Against the “sad passions” comes the desire to engage in politics and volunteering
We live in an age of “sad passions”, to use an effective expression of Baruch Spinosa, of melancholy thoughts but also rage and widespread resentments (online comments from “keyboard haters” are disturbing evidence of this). We also live in an age of deep loneliness. We lack, however that “abstract fury” that Elio Vittorini linked to the ability to take on the “pain of the offended world” in the brilliant pages of Conversation in Sicily, that is, to move against the snares of a petty individualism paying attention to values and general interests, thus seeking to alleviate that pain and above all try to cut off its roots, to overturn its condition.
And yet, those who attentively investigate trends in social sentiment and developments in public opinion cannot fail to notice, even in these dramatic months of conflict and apprehension, some trends that offer hope. A newfound interest in politics is one example, and reinforcement of the commitment of million of Italians to volunteering is another.
“The passions of Italians: surprise growth in support for politics, the Church loses out”, headlines la Repubblica (9 March) in relation to a “map” by Ilvo Diamanti, an authoritative sociologist, built on a socio-demographic survey by Demos, comparing the current data with those of a similar survey carried out in 2016.
When choosing the issues that Italians are most passionate about, between “their town, their region, their country”, or “their religion or religious community” or “the team or sportsman they support” and finally “their party, movement or political leader”, the link with their area is still at the top as in 2016 (83%), while the weight given to the Church has fallen (from 72% to 60%), that of sport increased a little (from 49% to 51%) and an upswing in politics stands out (from 35% to 48%). This upswing is in evidence not among the elderly alone, but also the young, in the 18–29 age group. It is also widespread, ranging over all sections of opinion, from the centre left to the centre right, with particular sensitivity among 5-Star Movement voters. According to Diamanti, the responses of both local government and institutions more generally in the dramatic Covid and post-Covid periods have brought people closer to politics and parties.
It will be worth keeping an eye on these trends over time. For the public authorities and political forces, it will also be worth taking care not to waste the occasion of engagement, considering not only the current regional elections but also those in June for the European Parliament: Europe is home to our common destiny for the years to come, a strong anchor of values and interests in the face of the tensions and anxieties generated by geopolitical crises and the moves of other major international players, the US and China above all. This Europe should be viewed, even critically, as the place of hope, preventing Europeans from being overwhelmed by the bleak game of those who play on fears, by the manoeuvres and fake news of those plotting against Europe and its values. European values are an original fusion of democracy, market and welfare, that is, freedom, development and widespread well-being.
A great moral and civil lesson comes to mind in these difficult times: that of Don Lorenzo Milani. He was a 20th-century educator, and in his lessons to the children and young people in the school of Barbiana: “I learned that the problem of others is equal to mine. Finding a way out alone is avarice. Finding a way out together is politics.”
This is the value of politics, of good politics. These words also have a resonance, as an ethical and cultural horizon of reference, when reading the figures on volunteering, a shared social and civil commitment.
4.6 million Italians are engaged in volunteering activity. They refer to 363,000 non-profit organisations and 86% of those organisations offer their services “to communities”. They are the backbone of the so-called ‘third sector’. This generates a turnover of around €80 billion, or 5% of the national GDP. It also employs 870,000 people, even taking into account that more than 80% of non-profit organisations have no employees, instead relying on an extraordinary number of volunteers.
So we’re talking about huge figures, which demonstrate a robust commitment to community action and a widespread notion of the importance of feeling part of a community by “gifting” one’s intelligence, time and generosity. It’s a reality that warrants consideration, greater institutional attention and support from the “for-profit” world as well. (It was addressed at length last week during a “Stories of community action in Lombardy” conference organised by UniCredit in Milan that talked about the support financial companies can offer.)
Indeed, one of the conditions for growth is to find positive relationships of collaboration and exchange between market-driven businesses and the third sector, in the original landscape that also sees benefit corporations in action as well as every variation of the so-called stakeholder economy, in which a fertile concept of environmental and social sustainability, of the relationship between competitiveness and community, productivity and social inclusion can take shape. Italian companies are masters of this, as Symbola surveys show.
The outlook is indicated by the President of Italy, Sergio Mattarella: “A civil economy is emerging, comprising a field of many forces, which can contribute to defining a better balance between the market, the environment and social equity… The third sector is the backbone, not a replacement, but an independent structure representing the specific responsibility of the whole country.”
Accordingly, volunteering is the pillar of more robust social capital, the subject of an idea of civic engagement that has all the characteristics of a desire for good politics. That is to say, vigorous participation in an open, inclusive polis or, better still, in a civitas (playing with the exactitude of the Latin vocabulary) extending beyond the structures of the urbs (physical urban spaces) and founded on the values of citizenship, on that positive intersection of rights and duties that are the cornerstone of a ‘community’. Such a union of values is shown by the etymology of the word itself: cum recalling the concept of being together and munus meaning both ‘gift’ and ‘obligation’. It is an intersection of bonds, a spur to contemplating a better future together.
These are the political values that volunteering calls to mind, which call upon everyone in the face of an age of widespread fears deliberately exacerbated to deaden a desire to take part and to look towards a better future, to benefit the coming generations above all. It is, after all, young people who find a response to the desire to take part in volunteering, a desire that today’s politics unfortunately do not succeed in seizing upon and representing.
Looking at today’s news, it’s true that it would be easy to agree with those who despair of improving our painful contemporary human condition and identify with the character of Altan, an expert in our mood swings, who declares: “I’m torn between the pigheadedness of the will and the gloom of reason.” Again, so as not to kid ourselves, we might find ourselves in this piercing repartee – “Old people have let us down,” complains one character, the other rejoining: “It’s time for new people to let us down.”
But there’s more to be found when you flip through the pages of Altan.
“Come on, grandad, we’re starting all over again,” says a child in an impassioned cartoon, pushing a reluctant elderly man forward. There is, however, always hope for a better time to build and to live in.
(photo Getty Images)
We live in an age of “sad passions”, to use an effective expression of Baruch Spinosa, of melancholy thoughts but also rage and widespread resentments (online comments from “keyboard haters” are disturbing evidence of this). We also live in an age of deep loneliness. We lack, however that “abstract fury” that Elio Vittorini linked to the ability to take on the “pain of the offended world” in the brilliant pages of Conversation in Sicily, that is, to move against the snares of a petty individualism paying attention to values and general interests, thus seeking to alleviate that pain and above all try to cut off its roots, to overturn its condition.
And yet, those who attentively investigate trends in social sentiment and developments in public opinion cannot fail to notice, even in these dramatic months of conflict and apprehension, some trends that offer hope. A newfound interest in politics is one example, and reinforcement of the commitment of million of Italians to volunteering is another.
“The passions of Italians: surprise growth in support for politics, the Church loses out”, headlines la Repubblica (9 March) in relation to a “map” by Ilvo Diamanti, an authoritative sociologist, built on a socio-demographic survey by Demos, comparing the current data with those of a similar survey carried out in 2016.
When choosing the issues that Italians are most passionate about, between “their town, their region, their country”, or “their religion or religious community” or “the team or sportsman they support” and finally “their party, movement or political leader”, the link with their area is still at the top as in 2016 (83%), while the weight given to the Church has fallen (from 72% to 60%), that of sport increased a little (from 49% to 51%) and an upswing in politics stands out (from 35% to 48%). This upswing is in evidence not among the elderly alone, but also the young, in the 18–29 age group. It is also widespread, ranging over all sections of opinion, from the centre left to the centre right, with particular sensitivity among 5-Star Movement voters. According to Diamanti, the responses of both local government and institutions more generally in the dramatic Covid and post-Covid periods have brought people closer to politics and parties.
It will be worth keeping an eye on these trends over time. For the public authorities and political forces, it will also be worth taking care not to waste the occasion of engagement, considering not only the current regional elections but also those in June for the European Parliament: Europe is home to our common destiny for the years to come, a strong anchor of values and interests in the face of the tensions and anxieties generated by geopolitical crises and the moves of other major international players, the US and China above all. This Europe should be viewed, even critically, as the place of hope, preventing Europeans from being overwhelmed by the bleak game of those who play on fears, by the manoeuvres and fake news of those plotting against Europe and its values. European values are an original fusion of democracy, market and welfare, that is, freedom, development and widespread well-being.
A great moral and civil lesson comes to mind in these difficult times: that of Don Lorenzo Milani. He was a 20th-century educator, and in his lessons to the children and young people in the school of Barbiana: “I learned that the problem of others is equal to mine. Finding a way out alone is avarice. Finding a way out together is politics.”
This is the value of politics, of good politics. These words also have a resonance, as an ethical and cultural horizon of reference, when reading the figures on volunteering, a shared social and civil commitment.
4.6 million Italians are engaged in volunteering activity. They refer to 363,000 non-profit organisations and 86% of those organisations offer their services “to communities”. They are the backbone of the so-called ‘third sector’. This generates a turnover of around €80 billion, or 5% of the national GDP. It also employs 870,000 people, even taking into account that more than 80% of non-profit organisations have no employees, instead relying on an extraordinary number of volunteers.
So we’re talking about huge figures, which demonstrate a robust commitment to community action and a widespread notion of the importance of feeling part of a community by “gifting” one’s intelligence, time and generosity. It’s a reality that warrants consideration, greater institutional attention and support from the “for-profit” world as well. (It was addressed at length last week during a “Stories of community action in Lombardy” conference organised by UniCredit in Milan that talked about the support financial companies can offer.)
Indeed, one of the conditions for growth is to find positive relationships of collaboration and exchange between market-driven businesses and the third sector, in the original landscape that also sees benefit corporations in action as well as every variation of the so-called stakeholder economy, in which a fertile concept of environmental and social sustainability, of the relationship between competitiveness and community, productivity and social inclusion can take shape. Italian companies are masters of this, as Symbola surveys show.
The outlook is indicated by the President of Italy, Sergio Mattarella: “A civil economy is emerging, comprising a field of many forces, which can contribute to defining a better balance between the market, the environment and social equity… The third sector is the backbone, not a replacement, but an independent structure representing the specific responsibility of the whole country.”
Accordingly, volunteering is the pillar of more robust social capital, the subject of an idea of civic engagement that has all the characteristics of a desire for good politics. That is to say, vigorous participation in an open, inclusive polis or, better still, in a civitas (playing with the exactitude of the Latin vocabulary) extending beyond the structures of the urbs (physical urban spaces) and founded on the values of citizenship, on that positive intersection of rights and duties that are the cornerstone of a ‘community’. Such a union of values is shown by the etymology of the word itself: cum recalling the concept of being together and munus meaning both ‘gift’ and ‘obligation’. It is an intersection of bonds, a spur to contemplating a better future together.
These are the political values that volunteering calls to mind, which call upon everyone in the face of an age of widespread fears deliberately exacerbated to deaden a desire to take part and to look towards a better future, to benefit the coming generations above all. It is, after all, young people who find a response to the desire to take part in volunteering, a desire that today’s politics unfortunately do not succeed in seizing upon and representing.
Looking at today’s news, it’s true that it would be easy to agree with those who despair of improving our painful contemporary human condition and identify with the character of Altan, an expert in our mood swings, who declares: “I’m torn between the pigheadedness of the will and the gloom of reason.” Again, so as not to kid ourselves, we might find ourselves in this piercing repartee – “Old people have let us down,” complains one character, the other rejoining: “It’s time for new people to let us down.”
But there’s more to be found when you flip through the pages of Altan.
“Come on, grandad, we’re starting all over again,” says a child in an impassioned cartoon, pushing a reluctant elderly man forward. There is, however, always hope for a better time to build and to live in.
(photo Getty Images)