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The role of languages of politics and of power in the building of collective imaginary : from the concept of “social myth” according to G. Bouchard to the Italian debate
No full textThe recent volume by Gerard Bouchard, Social Myths e Collective Imaginaries (University of Toronto Press, 2017; original edition: Raison et déraison du mythe: coeur des imaginaires collectifs, Editions du Boreal, 2015), starts with the assumption that the study of myths does not play anymore a central role in the contemporary political and philosophical-political investigation. Myths, symbols, utopian narratives, etc., constitute, nevertheless, from the dawn of human history, not only the instruments of social cohesion, but constitute the means through which the various civilizations determine their institutions. The myths, far from being simple stories, often embody the trigger of political action, producing, in the collective imaginary, those feelings (from identity to hope, from fear to hatred) that move and direct the choices of the people. In this sense, the mythological narration keeps pace with the rhetoric, as an instrument for building consent.
Therefore, it is necessary, along with the study of social myths, a research on the languages of politics and on the mechanisms of power intimately connected and intertwined with them. In this perspective, Bouchard's text represents a fruitful reflection. After having clarified the value of the myth and its social role (Chapters 1 and 2), the author faces the “mythification process”, in the Chapter that is perhaps the most original one (Chapter 3), followed by others two Chapters, respectively on “the conditions for the effectiveness of the myth” and on the hypothesis of construction of a pyramidal structure of social myths. Therefore, the third Chapter of Bouchard’s book investigates the mechanisms through which social myths emerge in a community, are preserved, are reproduced or decline. These pages deal with topics such as the construction of the subject, the anchors, the imprints, the ethos, the sacralization, the history, the techniques of persuasion and the social actors.
To understand the mechanisms of production of those social myths, that are able to create and modify the collective imaginary, it is necessary to analyze the means used to shape the message as an instrument of power. The languages of politics, and in particular rhetoric, are not only instruments of power, but also the conditions that enable those mythological narratives, which concretely affect political action. Hence, therefore, we need a real phenomenology of the various mechanisms of production of social myths – like the one elaborated by Bouchard.
He writes: “My approach focuses mainly on the social aspect of myth, that of the actors, contexts, power relations, and change, as opposed to the psychological or archetypical aspect, that of constantsand universalizing forms”: from the beginning he tries to make clear the connection between “social myths” and “power relations”.
If the process of constructing social myths is articulated in various phases (Bouchard identifies eight of them), those most related to the languages of politics are those of “narration” and "techniques of persuasion" (respectively, Paragraphs F and G of Chapter 2). If, according to the author, the narratives often have a commemorative value and are mainly directed to a past dimension, such as the historical memory of a people, in the techniques of persuasion, instead, the languages of politics become a performative tool, exploited to change the brainframe (forma mentis) of political subjects, and therefore their political action: in this sense, it is strongly highlighted the link between languages of politics and power, id est the relationship between “knowledge” and “power”, on which a thinker as Foucault has long focused.
Bouchard continues with an interesting phenomenology of the various persuasion techniques; in any case, the heart of the question consists in the dynamics of power connected to it, which can be examined through an equally various range of themes. Just as the languages of politics evolve in the history of humanity, in the same way power assumes different forms within the various political set-ups. If the ancient and modern world is organized according to a “pyramidal” model of power, the contemporary or post-modern world must use new strategies of power. Paolo Bellini, for example, in the footsteps of Foucault's studies, has been able to propose, in his works, a “reticular” structure of power, which fits well to describe many of the dynamics of contemporary politics. In the same way, in order to outline the new face of the languages of politics, its narratives and techniques of persuasion, we can use the image of the “grid”. This will be one of the objectives of this article, which aims not only to reconstruct the debate on social myths and the collective imaginary as presented by Bouchard, but also to examine in depth the “perfomatory” value of myth as an instrument of power, precisely in the inseparable relationship, as old as man, between “power” and “knowledge”, a relationship that presents itself with faces always new, through which the different aspects of collective identity are redrawn, from time to time
The Political Languages of Western Civilisation: Rhetoric, Democracy and Populism
No full textThis essay begins with the study of ancient rhetoric to develop some philosophical reflections on which to base a historical reconstruction that will lead us, through the various definitions of rhetoric and all its practical, ethical, social and political implications, to the world of today, where we will find the cue to question the more or less rhetorical languages developed within the democracies and the socalled populisms that characterize the West – or rather, what remains of it
Corpo individuo Identità : scritti di filosofia e simbolica politica
No full textBody, Individual, Identity starts from an examination of the concept of “body” as it was conceived in the pre-Socratic culture and then transvalued by Socrates and Plato, up to Christianity and the reinterpretation made by Descartes, who will make it a mere mechanema (res extensa) now almost completely disconnected from the soul (res cogitans). For a philosophical rehabilitation of corporeality we will have to wait for Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. Only in the wake of these unprecedented as well as ancestral positions of thought will it be possible to lay the groundwork for a radical turning point, which will have consequences both in the immediate and in subsequent generations: from Rilke to Mann, from Michelstaedter to Campana or Kafka),but also from Freud to Jung and Lacan, from Husserl to Merleau-Ponty, from Jaspers to Sartre, from Foucault to Deleuze, Guattari and Nancy, etc. Reflecting on the “body” as a “principium individuationis” thus makes it necessary to question the concept of “individual,” thought of, at the same time, both in relation to the notion of “species” and in a socio-political sense as the ultimate term of the history of the West. In conclusion, it becomes necessary to reflect on the concept of “Identity,” also approached from various perspectives (political, logical and metaphysical), but always on the basis of the same philosophical framework
Democrazia e repubblica, sovranità e autorità : le critiche di Platone al regime democratico nella lettura di Giuseppe Rensi
Get PDFThe article explores the genesis of the concept of “democracy” (and its analogies and differences with “republic” concept in the Roman world) starting with its source place: Ancient Greece. After some notices of the birth of this form of government, we will dwell on the criticisms that have come to the notion of democracy from the philosophical perspective, in particular, from Plato’s theory, which will be exposed through the reading key offered by the philosopher Giuseppe Rensi, who, after rebuilding “Plato’s political drama”, will offer some interesting insights into the notions of “authority” and “sovereignty” underlying the Platonic discourse, aimed at showing some limits to the democratic regime
Thanatografie : per un’estetica del morire in Platone, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Michelstaedter e Rilke
No full text“Thanatografia” è, letteralmente, “Scrittura” di “Morte”, entrambe intese in quanto Azioni, ché alla struttura formale di questa risultano conformi. Scrittura è il supremo esplicarsi dell’Azione: essa è l’Azione che scrive la struttura formale dell’Azione in quanto tale e dunque inscrive in se medesima ogni Azione. Morte, d’altro canto, è il supremo implicarsi dell’Azione: essa è un’Azione determinata in cui l’Azione accade nel suo grado zero. Morte è un momento dell’Azione della Vita ma, per usare una arguta espressione tedesca, è Stillleben (lett.: natura morta), ossia Vita silente, rappresa e chiusa in sé ma allo stesso tempo dispersa. Ciò si trova espresso in modo completo e compiuto nei versi della poesia Orfeo. Euridice. Ermes di Rainer Maria Rilke, nella quale il poeta tenta di descrivere l’ineffabile condizione dell’essere morto, scegliendo proprio il personaggio di Euridice che si trova ad abitare la soglia tra vita e morte: ella era “chiusa in sé, come una speranza più alta” ma, al tempo stesso, “ella ormai era radice”
Ergografie : studi sulla struttura dell'Essere
No full text“Ergografie” sono percorsi di Scrittura della struttura formale dell’Azione, alla quale ogni “gesto” e ogni “verbo” debbono poter essere ricondotti – compreso, però, anche il gesto stesso che scrive tale struttura. La Scrittura filosofica dovrà mostrarsi come un’Azione tra le tante, dotata però della peculiare facoltà di poter inscrivere, nel suo gesto, la struttura stessa dell’Azione secondo la quale anche la Scrittura, in quanto Azione, accade. “Tutto” è Azione, ma l’Azione è dunque esplicata nella propria struttura formale esclusivamente all’interno dell’ambito di quell’Azione, la Scrittura, il cui risultato, ossia la cui estrema concrezione, la filosofia, viene a identificarsi con la struttura formale dell’Azione in quanto tale. Idea, questa, che Maurits Cornelis Escher, nel suo celebre Mani che disegnano del 1948, ha saputo magistralmente evocare. Ergografia è cioè Azione che torna su se stessa: è l’Azione della Scrittura dell’Azione. Ergografia, nelle pagine che seguono, si fa però Ontografia: tra le diverse Azioni, il percorso qui presentato si sofferma principalmente su quella che prende il nome di Essere il quale, ricondotto alla struttura formale dell’Azione, viene descritto secondo una veste inedita che tiene conto della sua evenemenzialità e della sua relazionalità, della sua sostanzialità e della sua transitività
Per una genealogia della follia, tra sapere medico e potere politico : un percorso a partire da Michel Foucault
Get PDFThe technological and postmodern reality in which we live is a disciplinary society that removes whatever is labelled as madness, which is considered not only a pathology, but also a moral sin that must be redeemed. The biopolitical power and the medical knowledge take relevant decisions on patients lives, by drawing inspiration from a thought that sustains the superiority of the rationality over the irrationality or the madness. This sharp division is found out not only in
the modern age, but it can be spotted also in the philosophy of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. However, throughout the history of thought, there is no shortage of counter-trends in the ways of conceiving the madness, traceable, for instance,
in the Archaic period, but especially in some key contributions, essential for understanding the themes of the body and the disease, offered by authors such as Nietzsche and Foucault
Essere e preoccupazione : studio sui concetti di Sorgen, Sein e Wollen in Essere e tempo di Martin Heidegger
No full textLe forzature e i paradossi insiti in Essere e tempo, una rilettura dell’opera heideggeriana alla luce dei corsi precedenti il 1927 – data della sua pubblicazione nell’Annuario fenomenologico di Husserl. Il volume prova a dischiudere la possibilità di una interpretazione inedita del concetto di “essere” in analogia con quello di “volontà”, entrambi intesi, secondo una medesima struttura formale, come “azioni”
Il poeta e la morte : una prospettiva estetica sulle Elegie duinesi di Rainer Maria Rilke
No full textIl tema della Vita e della Morte, che attraversa in modo trasversale tanto la poesia quanto la filosofia, è affrontato qui tramite un’analisi dei versi delle Elegie duinesi di Rainer Maria Rilke volta a dispiegarne l’intero percorso tramite le sue immagini più pregnanti, dagli angeli agli amanti, dall’eroe alla creatura, fino a giungere agli ultimi versi della Decima elegia in cui il poeta arriva ad approssimarsi all’indicibile condizione dell’Essere morto, attraverso una visione inedita in cui Essere e Morte si rivelano l’uno sinonimo dell’altro nonché originarie determinazioni della Vita in quanto tale, destinata ad accadere in un eterno e ricorsivo oscillare tra Volontà ed Essere
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