Andrea Graziosi, professor of contemporary history at the University Frederick II of Naples, published the essay in February 2019 with Il Mulino The future vs. Democracy, freedom, just world with the aim of making people reflect and discuss the situation of what is referred to by all as West, and Italy within it.
The radical change taking place around the world has literally sent the West into a tailspin, therefore also Europe and Italy, revealing its almost total inability to find answers, alternatives and new founding principles to re-adapt the existing ones to the new conditions.
One of the most common mistakes, also committed in Italy, are the policies and attempts to bring the economy and society back to the status quo prior to the Great Crisis, restart growth and return to the myth golden age of the last century. Nothing more wrong.
For Graziosi, what happened in what must now be considered, because it is to all intents and purposes, the past can be traced back to a whole series of favorable circumstances and extraordinary conditions that made it possible a donation of privileges e benefits to large slices not only of the ruling and political classes but also of private citizens. A situation that will rarely recur.
From this also arises the very hostile attitude towards women traditional elites now unable to continue to guarantee the incessant and constant growth of the standard of living and the expansion of what are referred to as "rights", but which in reality, as Graziosi reminds us several times, they are privileges allowed precisely by the extraordinary conditions which have allowed continuous growth and widespread well-being, in truth almost always obtained on credit, or by burning more resources year after year than those actually possessed.
It is therefore obvious that the drastic reduction of the latter has generated an equally conspicuous reduction of "rights", or privileges. AND widespread anger among Western populations, Europe and Italy included in toto, would be due to the desire not to pay a very high bill for "drinks" that others would have ordered for us.
In Graziosi's analysis, the rationing of scarce resources and the conflicts generated by this, the fear of diversity and of immigration, as well as the decline in optimism, which take the place of ancient fights on how best to distribute a wealth that seemed infinite in ever-growing societies that seemed to tend towards homogeneity, they could push democracy towards a conflict between demagogic drives - in the classic sense of the term - and elitist tendencies - also nourished by meritocracy of the knowledge society – which would put its open and liberal nature, known and loved until now, in structural difficulty.
By the author's own admission, The future vs it cannot be considered a historical or geopolitical essay in the strict sense, rather a collection of considerations, stated in a personal capacity, aimed at giving strength and new clothes to ideals in which he has always believed and continues to believe, a progressive liberalism capable of putting freedom and openness first, but aware that one must deal with identity, exclusions, suffering and diversity without taking "wrong paths such as socialism, nationalism or one of their many hybrids".
The educated and wealthy progressive classes, who participate in the fruits of knowledge and globalization, would have contributed, according to Graziosi, to the replacement of the "old dichotomy" - which was in any case stronger in rhetoric than in reality - between a nationalist right and advocate of the market and a statist left but still “national” – «and often also nationalist».
This dichotomy would be replaced by the one that pits the pros and the hostiles against a change accelerated by openness and globalization. Thus the left would have made liberal principles its own (merit, market, competition, etc.), while the right would gradually abandon support for liberal economics, returning to the positions of the traditional nationalist and anti-market right. Replacing the original dichotomy would also help shift the line between left and right from the economy to culture.
Economic issues thus would have lost more and more importance as direct indicators of electoral orientations, replaced by factors such as multiculturalism, also linked to immigration, the environment, race and gender behaviour. This probably it helps explain the resentment that educated and affluent progressivism has attracted, making himself hateful also because he is self-satisfied and guilt-free since his social position is, unlike the old elites, "deserved".
Satisfied with the results achieved and proud of its convictions, it seems to live in what has been defined “cultural, value and well-being bubble”, focusing on the problems that emerge within it and applying to the outside the infinite multiplication «of the intellectual scheme new subjects-new rights».
Graziosi's book analyzes in detail the focal aspects of liberal progressivism, its strengths as well as its weaknesses, positive and negative developments, degeneration and crises, attempting to shed light above all on those peculiarities which he considers the cornerstones of a economic and social system that cannot and must not be replaced, but certainly modified, adapting it to the changes that have taken place as well as those taking place throughout the world, not only in its part western. The concepts of evolution and freedom are essential and insurmountable for the author. What will certainly change will be politics, Italian but above all European, which will have to acquire a greater role and quality.
To build the new narrative of liberal progressivism, "capable of reading the new world in which we live", it will be necessary to follow reason as well as passion. The aim is to understand and make people understand that the only way to intelligently overcome undeniable difficulties is design a credible future, based on progress and openness.
The opposite of what is unfortunately happening in Italy and in many other European states grappling with extremism and populism who instead call for a return to a sort of incredibly dangerous and harmful racial and cultural purism.
Graziosi thoroughly explores the "political laboratories" of the Five Star Movement and Salvini's National League.
While presenting truly remarkable features, such as the innovative use of a digital platform, the M5S would reveal multiple fragilities in the political discourse carried out, due to confusion and little administrative capacity as well as politics.
The success that he continues to obtain is due, for Graziosi, to the peculiarity of today's time, an era dominated by perceptions, in which the affirmation of a new discourse can in any case satisfy for a long time psychological needs for novelty and disruption even if nothing really changes.
The League, which is a much less innovative phenomenon, runs the risk of gaining a greater hold on voters precisely by virtue of the experience already gained. The one projected by Salvini is a declination of the «just world unreflected and self-consoling» analyzed by Graziosi in the text, a world in which everyone has what they have they deserve, the Italians first of all, because we are in Italy. A world that sees criminals punished and honest citizens free to defend themselves, the elderly rejoicing in their reacquired rights and young people once again left to their own destiny.
However, it would be appropriate to ask ourselves, as Graziosi also underlines, whether Italy will emerge from it. Who represents the probable or possible political alternative today? Where is the left with its militants who never miss an opportunity to vindicate the attempts Enrico Berlinguer and his "moral question", when the reality is that the great intellectual and ideal void created in it has generated continuous internal fractures and the only real glue that has appeared effective in recent decades has been anti-Berlusconism. Do they perhaps intend to pursue this long-beaten path by creating a "new" anti-Salvinism?
If to ensure the best future realistically possible it is necessary to make unpopular reforms in the immediate future, it is necessary to have a discourse capable of clearly explaining the reasons and results of those reforms. For Graceful, sincere supporter of liberal progressivism, the solutions must be in line with the general image of Italy that we intend to rebuild.
An Italy inserted first in the European Union and then in the world, open to the former and reasonably open to the latter, surrounded by opportunities and not by enemies. What the country would be like in the author's vision if Salvini's policy triumphed.
Only in united Europe, in fact, the talents, inclinations and energies of its inhabitants have the space necessary to unfold and can find the means of action of the public authorities adequate to face the difficulties and the crisis, as well as the force to tell the world about the great powers.
Thankful wrote The future vs deliberately choosing a simple and linear narrative register, a writing that seems addressed to everyone. It was certainly based on knowledge and skills, but also on experience and on the sharing of important moments and decisions, political or economic, current and past.
Important moments and passages which then, directly or indirectly, determined the course of events, helping to shape what Italy and Europe are today. Choices and actions to keep in mind, which teach a lot, especially where they turned out to be wrong.
A book, The future vs, which does not claim to be a manual and perhaps not even an essay, in the strict sense of the term, but full of considerations and analyzes that deserve to be read because they herald new observations and reflections in the reader, greatly stimulating their critical spirit, which especially in these times there is much need.
