by Umberto Eco
Industry and Sexual Repression in a Po Valley Society consequently be three steps ahead on the straight line that originates at my point of departure." As a rule, the subject, after a calculation of this sort, finds himself almost invariably in the Monforte district, which can be shown to be the geometric nexus of every possible destination. Milanese space stretches and contracts like a rubber band, and its contractions are influenced by the movements the subject makes in it, so that it is impossible for him to take them into account as he proceeds. As all scientists know, Moa later attempted to demonstrate the Second Paradox of Porta Ludovica, making the hypothesis that with Porta Ludovica as the point of departure it would be impossible to identify the Monforte district (thus proving an ex- ception to the postulate of the Monforte district as the geometric nexus of all possible destinations). But it is not known if his research proved successful, because Moa disappeared and his body was never found. There is a legend current among the natives that his restless spirit has roamed these many years around Piazza Napoli; having arrived there, it has never been able to leave. If this is what really hap- pened, Moa has the distinction of having demon- strated the irreversibility of the Porta Ludovica paradox. A more alarming possibility, however, is that Moa's spirit haunts Piazza Napoli in a vain search for its body, which lies unburied in Piazza Tricolore, in the Monforte district. Naturally philosophers found Moa's topological hypothesis unsatisfactory, and they have since tried 85
MISREADINGS to put the spatial ambiguity of Milan on a specific existential footing. Still, Moa's topographical studies were the inspi- ration for the Mailandanalyse of Karl Opomat, a specialist in the Admiralty Islands trained in this sort of research during the period when those territories admitted, for acculturation workshops, a number of German "colonials." The being-in-Milan condition--Opomat writes--is equivalent to a being-around-Porta-Ludovica in the fictive world of the satisfiable. The in-what being- in-Milan comprises is, primarily, a system of refer- ence; it is the that-which-to-what of the preliminary state, in allowing Portia Ludovica to approach. The in-what of self-referring comprehension was that- which-to-what of allowing Porta Ludovica to ap- proach in the way of being proper to satisfiability; it is the phenomenon of being-in-Milan. But in the very Milanity of Milan in general (Mailandischkeit von Mailand iiberhaupt), being-in-Milan must be clarified as Worry (Sorge), and worrying-about, a worrying-about Porta Ludovica according to the three ecstasies of temporality, though in such a way that being-around-Porta-Ludovica can only be a being- around-Monforte. Opomat's tragic view was to be tempered in later studies (cf. the notion of Piazza Napoli as "disreve- lation"), but even these are not completely free of negativism. Closer to the temporal situation illuminated by 86
Industry and Sexual Repression in a Po Valley Society Moa, on the other' hand, is the penetrating phenom- enology of another thinker, the late lamented Manoi Cholai, iri whose unpublished manuscripts we find a dazzling analysis of the state of bewilderment in one who is inserted into the "fluxation" of the spatial Milanese situation. Its [Milan's] present state of being is still in the originating source and diffusion (Urquellen and Ver- quellen), and in such a way that the diffusion is tantamount to a constant modification, which the actual present (Urprisent), no-longer-originating present, transforms into a has-just-been, to which, however, a new originating present (Monforte dis- trict) is constantly added, which is both source and expansion, and to which a new mode is added of the now originating source, and so on. In Milan there is a phenomenon of reciprocal distancing (Auseinan- dersein), which is also a succession (Nacheinander), in the sense of a distancing of the points in time. In the movement from Porta Ludovica to Piazza Napoli both the now and the various has-beens (Gewesen- heiten) are present at once, as well as the horizon of the maintaining (Behalten) and of the oncoming (des Zukommendes). Here we encounter, first of all, the medianness of intentional implication, with regard to retentive modification. From the source-point (Porta Ludovica) a later awareness of the just-has-been is diffused for the immediate has-been, which is en- forced by a phase of awareness of the just-now or every just-now, and so we have a recursive of of of of. The retentive temporal flux is characterized in 87
MISREADINGS itself by a constant already-has-past, in which the already-past, in its individual stages, is characterized as the already-past of a passing and as an average or median passing, etc. It is clear that the complexity of these analyses, impressive as they are, does not carry us very far beyond what Moa previously established, the fact that the mental backwardness of the Milanese native is due to the disorienting action of the ambiguity of the spatial situation on the nerve centers (directly influencing the inner ear, according to some repre- sentatives of traditional biological positivism, who tend, moreover, to speak not only of Eustachian tubes but also Fallopian, in the indigenous women who roam at night along the paths of the inner spirals of the city). Nevertheless, we venture to refute both the philo- sophical explanation and the scientific-mathematical one, returning, instead, to a historical view which still incorporates the concrete anthropological re- search we have conducted (see Appendix, pp. 671- 1346). The primitive structure of the rites of passage and acts of worship, the colonial passivity, the static community, and the incapacity to evolve cannot be explained only by hairsplitting disquisitions on the spatial structure of the locality; they must be seen also in the light of profound ,economic and social factors. Now, in comparing the present situation of the peninsula with that described in the historical writ- 88
Industry and Sexual Repression in a Po Valley Society ings of the natives which date back about a thousand years, we consider it appropriate to venture, at least as a historiographical hypothesis, the following ex- planation, believing that it is the most probable. 4. Church and Industry (A Proposed Historical-socio- economic Interpretation) The Italian peninsula is witnessing today what the natives would call a "struggle for turf." The social and political scene is dominated by two equally strong powers, disputing the control of the peninsula's, ter- ritories and its people: Industry and the Church. The Church, according to statements recorded in the field, is a secular and worldly power, intent on earthly rule, on acquiring more and more property, on con- trolling the sources of political authority; whereas Industry is a spiritual power, bent on winning souls, on propagating mysticism and askesis. During our stay on the Italian peninsula we ob- served some typical manifestations of the Church: the "processions" or "precessions ' (obviously con- nected with equinoctial rites), which are unabashed displays of pomp and military force--including pla- toons of guards, police lines, generals of the army, and colonels of the air force. On another occasion, in the so-called Paschal celebrations, we witnessed outright military parades, in which whole armored units came to offer the symbolic homage that the Church demands of the army. This Secular display 89
MISREADINGS of armed, uniformed power is totally different from the spectacle offered by Industry. Its faithful live in gloomy conventlike buildings, where mechanical devices contribute to making the habitat more and more stark and inhuman. Even when such coenobia are constructed according to the dictates of order and symmetry, they are marked by a kind of Cistercian severity, for the coenobites' families live in small monastic cells in complexes that often cover amazingly vast areas. The spirit of pen- ance pervades the congregation, especially the lead- ers, who, though wealthy, live in almost total poverty (I was able personally to confirm the extent of their incomes, declared publicly for penitential purposes). The leaders gather frequently in long, ascetic retreats called "board meetings," during which they sit for many hours, in gray habits, their faces haggard, hollow-eyed from fasting, to debate disembodied problems connected with the mystical purpose of the association: the "production" of objects as a kind of ongoing reenactment of divine creation. These men seem to despise every symbol of wealth, and if they happen to have some gem or valuable fur, they rid themselves of it at once, donating it to the young maidens who act as vestals in the vestibules adjoinin
g their hieratic sanctums. (These maidens gravely perform a sacred act similar to the spinning of prayer wheels by Tibetan monks, for they con- stantly tap the keys of an instrument that endlessly produces cryptic invocations to the divinity and ex- hortations to "productive" askesis.) The mystique of 90
Industry and Sexual Repression in a Po Valley Society production also has a rigorous theological founda- tion. We were able to reconstruct a doctrine of the "circulation of merits," whereby the virtuous act of one member of the priestly caste can be used spiri- tually by another. In certain temples you witness the continuous passage of these "merits," or "bonds," during frenzies of religious ecstasy, when swarms of priests hasten to part with their "merits," diminishing their own value to make a gift of it to others, in an impressive crescendo of tension and hysterical raptus. To the researcher it is clear that in the village of Milan the power that has gained ascendancy is In- dustry. As a result, the populace lives in a constant state of mystic excitement, which adds to the above- mentioned bewilderment, and produces a submis- siveness to the decisions of the priests. The hy- pothesis of a magic space may therefore be not a metaphysical datum but, rather, a device of the reli- gious powers designed to keep the Milanese faithful in a c'idition of detachment from all worldly values. And so the rites of passage take on new meaning, as do the pedagogy of frustration, the Sunday canni- balism, and the shamanic flight to the sea (which sacred drama seems a collective pretense, in which each player is at once conscious and helpless, con- vinced at heart that th solution lies not in flight but in total, loving surrender to the mystical power of production). Yet it would be erroneous to think of Industry as a power that governs the natives and the territory undisturbed. The Italian peninsula, scene of many and various events (of which Dobu gives an 91
MISREADINGS unfortunately mythological reading), represents a ter- ritory constantly open to invasion by barbarian peo- ples, to the immigration of hordes from the south who pour into the village and devastate it, changing its physical structure, camping at its outskirts, oc- cupying the public buildings and arresting all admin- istrative activity. In the face of this pressure from foreign hordes and of the corrupting action of the Church in its efforts to distract the natives' minds by tempting them with dreams of ill-conceived moder- nity (whose symbol can be found in the ritual game of Ping-Pong and in the electoral race, a debilitating blood sport in which even half-paralyzed old women take part), Industry stands as the last bulwark in the preservation of the old primitive civilization. It is not the role of the anthropologist to judge whether or not such preservation is a positive thing; he must simply record the function of Industry, which has erected for its goal white monasteries in which dozens upon dozens of monks, shut up in their cells and refectories (the studia or officia studiorum), sheltered from invasion, ruin, and uproar, and in the calm, inhuman neatness of their refuge, draft perfect con- stitutions for communities to come. These are silent, shy men, who appear only occasionally in the arena of public activity, to preach obscure and prophetic crusades, accusing those who live in the world of being "lackeys of neocapitalism" (an obscure expres- sion, characteristic of their mystical speech). But once these addresses have been delivered, they again with- draw piously into their coenobia, recording their 92
Industry and Sexual Repression in a Po Valley Society hopes on faded palimpsests. Protected by the spiritual power that governs them and the village, they are, to the scientist, the only key to understanding this disturbing and savage mystery. 1962 93
The End Is at Hand "Heraclitus deposited the book in the temple of Artemis, and some say that he deliberately wrote it in obscure language so only those capable of reading it would approach it, and not in a lighter tone, which would expose him to the contempt of the crowd." Heraclitus himself said: "Why do you want to drag me here and there, you illiterates ? I did not write for you, but for those who can understand me. One man to me is worth a hundred thousand; and the mob, nothing." But Heraclitus is gone, and his book has been thrown open to all the savant monkeys who desire to approach it, writing reviews and footnotes. And his disciples know more than he ever did. Which means that Heraclitus has been defeated by the mob, and, much to our sorrow, we witness today the triumph of mass-man. If your spirit has not yet withered completely, you have only to cross the. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Philosophers, ix, 1 - 17. 94
The End Is at Hand agora on any ordinary day, and if you do not first choke with anguish (but is anyone left who can feel this precious emotion ?) or succumb to social mimesis and join the euphorions who surround the latest philosophizer strolling in the public square, you will see those who were once the men of Greece: now perfect, smug automata crowing together amid the smells and cries, mingling with the Attic peasant who drives his flocks, the tuna merchants from Pontus Euxinus, the fishermen from Piraeus, the emporoi and the bawling crowd of kapeloi, the vendors of sausages, wool, fruit, pork, birds, cheese, sweets, spices, purgatives, incense and myrrh, plumes, figs, garlic, fowl, books, sacred fillets, needles, and coal-- as our writers of comedy sometimes take pleasure in listing them. And in their midst you will see public inspectors circulating, money changers, controllers of weights and measures, copyists of poems, vendors of wreaths, all gathered in front of the humble shops, the tailors' stands; and you will see the makers of lutes and perfumes, the peddlers of sponges and whelks, the slave traders, and, crying their wares near the hermai, the women selling trinkets, bread, peas, and the cobblers, and the pimps. Thus you can draw for yourself the portrait of mass-man, the citizen of democratic Athens, smug in his own cheap tastes, his Philistine fondness for conversation, his satisfaction with the philosophic alibi that the Lyceum and the Peripatos kindly offer him and with the noise in which he encloses himself like snail, the "distraction" which he has raised to the level of a religion. See the crowd as it clusters 95
MISREADINGS around the cockroach shape of the brand-new chariot acquired by Alcibiades, or as it rushes, sweating and vociferating, toward the latest messenger arriving from anywhere. Because the chief characteristic of mass- man is the desire to know, the lust for information. In contrast to the restraint of Heraclitus, who knew that wisdom was too precious a treasure to be placed at everyone's disposal, nowadays a certain Aristotle declares that "all men naturally desire knowledge," and the proof of this, he says, is "the pleasure they experience in sensations, which they love for them- selves, independently of any profit, especially visual sensations." 2 And what need be added to the negative anthro- pology of mass-man after this description of this indiscriminate desire to perceive, this greed for knowing, to see clearly and pleasantly and also from afar (a teleview, in short), a need apparently con- firmed by his use of both metopes and pediments, where true proportions are altered and statues carved in such a way that they seem natural only to those looking at them from below. The sculptors thus cater to mass-man's laziness, and the prepackaged view thus relieves him of any obligation to interpret the obvious. 3 In vain did our Montlides recently decry this greed for information, whereby it seems almost that the disk of our earth is enclosed in a "sphere of psychism, its density in constant expansibn," given 2Metaphysics, 1980a. 3See also Plato's nonchalant remarks in The Sophist, 235-236. 96
The End Is at Hand that "an ever-thicker blanket of information and of views projected from a distance covers the world we inhabit. "4 This pervasive illiteracy no longer makes any impression on Athenian mass-man; nor could it, since from his school days his educators' only con- cern was to "inform," with no hesitation about cor- rupting him by the pages of contemporary poets, as we were indeed warned (but with smug, vainglorious hypocrisy) by that crony Plato, still admired by the conformist crowd, when he said that "our teachers do as they are desired to do. And when the youth has learned his letters and begins to understand what is written . . he finds on the desk in front of him, to be read and to be memorized perforce, the works of great poets. . so that the youth, imitating them, will desire to become like them. "5 What is to be done? The cu
lture industry is too content with its achievements to listen to the voice of wisdom (but isn't that out of fashion in any case?), and so we will have to witness the development of students who, when they are thirty, will go around at night to decapitate the hermai, as a young intellectual of our acquaintance has done. From such teachers we cannot expect better disciples. The production of mass-man is coming to fruition. But, then, did we hot theorize his need to be and stay with others, rejecting the joys of silent solitude? Such is the essence of so-called democracy, whose first commandment seems to be: Do as others do and 4Cf. "Aa bto,gotrra tXrKa," Ktopptp71 &71kka 71Pa, 24 III 63. 5Protagoras XV (Modern Library ed., p. 213). 97
MISREADINGS obey the law of the greatest number� Anyone is worthy of holding any office, provided he collects enough people to elect him. For the less important posts trust in luck, as mass-man's logic is by nature aleatory. "Cities must truly be made up of elements that are equal, as far as possible, and homogeneous: a condition found especially in the middle class . . Thus Phocylides properly expresses this wish: 'The best condition is the mean, and that is the place I want to occupy in the city. '6 Such is the view of Aristotle, to whom, vox clamantis in deserto, Orte- gaygassetos replied in vain, denouncing the fact that "since the second half of the last century there has been in Europe a noticeable exteriorization of life � Private existence, hidden and solitary, closed to the public, to the crowd, to others, becomes increas- ingly difficult . The street has become stento- rian." 7 We would say, the agora has become stentorian, but the agora is mass-man's ideology, it is what he has always wanted and what he deserves. It is only right that Plato should stroll there and converse with his adherents: that is his realm, and mass-man cannot live alone, for he must know everything that is hap- pening and must speak about it everywhere. And nowadays he can know everything. You see what happened at Thermopylae. Only a day after the event a messenger brought the news, and someone had already thought to package it, simplifying and 6politics, IV, 9, 1295b. 7"o,�,o)k/.0o0Lo/.f f)kX 0o/oo," Ao l'e"fo'op. 98
