The educated person and the new capitalism : a Euro-Mediterranean reflection

Abstract

I had at least four different careers: translator and editorial consultant, as a young man (with Publisher Einaudi, Turin), 1944–1946; business associate (with Adriano Olivetti, 1948–1960); as an international diplomat (at the OECE, in Paris, responsible of the Facteurs Sociaux and Head of the Human Sciences Section; 1957–1962); as a Member of the Italian Parliament (1958–1963). But finally, my only real career—some sort of underground current unifying my whole life experience—has been the career of university professor at the University of Rome, La Sapienza, having, by a stroke of good luck, reinvented, as it were, a discipline that had been eliminated from any academic curriculum by Benedetto Croce and Giovanni Gentile during fascism (the same thing happened in Germany during Nazism), that is sociology. As a Member of Parliament I was obviously independent, belonging to the Gruppo Misto, to the left of the Christian Democrats. My main target consisted essentially in changing the prevailing, political and intellectual attitude of the Italian élite, traditionally prone to adopt an old-fashioned rhetorical posture in dealing and trying to tackle specific issues and to dissolve ethical problems into aesthetic, if hot theatrical, gestures. Why sociology, one might ask? To put it bluntly: because it was no longer there (psychologically speaking, a clear consequence of my Ulysses’ complex). Secondly, and more seriously, because I was in the best condition to make the rediscovery of sociology. In fact, after the five years of elementary schools, (6 to 11 years of age), I was basically a self-taught student. At 15 I achieved my licenza ginnasiale as a privatista, or private scholar, and two years later my maturità classica; then, at the university of Turin I took my laurea in the department of History and Philosophy with a dissertation on the sociology of Thorstein Veblen, although no courses in social science were offered; later, in 1951 at Chicago University, where Veblen had studied and taught, half a century before. During my formative years, I was blessed by my relative solitude. Being a private student and scholar, I was neither infected by the prevailing neo-idealistic philosophical climate nor by the spiritualistic (Catholic or neo-Thomistic) outlook. Without being fully conscious of it, I was ready for sociology, that is something less abstract than the ongoing philosophy and not so dry as political economy. In 1960, when the first full Chair in Sociology was established in the Italian academic system, I was the ‘natural’ winner. As regards what so far appears to have been the most fateful decision in my life, I recall when, in 1963, I decided, against the advice of many good friends, to abandon active politics. A most difficult, anguishing decision—but I could already see the growing wave of political corruption, the fact that a policymaker must decide before having in his/her hand the reasons justifying the rationality of the decision. Moreover, the fact that in the university milieu a new social type was emerging: the ‘academic gangster’, turning the professor into a shady business dealer. Thus, I did not stand for re-election and devoted myself completely, without reservations, to teaching and research. No doubt that I am a man of books, afflicted by the strange disease of ‘bookishness’. My father hated books because he feared, with some good reasons, that I would become a ‘man of paper’, that is what the Germans would call, perhaps more appropriately a Luft-mensch (a man of air). I have written many books (too many?), but I have read a great deal of books also. Leaving aside the great books of the classical sociological tradition (including, together with the official founders Auguste Comte and Herbert Spencer, and the epigone Emile Durkheim, Karl Marx and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, there are some books that had an impact on my early education. I would give, in this connection, a passing mention to Charles Péguy, La Thèse; Léon Bloy, La Femme Pauvre, L’Âme de Napoléon , Sueur de Sang; Max Weber, all his works, but especially his last two lectures, ‘Politics as a vocation’, ‘Science as a vocation’; I would mention also the works of Max Scheler and especially of Julius Langbehn, Der Geist des Ganzen. As far as my own books are concerned, I would emphasize the underlying interest for power, power-makers, power-holders, and power victims. This is already apparent in my early Il Dilemma dei Sindacati Americani (1954) and La Protesta Operaia (1955). The main thesis is easily summarized: no power without counter-power; no power without formal legitimation; but, at the bottom of any legitimation, there is an act of illegitimate, pure violence. Hence, from power my interest shifts to violence as a sudden interruption of the dialogue, whether interpersonal, inter-institutional and international; violence as a void of values; violence as hypnosis. Most important contributions include: Alle Radici della Violenza (1979); L’Ipnosi della Violenza (1980); Il Potere come Relazione e come Struttura (1980); Rapporto sul Terrorismo (1981). Thus, violence, although at the origin of society, denies in principle the existence of the community. Hence, a dichotomic view of society, with a commanding élite and a subjected majority. This holds true not only in the domestic scene, but also as regards immigration with its inevitable consequences, that is a multicultural, multilinguistic, multireligious, racially discriminating society. In this connection, see my La Tentazione dell’Oblio (1993), dealing with anti-semitism, racism and neo-nazism; but, for the Italian domestic scene, see also Roma da Capitale a Periferia (1970); Vite da Baraccati (1974); La Città come Fenomeno di Classe (1975). From the analysis of racial discrimination, class division and basic social inequality, the issue of rebuilding a sense of community comes to the fore: the public at large feels the need of a new community. How? By finding or by recuperating the value of human relations as having a value in themselves and not in the utilitarian, or market, perspective. But then, what is free from the market logic and its intrinsic utilitarian considerations? The only answer is: the sacred. Hence, my trilogy: Una Teologia per Atei (1983); Il Paradosso del Sacro (1983); Una Fede senza Dogmi (1990), preceded in 1978 by Studi sulla Formazione Sociale del Sacro. With the book, Il Senso del Luogo (2010), I have recently summarized my reservations about globalization. I have especially dwelt on its basic principle, usually neglected even by its most vocal critics, that is: a-territoriality, the indifference to historical variability and to the specific community as a prerequisite for a socially and culturally irresponsible predatory activity all over the world.