“For future memory”: to lend history meaning against mutable passions and superficial likes
A futura memoria (for future memory) is the title of an interesting book by Leonardo Sciascia, published by Bompiani in 1989, collecting together series of writings “on certain crimes, on a certain administration of justice and on the Mafia”. Civil, hotly debated, controversial writings, but in any case robustly inspired by the need for truth, and indeed justice, in the face of so many unsolved mysteries in recent Italian history.
That title, a stern admonishment of responsibility not only towards contemporaries but above all towards the coming generations, comes with a clarification, albeit one in brackets: “(if memory has a future)”. It’s a note of concern, prudent caution, a shadow over the very strength of thinking full of civic spirit and sense of responsibility, especially in the face of an Italy that another great man of culture, Pier Paolo Pasolini, had defined this way in his Scritti corsari (corsair writings) in 1975: “We are a country without memory, which is tantamount to saying without history.” With his usual polemical pessimism, he added: “If Italy took care of its history, its memory, it would realise that regimes aren’t born of nothing, but are the result of ancient poisons, of incurable metastases.”
Re-reading those intense words today, “for future memory (if memory has a future)” means attempting to hone cultural (and thus political) tools to tackle the superficiality and contortions of a time when so-called ‘presentism’ seem to prevail in the play of chat and the inclinations of distracted and disoriented public opinion: momentary emotions, the flare of passions of one instant, and mutable opinions.
Skimming over the surface of the news, avoiding every deep thought. Cultivating the superficial obsession with everything that seems new so dear to demagogues and populists, as if the human experience began with an improbable blank slate and not with a strenuous and inevitably painful reconstruction of self, of social relations and of economic relations.
Tradition and innovation hold together and mutually reinforce one another. (This makes it very helpful to devote some time to the episodes of the Rai1 TV series based on History: A Novel by Elsa Morante, one of the best and most important novels of the second half of the 20th century in Italian literature.)
We need to hone the cultural tools of historical knowledge, therefore; of awareness of the weight and depth of economic and social phenomena; of consciousness of how the complexity of our own daily lives can’t be reduced to the banality of the hastiest simplifications, to the rigid framework of likes and emoticons dear to the frenzy of social media. It’s a question of values, of relationships, of a profound sense of our civil society, of our democracy.
Indeed, the goal of working on memory is of great value in designing the future. That’s not only because of the contemporary force of the lesson of great 20th-century French historian Fernand Braudel, that “to have been is a condition for being”. It is also because of the awareness that every development in the knowledge economy of the digital age and unanticipated advances in artificial intelligence require critical thinking, a consistent inclination towards free research, the scientific method and a predisposition towards systematic doubt. They require historical awareness and intellectual curiosity.
In this sense, anniversaries such as Holocaust Remembrance Day on 27 January are extremely helpful in bringing the tragedy of the Shoah to the attention of us all, revisiting the darkest times of the 20th century by remembering the genocide of Jews through Nazi-Fascist violence (reflecting on the pages of Primo Levi’s If This Is a Man, also in schools, is essential) and persisting in seeking a deeper understanding of the differences between that racist extermination and today’s terrible massacres in the Middle East and Ukraine. The same applies to the Italian National Memorial Day of 10 February dedicated to the victims of the foibe, so as never to forget the horror of one of the most terrible episodes of our civil war, committed by the communist Yugoslavian military and their allies among the Italian resistance movement.
The point is that anniversaries aren’t repetitive formalities, but opportunities for study, research and exchange. They are chances to learn about and explore history, spaces for critical work on memory.
The memory of great social ordeals, political conflicts and their solutions, economic progress and commitment from the world of work and business to build prosperity and innovation, scientific advances and great cultural movements, knowing that nothing in human history is linear, nothing without struggle and pain.
Working on memory, precisely in order to respond positively to Sciascia’s doubt as to whether memory has a future, also means insisting on the values of culture. For example, it means treasuring the priceless message given in the speech at the ceremony to inaugurate Pesaro, Italian Capital of Culture 2024, delivered on Saturday by President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella: “Culture tolerates no restrictions or boundaries. It demands respect for every citizen’s decisions. It rejects the claim, whether by public power or big corporations, to direct sensibilities towards the monopoly of a single outlook.”
It’s an important message, for our civil society, for the construction of a shared memory achieved through free exchange of different opinions and points of view, to strengthen social ties that today – more than in the past – risk being torn apart because of the sway of individualism and nepotistic, clientelistic and corporate egoism. But they are also points marked for attention when planning in a society where new technologies may lead, if not governed effectively through original dialogue between freedom and responsibility, to unprecedented, traumatic social, generational and cultural divides.
Mattarella insists, recalling that, “if culture means knowledge, creativity, emotion, passion and feeling, then it is the premise of our freedoms, including the freedom to be together,” paying attention to “the plurality of cultures that make our homeland so attractive and our identity inimitable.”
Culture is the value of an open, debating, inclusive society: “Above all, culture is openness also beyond boundaries, without curling up around personal traditions alone. This culture, due precisely to the nature of the historical processes that have characterised Italy’s progressive realisation, comprises relations with neighbouring countries, with other nations, with the aspirations proper to Europeans.”
The Quirinale is a place of historical awareness and focus on memory. This was also confirmed through the lessons of Carlo Azeglio Ciampi and Giorgio Napolitano – Presidents of the Republic for the preparation and then celebration of the 150th anniversary of Italian Unification – in promoting the word patria (homeland), the national flag and the national anthem. The Quirinale is also a place for insisting on everything that holds us together, starting with the Constitution and the values of diversity and cultural and social pluralism.
In such difficult times, President Mattarella’s words on culture also represent valuable support for those who continue to work to preserve memory, on a critical relationship with history, on a desire for change, transformation and innovation – in short, on how to design and build a good ‘future for memory’.
(photo Getty Images)
A futura memoria (for future memory) is the title of an interesting book by Leonardo Sciascia, published by Bompiani in 1989, collecting together series of writings “on certain crimes, on a certain administration of justice and on the Mafia”. Civil, hotly debated, controversial writings, but in any case robustly inspired by the need for truth, and indeed justice, in the face of so many unsolved mysteries in recent Italian history.
That title, a stern admonishment of responsibility not only towards contemporaries but above all towards the coming generations, comes with a clarification, albeit one in brackets: “(if memory has a future)”. It’s a note of concern, prudent caution, a shadow over the very strength of thinking full of civic spirit and sense of responsibility, especially in the face of an Italy that another great man of culture, Pier Paolo Pasolini, had defined this way in his Scritti corsari (corsair writings) in 1975: “We are a country without memory, which is tantamount to saying without history.” With his usual polemical pessimism, he added: “If Italy took care of its history, its memory, it would realise that regimes aren’t born of nothing, but are the result of ancient poisons, of incurable metastases.”
Re-reading those intense words today, “for future memory (if memory has a future)” means attempting to hone cultural (and thus political) tools to tackle the superficiality and contortions of a time when so-called ‘presentism’ seem to prevail in the play of chat and the inclinations of distracted and disoriented public opinion: momentary emotions, the flare of passions of one instant, and mutable opinions.
Skimming over the surface of the news, avoiding every deep thought. Cultivating the superficial obsession with everything that seems new so dear to demagogues and populists, as if the human experience began with an improbable blank slate and not with a strenuous and inevitably painful reconstruction of self, of social relations and of economic relations.
Tradition and innovation hold together and mutually reinforce one another. (This makes it very helpful to devote some time to the episodes of the Rai1 TV series based on History: A Novel by Elsa Morante, one of the best and most important novels of the second half of the 20th century in Italian literature.)
We need to hone the cultural tools of historical knowledge, therefore; of awareness of the weight and depth of economic and social phenomena; of consciousness of how the complexity of our own daily lives can’t be reduced to the banality of the hastiest simplifications, to the rigid framework of likes and emoticons dear to the frenzy of social media. It’s a question of values, of relationships, of a profound sense of our civil society, of our democracy.
Indeed, the goal of working on memory is of great value in designing the future. That’s not only because of the contemporary force of the lesson of great 20th-century French historian Fernand Braudel, that “to have been is a condition for being”. It is also because of the awareness that every development in the knowledge economy of the digital age and unanticipated advances in artificial intelligence require critical thinking, a consistent inclination towards free research, the scientific method and a predisposition towards systematic doubt. They require historical awareness and intellectual curiosity.
In this sense, anniversaries such as Holocaust Remembrance Day on 27 January are extremely helpful in bringing the tragedy of the Shoah to the attention of us all, revisiting the darkest times of the 20th century by remembering the genocide of Jews through Nazi-Fascist violence (reflecting on the pages of Primo Levi’s If This Is a Man, also in schools, is essential) and persisting in seeking a deeper understanding of the differences between that racist extermination and today’s terrible massacres in the Middle East and Ukraine. The same applies to the Italian National Memorial Day of 10 February dedicated to the victims of the foibe, so as never to forget the horror of one of the most terrible episodes of our civil war, committed by the communist Yugoslavian military and their allies among the Italian resistance movement.
The point is that anniversaries aren’t repetitive formalities, but opportunities for study, research and exchange. They are chances to learn about and explore history, spaces for critical work on memory.
The memory of great social ordeals, political conflicts and their solutions, economic progress and commitment from the world of work and business to build prosperity and innovation, scientific advances and great cultural movements, knowing that nothing in human history is linear, nothing without struggle and pain.
Working on memory, precisely in order to respond positively to Sciascia’s doubt as to whether memory has a future, also means insisting on the values of culture. For example, it means treasuring the priceless message given in the speech at the ceremony to inaugurate Pesaro, Italian Capital of Culture 2024, delivered on Saturday by President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella: “Culture tolerates no restrictions or boundaries. It demands respect for every citizen’s decisions. It rejects the claim, whether by public power or big corporations, to direct sensibilities towards the monopoly of a single outlook.”
It’s an important message, for our civil society, for the construction of a shared memory achieved through free exchange of different opinions and points of view, to strengthen social ties that today – more than in the past – risk being torn apart because of the sway of individualism and nepotistic, clientelistic and corporate egoism. But they are also points marked for attention when planning in a society where new technologies may lead, if not governed effectively through original dialogue between freedom and responsibility, to unprecedented, traumatic social, generational and cultural divides.
Mattarella insists, recalling that, “if culture means knowledge, creativity, emotion, passion and feeling, then it is the premise of our freedoms, including the freedom to be together,” paying attention to “the plurality of cultures that make our homeland so attractive and our identity inimitable.”
Culture is the value of an open, debating, inclusive society: “Above all, culture is openness also beyond boundaries, without curling up around personal traditions alone. This culture, due precisely to the nature of the historical processes that have characterised Italy’s progressive realisation, comprises relations with neighbouring countries, with other nations, with the aspirations proper to Europeans.”
The Quirinale is a place of historical awareness and focus on memory. This was also confirmed through the lessons of Carlo Azeglio Ciampi and Giorgio Napolitano – Presidents of the Republic for the preparation and then celebration of the 150th anniversary of Italian Unification – in promoting the word patria (homeland), the national flag and the national anthem. The Quirinale is also a place for insisting on everything that holds us together, starting with the Constitution and the values of diversity and cultural and social pluralism.
In such difficult times, President Mattarella’s words on culture also represent valuable support for those who continue to work to preserve memory, on a critical relationship with history, on a desire for change, transformation and innovation – in short, on how to design and build a good ‘future for memory’.
(photo Getty Images)