A sermon to the young, the new proletariat that has nothing to lose but its own uncertainties, that can (must) rebel against those who, camped out like sheep in Piranesi’s Rome, govern without ideas an increasingly indebted country that is less and less willing to qualify the future using its cultural roots.

But why is it that those who are worse off are those who protest the least? These days the 30 million (half the country) who are under 30 or who are their parents have no voice. Do they not realise that they are losing the chance to live the future to the fullest?

Why do you not shout: I want to know what effect the policies proposed by those in charge will have in 10, 20 and 30 years’ time?
Why don’t you realise that a few million white males, accustomed to not reckoning with the money they have, are in charge here, proposing to continue living (badly) above their means, making you, the adults of 2040, pay for this luxury of today?
Why don’t you remember the abc of the bourgeois rules: look well to the side when crossing, don’t take candy from strangers, never take anything in debt and, if you take it, pay it off immediately…. why don’t you get indignant about the fathers who make you live in the hands of usurers and don’t tell them to their faces that when the loan shortage rises (the spread) it is not because of the usurer (it is obvious, it is his part in the script) but because of who goes and asks him for money, even though they have no absolute need of it?

But it is not just an economic issue: fundamental life choices are involved.
In fact, it is understandable that we adults do not regret our selfishness and sloth, that we have committed ourselves little and badly for the good of the country and that we have lived bigger than our wallets, but it is incredible that you young people, who evidently do not have those opportunities, do not orient yourselves differently.
Why does dragging your feet prevail? Why is it that the motto of ‘68 “be realistic: ask for the impossible” is now being declined into the demand for permanent pocket money? And when in two, three years, a bad accountant says: ‘there is no more money, no more pocket money’, what will you do? Will you stomp your feet on the ground?
Why do you not demand that you reward the work you do not just to get a paycheck but to participate in an enterprise for the common good? Why do you not claim the right to try your hand at the noblest and most useful work without being hindered, without feeling second-class, without being told, underneath it all: you work for pleasure anyway, so what more do you want?
Why, knowing the digital world, do you believe those who say. against all evidence, that there will be jobs equal to those of your fathers who retire early ‘to make room for you’? Why do you pretend not to understand that Italy has lived for 70 years on small business, almost on artisan work, on terms and skills that now have no place, having never evolved and been updated?
And in 10 years’ time how will you do if you do not invent new skills to be paid with the new job? Why don’t you shout that you don’t want slave jobs, for slave wages, and that you want to use your inheritance without selling it, that you want to make use of the heritage of 50 generations, that which has not yet been sold by your fathers?

Why do you renounce equipping yourselves for an economic and knowledge space suitable for you and living it here, in the next 30 years, when this country will definitely be your home? And why do you instead accept to study random subjects to get thrown out, to find work in a ruthless and indigestible Europe not only because it is cold in its behaviour, but because it is incapable of reaction, of perhaps irrational but powerful and motivating feelings in the face of great changes?
Why do you not see how incapable of useful planning those who chase you abroad where you will be exploited for your knowledge, trained in this vituperative school that no one wants to finance but which still yields in the world?

Why in these years, in which all knowledge is freely accessible, all research circulates, all connections between ideas are available, do you not use even one millionth of this immense opportunity and demand that schooling be facilitated, access to resources facilitated, rights facilitated when it is clear that reality is increasingly complex and facilitated meals do not give you the skills and strength to deal with it?
Why don’t you rise up and demand to face the complexities, the realities, and not fake versions of reality, fairy tales full of ogres and princesses, fit only to fall asleep frightened and waiting for the candy prize for voting for the barker on duty?
Why do you try not to exercise your memory, which would allow you to recognise and perhaps avoid mistakes made not 100 but 10 or 20 years ago, which all of us old men have experienced and which we do our best to remove and not analyse? We are cowards, but you are masochists, which is worse.
Why don’t you try to understand the roots of our mistakes and accept that we live in a country where we behave as if it didn’t happen to us to vote, always in the name of Change, for governments that doubled the debt in 10 years (Craxi and Christian Democrats), for governments that have led us to an unsustainable spread (Berlusconi), for governments that, in order not to touch assets in a differentiated manner, have gradually penalised useful work more and more and left all rents, good and bad, untouched (last PD).

But let us go to the core. Why, although you think well of the environment and welcome, no to war and little waste, do you no longer have a taste for helping others and exhaust yourselves in search of personal pleasures that you find less and less?
Why do you turn away from the curiosity of real life, from the thrill of the project where you get your hands dirty with ideals mixed with real operating conditions, and take refuge in virtual spaces where you are always right, never a reflection, always a myth to imitate and an enemy to fight obtusely, regardless?
But where is the pleasure? Is it that of the fearful of reality, who want falsifications ad usum delphini, Manichean representations, gladiatorial games, whores, drugs?
What about the pleasure of proving oneself for the benefit of others, of the adventure of doing what fathers were unable to do, of getting by with a group of friends, of strong and planned love, of the enterprise of making children to whom one can give tools for a free and gritty future?
Demand that pleasure: it is the only one worthwhile.
When you have tried it, it no longer counts for anything more than the little money, the balls we are told, the digital palliatives, the virtual enemies: what counts is life, reality and the enterprise of moving together with other fellow adventurers; what counts is the strength, the courage, the project to achieve a goal OURSELVES.

Today in Italy, the space in which to exercise strength and courage is called Culture. It is a gigantic repository of Piranesian ruins that would make millions of scholars dizzy. Just as in Piranesi’s Rome the exhausted and dangling figures under the arches and columns, today our culture is garrisoned by the wreckage of a crude and outdated exploitation, which you can easily sweep away if you propose a new convincing and sustainable paradigm. It is a primary resource recognised in words by all and cultivated by none, boundless, a reservoir waiting for those who know how to use it. It is here, all around us: it is the sword in the stone, available to those who want to extract it. But beware, it can only be done by those who want to use it for the common good, without throwing it away, leaving it better than before to their children.
For once it makes sense to say: Italians first (young people, those who believe). Yes, because you, if you believe in our culture, start from the widespread knowledge you breathe every day, from the landscapes around you, from what you can study at your fingertips: it will be easier and more rewarding for you than you can imagine.