Against the “educated ignorant”
The future also involves the rebirth and the consolidation of a new humanism, focused on humankind and on everything, on the implications of the economy which are not just figures but also people and an enterprising spirit. It is said that we have to break the mould and take a leap forwards (not into the void) and use our imagination with feet planted firmly on the ground. This is the new approach which is becoming increasingly widespread in response to the crisis that began in 2008, to the shortfall in high finance, to seeing production and business as something else with respect to manufacture and individual initiative. All this also involves men and women capable of seeing past their noses and of taking the place of those specialists who in actual fact appear as the “educated ignorant”.
This is what Giuliano da Empoli, writer and president of Gabinetto Vieusseux in Florence, has done in his Contro gli specialisti. La rivincita dell’umanesimo [“Against Specialists. The Victory of Humanism”] which represents a mental adventure in all areas of human knowledge: from art to material production, from history to modern politics, from philosophy to the economy, via computer technology, finance, sport and much more besides. The book by da Empoli – less than 150 pages for reading in one go – tells how specialists in all areas have impoverished the future of society, production and labour and how, instead, today there is a sort of return victory by those – businessmen, politicians, economists, scientists and philosophers – who succeed in reasoning and acting, looking not at the details but at the entire movement of the reality in which they live and work. There is talk therefore in the book of bananas and ketchup (find out the reason why by reading the book) and also of Ortega y Gasset, Aristotele, Smith, Leonardo da Vinci, Taylor, Jobs and many other unknown specialists and non-specialists, reviewing the entire old and new class of politicians and scholars who have had a hand in today’s economy, business and institutions.
This book gives a “strange”, different and non-conformist reading of the problems gripping our society and our form of production and is also and above all a positive outcry given the vicissitudes we all have to face.
Contro gli specialisti. La rivincita dell’umanesimo.
Giuliano da Empoli.
Marsilio, 2013.
The future also involves the rebirth and the consolidation of a new humanism, focused on humankind and on everything, on the implications of the economy which are not just figures but also people and an enterprising spirit. It is said that we have to break the mould and take a leap forwards (not into the void) and use our imagination with feet planted firmly on the ground. This is the new approach which is becoming increasingly widespread in response to the crisis that began in 2008, to the shortfall in high finance, to seeing production and business as something else with respect to manufacture and individual initiative. All this also involves men and women capable of seeing past their noses and of taking the place of those specialists who in actual fact appear as the “educated ignorant”.
This is what Giuliano da Empoli, writer and president of Gabinetto Vieusseux in Florence, has done in his Contro gli specialisti. La rivincita dell’umanesimo [“Against Specialists. The Victory of Humanism”] which represents a mental adventure in all areas of human knowledge: from art to material production, from history to modern politics, from philosophy to the economy, via computer technology, finance, sport and much more besides. The book by da Empoli – less than 150 pages for reading in one go – tells how specialists in all areas have impoverished the future of society, production and labour and how, instead, today there is a sort of return victory by those – businessmen, politicians, economists, scientists and philosophers – who succeed in reasoning and acting, looking not at the details but at the entire movement of the reality in which they live and work. There is talk therefore in the book of bananas and ketchup (find out the reason why by reading the book) and also of Ortega y Gasset, Aristotele, Smith, Leonardo da Vinci, Taylor, Jobs and many other unknown specialists and non-specialists, reviewing the entire old and new class of politicians and scholars who have had a hand in today’s economy, business and institutions.
This book gives a “strange”, different and non-conformist reading of the problems gripping our society and our form of production and is also and above all a positive outcry given the vicissitudes we all have to face.
Contro gli specialisti. La rivincita dell’umanesimo.
Giuliano da Empoli.
Marsilio, 2013.