Here they are, philosophers about to enter the corporate world and tackle issues related to the economy, innovation and productivity, environmental and social sustainability, technological evolution and the quality of life and work. Collaborating with engineers and mathematicians, financial managers and cyber technicians, so as to best put to work all polytechnic knowledge tools required by the digital economy. “Philosophical knowledge: foundations, methods, applications” – this is the title of the Master’s programme launched in recent weeks by the universities in Bergamo and Pavia, in collaboration with IUSS (University School for Advanced Studies Pavia). It’s the first programme in Italy taught entirely in English, coordinated by professor Andrea Bottani and designed to establish a dialogue between the humanities and scientific and technological subjects, and therefore open up the market to professionals able to deal with the issues that will emerge as the “knowledge economy” evolves (Corriere della Sera, 12 July).

“We are witnessing increasingly complex phenomena. And this new programme we offer represents the opportunity to pool together different disciplinary cores and train people capable of meeting the new challenges that will arise”, asserts Sergio Cavalieri, Dean of the University of Bergamo. “We want to create a structural bond between philosophical thinking and its application to technological, economic and social challenges”, explains Francesco Svelvo, Dean of the University of Pavia.

An educational decision that goes beyond the traditional juxtaposition of “two cultures” – humanities and sciences – that has marked many debates throughout the 20th century (seriously undermining, especially in Italy, the importance and values of a scientific culture: a situation that persists, with negative consequences on the country’s public opinion and competitiveness, too) and that sets us on the right path, one along which training and study programmes and changes in the employment market can be fostered.

A decision that basically entails an open-minded and a dynamic take on philosophy and knowledge, and brings to mind William Shakespeare’s Hamlet: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, / Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” Or, the wide world of science, as well as a world encompassing economy, environment, new employment roles and high-tech progress.

What will this new “Philosophic knowledge” programme in Bergamo and Pavia will teach then? Metaphysics, ontology, epistemology, ethics, philosophy of science, of mathematics, of logics and of the mind, as well as robotics, Artificial Intelligence, neurosciences, economy and business management. Moreover, the two universities’ professors will be flanked by guest lecturers from the universities of Cambridge, Freiburg, Zurich and New York’s Columbia University. “European dimension, international target”, comments Bottani, the programme’s coordinator. Including, thanks to the collaboration with Confindustria Bergamo and a number of research labs with links to the employment market, an intense collaboration with the corporate world – another bonus feature.

For quite some time now, in Italy, cutting-edge teaching and research institutions, such as the Polytechnic Universities of Milan and of Turin, have properly integrated philosophy and other humanities disciplines in their programmes of study, resulting in a highly effective multidisciplinary approach. And a similar attitude also informs the teaching and learning decisions of the Humanitas University in Milan, which trains medical doctors-cum-engineers, thus fulfilling and enhancing our increasing need for integrated knowledge.

Italy, indeed, brings its own original view to a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) curriculum by amending it into STEAM, i.e. adding the ‘A’ of ‘Arts’ – the humanities – to the acronym. This is something that, for instance, entrepreneurial association Assolombarda, with president Gianfelice Rocca, had already worked on about ten years ago, and which continued to inspire the debate on the quality of an education geared towards the entrepreneurial world and the evolution of the economy and technologies.

It’s an extremely topical question – who plans, leads and defines the governance of processes related to development in Artificial Intelligence? Who manages its complexities, so as to guarantee the continued supremacy of human beings? Who writes and updates its algorithms (as also mentioned in our blog post from 27 June)? Not only engineers and mathematicians, but also philosophers, cyber scientists, neuropsychologists, economics, sociologists, jurists and people of letters.

All bringing different skills and knowledge, diverse perspectives for the future that must be nurtured especially through crossbreeding and collaborations, because algorithms should take into consideration multiple meanings, different shades of sense, ethical and social themes, policies and implications of rights and duties. Human hands must handle artificial intelligence, with a full human awareness concerning limits, as well as an ambition to move forward, in order to create a “clear night for science”, to paraphrase Bertolt Brecht‘s Life of Galileo – and now, such a “clear night” can be glimpsed from Bergamo and Pavia, too.

(photo Getty Images)

A thesis debated at the University of Padua explores the social representations of work

Work in its day-to-day guise, but also in its social representations, as well as the concept of work and the reality from which such concept derives its tangible and accomplished form. Reflections on how work is represented in different places and times are far from trivial, especially thinking about the relationships of such representations as new modes of work emerge.

Sabrina Cameletti’s thesis, debated at the University of Padua (Degree in social and work psychological sciences), revolves around these themes. Entitled “Rappresentazioni sociali del lavoro ieri e oggi” (“Social representations of work, yesterday and today”), it embodies a concise analysis, including both a theoretical side and a case study, on how work and working have been “represented” and socially experienced.

Though not overly long, the study first tackles the topic from a social and psychological perspective, and then from a historical and philosophical one, providing a compact description leading us to the 2020 pandemic. The work goes on to contextualise the topic in theoretical terms and finally provides a “field study” (undertaken with a small team of employees at the Autostrade per l’Italia company), with the aim of uncovering the social representation of the concept of work as well as characterising the notion of “working well” both nowadays and twenty years ago.

Cameletti explains that as the social representation of work defines a production culture, looking at it from a particular perspective (that of employees rather than managers) makes it a significant aspect to be considered in any process related to the employment market and the relationships between companies and workforce. Further, the way in which the notion of “working well” has evolved throughout the years also illustrates social and economic change, and thus understanding it is useful to better comprehend the general evolution of economy and of society. Sabrina Cameletti has indeed succeeded in providing an effective overview of such a substantial topic.

“Rappresentazioni sociali del lavoro ieri e oggi” (“Social representations of work, yesterday and today”)

Sabrina Cameletti

Thesis, University of Padua, Department of Philosophy, Social Science, Pedagogy and Applied Psychology, Degree in social and work psychological sciences, 2023

Meaning, merits, flaws, limits and possibilities of one of the most used and abused terms of our times

Capitalism – a term hated by most, though only a few really know its true meaning. A complex term, for sure, though easily (or lazily) used by many, and as such a term that needs to be fully comprehended, also because – whether we like it or not – our economic and social system remains a capitalist one. Thus, reading Capitalismo (Capitalism), written by Alberto Mingardi and recently published, is helpful to acquire a clearer understanding of a word that embodies a particular approach to goods, work and production, as well as life.

Mingardi guides readers along a path that is not always easy, starting with an analysis of the term itself (the first chapter is entitled “Uno strano ismo” – “A strange ism”) before retracing its origins through the industrial revolution, its developing complexities in terms of factory production and commerce, and the role of the State. We then reach our present times, when capitalism – in order to survive – must renew itself and take into consideration globalisation, pandemics and those walls that, to some extent, have led the world backwards.

The author presents each section with clarity and objectivity, which is the right way to approach this topic, not only to remain objectively fair but also because this is a term that has always unleashed hostility – violent on occasion, manifest and intense at all times. Thus, as capitalism often carries negative connotations, to be really understood – and only then embraced of rejected – clarity and impartiality are a must, and this is Mingardi’s aim. Hence, the book (about 150 pages deserving to be attentively read) alternates between the merits and flaws of capitalism, as well as dwelling on the prospects of developing and living longer despite the inequalities it engenders: the poor get poorer and the rich get richer.  Over a century after its “birth”, capitalism certainly needs to be revamped, reviewed, reinterpreted, as it seems that no other valid alternatives have been found yet.

As Mingardi writes in his conclusions, “Let’s go back to our definition of capitalism: capitalism is a system in which decisions are taken in decentred fashion. We could describe it differently to a young person born in the 2000s. Capitalism is the opposite of lockdown. The choice for our future, how much paved with good intentions it might be, lies between one or the other. Or, in other words, a world giving the freedom to choose and be chosen, and a world in which someone else, though inspired by the best intentions, will choose for us.”

Capitalismo (Capitalism)

Alberto Mingardi

Il Mulino, 2023

Becoming entrepreneurs, or professionals, is the main ambition of most young people from Lombardy – in other words, being in charge of their own time and life. Not as choosy (or waiting for their ideal job to fall from the sky) or mollycoddled, entitled, given to a do-nothing culture, as we might think, then. It’s an illuminating snapshot about the personal and professional expectations of our new generations, and it certainly demands some pondering.

This is what a survey conducted last May by Eumetra for entrepreneurial association Assolombarda revealed, a survey that involved interviewing 1,000 young women and men aged between 18 and 26 years, residing in the provinces of Milan – Pavia, Monza, Brianza and Lodi – with a high-school diploma under the belt and, 36% of them, a degree as well. The results were presented and discussed last week at a conference entitled “I giovani, il lavoro e la cultura d’impresa” (“Young people, employment and corporate culture”), part of the initiatives belonging to the “Pavia capitale della cultura d’impresa” (“Pavia as capital of corporate culture”) programme.

What do these figures reveal, exactly? 29% of interviewees aspires to a future as entrepreneurs (the percentage rises to 35% amongst graduates and to 41% amongst graduates who work and study) while another 28% wishes to freelance. All in all, 57% aims to set up their own business and only 28% wants to “be employed”. Basically, the notion of a “steady job”, so much featured in Checco Zalone’s parody Quo vado?, is really not that appealing, at least in the Lombardy region.

Yet, what is it meant with “entrepreneur” and “professional”? “Consulting” is in first place (17%), followed by the healthcare and social sectors; then are the banking, finance and insurance sectors, as well as commerce, informatics, tourism, creative roles, the public sphere; manufacturing and the energy sectors are second last, with “no-profits” in final place.

Here’s a key point: factories, even the digital neo-factories, are just not seen as attractive. Indeed, only 15% of interviewees mentions manufacturing as the “leading sector of the Italian economy”, while most of the others (49%) attributes this to the tourism industry. Let’s delve a bit deeper, as in 2009 and 2010 similar data emerged from a national survey carried out by Ipsos, undertaken first for a book entitled Orgoglio industriale (Industrial pride), published by Mondadori, and then for Assolombarda. The reappearance of such results, having seen how the manufacturing sector drove the post-Covid recovery, and especially in an area (Milan, Monza and Brianza, Lodi and Pavia) marked by strong industrial presence and interconnected high-technology services, suggests a genuine lack of narrative reliability from leading entrepreneurs – a narrative that should actually have impressed the new generations – as well as a continued lack of trust in the industrial sector.

The Assolombarda-Eumetra survey says that, “More than half the sample (54%) sees manufacturing as a by-product of specialisation and only 39% links it to innovation. Confirming this perception, 53% of interviewees believes that jobs in the manufacturing industry require greater experience and technical skills than they used to, while only 35% of them finds that labourers have gained better rights and legal protection in recent years, and a mere 23% thinks that the work environment in factories is safer and healthier than in the past.”

Hence, despite the progress achieved in terms of environmental and social responsibility, the quality of new industrial architectural design (“the beautiful factory” – properly planned, transparent, bright and safe) and radical high-tech transformations, a negative perception of factories continues to affect the new generations.

Here’s a minor note that, however, may bring some hope: 42% of young graduates believes that “the manufacturing industry offers good opportunities for jobs related to environmental sustainability” – a positive perspective that should be encouraged.

And here are some more figures, in order to better understand the context: 55% of interviewees looks for “flexible hours”, 49% would like to “have some free time for activities outside of work” and only 35% would prefer smart working – here, too, the inclination of wanting to “be in charge” of one’s own time is noticeable. And the key value? To 81%, it’s “family and loved ones” – more important, then, than success and career.

These are the essential findings of the Assolombarda survey: findings that prompt some thoughts that should actually be publicly debated by politicians (which measures to implement in order to fulfil the new generations’ work ambitions, and therefore on what should Italian and European funds be more adequately spent?) and, above all, entrepreneurial organisations and corporate representatives.

The survey prominently shows how important the values of entrepreneurship and free choice are when building one’s own future, though the participants were obviously positively affected by the fact that they grew up in regions (Milan – both the metropolis and surrounding cities) socially and culturally shaped by entrepreneurship. As such, it would be interesting to see the results of a survey undertaken in other areas featuring widespread entrepreneurship, like the north-west, north-east and Emilia-Romagna regions, and places where enterprises are neither very present nor historically embedded, such as Central and Southern Italy.

More thoughts concern the perception of industrial enterprise by the new generations, and how it could be made to appear more rewarding and enticing, highlighting – even further – the power of its high-tech productive standards and high levels of quality and sustainability (such as those intriguing environmentally-friendly steelworks).

In essence, we really need to reiterate the values inherent in the best ‘made in Italy’ manufacturing, though without falling into rhetorical misconceptions focused on picturesque ideals and the notion that “small is beautiful”. And we should also emphasise a world brimming with extraordinary professional and personal development opportunities for entrepreneurial young women and men, such as those offered by the mechatronics, automotive, aerospace, shipbuilding, life sciences, furnishing, fashion, agribusiness sectors, and so on.

Basically, we have to write a “new factory narrative”, using all the media and languages that will most effectively reach the new generations – an unavoidable challenge, and one we need to tackle in order to give substance and a future to our young people’s main ambition: becoming entrepreneurs.

(photo Getty Images)

A different method for managing the organisation of production grappling with innovation

Business management while keeping pace with innovation, above all digital innovation, is a challenge for those entrepreneurs and managers who on one hand have to balance the books and on the other to grow a company dealing with the changing complexity of the moment.  New work methodologies are also needed to meet these goals, but it isn’t so easy to identify and put them in practice.

Neil Perkin reflects on – and offers a solution to – these issues in his Agile Transformation: Structures, Processes and Mindsets for the Digital Age, now published in Italian as Agile transformation. Sopravvivere, svilupparsi e competere nell’era digitale courtesy of Marco Calzolari.

It is precisely the “digital age” that represents the driver for change, according to the author who conceived the ‘agile’ working method as a response to the stall encountered by many businesses faced with the digitalisation of processes and production methods. According to Perkin, many companies are in this condition because they are obstructed by outdated working methods, decision-making processes that aren’t sufficiently horizontal and inhibit innovation: a company culture, in other words, that rewards conformity and instantaneous efficiency rather than entrepreneurship and the desire to learn.

All this underpins the proposal of “Agile Transformation”, indicated as a pathway for creating businesses able to reshape themselves continuously according to the needs of clients and their responses, who work in “horizontal and flexible” groups, supported by technology and who know how to use their resources in a way that can continuously be adapted to the future.

After an extended introduction by Calzolari, the book guides readers starting from the need for a new business “operating system”, through a definition and in-depth look at the characteristics of the “agile business”, to a series of crucial points: the right innovation, the need to change change management, a new approach to businesses targets and management.

Perkin’s book should be read attentively, and the implementation of its indications certainly at least attempted. In his introduction, Calzolari writes: “The true potential of the ‘agile movement’ lies in sharing the authentic experiences of people with similar needs and applying a manifest ‘practical wisdom’ based on methods that bring out the quality of every professional”.

Agile transformation. Sopravvivere, svilupparsi e competere nell’era digitale

Neil Perkin

Guerini Next, 2023

The story of a complex, varied activity summarised in an effective essay

The third sector is a wide-ranging and varied grouping of activities that deserves careful understanding. Businesses too play their part within it, in various capacities. The third sector is also connected with corporate social responsibility activities. This means that it is necessary to understand the history, origins and development of the third sector as well, and therefore to read “Ascesa, declino e ritorno. Alle radici del Terzo settore in Italia” (Ascent, decline and return: at the roots of the Third Sector in Italy) by Alberto Ianes, which recently appeared in Impresa Sociale.

Ianes’ contribution is an effective summary of the development and history of this particular method of intervening in economics and the third sector itself. The article opens by framing the nature and general characteristics of the third sector then proceeds to retrace its history starting from the second half of the 19th century with forms of charity and mutualism (and with particular attention to the mutual societies). Ianes then moves on to examine the situation between the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th, arriving at the fascist period. Ianes goes on to write about a “change in direction” with respect to the changes that occurred in Europe and in Italy after the Second World War, specifically the transition from ‘welfare state’ to ‘welfare society’. Ianes then describes the stage of the 1950s and 1960s as that of the “third sector of the irregular”, referring to the various achievements that came out of the work of individuals and micro-communities and went on to shape the third sector inspired by industrialists such as Adriano Olivetti.

Alberto Ianes’ essay has the great merit of summarising a complex subject which is still little-known today, but above all constantly changing.

Ascesa, declino e ritorno. Alle radici del Terzo settore in Italia

Alberto Ianes

Impresa Sociale, 2, 2023

“Empty ballot boxes but full classrooms: boom in political schools,” read the headlines, as well as “Parties resurrect the past and reopen political schools” (Il Sole24Ore, 5 and 7 July). It’s good news at a time of growing populism and widespread disrepute among those who work in politics and public institutions. It supports those who believe in the value of commitment. What is happening?

To try and understand a little better, let’s take a step back in our history.

Bread and politics: my generation consumed them together, from when we were young people to the start of the sixties. For us, the seasons of an extraordinary transformation of Italy were a great stimulus to us, from reconstruction after the wretched World War to the consolidation of the economic boom, amid the strengthening of democratic freedoms and robust social and cultural improvements. And the lesson of the “fathers of the Constituent Assembly” was still alive and present in public debate: De Gasperi, Togliatti, Nenni and La Malfa, the young Aldo Moro and elderly Latinist Concetto Marchesi, Piero Calamandrei and Costantino Mortati, the men and women who wrote shared rules, in good, simple and clear Italian, to establish the conditions and set the direction for a new season of rights and duties.

Bread and politics, as I say. Politique d’abord, politics first, theorised socialist leader Pietro Nenni. Practically everyone insisted on “the primacy of politics”, aware that in the young and still fragile democracy of Italy, born of resistance to fascism and with very extensive popular support, the choices to be made were political first and foremost, to build economic development, well-being, participation: choices of reformative politics.

In the middle of the sixties, the extraordinary educator Don Lorenzo Milani taught that when faced with a problem, “solving it together is politics, solving it for yourselves is greed”. “I care” summarised his ethical thinking, and indeed his politics: I take responsibility, I take care.

For years, the outlook of the best young people, the most brilliant and knowledgeable, was “being in politics”. each in the parties where they felt most at home. And those parties had schools, training courses, courses of study. Being in politics meant commitment. It meant an excellent way of working.

“A politician thinks of the next election; a statesman thinks of the next generation,” was the phrase attributed to Alcide De Gasperi, leader of the Christian Democrats from the end of the war until 1953, quoting the teaching of US politician James Freeman Clarke. It was a valuable aid, for a person with a long-term perspective. Sceptical and biting, Indro Montanelli observed on the pages of the Corriere della Sera that. “De Gasperi and Andreotti went to mass together and everyone thought they were doing the same thing, but that’s not true. In church, De Gasperi spoke with God, Andreotti with the priest”. The quick-witted Andreotti retorted: “Because the priest voted; God, no”. Thanks to this attitude, tireless and patient application, Andreotti would go on to occupy the country’s political scene for half a century, from 1946 to the start of the 1990s.

By then, the concept of the “primacy of politics” was looking the worse for wear, due to a widespread incapacity of the members of parties and governments, each in their own way, to seize on and lead in radical political and social transformation with appropriate reforms, to resolve the conflicts and contradictions of a rampant modernity. It came to discredit politics and led to the devastating successes of the anti-political.

Are we trying to overcome this problem now? The proliferation of “political schools”, despite increasing abstention in elections and widespread scepticism also among the younger generation, is an interesting sign.

“From Turin to Milan, and from Rome to Palermo, politics courses are to be found throughout the peninsula,” state Riccardo Ferrazza and Andrea Gagliardi in Il Sole24Ore, with evidence. To give just a few of the names examining the question: the Casa della Cultura in Milan, the Fondazione Magna Carta founded by former senator Gaetano Quagliariello, “Vivere nella Comunità” promoted by Pellegrino Capaldo, former banker and active professor, and Comunità di Connessioni directed by Jesuit Father Francesco Occhetta. Many universities too engage in courses and seminars: LUISS in Rome, Statale in Milan, Federico II in Naples and the university in Padua, as well as the SPES (School of Economic and Social Policy) named after former President of the Republic Carlo Azeglio Ciampi.

Giovanni Orsina, Director of the LUISS School of Government, comments: “In a democracy, politicians have to represent the citizens. It means that they have to be able to identify with citizens, not be perceived as distant from them, and that when citizens get tired or change their mind, the politicians have to change as well”. It’s a culture of complexity, but also a capacity for vision and inclination to interpret and seek to govern changes.

As a matter of fact, insists Orsina, ”Politicians also have to govern, and that requires professional capacities you can’t rustle up, can’t acquire in the space of a morning: for leadership, organisation, comprehension and handling political dossiers”. Democracy has always fought “the contradiction between representation and competence”, and a toolbox is required made up of knowledge of the humanities, technical and administrative knowledge, public ethics and an inclination to understanding how to plan and build the future – for the “new generations” of which De Gasperi spoke as the outlook in which a politician-statesman can find meaning and to which Europe too is calling us this very day with the new commitments of the Recovery Fund and other instruments for security, energy and the environment.

They’re all political questions, in point of fact.

Good teachers are required, basically, as well as a capacity for listening, promoting participation, incentive to design new and better democratic, political and social balance. This shouldn’t involve giving in to a cynical vision of conventional politics, to propaganda, to the sovereignist rhetoric of “walls”, to seeking consent by stoking up distrust and fear.

Political forces have of course organised training courses as well, from the League to Brothers of Italy and from the Democratic Party to Action and the Five Star movement. Years ago, in 2008, Silvio Berlusconi had planned a “Liberal University” in the Villa Gernetto, near Arcore in Lombardy, but the initiative never seriously took off and now, after the death of the Cavaliere, its future seems uncertain.

But one thing is certain: not only political groups but the whole country needs to commit to the high-quality development of its ruling classes.

Indeed, the future of democracy is strictly connected to the ability to join participation and culture, personal and collective commitment and the promotion of knowledge. It is also connected to a commitment to build up-to-date expertise for facing the challenges of modernity (neo-globalisation, environmental and social sustainability, responses to inequality, the questions of security in multipolar balance, the efficiency and transparency of public institutions and autonomy of social bodies, etc.).

It is therefore essential to be able to trust in good politics, revisit the historic, proud slogan of socialist Pietro Nenni, politique d’abord, in the light of new times, and with a sense of responsibility start consuming bread and politics once more.

(image Getty Images)

This is how, in Pirelli magazine’s issue no. 1 of 1969, Franco Russoli describes the partnership he had entered into with the bimonthly and with its director, Arrigo Castellani, who had recently passed away. Russoli, an art historian and critic, started contributing in 1962 with a column entitled “Pretesti e appunti” (“Pretexts and notes”), which appeared in every issue of the magazine until 1970. In the pages that the magazine dedicated to the late director, he outlined the nature of their work together: “not art as a topic at the service of the company’s printed communication and advertising interests, nor the exploitation of a platform for futile artistic digressions”, but a real partnership freely entered into by two intellectuals who were convinced of the importance of art for social and civil progress.

Franco Russoli was born in Florence on 9 July 1923. After graduating in the history of art and initial work experiences in Tuscany, he moved to Milan in 1950. Here he began working with Fernanda Wittgens, the superintendent of monuments and galleries in Lombardy, as well as the first female director of the Pinacoteca di Brera, at a time of exceptional dynamism in Milanese culture. Commemorating Russoli on the Pinacoteca di Brera website, Paolo Martelli writes that “it could be said that Wittgens and Russoli were for art what Grassi and Strehler were for the theatre. Italy needed to be salvaged from 25 years of isolation.” It was thanks to them that, in 1951, the heavily bombed Poldi Pezzoli Museum reopened, and the great exhibition on Pablo Picasso at the Palazzo Reale, the most important on the artist ever held in Europe, was curated by Russoli himself. It was in these years of reconstruction and rebirth of culture in Milan that, on the initiative of the poet-engineer Leonardo Sinisgalli, the Pirelli magazine experience came about, creating a place of encounter between scientific and humanistic culture. Russoli and the magazine crossed paths a few years later. In 1957, when Russoli took over from Wittgens as the director of Brera – a position he held until his death – Arrigo Castellani became editor-in-chief of the bimonthly published by Pirelli. With his “confidence in the social function of free enterprise that is conscious of its Enlightenment duties”, the new director had a precise programme to promote art in the pages of the magazine. To achieve this, he turned to Russoli, whom he had met during an auction evening. It was 1962 and Castellani decided to give the art historian and critic a regular column in the magazine: “a sort of notebook or notes on topics that he will be completely free to choose”, he wrote to Vittorio Sereni, then head of the Press Office at Pirelli, in a letter now in the poet’s archive. And thus “Pretexts and notes” came into being, with short articles in the form of features on various aspects of art, and digressions that Russoli wanted as the “pretext and starting point for introducing and highlighting discussions on issues of civil scope”. In these years of reflection on the civil function of art and on the role of museums as centres of cultural formation and social integration, the column for Pirelli magazine was one of the many ways in which Russoli helped disseminate artistic culture. “A means” – he wrote, when talking about his column – “to revive […] the notion of a duty and a right to cultural ‘service’, in its most concrete and dedicated forms. […] The transition from articles on international contemporary art, with its great exponents and its biennials and exhibitions, to calls for the creation of living museums of modern art in Italy, had to come about in a natural manner”.

Russoli’s contribution extended well beyond the column, for in his more general partnership with Arrigo Castellani and Vittorio Sereni, he helped bring other aspects of art to Pirelli magazine. This included the wonderful experience of “artists in the factory”, but also the publication of previously unexhibited works by artists, often accompanied by the text of a writer. Russoli writes in the commemoration of Castellani in 1969: “I had the opportunity to attend many meetings between Arrigo and the artists: Giacometti, Guttuso, Ajmone, Carmassi, Fontana, Sambonet, Cascella, Sassu, Biasion, Treccani, Murabito, Cazzaniga, Manzi, Chighine, Sutherland, Cagli and others […] many of them worked with his magazine”. Russoli had curated the catalogue of the first solo exhibition by the painter Arturo Carmassi in 1954 and the first monograph in 1960: after the photo service by Ugo Mulas on the Venice Biennale in 1962, where Carmassi exhibited his sculptures, the painter published a series of plates with an introduction by Russoli in issue number 5-6 of 1966. In 1968, also the Mulas’s photo service on Lucio Fontana was accompanied by a article written by Russoli. Another noteworthy article, also published in 1966, was an exposé entitled “In trecento contro i draghi“ (“300 Against the Dragons”) in favour of the “Italia da salvare” campaign promoted by Italia Nostra for the protection of Italy’s artistic and scenic heritage. Russoli’s column ended in 1970, shortly before the magazine closed down in 1972. Russoli continued working to promote art in the 1970s with publications, articles and television broadcasts. He also remained committed to the dream of a “Grande Brera” and of protecting Italy’s artistic heritage, taking part in the foundation of FAI, in 1975, together with Giulia Maria Mozzoni Crespi, Renato Bazzoni, and Alberto Predieri.

An important legacy to remember – and celebrate – on the centenary of his birth.

Studying the humanities – subjects such as philosophy and history, art and literature, theatre and music – provides students with the critical tools needed to understand the major transformations currently affecting the world, while also enhancing their career paths throughout their entire working life. This is what a recent research study entitled “The value of the Humanities” shows – a study by the University of Oxford, whereby the career profiles and paths of over 9,000 humanities graduates from the prestigious British institution, aged between 20 and 54 years and who found employment between 2000 and 2019, were analysed. The results were then refined with data from more than a hundred in-depth interviews and further scrutinised and updated once the COVID-19 pandemic came to an end.

According to the report, the pandemic accelerated trends towards automation, digitalisation and flexible work models, and humanities graduates show a degree of “resilience” that makes them particularly suitable to this new state of affairs, as well as critical and planning skills, original thinking and adaptability to change – radical change, even – all of which befit recent developments in Artificial Intelligence.

Dan Grimley, Head of Humanities at the University of Oxford, states that, “This report confirms what I and so many humanities graduates will already recognise: that the skills and experiences conferred by studying a humanities subject can transform their working life, their life as a whole, and the world around them.”

True, the new generations are especially attracted by scientific subjects and technological specialisations, in the belief that they’ll improve their career chances (this is happening in Italy, too, as shown by the results of the 15th Report on employment opportunities by the Interuniversity Consortium AlmaLaurea, which sees engineering degrees as the most in demand by enterprises and as such leading to better remunerated jobs, Il Sole24Ore, 13 June).

Yet, the graduates interviewed as part of the Oxford research study said that the humanities equipped them with sophisticated tools to better understand and manage such a transformed context through “critical and strategic thinking, the ability to synthesise complex information, empathy, creative problem-solving”, beneficial qualities that also “widely contribute” to bettering social conditions, provide answers to the ethical implications of Artificial Intelligence and enhance the “appreciation of common wealth” – all the key elements required by a “paradigm shift” leading to sustainable, environmental and social development, as well as a better economic balance.

The Oxford research actually consolidates the thought, long held by the best economics literature, that we should stop seeing humanities and sciences as “two opposite cultures” and rather opt for a so-called “polytechnic culture” able to build new meaning and beneficially impact the quality of development (as often mentioned in these blog posts).

A “polytechnic culture” that doesn’t fragment knowledge and underlines the merits of a multidisciplinary education, and, we should add, one not merely related to studying a degree but also as an attitude influencing one’s whole career – an attitude bent on “learning to learn”, an inclination to combine knowledge and skills in order to handle all these quick and radical changes sweeping over science, technology, the environment, geopolitics and the economy.

The best kind of education for such an era marked by transitions and metamorphoses, acquired through integrated, or multidisciplinary, courses, and by training engineers-cum-philosophers and scientists mindful of the ethical and social consequences that their labours may cause. These are the values that the study programmes offered by ITS (higher technical institutes) and universities should emphasise and that enterprises should reward, as we move towards a new era of “industrial and digital humanism”. Values, in fact, of which the best Italian companies are already familiar and which they have turned into unique assets to compete on the most demanding international markets.

These same themes also informed the recently published 2023 Report by the Aspen Institute Italia’s permanent observatory entitled “Nuovi lavori e nuova formazione” (“New jobs and new training”).

In fact, the Aspen report asserts that “across all sectors and countries, the need arises for a non-linear approach in terms of education and employment, as future jobs will no longer require predefined skills but rather the ability to adapt to a complex, dynamic and rapidly changing world. Unlike the widespread tendency to hyper-simplification, the employment sphere actually needs new and complex competences, as well as critical thinking and a flexible attitude, key cultural mainstays.”

Hence, in view of the progressive “digitalisation” that will permeate our personal and professional life, education must aim to nurture the development of a “scientific” attitude towards the real world, and it’d be “beneficial to start experimenting and apply evolving critical thinking and logical reasoning to interactions with Generative Artificial Intelligence devices.”

The Aspen Institute reiterates that “There is a need to regulate and guide the dissemination of GenAI, an increasingly game-changing phenomenon that is pervading all dimensions and all countries, not merely those particularly technologically advanced. We need to fully explore the limitations inherent in GenAI (biases, overconfidence, errors, and so on), aiming to carefully manage its various applications, and not only in the educational sphere.”

A clear conclusion that echoes that of the Oxford study: “This highly evolving context will lead to a greater demand for skills related to the social sciences and the humanities, which up to now have been rather neglected within the basic skills range.”

(Photo Getty Images)

A recently published book highlights the distinguishing traits useful to understand the history and evolution of “corporate welfare”.

Corporate welfare is not a new invention, and the same is true for that kind of corporate attitude we call social responsibility. This is a far from trivial observation that, nonetheless, needs to be remembered in an era where talk of the “new” approach of businesses mindful of their social and financial impact is increasingly widespread –  enterprises acting as social, and not merely economic, actors have always been a thing, and left a positive mark, just as much as good production culture did. As such, looking at the history of corporate welfare proves very useful, especially when outlined by research studies such as the one by Valerio Varini (University of Milano-Bicocca), entitled

“Eccitare il lavoro. Il welfare aziendale, una trama di lungo periodo” (“Stimulating employment. Corporate welfare, an age-old story”).

Varini begins by considering the concept of welfare and pinpointing its key characteristics, before moving on to summarise its great evolutionary periods – the era of corporate paternalism, the time (between the two wars) when welfare was considered a corporate function, and finally the period (after the Second World War) when welfare became an issue of negotiations, and in each section the author juxtaposes theorical and historical reasoning. There are several instances of enterprises that, over time, integrated the kind of corporate welfare some believe was just “discovered” today, accompanied by an analysis of its features and evolutions.

In his conclusions, Varini writes how “corporate welfare, in its continued existence, reveals its ultimate essence – it embodies knowledge arisen from work, which is the basis of a business and must be acknowledged as a means to meet the many needs of workers.” Varini’s work is an effective summary of the history of corporate welfare – to be read and added to one’s collection.

Eccitare il lavoro. Il welfare aziendale, una trama di lungo periodo (“Stimulating employment. Corporate welfare, an age-old story”)

Valerio Varini

Impresa Sociale, 2/2023