A moral crisis even before political or economic
Rome, Aniene Rowing Club
The death of a university student in a wheelchair caused by an architectural barrier and by an absolute lack of interest of city institutions to remove it. The publication on the site of an elementary school in our capital of a class and racist document. The discovery, yet another, of a scam on invalidity pensions: all this suggests that more than an political crisis or economic crisis, in Italy, we are experiencing a moral crisis. When morality goes into crisis, a community is no longer able to protect and promote the common good and above all it is no longer able to generate that intelligence capable of planning a future free from the dangers of decadence.
Intelligence is now a rare commodity in our time. Difficult to find. Looking around, I don’t see anyone talking to their conscience, reading inside. We are anxious to build a society based on appearance. The cult of the image is now the dominant, overwhelming trend. All that has to emerge is what we are not.
Today almost all of us play a part: we are afraid of being recognized, of being seen by our neighbor with a naked heart, of opening ourselves with confidence, of being understood for what we really feel and feel. Everything stems from an inferiority complex. We are only actors who don’t have the courage to be themselves.
The common good is now a chimera: we do not care about the true essence of things, we only care about ourselves in the perennial anxiety of looking our best. We prefer to love badly rather than show our true feelings. In social relationships as in any other place it has become more comfortable to wear a dress that is not ours: we are afraid to be recognized, to show our faults and our frailties and above all we are afraid to make ourselves known for who we really are: it is the incivility that is consumed in shame.
A person with disabilities and his family, in a country that does not pursue the common good as solidarity and subsidiarity, can hardly be freed from the captivity of disability.
Solidarity is a value that arises from the awareness of a common belonging that allows people to fully share the well-being and wealth of material and spiritual goods, while subsidiarity is the coordination of society’s activities in support of people’s lives in difficulty.
In this sense, solidarity begins with the recognition of human rights and is accomplished only when we voluntarily put our life at the service of the other. Similarly, subsidiarity encourages inclusion and relationships. A society that honors the principle of subsidiarity guarantees freedom and equality in every social sphere.
In conclusion, when solidarity is lacking, the country is divided. With subsidiarity there is a future for everyone.
All the best,
Salvatore Cimmino