The Polynesian rituals which create the We overcoming the I.
In response to the restriction measures set out for Christmas 2020 which prevented many people sharing their traditional Christmas rituals due to the spread of the pandemic, the anthropologist Adriano Favole², using the example of Polynesian customs, reflects on the importance of the collective sharing of rituals.

“A myth from Oceania tells the story of the distress of a young child who found themselves in the world of their ancestors. Here there is an abundance of food but the child feels the need to return to the land of the living to rediscover the warmth of sharing. It is an example of how deep rooted the reciprocity of being is for those people, which expresses itself in an extraordinary variety of customs and ceremonies which are always celebrated in the spirit of being together”. 

Pain makes us Human
Comments Byung Chul Han⁴ the South Korean philosopher in an interview about his new book La Società senza Dolore (The Palliative Society: Pain Today) published by Einaudi Editore.

He reflects on a condition where today’s society tends to remove – he states – even through an excessive trust in medical techniques: pain. He explains that “only the truth hurts” and “if breakups don’t cause suffering, it means the bonds weren’t true”.

His vision isn’t pessimistic but claims: “life is more than mere survival. I don’t glorify pain however without it our existence is incomplete”.

Economic and social consequences
Interview with the historian Walter Scheidele⁵ and the biologist and geneticist Philippe Kourilsk⁶on the eventual consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Wars and pandemics, in history, have often decreased inequalities. If the economy collapses and a vaccine isn’t found, it’ll probably happen again despite the differences with the situations from the past”.

In his book “La grande livellatrice. Violenza e disugualianza dalla preistoria a oggi” published by Il Mulino, Sheidele explains that in the long run, pandemics reduced the disparity between classes. But in a recent editorial in the New York Times, the scholar specifies that the current crisis may not have the same effect.

“Covid-19 reveals the flaws in our democracies starting with the inadequacy of healthcare services”.

Kourilsky in “Di scienza e Democrazia” discloses critical issues and necessities which today are also completely attributable to the effects of the coronavirus on a global and European scale and evidences the flaws of democracy today: flaws in altruism, which is the basis for solidarity; flaws in the capacity to compare and exchange ideas, which allow the participation in democratic life; flaws in efficiency without which there is no wellbeing.

La pandemia ha imparato a scrivere (The pandemic has learnt to write) Article by Vanni Santoni.

In the beginning we looked to Camus’ La Peste and Saramago’s Blindness to understand what was happening: because even literature has something to say during times of lockdown. 

Then the accounts from and about quarantine arrived: so many that the French editor Gallimard made a plea to write less and read more.

I confini nelle città: la storia (con) divisa (Borders within cities: the  shared / divided history) article by the historian Marcello Flores

“The announcement declaring Nova Gorica and Gorizia – territories split by the Second World War – as European Capital of Culture in 2025, is a sign to “heal separate memories”.