Even “draghi locopei” (locopean dragons) are useful to advance knowledge and democracy
“The destruction of language is the premise for all future destruction.” The words of Tullio De Mauro, a sophisticated and sensitive linguist, also attentive to the political dimensions of the wise use of words (political in the sense of polis, to refer to a person’s capacity to be a responsible member of a community, a citizen, in short). And, on rereading his writings eight years after his death (at the beginning of January 2017), one is minded to seek a horizon of meaning and a perspective of intellectual engagement, as the development and expansion of social media have an increasingly radical impact on the quality of public discourse, the formation of opinions, the political leanings of communities and, more generally, on cultural processes. On the dynamics of knowledge, in short.
A mechanism that affects the roots, values and functioning of liberal democracy, of that intertwining of freedom, enterprise, work, market and welfare, of common values and legitimate interests that has been the supporting structure of Western thought. It is a system that we are dismayed and saddened to see in crisis, but which, despite all its limitations, deserves to be defended and revitalised in the face of the dangers of authoritarianism, of overbearing technocracies and of the temptations of so-called “illiberal democracies”, which are also widespread in Europe.
And the fight against the degradation and impoverishment of language is part of that protection. Avoiding the shallowness of likes and emoticons and the trivialisation of standpoints (almost always emotional, hasty, passionate, simplistic to the point of crudeness). To escape the pitfalls of opinion-forming untethered from facts, which are becoming increasingly more insidious with the spread of fake news, especially on social media, which the major players on the internet refuse to control in the name of a misunderstood respect for “freedom of opinion” (not least Facebook). Knowing how to distinguish between the sharpness of common sense and the superficiality of generic common sense. And build new and better tools of critical awareness.
This is a fundamental task, especially in view of the pitfalls of an artificial intelligence, which (beyond the positive implications linked to scientific research and medical diagnostics and high-tech applications for industry and services) in its “generative” form, sets in motion sophisticated mechanisms of manipulation and thus profoundly changes the panorama of knowledge and dialogue.
A political and cultural challenge is essential. And this calls for a renewed intellectual commitment. Because, if the crisis of the traditional way of conceiving intellectual work is true and well-founded (“Thinking is tiring”, wrote David Bidussa, with acute and somewhat painful irony, reasoning on “the past, present and future of the intellectual”, for the Feltrinelli editions), it is equally necessary for all those who, in their personal and professional choices, measure themselves by the creation of ideas, by research, by philosophy and science, by law and technology, by economics and artistic creativity, by writing AI algorithms and by genetics, to take responsibility for action, analysis and critical judgement. In short, with the construction of thoughts and their expression in words. All functions that require freedom, a sense of responsibility
and autonomy. And a critical eye. Reading for the “simple pleasure of it” and the context. And for the grateful remembrance of Jorge Luis Borges‘s reference to “the righteous”, who counts among them “those who enjoy discovering an etymology”, along with “those who are happy that music exists” and “those who tend their garden, as Voltaire wished”. Literature has a salutary value for free thought and the civilisation of life.
From this perspective, it may be helpful to remember the lesson of Susan Sontag: “We live in a culture in which intelligence is denied relevance altogether, in a search for radical innocence, or is defended as an instrument of authority and repression. In my view, the only intelligence worth defending is critical, dialectical, skeptical, desimplifying” (the quote is taken from “Women, the Arts and the Politics of Culture: an Interview with Susan Sontag”, 1975: fifty years ago).
So let us return to the good use of words. If Emilio Isgrò, one of the greatest artists of our troubled times, plays creatively and ironically with removing words to highlight banalities and emphasise the few undeleted words that regain weight, there is Giulio Guidorizzi, a scholar of the anthropology of the ancient world, who, for Raffaello Cortina Editore, has devoted almost 250 clear and essential pages to “The Greek lexicon” or “A civilisation in 30 words” (including chaos, love, the soul, justice and law, patriarchy, hospitality, fate, myth, poetry, politics and wisdom). Our cultural roots and therefore the foundations of our future.
And then there is Giuseppe Antonelli, Professor of the History of Italian Literature at the University of Pavia, who wrote “Il mago delle parole” (The word wizard), just published by Einaudi, in order to remind especially the new generations of the value of grammar as a tool of knowledge and therefore of freedom, but also of its charm (highlighting the link between grammar and glamour). There is an evocative quote from a film of great intensity and beauty, “Dead Poets Society”, directed by Peter Weir and starring Robin Williams as Professor John Keating, an extraordinary teacher of free souls: “You will learn to savour words and language. No matter what anyone tells you, words and ideas can change the world.”
So, we must understand. Knowing how to read and speak are tools of freedom. Let us also remember the lesson of Gianni Rodari and his “The Grammar of Fantasy: “’Everyone can use any meaning of any word’ seems a good motto to me, with a nice democratic ring to it, not because everyone is an artist, but because no one is a slave.”
What tools should we use? Simple. A book. A pen. Reading. And writing by hand.
Read from childhood and fill our homes with good books. And open and revitalise libraries, public and private, in schools, neighbourhoods, businesses, prisons and all places where cultural initiatives and activities to promote reading can be encouraged (something we have often talked about this in these blogs). Combine the paper book with animated words on digital screens. Discuss with the writer and enjoy the somewhat theatrical pleasure of reading aloud. And play with words, as suggested in the pages of a very popular book for parents and children in the mid-1980s, “I draghi locopei” by Ersilia Zamboni, to “imparare l’italiano con i giochi di parole” (learn Italian with word games) (“draghi locopei” is an anagram of the Italian for word games).
Read for pleasure and enjoyment, curiosity and a desire for knowledge. And write by hand.
We must, of course, be able to use computer keyboards and other digital devices with ease and competence. But without forgetting the gesture of a hand holding a pen or a pencil. Because, as authoritative scientific studies confirm, this gesture activates our brains in complex ways, stimulating neural networks, moving complex thoughts, setting in motion relationships that enhance learning. It creates better words and organises them more deeply and intelligently.
And we need quality words. Poetic words. And scientific words. Words heavy as stone and light as feathers. Sincere words. Free and responsible words.
Knowledge, for example, is a really beautiful word.
“The destruction of language is the premise for all future destruction.” The words of Tullio De Mauro, a sophisticated and sensitive linguist, also attentive to the political dimensions of the wise use of words (political in the sense of polis, to refer to a person’s capacity to be a responsible member of a community, a citizen, in short). And, on rereading his writings eight years after his death (at the beginning of January 2017), one is minded to seek a horizon of meaning and a perspective of intellectual engagement, as the development and expansion of social media have an increasingly radical impact on the quality of public discourse, the formation of opinions, the political leanings of communities and, more generally, on cultural processes. On the dynamics of knowledge, in short.
A mechanism that affects the roots, values and functioning of liberal democracy, of that intertwining of freedom, enterprise, work, market and welfare, of common values and legitimate interests that has been the supporting structure of Western thought. It is a system that we are dismayed and saddened to see in crisis, but which, despite all its limitations, deserves to be defended and revitalised in the face of the dangers of authoritarianism, of overbearing technocracies and of the temptations of so-called “illiberal democracies”, which are also widespread in Europe.
And the fight against the degradation and impoverishment of language is part of that protection. Avoiding the shallowness of likes and emoticons and the trivialisation of standpoints (almost always emotional, hasty, passionate, simplistic to the point of crudeness). To escape the pitfalls of opinion-forming untethered from facts, which are becoming increasingly more insidious with the spread of fake news, especially on social media, which the major players on the internet refuse to control in the name of a misunderstood respect for “freedom of opinion” (not least Facebook). Knowing how to distinguish between the sharpness of common sense and the superficiality of generic common sense. And build new and better tools of critical awareness.
This is a fundamental task, especially in view of the pitfalls of an artificial intelligence, which (beyond the positive implications linked to scientific research and medical diagnostics and high-tech applications for industry and services) in its “generative” form, sets in motion sophisticated mechanisms of manipulation and thus profoundly changes the panorama of knowledge and dialogue.
A political and cultural challenge is essential. And this calls for a renewed intellectual commitment. Because, if the crisis of the traditional way of conceiving intellectual work is true and well-founded (“Thinking is tiring”, wrote David Bidussa, with acute and somewhat painful irony, reasoning on “the past, present and future of the intellectual”, for the Feltrinelli editions), it is equally necessary for all those who, in their personal and professional choices, measure themselves by the creation of ideas, by research, by philosophy and science, by law and technology, by economics and artistic creativity, by writing AI algorithms and by genetics, to take responsibility for action, analysis and critical judgement. In short, with the construction of thoughts and their expression in words. All functions that require freedom, a sense of responsibility
and autonomy. And a critical eye. Reading for the “simple pleasure of it” and the context. And for the grateful remembrance of Jorge Luis Borges‘s reference to “the righteous”, who counts among them “those who enjoy discovering an etymology”, along with “those who are happy that music exists” and “those who tend their garden, as Voltaire wished”. Literature has a salutary value for free thought and the civilisation of life.
From this perspective, it may be helpful to remember the lesson of Susan Sontag: “We live in a culture in which intelligence is denied relevance altogether, in a search for radical innocence, or is defended as an instrument of authority and repression. In my view, the only intelligence worth defending is critical, dialectical, skeptical, desimplifying” (the quote is taken from “Women, the Arts and the Politics of Culture: an Interview with Susan Sontag”, 1975: fifty years ago).
So let us return to the good use of words. If Emilio Isgrò, one of the greatest artists of our troubled times, plays creatively and ironically with removing words to highlight banalities and emphasise the few undeleted words that regain weight, there is Giulio Guidorizzi, a scholar of the anthropology of the ancient world, who, for Raffaello Cortina Editore, has devoted almost 250 clear and essential pages to “The Greek lexicon” or “A civilisation in 30 words” (including chaos, love, the soul, justice and law, patriarchy, hospitality, fate, myth, poetry, politics and wisdom). Our cultural roots and therefore the foundations of our future.
And then there is Giuseppe Antonelli, Professor of the History of Italian Literature at the University of Pavia, who wrote “Il mago delle parole” (The word wizard), just published by Einaudi, in order to remind especially the new generations of the value of grammar as a tool of knowledge and therefore of freedom, but also of its charm (highlighting the link between grammar and glamour). There is an evocative quote from a film of great intensity and beauty, “Dead Poets Society”, directed by Peter Weir and starring Robin Williams as Professor John Keating, an extraordinary teacher of free souls: “You will learn to savour words and language. No matter what anyone tells you, words and ideas can change the world.”
So, we must understand. Knowing how to read and speak are tools of freedom. Let us also remember the lesson of Gianni Rodari and his “The Grammar of Fantasy: “’Everyone can use any meaning of any word’ seems a good motto to me, with a nice democratic ring to it, not because everyone is an artist, but because no one is a slave.”
What tools should we use? Simple. A book. A pen. Reading. And writing by hand.
Read from childhood and fill our homes with good books. And open and revitalise libraries, public and private, in schools, neighbourhoods, businesses, prisons and all places where cultural initiatives and activities to promote reading can be encouraged (something we have often talked about this in these blogs). Combine the paper book with animated words on digital screens. Discuss with the writer and enjoy the somewhat theatrical pleasure of reading aloud. And play with words, as suggested in the pages of a very popular book for parents and children in the mid-1980s, “I draghi locopei” by Ersilia Zamboni, to “imparare l’italiano con i giochi di parole” (learn Italian with word games) (“draghi locopei” is an anagram of the Italian for word games).
Read for pleasure and enjoyment, curiosity and a desire for knowledge. And write by hand.
We must, of course, be able to use computer keyboards and other digital devices with ease and competence. But without forgetting the gesture of a hand holding a pen or a pencil. Because, as authoritative scientific studies confirm, this gesture activates our brains in complex ways, stimulating neural networks, moving complex thoughts, setting in motion relationships that enhance learning. It creates better words and organises them more deeply and intelligently.
And we need quality words. Poetic words. And scientific words. Words heavy as stone and light as feathers. Sincere words. Free and responsible words.
Knowledge, for example, is a really beautiful word.