Il ‘bel paese là dove ‘l sì suona’ nella Newspeak della globalizzazione

In spite of crisis caused crisis caused by new forms of opposition and antagonisms related to market interests and to new but old forms of nationalism, the language of globalization persists, because the associated production form continues to persist. Recalling Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, this language could be denominated Newspeak. Newspeak circulates even in the “bel paese là dove ‘l sì suona”. Just as literary writing still constitutes a sort of bulwark in the face of the communication-production system and what Pasolini calls “communicative language”. Literature emerges in all its importance as the space of consciousness, development of critical awareness and responsible standpoint. The question, no less than vital in the present day and age, is whether against what Calvino calls “the plague of language” a word that is other is possible, other with respect to the dominant word of “communicative language” focused on asserting self, profit, “success”. […] del bel paese là dove ‘l sì suona (Dante, Inferno, Canto XXXIII, v. 80). Ma chi è mai riuscito a strapparsi dall’artiglio che v’imprigiona quando mettete piede nel salotto dove c’è l’apparecchio TV. Vi foggia secondo l’aspetto che più desidera. L’ambiente in cui vi chiude è reale come il mondo. Diviene e pertanto è la verità (Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 (trad. it. Mondadori 2003, p. 99).