Of Roberto Locatelli

Source: The Rebel newspaper
For a hundred years now, the quality of life in the Western world has undoubtedly accelerated and improved unapproachable by the other countries in the world.. Technique and technology, applied to all branches of our life, individual and collective (work and social), they improved the quality, contributing to the lengthening of average life, to the enjoyment of free time and hobbies, to the possibility of traveling and learning. Think about medical and pharmaceutical technology, essential for the treatment of diseases and well-being, not to mention nutrition, with an immense availability of variety of foods throughout the year, to conclude with the means and tools used in carrying out the work, increasingly digitalized and less and less physical.
But what has been said is not enough to prefigure Heaven on earth, in fact all this (and even more) there is a cost, both in economic terms proper, that in terms of time dedicated to work to be able to afford "things", deemed necessary for today's life. Because in the society of well-being, individual psychological dynamics and social rank come into play, such as the spirit of emulation and envy, in addition to the concept of social "status"., based on the things you own, to the job role you hold and the salary you receive. In the Western world the value of an individual is not given by the values ​​of honesty, fidelity, sincerity, but by what you have, in particular the home and the car. Saying about an acquaintance that he or she is a “good person”, it doesn't create any effect, it does not have the same relevance in saying that he lives in such and such a villa, owns a certain car or receives a certain salary. What characterizes us are things or numbers, not the values. The measure of Western man is consumerism, moreover, it is the secular religion that has aggressively replaced the Christian religion, in its ramifications of being Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox, with its precepts, its doctrine and the teachings of its Saints. Immersed in a facade of Christianity, good only to be expressed on so-called "occasions", Christmas, Easter, spot events such as the Jubilee, World Youth Days, the proclamations of Saints and Blesseds, it remains on the back burner for much of the rest of the year, if you consider that Sunday Mass attendance is semi-deserted, that church weddings are decreasing, that divorces and separations are clearly increasing, and that conversions are decreasing. A sign that the spiritual aspect and faith are relegated to a corner, increasingly tiny, of our being people and our society.
Every medal has its downside, the mental short circuit of our Western society is such that the "things" we can have are infinitely less than the things we can afford, this leads to profound crises in the individual, than in a frantic search for things and in envy towards others, he goes into moral and mental difficulty. Given the wide availability of goods, there is a deep malaise that nestles in the mind and heart of the Western individual, who cannot find balance and satisfaction within himself in the excessive accumulation of things, in a continuous competition and manifestation of oneself in the eyes of one's neighbor and the society to which one belongs. The consequence is that more or less profound ailments linked to states of anxiety increase, psychosis, mental illnesses, phobias, gaming addictions, alcohol, drug, useful to only momentarily buffer the dissatisfaction that lurks in the mind and body, in a vortex that, if not exceeded, it can lead to the choice of no longer wanting to live, to take his own life. At the height of secularism and consumerism which began to become increasingly widespread in the West since the 1970s, the final blow is being delivered by digital technology, con internet e i social-network, the real consequences of which will only be contemplated in their entirety in a few years, being a relatively recent phenomenon that will fully affect generation Z, that of the Post-Millennials. These communication tools, interaction and socialization, they are creating a divide between real life and virtual life in the younger generations, which we see manifested in all its drama on the occasion of news stories linked to violence or gang rape, with those responsible not realizing the gravity of their actions because their minds are clouded by the screen, from the virtual, from online videos seen, revised, introjected and metabolized, without understanding its meaning, circumstances, and without that distance that only adequate maturity and capacity for discernment can allow. The concepts of true and false, real and virtual, right and wrong, they will be the real challenge of the future, as in a sort of new civilization after barbarism, because knowledge and culture can even be harmful if there is no ability to live life day by day with maturity.
Our daily life is certainly much less tiring from a physical point of view but it puts a terrible strain on the mental aspect, and the difference will be made by the maturity of the individual, the ability to select what really has value to be experienced from what has no importance. Western society, increasingly a soulless world, crushed between consumerism, relativism and virtual reality, must rediscover philosophy, the fullness and mystery of the Christian faith, the ability to marvel at nature, he must feed his spirit as much as he feeds his belly and accumulates things, because "man does not live by bread alone", and it is useless to end one's existence with the sad record of being the richest in the cemetery.