Alarm signals about the loss of collective memory and ignorance of our history are multiplying. In today’s dominant perception of history, there is a past that seems forgotten. And the weight of oblivion is perhaps stronger here than elsewhere. But what does it mean to free oneself from the weight of the past?
The concept of Humanitas is an ancient one (as old as humankind itself, we might say). Reflection on its meaning pervades virtually the entire history of western philosophy. But in the past hundred years – during the twentieth century – the question has undergone an abrupt twist, as a result of the eclipsing of a dual threshold: that which separates Human and Inhuman (Humanitas and Dishumanitas) on the one hand, and that which divides Human and Post-Human (Humanitas and Post-humanitas) on the other.
The twentieth century saw a faster and more radical transformation of the material and cultural conditions of life than any previous century in the history of the human species. It was also the first century that saw huge masses of women and men in every part of the planet become protagonists of their own destiny.
It is hard to be lazy nowadays. Our age glorifies the myth of performance, both individual and collective, filling every moment of life with actions laden with productive necessity. Succeeding in doing nothing at all is far from easy. For this reason, laziness should be asserted as a right, in the sense of resistance practised as an exercise of freedom.
As the end of December draws near, Facebook routinely sends users a short video entitled ‘Your Year on Facebook’. It lasts about a minute and brings together the images and posts that received the highest number of comments and likes over the last year. The video is rounded off with a message from Facebook that reads: ‘Sometimes, looking back helps us remember what matters most. Thanks for being here.’
Whatever happened to political allegiances? Some say the fading of friction between antithetical group identities is a sign that politics has moved on from ideological infatuation into a new pragmatic dimension. But the reasons for the Right-Left clash are all still there on the ‘global’ carpet, indeed they are magnified by the unifying of the world. The most surprising thing is that the softening of the Left is happening just when the scandal of inequality is breaking.
The invention of the town was the great innovation which began the process of bringing power under control. In the shelter of its walls, in the ‘protected space’ from which the forces of chaos were excluded, it was possible to start controlling the destructive powers with which the wild nature of dominion had hitherto expressed itself, and to imagine a model of order on a human scale.
‘No teachers ever again!’ the young protesters wrote on the walls of Paris in 1968 – an anti-authoritarian, egalitarian motto which sums up the dream of a freer society. What they didn’t realize is that without teachers we are condemned to the single thought, to uniformity, sameness. Are there any teachers left today? A democracy which flattens the high down to the level of the low seems to need only influencers, communicators and tutors in success who reassure and console, rather than guides of the spirit who awaken consciences.
Today no western person expects any crucial events to arise from history and politics; great events are experienced as abstractions, mechanisms or spectacles, and everything that is of interest is played out in the present time and in private space.
The present time has revolutionized relationships between the different ages of life. The present and future belong to the young. People of the past are intruders. Youth must be extended as long as possible, by whatever means possible. This compression eliminates maturity, the age of fullness. What are the consequences?