"The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters."
I wondered about the context where and when Gramsci wrote this, but it seems to be a free-floating quote that can't really be proven to come from anywhere. (If you have better source info, please tell me.)
You know the cliché be careful what you wish for? Around 100 years ago, Gramsci and others wished for extreme social change in Italy. What happened? Italy got Mussolini. Gramsci ended up in jail. Maybe we should wish carefully ourselves. I wonder what wish could have brought us to the reality of 2020.
Gramsci is viewed as kind of a saint by some mostly leftist political writers today. From the Encyclopedia Brittanica:
Antonio Gramsci, (born Jan. 23, 1891, Ales, Sardinia, Italy—died April 27, 1937, Rome), intellectual and politician, a founder of the Italian Communist Party whose ideas greatly influenced Italian communism. ...
After his party was outlawed by Benito Mussolini’s fascists, Gramsci was arrested and imprisoned (1926). At his trial the fascist prosecutor argued, “We must stop his brain from working for 20 years.” In prison, despite rigorous censorship, Gramsci carried out an extraordinary and wide-ranging historical and theoretical study of Italian society and possible strategies for change. Plagued with poor health in the 1930s, he died not long after being released from prison for medical care.
Blog post © 2020 by mae sander for mae food dot blogs spot dot com.
6 comments:
Dearest Mae,
Let's pray hard that we never will have to live through communism such as Antonio Gramsci promoted...
God forbid!
Hugs,
Mariette
Big blessings come at very high cost.
Mae, I heard about flooding in Michigan.
I hope you and your family are safe.
Hi Nil, Thanks for asking about the flooding. We are quite far from the area where the dams broke, so no problem here. We have indeed had lots of rain, though.
be well... mae
Normally, when someone gives me permission to add their blog to my left sidebar, I do it immediately. Yesterday I was SO busy, I didn't have time. Between trying to leave comments to all persons who joined the blog hop and create my Thursday tutorial, I didn't have time. That has now been corrected. And thank YOU.
That was an interesting read. I just hope we never have to choose here, but it is beginning to look more and more like we may be living even longer with the demagogue we call president. Glad to read you are not near the flooding.
Glad to read the flooding was not close to you. That must be scary. And yes, we must be careful what we wish for. I listened to a podcast from a few years back on pandemics. Very scary in hindsight.
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