\u201cThe society of global risk, to use the sociologist Ulrich Beck\u2019s term, lives the paradox between the exaltation of individuality on one hand, and the risk for someone to become marginal compared with the social context he or she is in, on the other hand.\u201d With this Costantino Esposito, Professor of History of Philosophy at the University of Bari, introduced the theme of the annual appointment with philosophy at the Meeting, which was held in Eni \u201cCaff\u00e8 Letterario\u201d. Esposito then presented the speakers Eugenio Mazzarella, Professor of Theoretical Philosophy at the University of Naples; Luigi Manconi, President of the Extraordinary Commission for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights of the Senate of the Italian Republic, and Adrian Fabris, Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Pisa.
\nMazzarella exposes the current \u201canthropological shock that creates an estranged self, without culture, sexual identity, or genes\u201d and the presence of a \u201ccrisis which attacks the homo sapiens\u2019 social genesis.\u201d This damages the foundations of the human as a political being, according to the classical philosophical concept. \u201cWe are witnessing the demoralization of a society in which people feel too free to be actually free, where the person can negotiate everything, from social role to gender identity.\u201d
\nDiscussing the problem of moral relativism, Mazzarella said that \u201cit is a factor of the history of our freedom.\u201d He notices at the same time the danger of a decrease of freedom, mentioning Nietzsche, a \u201cwishing for day and wishing for night\u201d and the danger, in the era of nihilism, that \u201ctechnicians in the lab claim to rewrite the anthropological bases of the human being.\u201d
\n\u201cWe must understand the periphery even in the socio-economic sense,\u201d said Manconi. \u201cWe are over the shock of the crisis, in an era of painful transition, but the explosion of subjectivity is actually a good thing, and allows for the reconstruction of new social ties.\u201d For Manconi, the crisis of traditional values involves a pluralism of values: it does not amount to nihilism, lack of morals, and human defeat.
\n\u201cThe human being is at the center of it all, and, at the same time, is subject to a morality dictated by others,\u201d said Fabris. \u201cIndividuality and individualism are not the same thing. The problem of today\u2019s nihilism is when the relationship we have with ourselves becomes the basis of every other relationship,\u201d i.e., it becomes the only means to judge reality and the exclusive parameter of each relationship. \u201cThe danger of this approach is that, if one is isolated, then one is also the master of one\u2019s own meaning. This creates a dog-eat-dog situation which then the state is called and forced to regulate.\u201d The antidote to such anthropological reduction requires the recovery of the awareness that \u201cI am in relationship with the other, especially with the Other that gives me meaning.\u201d
\nAccording to Fabris, the current paradigm is of man as machine \u2013 no longer seen, as in the past, as made up of both body and soul, and thus in relation with other people \u2013 made up of single parts functioning together.\u201d
\nTherefore, we need to be reminded that a person is not just a \u2018body\u2019, but that she is made of flesh and is responsible for her own actions and their consequences. \u201cFreedom necessarily implies responsibility. If we were not responsible we would not be free either.\u201d
\nIf Manconi looks positively at the \u201cethical experiment to build the new morality necessary to build new social ties,\u201d Mazzarella instead points out that \u201cno individualization will ever be possible without the community \u2018I-you\u2019 preceeding us.\u201d Esposito concluded the session stating that to set a limit to modern nihilism, we need to return to the idea of truth as proclaimed by St. Augustine: a relationship with and infinite longing for the Other.
\n(F.Pi.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cThe society of global risk, to use the sociologist Ulrich Beck\u2019s term, lives the paradox between the exaltation of individuality on one hand, and the risk for someone to become … <\/p>\n