Of Alessandro Soldà Cristofari

Source: over the line
Let's start with a news story: an American girl publishes some photos on her social profile in which she is wearing a beautiful evening dress at a party (whose dress code requires a certain elegance).
However, alongside the compliments, some more comments appear under the photographs critics, let's just say she is insulted: his fault is that of wearing a traditional Chinese dress, symbol of female emancipation, without knowing the meaning, disrespecting the entire Chinese people.
And so we don't miss anything, she is also accused of cultural appropriation and to bend a symbolic dress to the pure hedonism symbol of American capitalist and consumerist society. In the end, despite the cowardly and senseless attack, those photos remain on his profile: because she likes that dress, and it certainly won't be that gratuitous malice on social media that will force her to change her mind.
Faced with this story, one remains perplexed; on his part there was no obvious or at least voluntary lack of respect towards China, living in a society where the consumption it is the prevailing culture to the detriment of the previous traditional and historical heritage - which is that of individuals and their respective peoples -, and it is therefore normal not to be aware that certain accessories and objects refer to an event or story of fundamental and historical importance for a nation, as is the case with the girl's dress.
She fell victim to two types of ignorance: his, involuntary and which we have just talked about; and that of the people of the ether who accused her of something that was not very explicit or implicit racism. They did not want to see the context in which the dress was worn: a dance, a party, and away (all’americana). They wanted to attack someone, denying dialogue a priori, first of all by doing as a group: it is normal practice to encircle the opponent, isolating it, and then tear him to pieces.
It's there cowardice present in the modern world, it is the desire to deny dialogue; the tragic irony of contemporary society that declares itself and waves the flag of democracy and liberalism: accuse anyone of racism, or of fascism or of homophobia, it is the best tool to first delegitimize and then label for life those who do not agree with us or those who we do not like.
Especially if you don't have valid arguments or theses to counter; and to destroy a person without a well-specified reason. We often talk about the bullying and cyber bullying (The local news is full of news on the subject, as well as foreign ones), this is not by chance? The bully humiliates the person he targets without any reason: he does it for fun, or by girl.
And it's unfortunate to diverge from the mainstream narrative that sees bullies as poor lost puppies who need to be understood, and so on: they are phrases that are uttered by those who don't want to take action responsibility of your role, in this case pedagogues and educators, teachers and parents.
The wickedness it is inherent in man by nature. As well as ignorance. And indeed, the one and the other are connected: Plato states this well in his Republic, only philosophers can govern because they are the only ones who know the Good in general and also of the city. It is clear that the Platonic Kallipolis must also be expressed in a metaphorical key: we do good only if we know it, otherwise we act evilly out of ignorance; the rational or contemplative part - for simplicity, let's also say philosophical- must prevail over the others.
To hope for a society of philosophers certainly is, to the current state of affairs, pure utopia - but we'll talk about it elsewhere -, and therefore the nastiness present on social networks and in the real world should be normal. Who, but, the donkey falls: that is, in the twenty-first century a minimum understanding of things and general culture should be the norm; with the tools that we all have at our disposal, even and above all conceptual, that's at least embarrassing witness such an obtuse misunderstanding, and we are referring to the accusations of racism rained down from all sides towards the protagonist of the story, such as to block any avenue for possible attempts at dialogue or mediation between the two parties.
However, something positive can be drawn from it, so to speak, from the story with which we opened: it is an interesting thermometer of the general situation of our time; we find ourselves in a world pervaded by hysteria and from radical extremism, there is only one consequence and that is the impossibility of reaching a dialogue because the starting positions, remaining immutable, they reject the possibility of an a priori comparison.
Clear, a dialectical confrontation does not imply the need for one of the two parties to be persuaded to change their mind: it is not the ultimate goal of the dialogue. But the in-depth analysis is the knowledge mutual yes, that is the goal the dialogue partners should reach; Instead, the comparison is discarded on principle, because the other is of an ideology that, in my opinion, it is negative and dangerous or, worse, criminal.
It is almost superfluous to suggest from which side this position comes primarily, so to speak, antidemocratic: the anti-fascism of the third millennium, progressive and liberal is the first to oppose a critical analysis of particular situations, and the general context; we shout about racism and homophobia, the same goes for closed-mindedness or, as we have seen, appropriation, undue, cultural, without any concrete proof of what he is accused of. We talked about it just above.
But let us also break a spear towards the girl's accusers, while keeping in mind that violence (in this case, verbal) it's certainly not the solution: they are afraid that the culture and their traditional heritage will come devoured by capitalism modern and the multiculturalist push that follows; the loss of one's identity grips the individual and the people like a nightmare; and we see an affront in the display of an evening dress that recalls an important historical event.
Let's tell the truth: we are living in a time where it is not easy to live or express an opinion. Nor understand whether what we find ourselves in front of is racist or not. How to try to preserve your cultural heritage, to safeguard the historical heritage and identity personal, family or territorial. Modernity is multicultural: it is not a meeting of different cultures or dialogue between them. It is a miscellany of ways of living that are incompatible with each other, who also clash violently; what we discussed at the beginning is a case of this.
Il multiculturalism it diverges from the knowledge and mutual respect of peoples; causes indifference, or indisposition towards the foreigner; it is a completely natural attitude and one that cannot be blamed. A nation in which there is the much celebrated melting pot loses its identity and the ability to know others: the United States is a clear example of this. Globalization is thought to be the cause, and in part it is so.
Technological progress has contributed to the movement of capital, goods and people; the ease with which we can move from Rome to New York today is unmatched in the past, also from an economic point of view. But we can't blame technology alone (otherwise we should also refuse the use of cell phones and the internet), but it can be traced back to the idea that is fashionable today, it's cool, for which all men are equal, and up to this point we can also share this opinion - if we refer to dignity and due respect -, and consequently also cultures; even if they are constructs that can be destroyed because they delimit the human being.
Ergo, until man emancipates himself from culture, they can coexist - necessarily- next to each other. They have to tolerate each other. And only a man free from the cage of culture is truly free and emancipated; the absence of cultural heritage is freedom. There are two possible consequences: a mix of traditions and ways of life without rhyme or reason, gray and meaningless, and the natural annihilation of cultures; o intolerance between the different communities who, unable to tolerate and suffer from each other, live in eternal tension, which sometimes even leads to armed clashes. Or both.
We are not talking about political will or conspiracies - these find the time they find, between the serious, the facetious and the folklore-. Rather than reality: a person is such as long as he finds something specific in himself and in the group to which he belongs core identity, which shapes both the individual and collective spirit; this to return, in part, to Aristotle: man is a political animal, which by nature gathers in cities and states. And it is clear that cities and states themselves have faced their own particular events and histories, and that a more than close bond has been created between the members within the different communities.
This is how peoples and cultures are created, each with its own differences and peculiarities; there are, it is undeniable, from the contaminations from the outside. This does not affect, on the other hand, the existence of different traditional and cultural heritages: On the contrary, they strengthen. But, and we are moving towards the conclusion, meeting and dialogue is one thing; another is forced gatherings, by virtue of a logic, the no borders one and the capitalist one, which is - pardon the pun- illogical, since it leads to the whole series of consequences that we listed earlier. We should take back our culture, and keep it; It's not about fascism, of racism or xenophobia: but of identity, of tradition and history. We are who we are because we have a legacy on our shoulders, and because we have lived in an environment that has shaped us materially and spiritually.
Right, we can emigrate and immerse ourselves in an environment totally different from our nest. But in the end, an Italian is an Italian and a Frenchman a Frenchman. Talk about cosmopolitanism it is possible as long as it is understood as the ability to adapt to another nation or from a usual context; we are not citizens of the world: we are children and citizens of the land where we were born, of the land of our fathers and our ancestors. Multiculturalism tends to eradicate this concept; removes it, in favor of what? Of a mixed-race world, where the difference disappears and nothing distinguishes one from the other anymore.
It is not the main road to tolerance, nor for respect. This is achieved only if there is social and political awareness of the importance of the existence of different cultures and different peoples, why yes: we are all the same, on the level of dignity humaneness and due respect. But not if we look at the more strictly anthropological and philosophical one.
Let's get to the last one, perhaps a fundamental question we still have to ask ourselves: we still have time to reverse the trend, or, as it has already happened and will happen, the only true confirmed victim of racism and anti-racism will always be the identity?