The end of life and ius soli as signs of the absence of a long-term temporal orientation in Italy.

The end of life and " Ius soli" as signs of the absence of a long-term temporal orientation in Italy.


The article "End of life and Ius soli, lack of courage" from Roberto Saviano appeared on 7 October 2019 in the Espresso magazine highlights how Italian politics are afraid of deciding on issues such as end of life, ius soli or gay adoptions. These issues are not a priority for politics because they are perceived as antagonists to social issues.

The theme of the death of people has traditionally been experienced in society within a cultural dimension such as " weak avoidance of uncertainty" while the theme of the "end of life" as a way to "commit death" wants to push society to adhere to a dimension of "strong avoidance of uncertainty" because we try to "die" with greater clarity and with a greater need for personal well-being. The theme of death should come out of a "constrain"cultural dimension with the fact that death is not in my hands in order to go towards a form of control of one's life until death, with the possibility of living it as a positive emotion and to do this the concept of freedom of speech becomes an important fact. In short, the "end of life" allows death to pass from the purely "restricted" cultural dimension to go in search of a "satisfied" dimension. Saviano's article mentions the theme of "ius soli" understood as the possibility of granting Italian citizenship to all those who were born in Italy to parents who have lived in Italy for 5 years as a necessity for the country. In fact, this law could represent a way to create a "long-term temporal orientation" in a country guided only by the concept of "emergency" and therefore linked to the dimension of a "short-term temporal orientation" in which the idea of ​​a country always equal to himself prevails, where the most important facts are always placed in the past.

In Italy, the notion of the future has basically disappeared because no one believes in the future any more because Italy shows itself incapable of modifying its own traditions in the context of citizenship according to the changes present in society. For the writer Saviano, the cause of these missed changes has to be found in the absence of courage, that is, the absence of a "long-term temporal orientation", the absence of a determination to exit the "restrain" cultural dimension in which the country is embedded. Courage is possible with a "conscientious us" that we do not find in a society centred only on one's conscientious "self" for one's "in-group" in the case of citizenship.

In this article, the subtitle placed by Saviano stated that politics (understood as the institutional collective face of the country) is afraid of certain themes, that is to say the legal country finds itself in full adhesion to a "restrain" cultural dimension with little inclination to remember positive emotions, in which fear is closely linked to the theme of "strong avoidance of uncertainty" because change is experienced as a threat to be fought because its presence involves stress and anxiety. The difference is frightening and therefore fear prevails because the supreme value to be preserved is the presumed stability of society in the traditional sense as always equal to itself.

 For example, the theme of gay adoptions is a theme that calls into question the sense of family within the "masculinity" dimension in which the gender difference is high in terms of social and emotional roles, with the fathers responsible for managing facts and mothers ready to manage emotions while the world of gay adoptions is related more to the "femininity" cultural dimension because there would be a lower gender difference in emotional terms. This kind of change with the theme of gay adoptions is a way to create a society with a cultural dimension with a "weak avoidance of uncertainty" with the aim of increasing the "satisfied" cultural dimension by new forms of parenting and especially children.

In other words, we need a more tolerant and curious country towards diversity understood as a fact to be lived with little stress in order to allow many children to say that they are happy and therefore to adhere to the "satisfied" cultural dimension, with the presence of a "long-term dimension" because the country would show its ability to modify traditions according to changes. For Saviano, politics perceives the themes of civil rights in contradiction with the social issues topic, that is, civil rights concern the "individualism" dimension with a right to privacy and the others are considered as individuals. On the contrary, the political world prefers the topic with a "collectivism"  dimension because they always tries to speak to a potential "electorate" where it is easier to emphasize belonging by creating a "conscientious type" of their needs. Ultimately, politics prefers to create an "in-group" versus an "out-group" as it happens more easily with social issues, which are problems that affect many people.

In light of these premises, the beginning of Saviano's article represents a form of contextualization in order to obtain a mitigation effect and potentially benefits towards his right \ duty to defend the cause of Dj Fabo. In this way,  Saviano try to consolidate the positive face of Dj Fabo by describing him as a person who loves life so as not to create around him a "suicide culture" understood as a threat to the negative face of many Italians for their substantial disagreement on the matter. The accident event with the consequence of making Dj Fabo quadriplegic and blind has completely eliminated the concept of life in the victim of that accident. The last way to regain some "positive face" from Dj Fabo is to "leave life" by greeting everyone in a party to make an effective synthesis of his existence prior to the accident. Saviano's story highlights how Dj Fabo was in broad harmony with the "satisfied" dimension with his desire to say he was happy, with a lot positive emotions in his life. These are the benefits granted to the "positive face" of Dj Fabo and then the event of the accident arrives that modifies this dimension forcing Dj Fabo to shift from the "satisfied" culture towards the permanent  adhesion to the" restrain" cultural type in which becomes impossible to be happy, with the loss of control over his life and with the total absence of a propensity to remember any positive emotions.

Faced with this tragic event of the accident, Dj Fabo reacted by adhering to a dimension of "strong avoidance of uncertainty" because this new life has become a permanent threat to be fought where there is no longer room for feeling good. For the victim, in this case we see how the event becomes the moment of adhesion to a dimension of the "individualism" type as a cultural dimension in which "I" is the most important word, with a "conscientious type" for decisions to take. This accident forces Dj Fabo to live in the "short-term temporal" dimension where everything happened in the past and where the image of a person always equal to himself prevails and where it was important to have a socially rich life. The "restricted" cultural dimension is essentially unacceptable in its entirety because it represents the end of any possible restoration for the positive face for the victim of the accident. Death becomes the only way for Dj Fabo to recover or recover a "positive face" after the accident.

To increase his need for a positive face, with the intention of mitigating the costs for the positive face of many Italians who do not have the same approach on the "end of life" issue, Saviano tells of the meeting between Dj Fabo and Marco Cappato ( political exponent of the radical party) in which he recounts his vision of life in harmony with what was previously described with the addition of the theme of quality and not quantity of life, in harmony with a cultural dimension with a "short-term temporal orientation" where to live life fully is crucial to be happy within the "satisfied" cultural dimension where it is very important to remember positive emotions.

Dj Fabo affirms his will with the past tense form "I have decided" in harmony with the dimension of "strong avoidance of uncertainty" where one's life has become an unbearable threat to the memory of himself. The intent of Dj Fabo and the people close to him is to expand their small "in-group" towards other people in order to increase the possibility of obtaining forms of "recognition to their positive face". Basically they need a more solid "in-group" because the risks of incurring costs for their negative collective face (Dj Fabo and loved ones) are very high as well as the risk of living all this process with an unsustainable cultural dimension such as " weak avoidance of uncertainty "for Dj Fabo. For this reason they need Saviano's support to defend this very minority cause in Italy.

Saviano's doubts highlight how important in Italy is the concept that "life is always life", that is a tautology that is strengthened with the adverb "always" to indicate the concept of "life" as par excellence adhering to a dimension of "weak avoidance of uncertainty" because life must be accepted as it comes. So before defending this "position" by Dj Fabo, Saviano has many doubts and second thoughts, in other words we can interpret how the vision of reality as it is tends to impose itself with its "short-term temporal orientation" where there are universal lines about what is good or bad in situations, where traditions are basically sacrosanct especially in this ethical sphere of life. To enhance the positive face of the writer, Saviano recalls the importance that known stories on the theme of "end of life" have had for him, highlighting how these stories have in common that the making decisions are always "acts of deep love ", that is to say they are an attempt to give people at the end of their life a chance to return to the" satisfied "cultural dimension by trying to make those affected happy even at the cost of having to suffer very high costs for the need to protect their own negative face as a group of family members close to these people.

So the family members ratifying this "individualism" dimension in the patient's end of life position emphasize his right to privacy as the only way to regain a positive face after a long period of "immense" costs incurred for his negative face in quality of sick. The examples taken by Saviano, such as that of Eluana Englaro and Piegiorgio Welby, are intended to contextualize his choice in order to fall within an "Italian" tradition of the defence of the patient's self-determination as a way to adhere to this strong need to avoid too much suffering (understood as useless uncertainty). For Saviano, the question is to understand what is the limit between a life that we can live and a life that takes away everything, in other words it is possible to accept a life that is only placed in the "constrained" cultural dimension without offering any possibility to come back to my previous life, deeply anchored in the "satisfied" cultural dimension type and with a "short-term temporal orientation" as essential criteria for being in line with the need for life.

 It is interesting to observe Saviano's attempt to define the concept of life made in these terms:

 "life means looking for a job and finding one that makes you unhappy, it means not finding meaning in a love story, it means feeling love and resentment for your parents. Life is going out with friends for a beer, fighting, betraying yourself and forget. Life is going out with the dog, life is staying under the covers, life is silence, life is complicity and jokes. "

This list allows us to understand how the meaning of life is for Saviano placed widely within a dimension of "weak avoidance of uncertainty" because we accept life as it comes in its imperfection, we live all this with little stress and with tolerance towards others to be able to fully live this experience. By now all this list is precluded for Dj Fabo, who sees the only possibility of life in the phrase "Life is to throw a party for one's 40 years to greet everyone and take leave of life". In other words for Dj Fabo, life has become the expectation for the reconstruction of a concept of "extended family" through a party to ask for "loyalty" towards his decision, that is, a "conscientious we" in front of the choices of an "individualism" type of "I conscientious" around Dj Fabo's choice of death.

It is useful to note that before the accident everything that was synonymous with life was connected to a dimension of "weak avoidance of uncertainty" while after the accident for Dj Fabo the synonym of life became an adhesion to a cultural dimension of "strong avoidance of uncertainty" in the face of this enormous threat of living in the "restrain" cultural dimension with the eternal exclusion of positive emotions. "Leaving life" as a last chance to regain a positive face from Dj Fabo seems the final project of this operation.

Faced with the relevance of this case, the response of the constitutional court was to not consider "a crime" the aid to a dignified death, in other words the help offered by a community with its "conscientious we" as a way to being able to restore dignity and therefore happiness to the victim in harmony with a "satisfied" dimension is not perceived by the State as an unacceptable threat as occurs within the dimension of "strong avoidance of uncertainty" when the act is perceived as a "crime ". In this case, the Constitutional Court wanted to highlight the need to join in this sphere of private life a dimension of "weak avoidance of uncertainty" with a greater tendency to live all this with greater serenity.

At this point Saviano wonders what the politics are capable of operating after this Constitutional Court judgment will do, in other words what can do politics in order to earning a "positive face" does when it comes to civil rights.

For Saviano it is clear that on all those occasions political courage on civil rights understood as "long-term temporal orientation" has been lacking because Italian politics is anchored in the present and cannot imagine new horizons because its only horizon is that of the next elections with its classic themes such as bread, work and taxes. In fact, politics lives in broad harmony with its need to deal with issues related to the "collectivism" dimension, certainly not those of an "individualism" nature such as the end of life. The other issues previously mentioned by Saviano such as "ius soli" or gay adoptions are very insidious issues because the same society seems not to live up to the challenges for the future because the society just related to the present and live in adherence to this dimension " short-term orientation". Topics such as " ius soli ", gay adoptions or prison reform seems totally out of the reach of Italian society in this historical period. Unfortunately, we live in a world that needs long-term answers for its mere survival while the political world is " restrain" only in the short-term contingencies and cannot anchor itself to a long-term temporal orientation.

For Saviano, his position not intend to contradict civil rights with social rights, that is, the need for a positive face of the state through issues related to the "collectivism" type dimension must not represent an obstacle to adhere at the same time to an "individualism" dimension where people are considered as individuals and where talking for oneself is a good thing. The profoundly correct thesis offered by Saviano is that the need for defending the negative face of civil rights applicants as a fact that must not in any way affect the need to provide answers to all those seeking social rights in Italy and everywhere in the world.