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When we say the word modernity, today as in the past, our thoughts run straight to the economic and societal transformations that
took place in the 1940s and 1950s, when Italy’s transition from an agricultural civilization to a civilization of machines chiseled on our country
its industrial face. A development of epic proportions, it represented a rupture with the past. Economic impacts aside, this revolution marked
a point of no return: reshaping standards for individual behavior, the anthropological fabric of families and social groups, and even the
concept of urban and suburban landscapes.
In fact, no one today thinks of the 20th century independently of the ideological issues that arose with the advent of technology.
What we call modernity are instead its repercussions, we measure the ripple effects that everyone could see with their eyes.
Effects that became concrete through the proliferation of mass-produced objects: from home furnishings to electrical appliances, from cars
to clothes. Heirs of an ancient craftsmanship, in the hands of the factories they were incentivized and enhanced through design, thus
creating the unmistakable style now branded Made in Italy. In just over 15 years, Italy radically renewed its image in the world’s eyes. From a
poor, defeated nation, the homeland of emigrants, it became the cradle of the good life, a school of refined elegance.
This groundbreaking evolution, while instigating the spread of consumerism and the consolidation of mass culture (two phenomena
generally derided by the intelligentsia), serendipitously met the daily needs of a population that, up until the aftermath of WWII, was unfamiliar
with the concept of stable wellbeing. Indeed, much of the nation’s citizens subsisted in precarious conditions, not to mention outright
poverty. The expression “the 20th Century,” therefore, stands for industrial modernity, part and parcel with its far-reaching implications for
politics, culture, and philosophical and economic discourse.
The swift consolidation at the technological level, inevitable and necessary for a country seeking to establish itself on the West’s
playing field, was onerous. Additionally problematic was the reaction to change for ordinary citizens and the cultural elite alike.
Both experienced a sense of unease and a deep rift with the old world, along with a general distrust of the new one. Thinkers and intellectuals
sought to address these problems, recording their fluctuations. As such, for example, literary works dealing with these questions can be
seen as the barometer of an anti-modern attitude. As opposed to a candid affirmation of modernity, this attitude is predominantly corrosive
and severe in its judgments, having sunk its roots into the ideological substrate of a complicated century more dedicated to conflict between
societal models than to dialogue and integration.
Herein lies a paradoxical contradiction. On the one hand stands the intellectual front, that has often wrongly interpreted industrialization’s
consequences, construing them skeptically or negatively, as if the propagation of consumer goods were a strategic error or a kowtowing to
capitalism’s logic. On the other hand is the average person—families of blue- and white-collar workers, the Italian lower and middle classes—
to whom the factory with its products gave the opportunity to attain a higher standard of living, to feel part of something much larger than
individual destiny. A breath of fresh air, that circled the world and filled everyone’s eyes with the future.
WORDS
GIUSEPPE LUPO
THE FUTURE
IN EVERYONE’S EYES
