The party of "First the Italians", of "Brussels cannot teach us lessons" he was born in "No one will step on us” is nothing new these days. On the contrary, it is only the latest expression of a tradition (not without intolerance) which has ancient rootseven millennial. But what are the characteristics of this tradition? We asked Riccardo Chiaberge, former manager of the cultural pages of Corriere della Sera and of the Sunday culture supplement of Sole 24 Ore, and current director of the "Book of the Year" published by Treccani.
In the video interview, Chiaberge traces the aggressiveness of a certain contemporary political communication to an archetype: "That of the struggle Us-against-Them, which feeds on the exaltation of a Truth presented as absolute and in stark contrast to the other possible interpretations of the world”. Starting from this perspective, it is easy to come to conceive of all relationships in terms of a fundamental dialectic: "One people against others; one nation against the other".
The ideologies from which "all the wars of religion" were born - continues Chiaberge - but also the burnings of heretics and even the two world conflicts with their totalitarianisms can be traced back to this fundamental tradition.
On the other hand, the tradition "of liberal thought, founded on pluralism and tolerance", values that should never be confused with relativism, is of the opposite sign: "It is a question of admit its fallibility from the outsetwhile refusing the preconceived recipes of those who think they have the truth in their pocket – underlines Chiaberge again – A shortcut that sovereignists and populists really like".
In the video, the interviewee also dwells on a famous phrase by the liberal philosopher Isaiah Berlin:
The revolutionary believes that to realize the ideal world one must break many eggs, otherwise one cannot make an omelette. And so they break eggs, but the omelette never reaches the table.
Finally, Chiaberge talks about what it could be like the Book of 2019 that Treccani will publish at the end of the year and reveals that his attention is mainly focused on two pieces of news: “I hope to be able to include one in the book. The other, on the other hand, I would never want”.
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