ABSTRACT: The denunciation of the responsibilities of the Christian Democrat Party in the destruction of all values of humanism and tolerance, as well as of those religious "values" to which it refers, which have been replaced by values of consumerism, conformism, fake tolerance, development without progress. Hence the need, for a force of true opposition and alternative, to be active especially in the reconstruction of a new "moral" universe, of new values and of new "obediences to future and better laws". For these reasons Pasolini invites Marco Pannella to no longer call his political action "disobedience", but new obedience to these values, which can be discovered and asserted only by nonviolent and "inert" men.

(Corriere della Sera, 18 July 1975)

Dear Pannella, you are on the barricades, I am in my country house. In other words, you are in a privileged situation with respect to me. But it would be moralistic if I were to fear that advantage (and we both hate moralism to the same degree). Moreover, you know how much I love you and am on your side.

What is the context in which I am writing to you? That of a national political situation in which the communist victory at the past elections has no other real sense but that of having tremendously increased the responsibility of the communists (we will see the reasons for this); whereas the Christian Democrat defeat causes this election to have but one winner: Fanfani (1). In fact, in a civilized country - in which progress were not simply development, that is, mechanic and irreversible destruction of values - the Christian Democrats' loss should have amounted to 10, 20% of votes; and not 2%. To have limited the loss to 2% is an achievement; it is Fanfani's personal victory. For this reason he remains so powerful, and the Christian Democrat Left (?) acts and threatens uselessly. In two years time the votes of the fascists will certainly have been recovered: because it is clear that the man of the Right, Fanfani, will continue the antifascist tension. And all will be as before: at least in appearance, becaus

e, on the contrary, all will be changed in a radical and final manner: the Catholic votes will finally go to the Christian Democrats. That is, no longer guarantied and managed by the Catholic Church, but directly by the Economic Power. There is no doubt about the fact that the rural world has disappeared. And the possible reorganization of agriculture will certainly not reinstate those religious "values" that are fortunately, and unfortunately at the same time, lost for ever. This is why I said "no longer catholics but Christian democrats": the Christian Democrat Party is a mafioso nil, from an ideological point of view. Having lost the reference to the Church, this party, as an evil-stinking bulk of wax, can shape itself according to the forms made necessary by a more direct reference to the real Economic Power, that is, the new production patterns (determined by the huge quantity and by surplus) and its implicit hedonist ideology (which is exactly the opposite of religion).

With the archaic cynicisms typical of archaic catholics, the powerful Christian democrats accept and assimilate, impassive and even conscious, the cynicism of the new capitalist revolution (the first true major right-wing revolution): and this makes them perfectly new and modern, the newest and most modern of them all.

Such capitalist revolution, from an anthropological point of view - that is, for that which concerns the foundation of a new "culture" - calls for men without bonds with the past (saving and moralism): calls for such men to live - from the point of view of the quality of their life, of the behaviour and the values - in an imponderable state, so to say: a thing which allows them to privilege consumption and the satisfaction of their hedonistic needs as the only possible existential act.

Of course - by means of one of those bizarre and scandalous contradictions which history is made of - it is precisely this reduction of man to robot - often unpleasant and ridiculous, because he has lost dignity (rather: that dignity which he more or less traditionally had) - it is this degrading reduction, I repeat, that involves the need for an advancement in the sense of a demystification, a democratization and even a progress. I have already repeated it a thousand times; this demystification, this democratization, this progress are merely emphatic. They are names, not things. Which means, things that still have no name. The powerful Christian democrats and all the other powerful take pride in this demystification, this progress in act; which "accompanies" a development which is in fact monstrous and destructive.

Even the communists must believe - or at least pretend to believe, to the moment they will really believe, with unjustified optimism - in the emphasis of the demystification, the democratization and progress which accompany the objective improvement of the workers' standard of living. This is why I was saying that the communists' responsibility has tremendously increased: the expectations of those who voted for the communist party for the first time, causing this great victory, are first of all practical and economic expectations ("Communists, help us bring some order and morality in development"), but are also anthropological expectations, so to say, albeit unaware ("Communists, help us understand what sort of people we are"): this second expectation cannot but force the communists to analyse what people are critically, with the non-diplomatic lucidity of analysis: and to what extent their behaviour has been determined by that "first, true, great right-wing revolution" of which the new production pattern co

nsists of.

How can we oppose this new production pattern? What attitude should we have with the tertiary factories and superfluous goods?

First of all, what is past is past, and what is present is present: irreversibly. We must somehow adapt to reality in order to tackle it. Such reality has easily identifiable features, because their violence is that of a mortuary vitality which pervades all: loss of ancient values (no matter how we judge them); total and totalizing bourgeoisification; correction of the acceptation of consumerism with the alibi of an ostentatious and emphatic democratic yearning; correction of the most degraded and delirious conformism ever, with the alibi of an ostentatious and emphatic need for tolerance.

Now, my dear Pannella, there are people such as us who continue to act under the "inert" thrust of civil needs, the presence of which was was fully understood about ten years ago: people, in other words, who struggle for a sincere democratic yearning, in the name of a true tolerance. About ten years ago, however, the meaning of the word "obedience" and that of the word "disobedience" were extremely different. The word "obedience" referred to that horrible feeling it had been in the centuries of Counter-Reformation, of clericalism, of petit bourgeois moralism, of fascism; whereas the word "disobedience" still referred to that wonderful feeling that drove people to revolt against all this.

All this, by the way, contrary to any logic which we call historic, has been swept away not by the rebellion of the "disobedient", but by a new resolve of the "obedient" (I insist: the first major right-wing revolution).

Counter-Reformation, clericalism, petit bourgeois moralism, fascism, are "remnants" that annoy the new power. Are we struggling for these "remnants"?

Are we disobeying the norms of these "remnants"? The most uncompromising feature of the "first major right-wing revolution" consists in its destructiveness: its primary need is to sweep away a "moral" universe that prevents it from expanding.

Let us examine, for example, Italian criminality. It is a relevant analysis. This is not a particularistic world that can simply be relegated to crime news. Italian criminality is an impressive and primary phenomenon of the new Italian life conditions. Not only the real criminals are a "mass": but what is more important, the Italian juvenile mass (with the exception of small elites, and generally youths belonging to the communist party) is made of criminaloids: that is, hundreds of thousand or millions of youths who suffered the loss of values of one "culture", and have still not found the values of a "new culture" (as we imagine it): or accept, with ostentatiousness and violence, on the one hand the values of the "culture of consumerism" (which we refuse), on the other hand the values of a verbalistic progressivism.

For all these youths the figure or "model" of the "disobedient" applies. No one of them considers himself "obedient". In fact, from a semantic point of view, words have inverted their meaning, swapped it: by consenting to the "destructive" ideology of the new production pattern, those who consider themselves "disobedient" (and behave as such) are in fact "obedient"; whereas those who dissent from this destructive ideology - and, for the fact of believing in the values which the new capitalism wants to destroy, are "obedient" - are in fact "disobedient".

The youths of '68 have already provided a model of "disobedience" (lack of respect, derision, contempt of mercy, "somatized" ideological thuggery) which in fact applies only to common criminals, who are a mass, and to the masses of those potential criminals who are always those who, as I was saying, have recently suffered a loss of values (Cf. the proletarian troops of the Nazi SS).

Destruction is, ultimately, the dominant criterion of this model of false "disobedience" which the old "obedience" consists of.

This is why I am writing to you. You should semantically update the language you use. You should no longer call yours a "disobedience", but "obedience", or rather, if you prefer, "new obedience", and offer yourself as model of this "new obedience".

You shouldn't...you shouldn't? I apologize, please give this word a passionate and solidarist sense...And to make myself clear, I will use two updated "models".

In these last weeks the Italian "criminaloid mass" has had two "cases" to take into account, in its typical unaware and coarse manner.

The first is a "case of disobedience": the disobedience of Sergeant Sotgiu (protest against the life conditions of petty officers). The second one is a "case of obedience": the one of police agent Rizzo (suicide caused by the escape of the prisoner he was in charge of, and whom he had trusted).

The first case was extremely popular: it was "recognized" by everyone, was "assimilated" by everyone, "approved" by everyone. Including the army. Is it "disobedience"? I like sergeant Sotgiu very much: this here is a declaration of sympathy (even if he doesn't need it at all) and solidarity. But I must object to two things: he based his protest on the statement that "air force sergeants" and, I presume, sergeants and military generally, are "human beings as anybody else": but there is a question of principle. Are the so-called "others" really "human beings"?

Is the anthropological change in progress not turning them into "subhumans"?

Even more "human" than Sotgiu was public security agent Rizzo. But his sense of duty, his trust in other people as "human beings", his "obedience" in short, received no consent: it was in no way considered as an exemplary value, or rather as the "universal form" of a value. "Obedience" is not popular,, not even as an idea: this is clear: but if there is a person who disobeyed to all that which is in conformity with the will of the authority, then that person is Rizzo. He opposed that reality in the name of all that which has been brutally destroyed by that reality. Because "destruction", I repeat it, is the dominant value of the new authority.

In conclusion: Italy today is destroyed exactly as it was in 1945. Or rather, the destruction is even worse, because we are not surrounded by ruins of houses and monuments, but by "ruins of values": humanistic "values" and, what is more important, popular ones.

As the ones of 1945, the Italian men of power - not only because of the destruction they have carried out, but especially because of the abjection of the goals and of the stupid irresponsibility with which they have acted - would be worthy of a new Piazzale Loreto. Which will not occur, fortunately and unfortunately: however it is clear that today what it is important to find and experience is "obedience to future and better laws" - similar to that which, after Piazzale Loreto, originated the Resistance - and the subsequent will of "reconstruction". To found the possibility of a similar "obedience" and of a similar "will of reconstruction" is the new major historical role of the Communist party. But also yours: of the radicals, of each and every individual, of each and every nonviolent man.

Translator's notes

(1) Amintore Fanfani (1908-: Italian politician and economist. Leader of the Christian democrat Left, was Prime Minister several times.