On April XNUMX Franco Ferrarotti, an excellent academic and father of sociology in Italy, celebrated his first ninety years in full physical and intellectual form. He had entered Italian homes with the birth of television in the XNUMXs and has continued to study and teach the evolution of society up to the present day. Who better than him can tell and evaluate the changes of our era but also the state of health of our country and of Italian society? Here is what Ferrarotti said in the interview with FIRSTonline in his Roman studio crowded with thousands and thousands of books that photograph a first-rate cultural history lived between Nicola Abbagnano, Adriano Olivetti, Felice Balbo and Cesare Pavese and the flower of culture contemporary and between years and years of study and teaching in Italy, Europe and America.
FIRSTonline – Professor Ferrarotti, a few weeks ago you celebrated your first ninety years. In the midst of so many problems and so many difficulties of our age, few could testify better than you that the lengthening of the average life span and the highest life expectancy are no longer a dream but a reality. Can we say that this is one of the most beautiful novelties of our times?
FERRAROTTI – Certainly yes, but knowing that not all that glitters is gold. Not only because aging is often coupled with the loneliness of many elderly people but because it is the other side of the falling birth rate, as already happened in France in the 92s and in the USSR in XNUMX. Beyond the material difficulties that hold back new births, the falling birth rate is the sign of a profound distrust in the future and of the liquefaction of a society that finds it difficult to keep together after the decline of ideologies. Around us I see a great crisis of ideals and the increasingly widespread refuge in day-to-day life and immediate conveniences.
FIRSTonline – How do you explain the withdrawal into itself of an era that is crossed by great innovations such as globalization, the biblical migrations of refugees and refugees and the enormous development of technical and scientific progress?
FERRAROTTI – I explain it by seeing that today's society lacks guiding principles. Globalization is a novelty which should neither be emphasized nor demonized and which, if not governed intelligently, is reduced to the expansion of markets but loses the opportunity to promote a fruitful dialogue between different cultures, religions and ethnic groups. But is there another decisive aspect that dominates our times and which is the result of the fall of ideologies but also of ideals?
FIRSTonline – What is it?
FERRAROTTI – It is the predominance of technique and technology, which are certainly activities that are useful to man but which cannot indicate goals outside of themselves, because they have a purely instrumental value. In this way the profound values of a society are clouded and we are no longer able to indicate the goals of the peoples. One cannot hand over one's entire destiny to technicians and engineers.
FIRSTonline – In your words we seem to find the echo of a question that gave the title to another book of yours: “Capitalism: luxury or savings”. Is that it?
FERRAROTTI – Sociology teaches us to read and study the various economic and social forms without prejudices and preconceptions and capitalism, as it has manifested itself so far, is protean, highly mobile, adaptable to everything but, as Adriano Olivetti said, it can be overcome self. It has extreme vitality but pays for its triumphs. It is cruel, acts without hesitation and has no historical conscience, but so far no better economic and social system has been invented.
FIRSTonline – The average age has lengthened, many diseases have been defeated, world hunger has decreased even if there are millions of people who have nothing to eat and others who suffer from obesity, technologies have worked wonders but l Today's humanity seems to be crossed by conflicts and fears: is this a sign of our times?
FERRAROTTI – I am an incurable optimist and I always have a positive vision of society that comes to me from the social sciences and from the studies I have dedicated myself to since my youth. This is why I say that we must not resign ourselves and that the birth of a new humanism managed by a world government, fueled by a pragmatic and modern reformism but not without great ideals, is not a chimera and can be facilitated by new technologies, provided that the latter are considered in their instrumental value and not assumed as the Bible of society.
FIRSTonline – Dani Rodrik, in his book on "Intelligent globalization", argues that the trinomial - democracy, national state and globalization - no longer stands and that one of the three terms is destined to fall: is he right?
FERRAROTTI – Yes, I think so too and naturally I hope that neither globalization, which is unstoppable, nor democracy is paying the price. If we have to sacrifice something, we sacrifice the national state, which made sense until the Second World War but which today is obsolete because it is too bureaucratic and too weak to direct the investments necessary for development.
FIRSTOnline – Professor, few like you can express an overview of the changes in our country: what is your vision of Italy today?
FERRAROTTI – It is that of a paradoxical country, as stated in the title of a pamphlet I wrote a few years ago. An ancient society and a unitary state of just a century and a half, a rural and artisan society for thirty centuries and then, in just over a generation (1950-1980), an industrial society: the key to understanding Italy today lies right here. It is a country that quickly became rich and is now afraid of becoming poor again. He no longer wants to risk anything and jealously guards his savings without investing them in new productive activities, but in this way Italy withdraws into itself, fragments and disintegrates and prepares a new poverty. Two and a half million unemployed young people are a powder keg. And the demographic debt, which causes us to lose half a million people every year, is even more serious than the public debt. We need a cultural and ideal renaissance even before a political and economic one.
FIRSTonline – After coming close to institutional paralysis at the beginning of the legislature, fate has however reserved us the youngest prime minister in Europe and a set of reforms like never before: what is your opinion on Renzi's season?
FERRAROTTI – Modernizing Italy, as the prime minister says he wants to do, is a challenge to shake your wrists but the irruption of a dynamic prime minister like Matteo Renzi in a country entangled by corruption, bureaucracy, amoral familism is a novelty very interesting. Will he be able to remove the immovable monsignors who have dominated the Italian state for too long? Let's hope, but the fact that he speaks clearly, that he doesn't look anyone in the eye and that he bravely faces the battles for reforms speaks in his favor and is an encouraging sign.
FIRSTonline – Now, however, the watershed of this legislature has become the referendum on the reform of the Constitution and logic would have it that the choice between those who prefer a reform which, despite all its limitations, cuts the costs of politics and simplifies the decision-making process and among those who instead favor the defense of the status quo, but in the public debate the real stake is struggling to emerge: is this the sign that in the choices of Italians emotion often prevails over rationality?
FERRAROTTI – Today's referendum appears in effect as a crucial challenge to dismantle or defend consolidated interests and privileges, a challenge that goes far beyond the reform of the Senate itself. It reminds me of the referendum between monarchy and republic. When the established power feels undermined, it always tries to take revenge but, Renzi or no Renzi, if the YES doesn't win, we're heading towards dark years. But I have faith in the democratic maturity of the Italian people and I believe that, in the end, rationality will prevail.
