Parliamentary speeches, especially in key moments such as that of a
request for trust for the government
, are littered with learned, more or less apt, more or less counterproductive quotes.
But the Prime Minister
Giuseppe Conte
, towards the conclusion of his communications to the Chamber on Monday 18 January, which would be followed precisely by the vote of confidence, displaced the most by avoiding complete sentences or overly abused authors, such as
Seneca
or
Cicero
, and relying on to a single word of Greek origin:
sympatheia
.
He did not ask for it, contrary to what someone said and wrote, but he promised to give it, to offer it, to put it on the plate, so to speak, of political commitment.
And at that particular moment he was not addressing his government colleagues or deputies but precisely to citizens, to all Italian citizens.
It is clear that he was not talking about the sympathy on which
Antonio Albanese
joked
in the role of Frengo
, the surreal and not exactly attentive commentator-fan of Foggia of the program '
Mai dire gol' of Gialappa's band
.
That was a blatant irony on the most common meaning of the word sympathy according to the use we make of it today: a nice guy is one who smiles, who attracts, who welcomes, who puts the interlocutor at ease.
In short, not exactly the image that had
Zdenek Zeman
, then coach of Foggia, a man with memorable breaks and the apparent absence of emotions in his expressions.
So what exactly did the prime minister promise?
In classical Greek, sympatheia meant the ability things would have to influence each other.
According to the Stoics there was a form of occult concordance between the various parts of the universe
, conceived as a gigantic living organism in which the effect of an action, or better still of a passion, reverberated on a part of it. on other parts also very distant.
The classic examples, cited by
Cicero
in
De Divinatione
, were those of the
string of the lyre
which, when touched, also makes the others resonate, or of the shells of oysters that grow or shrink together with the phases of the Moon.
More rationally, and this perhaps brings us closer to the field of politics, Aristotle had put it in relation with persuasion, that is, with the ability to convince that one does not give if one is not able to 'feel together', that is, to grasp the feeling and mood of others.
David Hume
and then
Adam Smith
, who perhaps thought the premier more than the Stoics, see in sympathy "the ability to participate in the emotions of others, whatever they may be".
And it's not such a cheesy stuff if
Jeremy Bentham
, the father of utilitarianism, had also made it the foundation of his moral philosophy alongside and along with selfish interest.
The word
sympathy
derives from
pathos (affection, feeling)
and
syn, which means with, together
.
In the background, the verb
synpasko, I suffer together
.
The most common use of the term that has come to our days refers to this idea of sharing emotions.
A nice person is the one with whom we get along well because with her, for the most varied reasons that at times, as perhaps the Stoics wanted, are mysterious, we feel that there is a connection.
Hence also the ironic overturning of the term, with different nuances.
Not only in the way we heard it used by Frengo towards Zeman but also when today we say to someone 'you are very nice' to actually tell him 'you are acid' 'you are bumper' 'you are unbearable'.
Running on this narrow and ambiguous ridge are also the verses of
Vasco Rossi's
'
Lunatic Sunday
'
when he says 'How nice is this so moody life', 'How nice is this so complicated Sunday'.
She is saying both things: nice as various things can be, which change and stimulate us but also hateful as the complicated things that challenge and wear us out.
And what's apparently less likeable than the devil?
Yet, following in the footsteps of
Bulgakov
, the author of
'Maestro and Margherita
',
Mick Jagger
also sang in '
Simpathy for the Devil
' about an elegant and deceptive devil, a gentleman who, while declaring himself the protagonist of several misdeeds in the history of humanity, asks (indeed demands) sympathy: 'If you meet me be courteous, have understanding….
be polite as you have been taught otherwise I will arrange for your soul to be damned '.