Misreadings

by Umberto Eco

  Industry and Sexual Repression in a Po Valley Society cally instigated by Mazzini, fell into the hands of the Austrian oppressor and were either imprisoned or executed. Another great enemy of risorgimento was Silvio Pellico. Even the most casual reader of Pellico's diary, written during his confinement in an Austrian prison, has the distinct impression that this book cost Italian unification more than one battle. The sly narrator paints an idyllic picture of a Moravian prison, a place of chaste repose where great human questions are debated with amiable jailers, where prisoners flirt, however platonically, with young ladies, and insects become pets. The prisoner welcomes an am- putation, so impressed is he by the supreme skill of the Austrian surgeons, a skill which the amputees reward with floral offerings. And in his little work Pellico gives a subtle, 'cunning, and most dispiriting image of the Italian patriot, making him seem so alien to violence and combat, and, in the end, so impervious to any passion, so timid and sanctimon- ious, that the reading of these pages must surely have dissuaded legions of vigorous youths from fighting for national rebirth (just as in the lands of North America a little book entitled Uncle Tom's Cabin cast such discredit on the black slaves, making them seem foolish, ingenuous, and without initiative, that even today its infltence is perceptible among the colorless in the southern states, who are irrevocably opposed to so inferior a race). The Kingdom of Sardinia found itself in a singular position, apparently uninterested in the problems of national unification. It is known that the Pied- 73

  MISREADINGS montese army intervened in Milan during a local insurrection, but succeeded in confusing the situation to such a degree that they caused the revolt to fail and abandoned the city and the rebels to the occu- pying A;astrian forces. The prime minister, Cavour, was more concerned with serving the interests of other countries; first he helped the French against the Russians in a war to whose aims Piedmont was absolutely indifferent, then he went to great pains to provide foreign monarchs with the sexual favors of Piedmontese noblewomen. It is not evident that any other real effort was made to unify Italy beyond that of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. According to some texts, it was their inflexible devotion to rebirth that drove Piedmont to unleash against them an adventurer from Uruguay. All these machinations had finally a single pur- pose: to clip the wings of the Italian power that, even more than the Two Sicilies, had been working ceaselessly toward unity not so much on the military level as through persuasion and philosophy. I refer to the Papal States. Exploiting the work of men of faith and intellect, the Papal States acted tirelessly to bring Italy together under a single government. It was a hard, impassioned struggle, in the course of which the Papacy had recourse even to subterfuge, luring, for example, crack Piedmontese troops to Rome to acquire a strong army for itself. This long and relentless struggle was concluded definitively only after a hundred years, on 18 April 1948, when finally the entire peninsula flocked to vote for the Papal party, whose Sign was the Cross. 74

  Industry and Sexual Repression in a Po Valley Society Now, when the researcher approaches today's Milan, what does he see of the barbarian but politi- cally complex situation that Dr. Dobu's ridiculous historiography would have us imagine? Alas, what the researcher sees leaves him a choice between only two hypotheses: one, that in the last fifty years some regressive phenomenon has taken place whereby every vestige of the political structure described by Dobu has disappeared; or two, that the community of Milan has not participated in the great developments that involved the rest of the Italian peninsula, because of the inhabitants' peculiarly colonial and congeni- tally passive nature, which is resistant to any accul- turation and doomed to a frenetic social mobility quite common, for that matter, amqng primitive communities. 2. La Penske Sauvage (A Report on Field Research) The typical day of the Milanese native obeys ele- mentary solar rhythms. At an early hour he wakes and sets off to perform the tasks characteristic of this people: the gathering of steel in the plantations, the cultivation of metallic parts, the tanning of plastic materials, the barter 6f chemical fertilizers with the inhabitants of the interior, the sowing of transistors, the putting of motor scooters out to graze, the breed- ing of alfaromeos, and so on. The native, however, does not like his work and will do everything possible to postpone the moment when he has to start. Cu- riously, the village chiefs seem to assist him in this, 75

  MISREADINGS eliminating, for example, the customary methods of transportation, digging up the tracks of the primitive tramways, confusing traffic with broad yellow stripes painted along mule tracks (with an obvious taboo power), and making deep holes in the least conve- nient places, where many natives are engulfed, prob- ably sacrificed to local deities. It is hard to explain psychologically the attitude of the village chiefs, but this ritual destruction of transportation is no doubt linked with rebirth rites (obviously forcing hordes of inhabitants into the bowels of the earth, this human sacrifice considered seed to produce stronger, more vigorous individuals). But the population's reaction to this is a clearly neurotic syndrome, the attitude of the chiefs affording a genuine example of collective frenzy: "the tube cult." At regular periods the Ru- mor spreads through the community, and the natives are possessed by the quasi-mystic faith that one day enormous vehicles will move beneath the earth car- rying individuals at miraculous speed to any part of the village. Dr. Muapach, a serious and learned mem- ber of my team, asked himself if the Rumor had originated with some real event, and then he de- scended into those caverns, but found nothing that could remotely justify this suppositiqn. A morning ritual shows how important the chiefs believe it is to keep the populace in a state of uncer- tainty. Every morning the members of the tribe read a hieratic message that the village headmen have distributed among the populace shortly after dawn, though the sheet bears the bewildering name of I1 Corriere della sera, which in local dialect means 76

  Industry and Sexual Repression in a Po Valley Society courier of the evening. The hieratic nature of the message is underlined by the fact that what is com- municated is totally abstract and has no relation to reality, though sometimes there is, as we have been able to verify, an apparent relevance, so that the native is given a kind of counter-reality or ideal reality in which he thinks he lives, as in a forest of living print: a world, in short, that is eminently symbolic and heraldic. Kept always in this state of bewilderment, the native suffers a constant tension, which the headmen allow him to release only during collective feasts, when the whole population crams into immense con- structions, ellipsoid in shape, from which an unin- terrupted and frightful din is heard. We tried, without success, to gain admission to one of these constructions; but with primitive yet shrewd diplomacy, the natives kept us out, demand- ing that we produce certain symbolic messages, which we learned were on sale. The sum we were asked, however, was such an exorbitant number of dog's teeth that, had we paid, we would have then had to curtail our research. Forced in this way to follow the ceremony from outside, we formed, on the basis of the loud and hysterical cries, a first hypothesis: that orgiastic rites were in progress. But as time went .on, the horrible truth became clear. In these enclosures the natives devote themselves, with the chiefs' assent, to cannibalism, devouring human beings acquired from other tribes. The news of such gastronomic purchases is in fact circulated in the usual morning messages, where one can read daily a chronicle of 77

  MISREADINGS them. From this chronicle it emerges that foreigners of darker skin colors are most highly prized, but also those from certain Nordic tribes and, in greatest quantity, Hispano-Americans. From what we could piece together, the victims are devoured in enormous collective courses according to complicated formulas publicly heralded in the streets, in which there are recommended recipes not unlike certain alchemistic numbers: "3 to 2," for example, or "4 to 0," or "2 to 1." Cannibalism, however, is not merely a reli- gious practice but a widespread vice to which the whole population is addicted, as is demonstrated by the huge sums the natives seem prepare d to spend on the purchase of human flesh. Nevertheless, in some mor
e affluent groups these Sunday banquets apparently inspire genuine horror, so that while the larger part of the population heads for the collective refectories, the dissidents flee des- perately along all the roads leading out of the village, jostling one another in disorder, crushing one another with their vehicles, losing their lives in bloody brawls. As if, in the grip of a kind of maenadism, they viewed the path to the sea as their only escape, because the word most repeated during this sanguinary exodus is the local term for boat. The low intellectual level of the natives is dem- onstrated by the fact that they are clearly unaware that Milan is not on the sea; and their mnemonic capacity is so scant that every Sunday morning they endure the same precipitous flight only to reenter the city that same evening in alarmed throngs, seeking 78

  Industry and Sexual Repression in a Po Valley Society refuge in their hovels, ready to forget, the following day, their blind adventure. For that matter, virtually from birth, the young native is so trained that bewilderment and uncertainty inform his every act. In this respect the "rites of passage" are indicative. These take place under- ground, in chambers where the young are initiated into a sexual life characterized by an inhibitive taboo. Their tribal dancing is particularly instructive in this context. The young man and young woman stand face-to-face, shaking their hips, stepping first for- ward then backward, their arms bent at right angles, and they take care that their bodies never touch at any point. In these dances both participants demon- strate a total lack of interest in each other, and they move in reciprocal detachment. In fact, when one of the dancers bends to assume the usual position of the sexual act and imitates its rhythmic phases, the other draws back in apparent fear, bending at times, to elude the partner, all the way to the ground. When one dancer finally reaches the other and union can take place, the partner suddenly moves away, rees- tablishing the distance. The clear absence of sexual content in the dance (an authentic initiatory rite based on ideals of total abstinence) is complicated, how- ever, by certain obscene details. Rather than display normally his naked member and swing it in a circle while the onlookers cheer (as one of our youths would do, in a ritual on the island of Manus or elsewhere), the male dancer keeps his scrupulously covered (I leave to the reader's imagination how 79

  MISREADINGS repulsive this practice is even to the most sophisti- cated observer). Similarly, the female dancer never allows her breasts to be glimpsed, by their conceal- ment thus stimulating desires that can only produce the profoundest frustration. But frustration is an ideological component of the educational relationship which seems to operate in the assemblies of the elders, held in another confined space, where a kind of return to elementary natural- moral values is celebrated: a female dancer appears, lewdly covered with garments, and gradually re- moves them, exposing her limbs, so that the observer is led to believe that a cathartic resolution is in progress. Ideally it should conclude when the dancer is suitably naked. In reality--under precise orders of the headmen, as we have discovered--she retains certain fundamental garments at the end, or else pretends to remove them as she disappears in that same moment into the sudden darkness that fills the cavern. Thus the natives emerge from these places still in the grip of their lust. But the basic question for the researcher is this: Are bewilderment and frustration truly programmed intentionally, by decision, or are these states also in part created by something deeper, which influenced that decision of the chiefs and priests, something which lies in the very nature of the Milanese habitat? A vexing question, because in the latter case we confront the profound wellspring of magic mentality that dominates the natives, we come up against the obscure Mothers who are at the origin of the dark night of the soul in this primitive horde. 80

  Industry and Sexual Repression in a Po Valley Society 3. The Paradox of Porta Ludovica (An Essay on a Topological Phenomenon) To explain the bewilderment, passivity, and resis- tance to enculturation also characteristic of these natives, other scientists have espoused the hypothesis originally proposed at the ethnological level by Pro- fessor Poa Kilipak. She formulated it in these terms: the Milanese native is in a condition of bewilderment because he lives in a "magic space" where the direc- tions front, back, left, and right are not valid and consequently all orientation is impossible. There can therefore be no endeavor with a defined goal hence the atrophy of various cerebral functions in the na- tive, and a by-now-ancestral state of passivity. Ac- cording to the native's understanding (or, actually, according to the scientists who favor positive ac- knowledgment of magic categories), the space where Milan stands is unstable, preventing any directional calculation and placing the individual in the .center of coordinates that vary continually. It is therefore a topological space, like that of a microbe that chooses as its dwelling place a wad of chewing gum for the period of time (a "historical period" for the microbe, a geological era) in which the gum is chewed by a being of macroscopic dimensions. "Milanese space" is excellently described by Pro- fessor Moa in his Paradox of Porta Ludovica (A Study of Ambiguous Triangulation). All individuals, whether civilized inhabitants of the Marquis Islands or Eu- ropean savages, Moa asserts, move in space according to "orientative programs" carried out through trian- 81

  MISREADINGS gulations. These triangulations are based on the as- sumption of a Euclidean plane geometry, taking as parametric models the forms of the square, the tri- angle, or the circle. For example, a savage of New York, accustomed to reaching the Hotel Plaza along a straight line from Washington Square, following Fifth Avenue to a point X, knows that by proper triangulation he can reach the same point via "a detour in the form of a square." In other words, he can follow the sides of the square West Eighth Street- Avenue of the Americas-Central' Park South (a ninety- degree angle)- Grand Army Plaza-point X (the main entrance to the Plaza Hotel). Similarly, a native of Paris who has followed the route Etoile-Place de la Bastille knows that he has touched two points of a circumference, covering one chord of it, but he could also reach l'Etoile from Place de la Bastille by following the circumference itself in the arc Bvd. Richard Lenoir-Place de la Rpublique- Boulevards Saint Martin- Saint Dnis- Bonne Nouvelle-de la Poissonire-Montmartre- Haussmann and finally Avenue Friedland to the Etoile. The Porta Ludovica paradox is another matter altogether. Here is Profesor Moa on the subject: We will posit a Milanese native who has achieved an intelligence level capable of grasping abstractions. He formulates the simplest hypothesis concerning his habitat: namely, that Milan has a circular, spiral structure. Of course, no Milanese native could attain such a level of operative intelligence, precisely be- cause the topological space in which he lives prevents 82

  Industry and Sexual Repression in a Po Valley Society him from conceiving any stable pattern. Rather, our hypothetical Milanese (as we have posited him) imag- ines Milan more or less as the surface of a painting by Jackson Pollock. Assume then that the subject in the past has had the following experience (also as- suming that, having had the experience, he can re- member it and extrapolate a pattern from it): he has learned that he can reach Porta Ludovica from Piazza Duomo along the straight line Via Mazzini-Corso Italia. Then he has learned that he can reach Piazza General Cantore (Porta Genova) from Piazza Duomo along the straight line Via Torino-Carrobbio-Via Correnti-Corso di Porta Genova. Concluding that the two straight lines represent radii of a circumfer- ence of which Piazza Duomo is the hub, he ventures to take the Piazza Generale Cantore-Porta Ludovica connection along the Viale D'Annunzio-Porta Ti- cinese-Via Giangaleazzo arc of the circumference. His attempt is crowned with success. So he then, unwisely, draws a general rule, as if the space in which he moves were stable and unchangeable, and ventures a further operation: having discovered the line Piazza Duomo-Via Torino-Via Correnti-Via San Vincenzo-Via Solari-Piazza Napoli, he inter- prets this as another radius of the same circle and thinks to connect Porta Napoli with Porta Ludovica by an arc of that circumference. He knows that the third radius is longer than the first two, and he knows therefore that the circumf.erence where Piazza Napoli is located is beyond the c
ircumference that includes Porta Ludovica. He decides therefore to alter his route at a certain point on this new arc, turning 83

  MISREADINGS toward the center. He starts along the circumference arc by Via Troya, Viale Cassala, Viale Liguria, Via Tibaldi, Viale Toscana, Via Isonzo (slight turn toward the center), Viale Umbria, Viale Piceno, Via dei Mille, and Viale Abruzzi. Arriving at Piazzale Lo- reto, he turns again toward the center (otherwise, he knows, he will end up in Monza) and follows Viale Brianza, Viale Lunigiana, Viale Marche, and Via Jenner, turns again toward the center, adjusting his route, along Via Caracciolo, Piazza Firenze, Viale Teodorico, and Piazzale Lotto. At this point, afraid of still not having reached the inner coils of the spiral, he turns again toward the center, along Via Migliara, Via Murillo, Via Ranzoni, Via Bezzi, and Via Misurata. At which point he finds himself back in Piazza Napoli, having completed the circuit of Milan. Experiments show that after this the subject loses all capacity for telling direction. No matter how much he adjusts his course toward the center, reducing the apparent arc of the circumference, he will find himself at Porta Ticinese, Piazza Medaglia d'Oro, but never at Porta Ludovica. This leads to the supposition that Porta Ludovica does not exist for anyone in Milanese space who triangulates from Piazza Napoli. In fact, an attempt from any direction will inevitably be frustrated. All efforts at orientation must be made, if possible, independently of any preliminary notion of Milanese space. Actually, it will be impossible for the subject to refrain from falling back on spontaneous Euclidean references such as "If I take three steps to the left, then three steps forward, then three steps to the right, I will 84