What's more scandalous than culture?

We live in the era of the so-called “cancel culture” and of the demolished statues, as if a swipe of the sponge or a sculpture disappeared to eliminate the many ugliness of history and transform the world into a more just place to live. Conversely, it is only by remembering, by keeping memory, by knowing that one can proceed towards the best. Those who do not know history and its horrors, in fact, are inevitably destined to repeat them.

Removing what we consider inconvenient or perhaps wrong, resorting to censorship for ideas that we do not like or consider scandalous does not help us to grow either as individuals or as a human community. Yet, the history of culture, thought, literature and art is full of authors, books, writings that have been censored or that have ended up in oblivion, condemned to a sort of damnatio memoriae.

To prove this once more is the latest book by the journalist Ada Fichera entitled "Until scandal do us part" (Edizioni Minerva, 2021, pp. 190). Through the stories of more than seventy writers, artists, philosophers and politicians, the 'author takes us on a journey beyond the taboos that dominate our society and tries to propose a cultural itinerary that allows us to avoid standardization and single thinking. contrast with the many current tendencies of the politically correct.

We ask Ada Fichera: how was your book born?

“The idea for this book comes from afar, it began to sprout at least ten years ago. In my work as a journalist, in fact, I was lucky enough to find 'masters' - editors, people with more experience than me - who introduced me to a series of writers, artists, thinkers who are practically unknown today, especially to the younger ones. So I tried to get them out of oblivion ".

Why did you feel this need?

"As I also write in the book in an era in which the most important daily battle is, for those who create culture, to resist the homologation of thought and, consequently, of the publishing market it is important to 'fish out' works and characters who have fallen into semi- oblivion, slipped on the sidelines of the canon. The only real otherness, in a uniform present, is that of recovering a 'different' past. The current responsibility is therefore to read it in all its aspects, freeing it from prejudice and censorship, giving it the new meaning it possesses and deserves ”.

The lowest common denominator that brings together the protagonists of your book is the scandal they have aroused with their writings, their words, their works. But what kind of scandal are we talking about?

“I have understood the word scandal in different ways. There have been writers, artists and thinkers - indiscriminately right or left - judged outrageous for ideological or political issues. Others considered immoral, perhaps not suitable for young people or girls, as happened in the 1970s to the Sicilian writer Ettore Patti, just to give an example. A strong censorship was then exercised by the Catholic Church against many protagonists of culture and art. Finally, there are those who have fallen into oblivion due to the adverse fate of being born in the wrong era ".

Is there any of the characters he talks about in the book that should absolutely be rediscovered in times like ours?

“Among those who have fallen into oblivion for ideological reasons, Piero Buscaroli comes to mind, a great journalist and great music critic who collaborated for many years with the Giornale di Montanelli. His 1989 book, 'Landscape with ruins', is more relevant today than ever. Then I am reminded of Sergio Panunzio, who wrote fundamental pages on the subject of labor law. And again a philosopher and man of letters like Carlo Michelstaedter or Manlio Sgalambro, known for his texts for Franco Battiato, but above all a great thinker ”.

We are in the era of cancel culture… but what do we risk losing if instead of remembering we prefer to forget?

“We risk having few elements to better interpret and live our present. Especially in a world like ours, where everything runs very fast, knowledge is something that cannot be renounced, it is the first tool to face the challenges of today and those of tomorrow. If, on the other hand, we clear everything with a gigantic blow, we risk nihilism and in the end we all lose out ”.