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Last week, I wrote the following article for RealClear Books & Culture:
It's a provocative title, for sure, but I doubt many southern Italians would disagree with the thesis.
In a nutshell: Americans are increasingly distrusting, not only of our institutions, but of each other, and societies that are typified by distrust - there is no better example than southern Italy - are stunted by the constraints of their own ethos. If America continues to abandon its Tocquevillian tradition, it will begin to look and feel more like southern Italy, and that's not a good thing.
From the article:
In our semiquincentennial year, Americans must look to southern Italy as a blueprint for what not to do. That is not to say that southern Italy is not breathtakingly beautiful (just Google images of Roccella Ionica, where my father was born), or that its inhabitants aren’t a good and decent people. It is to say, however, that their lack of institutional and neighborly trust, if adopted here, would further erode our country’s civic fabric.
Give it a read, and let me know what you think.
P.S. My friend, Madison, whom I met through her online series, Can it Third Place?, interviewed me for her Substack. You can read that here.
Credit for above image: Kaye, George Frederick, 1914-2004. Italian peasant women cook on open fires while transport passes on 5th Army Front, southern Italy, World War II - Photograph taken by George Kaye. New Zealand. Department of Internal Affairs. War History Branch :Photographs relating to World War 1914-1918, World War 1939-1945, occupation of Japan, Korean War, and Malayan Emergency. Ref: DA-05233-F. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/22754865
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