The New Old World by Perry Anderson

Author:Perry Anderson
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9781844677214
Publisher: Verso Books
Published: 2013-04-16T16:00:00+00:00

ITALY

I · 2002

Italy has long occupied a peculiar position within the concert of Europe. By wealth and population it belongs alongside France, Britain and Germany as one of the four leading states of the Union. But it has never played a comparable role in the affairs of the continent, and has rarely been regarded as a diplomatic partner or rival of much significance. Its image lacks any association with power. Historically, that has no doubt been one of the reasons why Italy has long been the favourite country of foreigners. Germans, French and English alike have repeatedly expressed a warmth of affection for it they have rarely felt for one another, even if the objects of their admiration have differed. Few of their comments are without some contemporary ring. Escaping from the pruderies of Weimar to Rome, Goethe found it ‘morally salutary to be living in the midst of a sensual people’.1 In Italy, Byron decided that ‘there is, in fact, no law or government at all; and it is wonderful how well things go on without them’.2 Stendhal, who knew the country better, felt at times that ‘music alone is alive in Italy, and all that is to be made in this beautiful land is love; the other enjoyments of the soul are spoilt; one dies poisoned of melancholy as a citizen’. Yet Italians were also, paradoxically, masters of another practice: ‘Never, outside Italy, could one guess at the art called politics (way of making others do what is agreeable to us, when force or money is not to hand). Without patience, without absence of anger, no one can be called a politician. Napoleon was truly small in this respect, he had enough Italian blood in his veins to be subtle, but was incapable of using it’.3 The list of such fond dicta could be extended indefinitely.

In diametric contrast stands the characteristic tone of native commentary on Italy. Most languages have some self-critical locution, usually a word-play or neologism, to indicate typical national defects. Germans can cite Hegel’s contemptuous description of local identity politics: Deutschdumm; the French deplore the vauntings of franchouillardise; Peruvians term a hopeless mess una peruanada; Brazilians occasionally mock a brasileirice. England seems to have lacked such self-ironic reflexes: ‘Englishry’—the gift of Tom Nairn, a Scot—is without currency in its land of reference. Italy lies at the opposite pole. In no other nation is the vocabulary of self-derision so multiple and so frequent in use. Italietta for the trifling levity of the country; italico—once favoured by Fascist bombast—now synonymous with vain posturing and underhand cynicism; bitterest of all, italiota as the badge of an invincible cretinism. It is true that these are terms of public parlance rather than of popular speech. But the lack of self-esteem they express is widespread. The good opinion of others remains foreign to the Italians themselves.

In recent years, this traditional self-disaffection has acquired an insistent political catchword. Starting in the late eighties, and rising to a crescendo in the nineties, the cry has gone up that Italy must, at last, become ‘a normal country’.

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