Figuremergenti returns to the web after a three-year absence. Our last post was in 2019. The following year, the pandemic broke out, ushering in a period of change, transformation, and for many, pain and tragedy. It also ushered in a period of great confusion, during which dialogue became increasingly difficult. Dialogue was replaced by the logic of emergency.
When a society embraces an emergency approach, dialogue is seen as dangerous. Dialogue requires taking time, suspending judgment and action so that the best solution can emerge from the dialogue.
The emergency forces us to act quickly, to make quick decisions, and above all to embrace a military logic in which power must be entrusted to a few, if possible to just one, and orders are not questioned.
Depending on the historical period and society, in emergency situations, decision-making power can be entrusted to religious authorities, a dictator, the military, or a highly charismatic politician [1]. In this particular Covid emergency, decision-making power has been entrusted to science. This choice has created a situation bordering on the absurd, because by its very nature, science requires dialogue and discussion and, furthermore, does not dispense certainties.
During the pandemic years, science suspended dialogue and dispensed certainties
This lack of dialogue has spread to another important sector of our society: the information sector. Here too, we have witnessed the suspension of dialogue and the dissemination of certainties.
In the information sphere, however, a polarization emerged between the information circulating through traditional channels—newspapers, radio, and television—and that circulating on social media. Both tended to offer certainties, albeit of opposing nature and, once again, without any possible dialogue.
Polarizations, the difficulty of dialogue, and the logic of emergency have pervaded many sectors of our society.
The Gestalt School of Turin was also affected. We didn’t say it explicitly, but doubt, the fear that the effort required to publish our magazine online would be excessive and unnecessary, caused us to continually postpone the release of a new issue.
Until we realized it was fear that was driving us. Fear of not being able to do it, of not having the energy, of not doing a good job. And then we realized that, inevitably, we too were immersed in this climate of fear that for the last three years has affected the lives of so many people in so many societies.
First came the fear of illness, of contagion, of death. Then the fear of not getting out of it, of seeing our lives changed forever. Then the fear of economic collapse. Then the fear of war. The fear for young people of having no future. The fear of climate change, increasingly threatening and devastating. The fear of migrants, whose numbers increase daily. The fear for our couples and our children that new ideologies will challenge balances consolidated over millennia.
Fear.
So we decided to start from here.
To dedicate this first post-pandemic issue to fear.
We haven’t yet resolved our doubts. We don’t yet know if this issue is the swan song of Figureemergenti or if starting from fear will allow us to find new energy, new ideas, new traveling companions.
Meanwhile, fear, rather than being paralyzing, has become stimulating, and this is already an important result.
Perhaps this issue is intended as a small contribution to moving beyond the emergency mentality and understanding that we don’t need more certainties, but more dialogue.
So now we write about FEAR
[1] You may have noticed that I’m not using inclusive language, because in these areas inclusivity doesn’t exist yet.
