OK, it's funny 'cause in Italy and everywhere in the world, the less is understood about politics (sometimes I think that there's almost nobody left to understand politics) the more seems to be a necessary paradigm in life to judge the world around us politically.
I mean, it is less lame to discriminate for someone's zodiacal sign than for his or her political ideas, if only because the zodiacal sign is a scientific certainty (< - irony).
What happens in the end is that most of the people in my country need this paradigm to just go on with life. Take decisions, have sympathies. Delude themselves to hold the key to recognize between friends from foes. Value everything throughout the political sieve.
So, that's why in this post I will briefly go over what is my political position in life, what are my beliefs and positions and so forth: so that later I will be able to link to this post from the FAQ for all those who need to know in advance what political territory they are moving into when they start reading this blog.
I dislike politics. I am probably what in Italy is called a qualunquista, whose perfect translation would be "whateverist". I have inflections of anarchism, but also a vaguely progressive common sense. I admire conservative attitudes as well as the desire to change and undo. I am obsessed by politics only in the sense that I feel that I am surrounded and harassed by evil political ideas and wicked ideological behaviors, which I recognize everywhere around me. I had political convictions in the past, but they were wrong. I was ready to barter true with false to turn them right, to make right what didn't add up (just as I had seen my parents doing all the time) and this is enough to say that those convictions weren't for me.
My vision is that at the present moment there is but one great struggle going on, and this is not the struggle of the poor against the rich, or the struggle of order against chaos, democracy against anarchy and so forth (although all these oppositions and many more are always happening). At the center of things, I see nothing less than a struggle of the middle class against the elite. The "elite" being all those who consider themselves a sort of aristocracy, running the game behind the facade not necessarily knowingly or by conspiracy (although I do believe that conspiracy and propaganda are the way of the world), and also not by merit but for a form of heredity of power --which is pretty sick.
Anyway. Since forever the elite has wanted to rule out the middle class: they love the idea of having to face a large mass of illiterate slaves better than having to face an educated and ambitious middle class, which keeps the things fluid and which doesn't renounce to educate itself and to master things instead of being mastered by them (occasionally kicking kings and rulers out of business without the need of a "revolution".) There are many examples of how this can happen, but I'll live that for the comments if necessary.
Needless to say, to destroy the middle class it is not good for the oppressed classes as much as it is good for the elite (the distance to reach it becomes impassable). Thus the leftist dream as it is can be put aside. And to embrace the elite and its rule as the sole chance for civilization is equally wrong, because the world the elite imagine for us is one without freedom for most of us (to say the least).
So where am I? In the end I believe in a democratic republic with a good balance of powers, but not because it is the best thing or because it is anything decent, but only because it is a non-static system: because it can always change into something better if enough efforts are put into it and if its institutions are somewhat preserved. Because into it a middle class can thrive, helping the other classes from becoming rigid in their distant positions (slaves and masters).
Of course a democratic republic, if one does not put enough attention to it, can also turn also into a technocratic neo-fascist madness where terrorism is used as a fear-mongering tool against the people and newborn babies are implanted with forever tracking microchips (all my fantasies of course) and everything under the sun belongs to some brand, and this is why I do believe in participating, criticizing, protesting and fighting for new lifestyles or new values and etc.
Yet I am personally not very good at it: and this is because I am also a conservative and a pessimist, but chiefly because my political attention is not natural, but a mere defensive mechanism triggered by the fucking reality.
OK and this was it, if new political definitions of myself will come to my mind I'll update this post.
And yea, I hope that my next post will be more human --or personal.
talking about the sad Grillo thing of the other day, I expanded myself on the subject in an interesting discussion going on Blog from Italy, in case you were interested. So I am not going over it here. But it is interesting, though. I don't pretend to understand everything or that my interpretation of the facts is the right one... But I do see things like Grillo's v-day as key moments where the self-destructive instincts of the Italians give their best. Our imploding grotesque antique people. I know them instincts quite well. I have them in my blood type (type self-destruct). And isn't the title of this blog...? Etcetera.
The Poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti has been arrested near Brescia, in Italy.