Here’s why creating culture means good books and green steelworks
“Culture is not superfluous, it’s a distinguishing element of Italian identity” – these are the words that Italian president Sergio Mattarella used in his inauguration speech and that were reiterated last week in Turin, during the Stati Generali della Cultura (General assembly on culture) organised by newspaper IlSole24Ore. A chance to discuss with prominent figures from institutions and businesses, as well as cultural and information bodies, how to enhance Italy’s wealth of humanist and scientific knowledge and use them as leverage for sustainable environmental and social development.
Indeed, Italian identity is a complex and candid one, dialectical, the unique result of a mix of different and often conflicting elements. It’s both Mediterranean and Mitteleuropean, intensely marked by its Greek and Latin roots and yet also influenced by other worlds. It’s contentious and inclusive, aware of history yet also prone to innovation. Its attitude entails the future of memory – hoping that the past has a future (as per the unforgettable teachings of Leonardo Sciascia). Its key feature consists of blending a sense of beauty, creativity, industriousness, entrepreneurial spirit and the fulfilment of a good quality of life.
These are major themes that concern both Italy and Europe and that, fortunately, recur in public debate (though, unfortunately, much less than they should within the context of political and government choices). They were discussed at the General Assembly in Turin but also in Treia, a beautiful town in the Marche region, at the annual Symbola seminar, which focused on sustainability topics, and will continue to be present in the many festivals dedicated to books and culture that, every summer, crowd the agenda of several cities and tourist destinations pretty much all over Italy.
Beauty and culture. Literature and science. Artistic creativity and scientific knowledge. Awareness of one’s roots (“To have been is a condition for being”, taught us Fernand Braudel, one of the major 20th-century historians) and forward-looking vision towards change. A future-oriented history, indeed, as per the significant title of the book curated by the Pirelli Foundation, published by Marsilio, which narrates 150 years of life of a great Italian multinational and its prospects for the future (including essays and accounts by, among others, Jan McEwan, David Weinberger, Renzo Piano, Salvatore Accardo, Ernesto Ferrero, Monica Maggioni, Bruno Arpaia, Giuseppe Lupo, Maria Cristina Messa, Ferruccio Resta, Guido Saracco, etc.).
Here’s the crux of the matter: the role of an enterprise as cultural subject, as creative agent for culture. A beneficent enterprise, that is, able to make investments aimed at safeguarding and enhancing the cultural heritage, in both public and private terms. A cultural enterprise, with entrepreneurial and managerial skills suitable to the management of cultural activities (museums, cinemas, theatres, music, visual arts, publishing, etc.), as well as business more in general – this, if we take culture not just as a narrative but also as a chemical formulas, the creation of new materials, productive processes, new products or services, corporate museums and historical archives as competitive assets, employment contracts, unique governance choices, the discovery and application of new languages in the fields of marketing, advertising and communication.
Culture not as a thing, but as a way to do things (as exemplified by Angelo Guglielmi, sophisticated and popular intellectual as well as great TV innovator).
Culture, to give an example, also entails the sustainable shift made by a major iron and steel group like Arvedi, the first green steelworks in the world, certified at international level as net-zero emissions: “A symbol of the success that can be achieved – and in economic terms, too – by Italian companies that build a close relationship with their territory and that have understood how strategic a focus on sustainability is for financial success”, states Ermete Realacci, president of Symbola.
Sustainability as a choice of productivity and competitiveness on global markets that are becoming increasingly selective, as a set of values that generate economic wealth and social responsibility – good corporate culture, basically.
In fact, a strong “polytechnic culture” is indispensable, so that Italy can re-establish and strengthen the foundations of its own development path, precisely in these times of radical crises, of great geopolitical changes, of industrial and social rifts and of much needed economic and social paradigm shifts, in order to face uncertainty and, looking beyond its vulnerabilities, create the conditions for a fairer and stronger circular and civil economy. A culture that intermingles humanities and scientific knowledge. A new “industrial humanism” that, as it evolves towards an extensive use of Artificial Intelligence, can also be termed “digital humanism”.
Enterprise is always at its heart: data driven, that is, steered by a clever use of data in terms of research, production, services, logistics, relationships with the market and consumption. It needs algorithms designed by engineers, neuroscientists, statisticians, philosophers, jurors and – why not? – by intellectuals who know how to blend efficient results with an understanding of the direction and values we should follow. Mathematics and ethics. Productivity and the whole range of consequences on which a company builds its unique social standing. Experimentation and narration – that is, sustainability.
What’s all this if not culture?
The challenge that we face, as women and men of culture and business, but also as citizens/spectators/lovers of art as an expression of beauty, is not only to learn to coexist with innovation but, above all, to actively be involved in the construction of new ways to participate in and enjoy cultural activities, to engage, with both a critical and constructive attitude, with the identification of unique forms of popular culture: new languages, new ways to build cultural processes, new relationships between the past and cutting-edge technologies – for a new and better civilisation.
“Culture is not superfluous, it’s a distinguishing element of Italian identity” – these are the words that Italian president Sergio Mattarella used in his inauguration speech and that were reiterated last week in Turin, during the Stati Generali della Cultura (General assembly on culture) organised by newspaper IlSole24Ore. A chance to discuss with prominent figures from institutions and businesses, as well as cultural and information bodies, how to enhance Italy’s wealth of humanist and scientific knowledge and use them as leverage for sustainable environmental and social development.
Indeed, Italian identity is a complex and candid one, dialectical, the unique result of a mix of different and often conflicting elements. It’s both Mediterranean and Mitteleuropean, intensely marked by its Greek and Latin roots and yet also influenced by other worlds. It’s contentious and inclusive, aware of history yet also prone to innovation. Its attitude entails the future of memory – hoping that the past has a future (as per the unforgettable teachings of Leonardo Sciascia). Its key feature consists of blending a sense of beauty, creativity, industriousness, entrepreneurial spirit and the fulfilment of a good quality of life.
These are major themes that concern both Italy and Europe and that, fortunately, recur in public debate (though, unfortunately, much less than they should within the context of political and government choices). They were discussed at the General Assembly in Turin but also in Treia, a beautiful town in the Marche region, at the annual Symbola seminar, which focused on sustainability topics, and will continue to be present in the many festivals dedicated to books and culture that, every summer, crowd the agenda of several cities and tourist destinations pretty much all over Italy.
Beauty and culture. Literature and science. Artistic creativity and scientific knowledge. Awareness of one’s roots (“To have been is a condition for being”, taught us Fernand Braudel, one of the major 20th-century historians) and forward-looking vision towards change. A future-oriented history, indeed, as per the significant title of the book curated by the Pirelli Foundation, published by Marsilio, which narrates 150 years of life of a great Italian multinational and its prospects for the future (including essays and accounts by, among others, Jan McEwan, David Weinberger, Renzo Piano, Salvatore Accardo, Ernesto Ferrero, Monica Maggioni, Bruno Arpaia, Giuseppe Lupo, Maria Cristina Messa, Ferruccio Resta, Guido Saracco, etc.).
Here’s the crux of the matter: the role of an enterprise as cultural subject, as creative agent for culture. A beneficent enterprise, that is, able to make investments aimed at safeguarding and enhancing the cultural heritage, in both public and private terms. A cultural enterprise, with entrepreneurial and managerial skills suitable to the management of cultural activities (museums, cinemas, theatres, music, visual arts, publishing, etc.), as well as business more in general – this, if we take culture not just as a narrative but also as a chemical formulas, the creation of new materials, productive processes, new products or services, corporate museums and historical archives as competitive assets, employment contracts, unique governance choices, the discovery and application of new languages in the fields of marketing, advertising and communication.
Culture not as a thing, but as a way to do things (as exemplified by Angelo Guglielmi, sophisticated and popular intellectual as well as great TV innovator).
Culture, to give an example, also entails the sustainable shift made by a major iron and steel group like Arvedi, the first green steelworks in the world, certified at international level as net-zero emissions: “A symbol of the success that can be achieved – and in economic terms, too – by Italian companies that build a close relationship with their territory and that have understood how strategic a focus on sustainability is for financial success”, states Ermete Realacci, president of Symbola.
Sustainability as a choice of productivity and competitiveness on global markets that are becoming increasingly selective, as a set of values that generate economic wealth and social responsibility – good corporate culture, basically.
In fact, a strong “polytechnic culture” is indispensable, so that Italy can re-establish and strengthen the foundations of its own development path, precisely in these times of radical crises, of great geopolitical changes, of industrial and social rifts and of much needed economic and social paradigm shifts, in order to face uncertainty and, looking beyond its vulnerabilities, create the conditions for a fairer and stronger circular and civil economy. A culture that intermingles humanities and scientific knowledge. A new “industrial humanism” that, as it evolves towards an extensive use of Artificial Intelligence, can also be termed “digital humanism”.
Enterprise is always at its heart: data driven, that is, steered by a clever use of data in terms of research, production, services, logistics, relationships with the market and consumption. It needs algorithms designed by engineers, neuroscientists, statisticians, philosophers, jurors and – why not? – by intellectuals who know how to blend efficient results with an understanding of the direction and values we should follow. Mathematics and ethics. Productivity and the whole range of consequences on which a company builds its unique social standing. Experimentation and narration – that is, sustainability.
What’s all this if not culture?
The challenge that we face, as women and men of culture and business, but also as citizens/spectators/lovers of art as an expression of beauty, is not only to learn to coexist with innovation but, above all, to actively be involved in the construction of new ways to participate in and enjoy cultural activities, to engage, with both a critical and constructive attitude, with the identification of unique forms of popular culture: new languages, new ways to build cultural processes, new relationships between the past and cutting-edge technologies – for a new and better civilisation.