Of
Roberto Pecchioli
So, the image of Jesus and the Madonna can be used to advertise. This was established by the European Court of Human Rights (I'm going there!) competent, seems to understand, also on divine rights. We are amazed at someone's amazement. It affects more than the government of Lithuania, small Baltic nation of ancient Catholic tradition, had imposed a modest fine (solo 580 euro) to the clothing company that advertised its collection with the image of a Jesus with Nordic features and a Mary who was anything but beautiful and with a cold gaze, both abundantly tattooed in line with one of the most pervasive fashions of the moment.
No, the fine is not, the severe guardians of Europoid orthodoxy on human rights issues have ruled. Freedom of expression, Indeed, according to the Strasbourg judges, “constitutes one of the essential foundations of a democratic society and one of the basic conditions for its progress and for the individual self-realization of each person”. In two lines, black on white, there are all the arrogance and all the clichés of the new counter-religion: veneration for rights; the liturgical call to democracy, which has as much to do with it as cabbage for a snack; the myth of progress, that is, today's superiority over yesterday, e, conversely, the messianic expectation of an even brighter tomorrow; the no longer Faustian search for self-realization based on a credit card or monthly installments, mask of the most forbidden subjectivism.
Carl Schmitt was right: political categories are secularized theological concepts. The religion of money needs the most abstract freedom to carry out its rites and now has its own system of commandments, the essence of which is the superstitious faith in the mechanisms of the Market. Sanctuaries of worship are shopping centers, Anyone who believes in the rite of Purchase is admitted to the priesthood, followed by the purification of Consumption.
Moreover, In Italy, advertising messages have been circulating for years in which the Holy Family plays the role of testimonial of the most varied products. The latest one sees Giuseppe and Maria play the role of a couple looking for a home, while about ten years ago Oliviero Toscani himself, industry guru, he photographed the B-side of a model dressed in Jesus brand jeans, accompanied by the slogan “those who love me follow me”. Nor did past center-right governments, private property of a shopping advice wizard, got rich by selling advertising space on television, nor those of the centre-left, full of “adult” Catholics, have they ever thought of objecting. Only the government of little Lithuania did it, and it is bad for him. In the time of natural irreligion (Of the Walnut) which removed God far beyond atheism, a new trinity has been established: the one formed by the God of Money, from the Market the measure of all things, and from Our Lady of Publicity, the new comforting Paraclete who watches over us.
It's advertising that keeps television alive, the press, it is the so-called sponsorships that pay for professional sport, art exhibitions and cultural events. Which will ever be if any spot proposes the image of Jesus or imitates parables, biblical themes, evangelical episodes. We need to contextualise, damn, modernize, and then, if he marketing uses religious characters, it's a sign that they work, rather they "pull", they make something sell.
Jesus and faith are reduced and treated as tools in the service of a superior divinity, she is real, tangible, the God of purchases, of consumption, the second person, under the pseudonym Mercato, of the new secular trinity. The silence of the Church is no longer surprising, in turn a client of the advertising circus when he urges the former people of God to sign in the eight per thousand box of the tax return. The message of the "carousels" commissioned by the episcopal conference is clear: the Church will use your money to do good in the entire world, it will help everyone, just like the Red Cross and Save the Children. No mention of “core business” of the company, which should be bringing souls to God, Apologies for the crude business language. No trace of the Creator, of the destiny of man, nothing of the Christian message. The same choice as the Waldensians, also users of advertising, who thus reassure potential donors of the 8 per thousand: not a penny will be spent for religious reasons.
The Strasbourg Court simply noted that Jesus and the entire symbolic and spiritual apparatus of the Christian faith in Europe count for nothing, I am, how do you say, on the market like everyone else. Advertisers appropriate it recklessly for two reasons: they persist in the collective imagination with a positive value, therefore they help sales and, goodbye, they are not protected by patents, copyright or copyright. Counterfeiting is free, Bible authors and evangelists have been dead for longer than 75 years, therefore according to international regulations they cannot claim percentages or royalties. As for Jesus or the Madonna, They are fictional characters, like Don Quixote, Hamlet, the Blue Fairy, the iconography is available.
We're not kidding, Unfortunately. We fear that the legal arguments before the Most Excellent Court did not deviate too much from the above-mentioned scheme. The Europeans, the people who aren't there, It's been a long time since they rebelled against anything. The indignation, at most, is reserved for the increase in taxes or the non-television broadcast of some sporting event due to the unquestionable decision of the advertising company which pays the bill at the bottom of the list. We are just soldiers of consumer credit, whose individual self-realization, to use the lexicon of eminent members of the Court, passes through the purchase of goods, the satisfaction of desires. The people are longing for it, former people who let a thousand things be taken away from them without a fight, including faith in God. Saint Exupéry warned in The Little Prince that the essential is invisible to the eye. So it cannot be bought or even advertised with an advertising campaign.
The Europeans, Westerners in general, they no longer recognize any sphere of the sacred, nor do they give value to symbols, much less to the principles. Everything has been demystified, deconstructed, subjected to destructive criticism, replaced with Nothing. No tension towards the Absolute, the only common value is the price tag in the realm of money, founded on a materialism far more radical than Marxist materialism. Actually no, as long as a glimmer of spirituality remains, a remnant of the faith of the fathers, or at least a memory of the Christian narrative, God too, his son and the Madonna can be used by the new profitable art, advertising, and lead us to the only admitted and truly existing Paradise, that of Consumption.
Maurizio Blondet wrote that we have consumed civilization and there is none left. We survive with civilization. Giants descended from dwarves, we are so incredulous that we believe any nonsense. Gilbert Keith Chesterton understood it, the new barkers of the great show of the Market put it into practice. Naturally, they care a lot about profit and even more about their skin. Can you imagine the creators of commercial messages using symbols of religions other than Christianity? Wherever respect for the sacred survives, there are limits, taboos not to be broken. It is not convenient to treat the Prophet Muhammad as testimonial of trousers or real estate agencies. Beyond radicalism, over a billion people would feel truly offended on a spiritual and personal level. We don't, It outrages us to see a dog mistreated or to hear proscribed words spoken, such as race or identity, but we are indifferent to the image of a biscuit-selling God.
Meanwhile, in the homeland of enlightenment, of secularism and modernity as a whole, the France that belonged to Saint Louis and the Maid of Orléans, parliament has passed a regulation on the clothing of the honorable representatives of the Nation, “which must not become a pretext for expressing any opinion; it is therefore forbidden to wear any religious sign, a uniform, a logo” etc. The Parliament, place of choice for ideas, it is then sterilized, starting from possibility, for deputies, to express religious feelings through recognized symbols, for example, a cross. It is essential that the budget is approved. Let's go children, but where are we going?
Civilizations are born, they live and die. That of the Europeans, founded on twenty centuries of Christianity, it's ending, reduced to a backdrop for advertising messages. Bethlehem has become one “location”, Jesus earns his keep as a supporting actor, testimonial no longer of the Father but of the Product, because it retains a certain charm, and physics of the role capable of favoring the sales histogram. Marx is dead, Europe is in a coma, the church is not doing well either, it won't be an advertising campaign that will bring it back to the top. Nevertheless, the Jeans man Jesus is resurrected. The other God, the Money, he can't. Despite it all, they will not prevail, they will not prevail.
Source: https://www.maurizioblondet.it/gesu-la-madonna-consigli-gli-acquisti/