Among the many clichés, clichés and labels proposed by the progressive political and media vulgate, taking up the concept of cultural hegemony theorized by Gramsci that materialized until a few years ago in the overwhelming power of the left in culture and is today represented by the politically correct narrative, one of the most unbearable is undoubtedly the statement “we are returning to the Middle Ages”.
Used as a mantra by journalists, commentators, politicians and personalities aligned with our local intelligentsia, slavishly repeated by pseudo intellectuals and diligent critics from social networks, it actually hides a basic misunderstanding and a lack of knowledge of what we are talking about that is the mirror of our age.
Net of very few commentators animated by a not too covert bad faith and aware of the indispensable contribution that the medieval era has given to the West (and not only) but, nevertheless, in the forefront of the accusation of having returned to the Middle Ages , the majority of people who use this slogan (because this has now become), do so without knowing what the Middle Ages really was.
Yet it would be enough to read a few good books to understand the greatness of the medieval era but, you know, for some refined radical-chic books it is better to display them in their living rooms and to show off fine coffee table books rather than read them. I do not say that I know a brilliant historian like Régine Pernoud, author of two extraordinary works such as Luce del medioevo (masterfully curated by Marco Respinti) or Medioevo. A centuries-old prejudice, but at least deepen the historical period with Franco Cardini and his The apogee of the Middle Ages.
The epoch that conventionally goes from the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD to the discovery of America in 1492, it laid the cultural foundations for our civilization and, together with Ancient Rome, represented the antechamber for the birth of the identity of Italy which, if politically united only in the 19th century , culturally born in these years.
Thanks to the tireless activity of the Benedictine monks, faithful to the rule of the hour and labora, the great classics of Latin literature have been preserved and come down to us and during the Middle Ages our literature was born with Dante, Boccaccio, Petrarca. At this time, some extraordinary women lived, such as Santa Chiara and Santa Rita da Cascia, animated by authentic faith, immense thinkers like Tommaso d’Aquino, holy men like Francis of Assisi.
But the Middle Ages was also the cradle of art with Giotto and Cimabue, of architecture with the construction of imposing cathedrals (just compare them with the churches that are built today to reflect on the definition of the dark age) and in these years the place of transmission of culture par excellence: the University.
More than a phantom return to the Middle Ages, we should be concerned about an age like the contemporary one, characterized by a perhaps worse danger than ignorance: the inability to develop a critical conscience, to inform oneself in an objective and free from ideological preconceptions. It is a much more insidious danger because it is based on a presumed and extremely ephemeral knowledge that generates presumption and conviction to possess the tools to be able to pontificate and demonize centuries of history from the height of no one knows what authority.
As Bernard of Chartres said in the Middle Ages “we are dwarfs on the shoulders of giants”, the medieval ones had realized it, we, blinded by rationalism and materialism, we think not only to be able to determine our destiny but to shape values at will and laws that go far beyond human possibilities, forgetting another great medieval lesson: the importance of spirituality in human life.
FRANCESCO GIUBILEI
(Translation by Romano Pisciotti)