One cannot understand anything about the world, whether ancient or contemporary, so full of uncertainties and complexities, unless one adopts the intellectual stance of someone who never tires of asking questions:\u00a0 what really happened,\u00a0 how, and,\u00a0 above all, why, and\u00a0 what were the consequences?<\/p>\n
To return to the wonder of childhood, when we never tired of asking ‘Why?’ about everything,\u00a0 and to embrace adulthood with Descartes’s pages on ‘methodical doubt’ and the works of Pascal and Montaigne, which emphasise the importance of inquiry and culture as a constant approximation to the truth. Spinoza’s writings on the construction of an ethic are also important here:\u00a0 a rigorous line of thought firmly rooted in the reflections of the centuries leading us to modernity, which tell us\u00a0 ‘I enjoy life, and endeavour to pass it not in weeping and sighing, but in peace, joy, and cheerfulness, and from time to time climb thereby a step higher’.\u00a0 This is the process of knowledge,\u00a0 the ladder that guides us towards an awareness of the meaning of our disruptive contemporary world.<\/p>\n
We live in ignorant and superficial times,\u00a0 characterised by a rejection of the analysis of facts and data (the very pillars of knowledge)\u00a0 and by propaganda promoting a ‘post-truth’ that is the exact opposite of knowledge. This demagogic ‘post-truth’ manipulates emotions, beliefs and worldviews in a direction entirely opposed to Spinoza’s ladder.\u00a0 These are times of the rejection of science and the derision of intellectual work,\u00a0 in which the ‘reason of the strongest’ prevails over the ‘force of reason’.\u00a0 Both civil coexistence and our very democracy are seriously threatened by this.<\/p>\n
It is worth re-reading one of Italo Calvino\u2019s most lucid and incisive passages: \u2018 The devil today is vagueness.\u00a0 By \u201cdevil\u201d, I mean irredeemable negativity from which no good can come.\u00a0 In vague discourse, generalisations and imprecision of thought and language, especially when accompanied by self-assurance and petulance, we can recognise the devil as the enemy of clarity within ourselves and in our relationships with others, as the personification of mystification and self-deception.\u00a0 I mean the vague, not the complicated.\u00a0 When things are not simple or clear, demanding clarity and simplification at all costs is superficial,\u00a0 and it is precisely this demand that forces discourse to become generalised, that is, deceitful.\u00a0 On the other hand, the effort to think and express oneself with the greatest possible precision, particularly when faced with the most complex issues, is the only honest and useful approach\u2019 (The Uses of Literature: Essays. 1980).<\/p>\n
Asking questions is the way to combat ‘the devil of approximation’.\u00a0 That is to say, it involves practising the professions of intellectual, scientist, entrepreneur and teacher with humility and determination (in times of such radical innovation, the only truly viable form of teaching is ‘learning to learn’).\u00a0 In short, to fulfil one\u2019s role as a citizen, it is important to bear in mind J\u00fcrgen Habermas\u2019s lesson that ‘well-informed public discourse’ is the foundation of critical public opinion, and thus of democracy.<\/p>\n
Ulysses is a man who harbours doubts and therefore asks questions and one of the most successful characters in contemporary cinema: the Ulysses portrayed in Christopher Nolan’s fascinating film Odyssey, to be precise.\u00a0 For the man undertaking his journey back to Ithaca is no longer the shrewd victor of the Trojan War, but a restless man who lands in unfamiliar ports and must win over his hosts, overcome temptations and traps, escape Circe’s spells and Calypso’s seductive promises, and keep his crew together to reach their destiny.\u00a0 In short, Ulysses is a ‘modern hero with his doubts’.\u00a0 \u2018A myth that is still being created today, just like science and progress,\u2019 summarises Giulio Guidorizzi, one of the most eminent contemporary Greek studies scholars (La Stampa, 14 July).<\/p>\n
Ulysses has always spoken to us and about us.\u00a0 Konstantinos Kavafis writes in one of the most beautiful poems of the twentieth century that, \u2018when setting out on a journey to Ithaca, one should hope that the road is long and full of adventures and experiences\u2019. He also advises us to\u00a0 \u2018visit many Egyptian cities and learn from the learned\u2019.\u00a0 And be grateful, for ‘Ithaca has given you the beautiful journey’ (and the concept of the journey is also explored at the Salina Film Fest, directed by Giovanna Taviani in the Aeolian Islands, which are the symbolic setting of Homer’s epics).<\/p>\n
It is not merely a journey of discovery into an unknown and fascinating world.\u00a0 But it is also, and above all, an inner journey exploring nostalgia and melancholy whilst gazing at ‘the sea the colour of wine’, and the strengths and weaknesses of humankind, whose very nature is to ‘follow virtue and knowledge’ (as Dante urges us in the pages of the Divine Comedy).<\/p>\n
Ulysses’s journey is our own ongoing journey, making good use of the ‘talent’ with which we have been blessed, regardless of our work or responsibilities.\u00a0 Ulysses is our archetype, echoed in countless literary characters.\u00a0 Ulysses is our restless soul,\u00a0 finally seeking peace in the familiar harbour of Ithaca and in the home guarded and defended by Penelope. However, he must set out again, as he discovers during his perilous wanderings across the Mediterranean, in the answer of the soothsayer Tiresias to his question.<\/p>\n
In The Odyssey, Odysseus is far from invincible.\u00a0 He makes mistakes, he fails, and he starts again. Andrea Lipparini is right to describe him as a leader who exercises his leadership through mistakes, second thoughts, critical reflection and risks taken after a night of doubt in times of uncertainty (\u2018Desire and Limits.\u00a0 Ulysses and Transformative Leadership\u2019, Il Mulino).<\/p>\n
This is the exploratory, dialogue-based leadership of our time, where everything changes too quickly for traditional knowledge and old maps to suffice.\u00a0 New knowledge must be built by linking established knowledge to the technological and geopolitical developments that force us to work things out quickly,\u00a0 and by drawing these new maps during the journey in the hope that they will benefit others too.<\/p>\n
Knowledge is called into question, deconstructed and reconstructed.\u00a0 Imagination and creativity are on high alert, and\u00a0 once again, there are questions.<\/p>\n
Moreover, when it comes to questions, Artificial Intelligence also plays a part. We are already grappling with it, albeit with difficulty, but with a desire to learn how it works and make good use of its potential.<\/p>\n
When it comes to questions of meaning, value, and human and social sustainability, we seek to address the ethical and political issues that new technologies present to us (Pope Leo\u2019s encyclical letter \u2018Magnifica Humanitas\u2019 contains exemplary reflections on this subject, even for secular thought).<\/p>\n
This is our moral and cultural responsibility, particularly towards younger generations, our children and grandchildren.<\/p>\n
In Eduardo Galeano\u2019s \u2018The Book of Embraces\u2019, the young Diego, amazed and overwhelmed by the immensity of the sea which he has just seen for the first time, asks his father, Santiago\u00a0 \u2018Help me to see!\u2019<\/p>\n
It is a question we all ask in times of uncertainty and change:\u00a0 help me to understand.\u00a0 Like so many Ulysses,\u00a0 like so many Diegos.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One cannot understand anything about the world, whether ancient or contemporary, so full of uncertainties and complexities, unless one adopts the intellectual stance of someone who never tires of asking questions:\u00a0 what really happened,\u00a0 how, and,\u00a0 above all, why, and\u00a0 what were the consequences? To return to the wonder of childhood, when we never tired […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":108987,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55,56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-108991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-corporate-culture"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n