We are the generation that knows a lot of human thought, without understanding them to the end, without having experienced it firsthand. We have studied collections of authors, and when we did the best we can, we have beds, we never made our sympathies if not for personal (and us even worse: for references, anniversaries and pleasant coincidence).
We talk about things that we do not have experience, we quote Nietzsche to write well without even knowing it: and who has ever read anything written by him? We are a false cultural elite. The titles that do not correspond to our own merits *.
Socrates knew not to know.
We know that Socrates knew, but only because we have reported: Connoisseurs of the third and fourth hand. Our children will not know that Socrates professed his ignorance - and without having more of our best games to do that - and our grandchildren will not know who is Socrates. Nor should we worry: just take up the state of recycling, the art of left (or porridge bowl?) And the poetics of hearsay.
matters is what it is today and today only the things that matter.
* Examples of things that we pretend to know:
- poems by the Latin
- decadence in Italy
- the food (especially wine) and the French Revolution
- Italian cinema that serious
- English
- Walter Benjamin
- Schopenhauer
- the great Russian novels
- write
The list could be lengthened (call for help)
Mi scusi chi si senta offeso.
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