lucretius. So we are not disposed to easily believe in revealed things or tales – hope we do not hurt anyone's feelings – which were satisfying for men living thousands of years ago but, frankly, not as much for today's man.
Buddhism, being a philosophy and religion without a God seems more modern (even though some aspects of Mahayana Buddhism, for example, consider the Buddha as a God). Buddhism does not force us to believe in dreams in order to find a ubi consistam, namely a guide, a point of reference.
The truth is we are not even Buddhist. We have no parachute. But we like it this way.
Official Dalai Lama Web Site.
The Universe in a Single Atom – The Convergence of Science and Spirituality – by H.H. the Dalai Lama, Morgan Road Books, New York, 2005.
Mind Science – An East – West Dialogue – by H.H. the Dalai Lama with Herbert Benson, Robert A. Thurman, Howard E. Gardner, Daniel Goleman, Wisdom Publications, USA, 1991.
See also www.mindandlife.org for reports on various confrontations between the Dalai Lama and various scientists.
USA's Love for Ancient Rome. Robert Lloyd, Los Angeles Times: "We like stories of Rome, I think, because in spite of the intervening centuries we can recognize ourselves there: a technologically superior mercantile and military superpower pressing an enormous thumb upon the Western world, its bustling cities full of bars and restaurants and hot-drink shops and theaters. Positively Dickensian in the way it trains an eye on both the powerful and the poor, Rome [the HBO BBC Tv Series] wants us to see the present in the past — offering cocktail parties, rich girls smoking hemp ("I brought back two sacks from Macedonia sooooo much better than the Italian kind"), a criminals' den that looks like nothing so much as a 1st century BC [The Sopranos'] Bada Bing."
Read the entire article by Robert Lloyd.
Above, an image from Rome's set, at Rome Cinecittà studios: source.
The German slave. Getting back to a typical Sex and the city (of Rome) topic, I read in a blog that a US high school teacher used to describe Ancient Rome's history as a sequence of sex, battle, sex, battle, which seems a little bit too limited a view to me. In any case, for you (now disappointed and bored) sex weirdos, a brief quote from the Boston Globe that will make you happy:
"Take, for instance, this cozy domestic scene in the 'Rome' première. It's the morning of Caesar's funeral, and the ever-lusty Mark Antony (James Purefoy ) refuses to get out of bed unless Atia [Polly Walker, see smal picture above,] dressed in her funeral garb, agrees to have sex. Impatient and unsure of her social status now that her uncle Caesar is gone, Atia coldly refuses him. Ever practical, though, she then barks an order at her slaves: 'Fetch that German slut from the kitchen'. "
Read the entire review by Matthew Gilbert.
Funny, although a bit on the masculist side, this comment from a fan of the 'Rome' series: "Oh, would that we all had these convenient German sluts around. But, you know, now they're all union and hard to keep on staff".
Watch now this trailer from the TV series regarding Roman different moral code (which is not to be seen by minors, who are thus warned.)
Spanish Cousins Success. "One secret of Spain's success has been its links to Latin America – an excellent testing ground for Spanish foreign investment and a useful source of Spanish-speaking immigrants.
Spain's immigration policy has been more liberal than in most European countries, adding some 4m to the 40m population in the past decade. Those from Latin America, in particular, have proved swift to integrate. The proportion of children from mixed marriages increased from 1.8 per cent in 1995 to 11.5 per cent in 2005."
Read the entire Ftimes article.
Western Values, Again (2)
Relativism, Yes
The commentator thus commented my first comment to Rob's post, saying: "Was the above (specifically regarding our values versus terrorists) a defence of moral equivalism?". Well – apart from endorsing Islamic terrorism, which of course I don't – if being a relativist means (as I think it means) not believing in absolute truths valid forever and outside any historical and social context, yes, I am a convinced relativist. Also democracy to me is relative (I can see many readers jumping up in their chairs).
Separation of state and religion, ok, I like it a lot, but this is not enough to proclaim our superiority over other civilizations (such as the Islamic) plus why should secularism be an absolute truth? As regards democracy, it doesn't seem in my view the ideal solution for some people, plus it is not granted, as many analysts now start to recognize, that economical growth automatically will lead to more democracy. The case of Russia and China is often indicated as instructive from this point of view. And I believe it really is.
This reminds me when all the world applauded (me included) when Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev started to swiftly democratize the Soviet Union. At the same time all the world protested (me included) when the Chinese students asking for more democracy (hence imitating the Russians) were crushed by the military in the Tien An Men Square in 1989 (watch above a famous movie regarding that tragic episode).
But then, what the heck has happened? Who the heck was right? The Russians (who accelerated democracy) or the Chinese (who hindered it because they thought it would tear down a country of 1.5 billion people)? I have lived almost one year in Russia (in the year 2000) and I have witnessed the almost TOTAL collapse of a society and all the terrible consequences that ensued (this country now pulling itself together thanks btw to its new Caesar, or Tzar, Mr. Putin: can this be by mere chance?).
I know Anglo-Saxons are very sensitive about this democracy thing. They use it as a propaganda weapon, not many doubts about it, but there is something deeper. If democracy was invented by the ancient Greeks, only the British and the American people in modern times were capable of creating truly great democracies (plus, isn't the Indian democracy – the biggest in the world – somewhat derived from Great Britain as well? I hope Falcon won't be upset 😉 ).
We admire the Anglo-Saxons for what they have achieved, for this great contribution and influence in all this. But if they do not really try hard to understand the rest of the world, especially those very old civilizations so different from theirs (and ours), and if they do not get out of their mental schemes, I am afraid their decline (and ours, unfortunately) will be swifter than expected. They (especially the Americans) cannot expect they can export their political solutions (that took so many centuries to develop, from Magna Charta on) to totally different historical and social environments (like Iraq or Afghanistan) which might embrace these solutions in the long run, who knows, although it is not granted at all, I am sure it is not granted at all, not many doubts about it. In any case, I am for democracy, that's for sure. I just wanted to add some elements of reflection.
The Ugliest of Tyrannies
I know almost nothing about Professor Norman Geras' thought but in your quotations, Rob, he condemns the:
"apologists for terrorism, the mumblers and rootcausers, the people seemingly capable of understanding everything except the need for drawing a clear line between those who uphold the politics of democracy and those dedicated to their destruction. The left today …is a loose movement which is able … to mobilize … to oppose conflicts fought by the Western democracies against the ugliest of tyrannies and/or reactionary social and political forces…".
Well, first of all I do not consider myself belonging to the left any more, hence many things he says here and elsewhere do not regard me much; secondly, I see in his words some hypocrisy, sorry to say that, exactly like in Tony Blair's words (but I may be wrong and I'll try to read more of his writings).
The thing is I am not blaming America for being a superpower and for fighting (sometimes badly, I'll admit) for her interests. I love and admire America. And I believe she is a true democracy. But – as I said – I also believe that empires and powers (such as the Romans, the Turkish Ottomans, the Victorians, the USA etc.), are not ruled mainly by idealism or ethics; they are rather ruled most of all by Realpolitik, namely by practical considerations regarding their interests.
So, according to Norm, as you call him, am I an apologist of terrorism if I say that a democracy like America now says she fights against "the ugliest of tyrannies" (it is still to be proven for which reasons) while, at the times of Henry Kissinger, she fought for "the ugliest of tyrannies" (Greek colonels, ruthless dictators all over South America etc.)?
My opinion is that this passage by Norm is a bit abstract and apologetic, not to mention a few apparent doses of historical amnesia.
This post originates from a debate I had with Falcon, Ashish and especially Rob and regarding: values, the West, the Islamic extremists etc. First Rob replied to a comment of mine saying I raised too many issues so it'd be too arduous to fully accept the challenge. But the same I can say of his post (an even more complex reply to my comment lol), so I'll just consider some topics mentioned by him (plus Ashish's and Falcon's remarks) and will talk freely without too much organization, being a bit tired after a long work trip (and hoping I won't say too many silly things lol).
Is Decadence Advancing (or Just Old Age)?
Western leaders are talking so much about values. But where is the line between what they really feel and political propaganda? I am referring to the Tony Blair's speech quoted by Rob but this of course is not only true of Western leaders. This is also true of almost any leader. Although on the whole I see some decadence advancing in our part of the world, which might correspond to the natural cycle of civilizations, more or less like what happened to the civilization of ancient Rome. I mean, Western leaders can try to propose their societies (and their values) as models, but what are the real ideas we are exporting around the world?
Just an example taken from today's entertainment field. At least two movie industries are now flooding the world with their films: Hollywood and Bollywood, the former selling all over the world, the latter selling all over Asia (Muslim countries included) but now starting to be appreciated outside Asia as well. I may be wrong but Bollywood moviegoers seem to entertain themselves in a much healthier way, while American movies (not to mention US video games) are now so painted with blood, stupidities and disgusting violence (apart from some technological perfection which in any case is not much influential over the quality of content) that the final educational result on the public tends in my view towards new forms of barbarism (see above a view of the Hollywood boulevard: source).
Blind Hatred plus Moral Disgust?
I abhor the Islamic fascists, as you call them, Rob. And I am not neutral. Quite the contrary. These repugnant people have made the world much worse than it was before, in my opinion. But if we do not understand that many of them are also motivated by some sort of moral disgust towards some ways of the West, we miss an important point.
Take Bali, Indonesia. The islamofascists hit Kuta twice in 2002 and 2005 with some bombs and killed hundreds of people, mostly Westerners. I have been to Bali a few times and I believe it is not by chance they hit the Kuta beach area so much.
Bali is the only Hindu island in a country, Indonesia, mostly Muslim. This was symbolic to them, not many doubts about it, but I think a main point was also they hit right a place in Bali (Kuta) where the Westerners most succeeded in totally corrupting the local people who are now selling themselves in various ways for money, while in other parts of this great island the Balinese retain their unbelievable dignity and their incredibly refined cultural values, yes, so refined that even peasants look like princes (look above at the pure beauty of these two Balinese dancers: source).
Although by this I do not mean the West has no values, and the non-West has. And we are not the only ones to use values as ideological weapons, as I said before. Ashish, this young Indian blogger, puts it very synthetically: "Religion [and any idealism, I think he means, MoR] is merely the vehicle, the true goal is world supremacy. Does the west prevail over the east or is it otherwise? … The bosses only care about the profits [oil for the west, power for the clerics], be it the West or the Middle East. Religion is merely a way to get yourself an army, because nobody fights as ruthlessly as a fanatic!" Very well said indeed.
A comment from another Indian blogger also in his twenties, Falcon, who writes: "Let's face it, a large no. of Islam followers have their rationality almost blinkered by faith. They may be very humble and polite and would gladly discuss religion and point out its greatness and fallacies but try touching Islam and they get defensive."
Well, it is true, also some Mulsim students of mine behaved like that. But I remember things were a bit different before September 11. What I believe is that, especially the new Muslim generation is living like a generational wave. That terrible, unbelievable terrorist attack (nothing cannot be compared to it) has unfortunately fascinated too many young minds. Sept 11 is not the only factor, but the development of things in Turkey (once the most secularized Muslim Nation) is very instructive in my view. How long will this woeful wave last? Hard to say. It will none the less pass away, I am sure of it (or is it my hope and ideals blinkering me now?).
Left & Right
You quote intellectuals from the left, Rob, thinking it can make some difference to me. It doesn't. The left is only my origin and I do not belong to any faction any more. It is a complicated topic not to be discussed here, but I try to reason with my mind only, not caring where good (to me) ideas come from and in my view what really counts has very little to do with this dichotomy.
For example, words such as reactionary elements do not mean anything to me. And they do not mean anything to the new generations. Listen again to Falcon commenting this post of mine: "Could somebody explain to me what exactly reaction mean? What was the action we did that we are facing a reaction?". He then continues, going maybe towards some sort of relativism: "As long as there will be a feeling, that one set of ideals and values are better than the others there is bound to be a struggle for supremacy. Islam can teach us a lot things, just like any other religion. The only question is: are we ready to learn?"
Which are our Western Values?
Rob wrote an interesting post, Support Shiv Malik's book, regarding various things among which a speech Tony Blair delivered to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council in August 1, 2006. As Rob writes, Tony Blair "called for a complete renaissance on foreign policy to combat reactionary Islam:"
"Whatever the outward manifestation at any one time – argued Blair, then Prime Minister – it is a global fight about global values; it is about modernization, within Islam and outside of it; it is about whether our value system can be shown to be sufficiently robust, true, principled and appealing that it beats theirs. Islamist extremism's whole strategy is based on a presumed sense of grievance that can motivate people to divide against each other. Our answer has to be a set of values strong enough to unite people with each other.
This is not just about security or military tactics.
It is about hearts and minds about inspiring people, persuading them, showing them what our values at their best stand for." [italics by Rob]
This is my comment:
"A very good post, Rob. I will only comment on one aspect where we probably are of different opinion."
"This complete "renaissance" on foreign policy to combat Islam fanatics, seen as a global fight about global values … mmmm, nice talk indeed. Tony Blair is a valuable man in many respects and he is not deprived of some greatness. I admired him for example in his last day as a prime Minister, where he showed dignity and courage."
"But let us face it: how can Mr. Blair think he/we/the West can win this battle for values? Which were the values that provoked the Iraqi war? Finding (non existent) mass destruction weapons? Exporting democracy? Everybody now has a clearer idea why that war was started: for power in the region and for oil. Ok, that is realpolitik. Every power plays its game in the world chessboard. None the less, I am asking myself, are we especially entitled or do we have any special chances to win such a battle on global values? Isn't there instead a lack of values in the West? Isn't Blair's talk you quote hypocritical to a large extent?"
"This war has provoked the death of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians (the number of US casualties being in comparison irrelevant). The Italian Berlusconi government joined the so to say happy bunch, my only consolation being that the VAST majority of Italians were totally against that war.
Not that I think the Islamic fanatics have better values. But are we sure our set of values is really much more "robust, true, principled and appealing" that it is so clear that it can beat theirs?"
The Birth of Venus (1486) by Sandro Botticelli, an Italian early Renaissance painter. Detail of Venus' face. Click to enlarge a bit
Amazing Continuities
In Notebook IV of Antonio Gramsci's Prison Notebooks we read an appreciation of Ernst Walser's suggestion that, in order to better understand Italian Renaissance men, one should think of contemporary Italians (to a certain extent.)
We believe that, inversely, the same could be said of Italian Renaissance men. To better understand them one should think of the Ancients, namely the Greeks and the Romans (to a certain extent.)
OK. But don't we have a greater distance between contemporary Italians and the Ancients?
We do. Nonetheless there are amazing continuities, and these only interest us. Which are these continuities?
An Army of Don Juans
Narrowing our focus on the themes discussed in Sex and the city (of Rome) 1, 2, 3 and 4, we've just heard this sentence in a History Channel war documentary film:
"An army of Don Juans was about to land…".
The film referred to an Italian military expedition sent by Mussolini somewhere in the Mediterranean.
Now, I find this funny, and I am asking myself: is this the way many people from the English-speaking countries consider us? A bunch of Don Juans lol? I know it was perhaps a boutade but if this is even just partly true, what is the reason for that?
Other associations in fact arise.
Why Latin folks are considered sensual (or sensualists) by many people in the United States and in the UK?
Why Casanova was Italian and Don Juan Spanish? And why all American women went crazy for Elvis Presley (or even more for Rodolfo Valentino) who came from the south of the USA, an area marked by some Spanish & French influence ? Was it only because he was just handsome and his voice great?
Now the BIG question: is it possible we're facing here some of those long-period permanences or survivals French historian Fernand Braudel built his historical method upon?
I mean, aren't we dealing here with remnants of 'alien', pre-Christian, ways of living one's sexuality?
Isn't this what is so seductive, though felt as sinful and almost amoral, but, for this same reason, irresistible?
It is not our intent to exhaust (or to applaud) the phenomenon of Don Juanism, a complicated topic with a few unpleasant aspects (you might like this post on Julius Caesar's Don Juanism). No self-indulgence here, pls, all we care about being the possible survivals of a far away past.
Let us thus continue with our associative questions.
Amoral Pagans
Venus of Urbino (Venere di Urbino) by Titian, painted in 1538. Oil on canvas. Uffizi, Florence. Click for a much better and larger picture
How come the North Europeans who came down to Rome during the Renaissance were both spellbound and disgusted?
Is it because they perceived the Christian religion was not taken seriously by the Romans and by the Italians of that time?
Can't it be this was due to the fact that most of these Northern people started to be really civilised only with the spread of Christianity, eg with Christianisation, while we were already civilised one thousand years earlier?
[highly civilized during ancient Roman times: Italian Renaissance didn't come out of a desert, read a moving page here]
Can't it be that they are the true Christians (culturally, at least, so no matter if believers or not) while in us paganism (and behaviours attached to it) has left some (or many) traces?
[ See an overview of the MoR's blog main themes]
Sandro Botticelli (1445 – 1510), painter of the Florentine school. Portrait of a Young Woman: 1480-85. Click for credits and for other paintings by Botticelli
Can't it be the reason (I am obsessive, I know) why the Christian religion was here felt mainly as a political thing, eg a way of governing the minds and the spirits of men, in ways not dissimilar to when ancient Rome was governor of nations?
Why our cardinals and even numerous Popes had lovers? Why the great Polish Pope (who surely had no lovers) was appreciated more by the big politicians of the planet (who flocked to his funeral) and less by the spiritual gurus of our time?
[Today the Vatican is perceived as a political – more than a spiritual – institution, I don't have many doubts about it; even in Germany the Dalai Lama is more popular – 44% – than the German Pope Benedict XVI – 42% -, data emerged from a poll published by Der Spiegel in July 2007]
Why in the end many British and American historians, when discussing the Italian Renaissance, show(ed) until recently some kind of moral repulsion?
Let us therefore listen to the words of Preserved Smith, an American historian of the Middle Ages, who wrote the Renaissance entry in the 1956 edition of the Britannica:
"A succession of worldly pontiffs brought the Church into flagrant discord with the principles of Christianity. Steeped in pagan learning, desirous of imitating the manners of the ancients, thinking and feeling in harmony with Ovid and Theocritus, and, at the same time rendered cynical by the corruption of papal Rome, the [Italian] educated classes lost their grasp upon morality …"
"The Christian virtues were scorned by the foremost actors and the ablest thinkers of the time … The Church saw no danger in encouraging a pseudo-pagan ideal of life, violating its own principle of existence … and outraging Christendom openly by its acts and utterances."
Italian society – Preserved Smith continues – was hardly aware that the New Learning it had mostly contributed to create had provoked "an intellectual force of stupendous magnitude and incalculable explosive power …". His conclusion is beautiful (though tragic for us):
"Why should not [Italian] established institutions proceed upon the customary and convenient methods of routine, while the delights of existence were augmented, manners polished, arts developed and a golden age of epicurean ease made decent by a state religion which no one cared to break with because no one was left to regard it seriously? This was the attitude of the Italians when the Renaissance, which they had initiated as a thing of beauty, began to operate as a thing of power beyond the Alps".
And in fact Italy was soon to be colonised by that same 'power' she had mostly contributed to bring into being.
[Speaking of paganism, Gramsci argues in that same Notebook IV: "There is no doubt that Italian religious feelings are superficial, as there is no doubt that religion here has a character which is mainly political, of international hegemony"]
So it seems we are often considered amoral and not true Christians. Are we amoral? Are we not true Christians? Are we decadent, rotten? Or maybe someone is simply not fully capable of understanding us?
Life with no Pang of Conscience
Sandro Botticelli's Magnificat Madonna. Uffizzi, Florence. Religious and non religious themes alike were painted with eroticism. Click to zoom in
I will finish this draft conclusion of Sex and the city (of Rome) with this interesting passage written by a British historian, C. P. Rodocanachi (of Greek descent, probably), and dedicated to what he considers a potent factor of the Greek miracle (Athens and the Greek Miracle, Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, London 1948).
This text sheds light in our view on the Greek mind and, to a certain extent, on the Roman mind, plus on some aspects of Italian Renaissance men as well:
Absence of conflicts of conscience: the Greeks were quit "of this inhibiting and agonizing struggle. Their morals were civic and not religious. Their sense of duty was directed exclusively to the city … They knew nothing of the Christian idea of good faith, of intentions conditioning acts in such a manner that the most law-abiding citizen may feel himself a great criminal at heart …"
Pre-Christian Rome lives (where this movie by Fellini reveals papal Rome's pagan nature)
Sex and the city (of Rome) 1
Survivals of the Roman Goddess Fortuna (comments section)
PS. I had to erase a few insulting comments to this post. They were written by some commentators from the UK. I ask for pardon if I have offended somebody, it was not my aim, really.
My style is sometimes aggressive but I am fond of the British people. I wouldn't have toiled so much to learn their language decently enough.
The main idea behind this post is the fact (an historical fact, no doubt) that the people from the Italian peninsula (and elsewhere) were civilized long before Christianity arrived.
By civilization we refer to something distinguished from culture (see a discussion on it) for the reason of a higher level of complexity, a larger geographic locus, the presence of sophisticated urbanisation etc.
This fact, the existence of a pre-Christian high-level civilization – the Greco-Roman – may have engendered cultural differences (alive yet today) vis-a-vis cultures who mostly reached a 'fully civilized' stage together with (and thanks to) Christianity.
Such differences may regard survivals of the Roman religion in Italy and elsewhere – traces which scholars recognize and which Protestants, it is known, always tried to eradicate. They may also regard, why not, sexual behaviours as well.
Did scholars research on these difference? If so, how far they went? We do not know, our research on roman-ness being a knowledge journey.
See the comments area for further information.
As for the expansion of the Greco-Roman 'civilization' toward North-West Europe:
Julius Caesar's Conquest Of Gaul. When North-West Europe & The Mediterranean 'Embraced' (1)
L'invidia degli dei greci spiegata a un indiano
Il giovane Holden: digressione e rimanere in tema