What do they really want: the unemployed protesters in England, the students who protest in Chile, the young protagonists of the "spring" Middle East? It is worth trying to understand what lies beneath these protests.
by Luigino Bruni
published in cittànuova.it on 12/08/2011
Many of us wer...
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[introtext] => What do they really want: the unemployed protesters in England, the students who protest in Chile, the young protagonists of the "spring" Middle East? It is worth trying to understand what lies beneath these protests.
by Luigino Bruni
published in cittànuova.it on 12/08/2011
Many of us were struck and concerned about the Middle East squares where young people took to the streets, giving their lives, demanding democracy and freedom, and on the British streets where young people smashed windows to steal mobile phones and plasma TVs, clear indications that a serious and deep pain of living is spreading.
[fulltext] => But the history of the twentieth century taught us that when young people, especially if thousands, take to the streets, one must always be very careful, even when they do it badly, smashing and screaming, for beneath the cruelty or bad response there may be important questions; as when a teenager's screams and punches the mobile home, a smart parent knows that behind that bad language often there are very serious things hidden. This does not mean young people are always right, only that we need to understand what is happening in England, also in Chile (where young people want a university not only for the rich), and, although the distance is large, in the Middle East.
What is at stake is a big world "youth question," very evident in the opulent West, which certainly has to do with the crisis and the cuts but that is much deeper, because it refers to the unequal market society we are building, especially in recent years with the turbo-finance capitalist. The English sociologist Anthony Giddens has brought to light well in different interviews the theoretic of "the third way," when he reminds us that behind these destructions of the British youth there is also the reaction of those who feel excluded from the great luxuries and consumption, which instead sees increase blatantly in the richest 5 percent of the population.
The rich and the poor have always existed in the world, but until a few decades ago, the social culture and religions had built social bonds that held even with a certain inequality. The social classes were far apart and not in close communication, whereby envy and frustration were manageable, at least in ordinary moments. Today, however, the growing inequality (remember that England is among the countries with the highest inequality) is not easily manageable, because while the media build global villages and the lifestyles and aspirations are becoming more uniform, the purchasing power and the opportunities are very different.
Young people especially perceive, even for the huge public debts that we put on their shoulders and the large youth unemployment, that social mobility is declining, and their future may be worse than that of their parents. The risk is that this uneasiness may become global and hardly manageable, if we do not give life, immediately, to new deals between generations, to a more egalitarian and fraternal economic system, and "suitable for the young," which are not the future (such as is often said of paternalistic) but a different way of living and seeing the present.
If we had listened, beyond the bad responses, the complaints and questions of the young people in 2001 (until July 2001 in Genoa), they were asking for a globalization of solidarity and governance of the financial speculation (the "Tobin Tax"), perhaps today we would not know this crisis generated by a decade of distraction from those issues that young people have identified well and shouted loudly.
Let us listen to the young people, always listen to them, and let them feel protagonists of the choices of today, and not just those, uncertain and vague, of tomorrow.
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[text] => What do they really want: the unemployed protesters in England, the students who protest in Chile, the young protagonists of the "spring" Middle East? It is worth trying to understand what lies beneath these protests.
by Luigino Bruni
published in cittànuova.it on 12/08/2011
Many of us were struck and concerned about the Middle East squares where young people took to the streets, giving their lives, demanding democracy and freedom, and on the British streets where young people smashed windows to steal mobile phones and plasma TVs, clear indications that a serious and deep pain of living is spreading.
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There is an overwhelming mass of great injustice toward the elderly. Until a few decades ago the traditional structure of Western society was based on a rule of reciprocity: as adults they gave assistance to our parents, and once they themselves became older they would receive care from their children (who in turn had received care from their parents during their childhood and youth). And the balance between "giving" and "receiving" care broke even. All this then was a political and social representation in the pension system, where the pension received by an elderly was not his savings as a young man, but a sort of return and appreciation of the young people towards them.
From time to time, in recent years, the market rekindles the debate on its limits. We return to wonder whether it is right, opportune and possible to create official and transparent markets for organ trafficking, legalizing commercial surrogacy, legalizing prostitution, etc., issues that for many generate anger and rejection.
The financial crisis in Ireland, following that of Greece, does nothing but remind us that the West has gone too far into debt. The rescue of many banks and businesses last year, following the crisis, led especially to a shift of debt from the private to the public sector.
One of the most important elements in the birth of Western civilization was the opposition between fortune and virtue. In the world of Greek myths, a tight relationship between happiness and fortune existed: he who had a good (eu) god (daimon) on his side was considered happy. Socrates and the long season of Greek philosophy affirmed, instead, that happiness, human flourishing, depends on virtue and not on fortune. Virtue beats bad luck. This is the basis on which all personal and collective ethics in Europe has been built. And thanks to the great Christian event, Europe has affirmed that good living, happiness, depends on the capacity to cultivate virtue, on our commitment and on our responsibility. 
In almost all airports of the world, you can pay to get Internet service. In Zurich, with one Euro, you can be connected for 4 minutes: almost all the booths were available. A few days ago, in Porto, I found free Internet service in the airport. I waited in line for more than an hour, and then I gave up because those using the booths were not moving. Maybe if the cost in Zurich was a little less, and in Porto a little more, the efficiency of both systems would improve. 
Why do people go to vote? 
postal service, etc...). However, often, very often, what happens is that these events take place in half-empty auditoriums, and of the millions of people reached, only a few, sparse groups arrive. How is this possible? Reducing costs is not always positive from a social point of view. When we receive an invitation to a conference, together will hundreds of other people, perhaps with an anonymous letterhead - "Respectable Sir/Madame" - we´re well conscious that that invitation only cost a few seconds of time, and this is why it makes us indifferent. Instead, 