New Southern Thought: Rethinking the Mediterranean

Who Controls the Narrative?

  • The history of the South is often told by external observers.
  • Power resides with those who shape public narratives.
  • Those being narrated often lack agency.

A New Approach to the South

  • In the 1980s, scholars in Italy began to adopt a new perspective on the South.

Neo-Meridionalisti (1980s)

  • In 1986, scholars founded the Istituto Meridionale di Storia e Scienze Sociali, including Piero Bevilacqua and Augusto Placanica.
  • In 1987, they established the journal Meridiana to rewrite the history of the South.
  • They rejected the idea of a homogeneous, backward South as a stagnant periphery.

Meridiana (1987)

  • The meridionalisti reassessed Southern economies, highlighting the rationality of some adopted strategies, despite perceptions of them being not dynamic.

Scholars Abroad Take Note

  • Scholars abroad also started adopting a new approach to the South.

Said, Post-Colonial and Subaltern Studies

  • Edward Said's Orientalism (1978) examined how the Western world constructed the Orient on the basis of a binary narrative.
  • Gayatry Spivak asked, "Can the Subaltern Speak?" (1985).
  • John Dickie's Darkest Italy (1999) explored national stereotypes of the Mezzogiorno from 1860-1900.
  • Nelson Moe's The View from Vesuvius (2002) looked at Italian culture and the Southern Question.
  • J. and P. Schneider's Italy’s Southern Question (1998) discussed domestic orientalism.

A Mediterranean Thought (Mid-1990s)

  • Towards the mid 1990s, a Mediterranean thought emerged.

Franco Cassano and Il Pensiero Meridiano (1996)

  • Franco Cassano's Il pensiero meridiano (1996) offered a reformulation of the image/discourse of the South.
  • It moved away from the idea of the South as a deprived, rundown periphery of the West.
  • The South was defined by others who overimposed their labels.
  • Cassano presented the South as a different way of life and with a different set of values.

The Souths of the World vs. the West

  • Western countries (the North) are seen as epitomizing modernity.
  • The Souths of the world are expected to catch up, seen as having an insufficient degree of modernity.

A New Way of Thinking About the South

  • We should stop viewing the South's pathologies as a consequence of lacking modernity.
  • These conditions are typical of modernity and inherent to it.
  • Modernity requires a periphery to be exploited.
  • The despoilment of the South is instrumental to the development of the North (West).

The South as Resistance

  • The typical approach views the South as lacking modernity.
  • Cassano suggests rethinking the South as a form of resistance to the mainstream model of development.
  • This resistance opposes commodification and the fetishism of unlimited growth and development.

The South as a Way of Seeing

  • The South is not just an imperfect stage of development.
  • It is a different way of seeing that aims at protecting its autonomy.
  • It also critiques the symbolic arrogance of the developed world.
  • (Bouchard and Ferme, Southern Thought and Other Essays on the Mediterranean, p. xiii)

Rethinking Modernity Through the South

  • We should consider the North-South relationship with modernity in light of the South, not the other way around.
  • The South is not an imperfect North, but a space from which to critically view the Western world.
  • The periphery may represent an alternative set of values.
  • (Bouchard and Ferme, Italy and the Mediterranean, p. 78)

Developing a Critical Attitude Towards Modernity

  • We must use the south in order to develop a critical attitude towards modernity.

The South on Its Own Terms

  • Thinking about the South means the South is the subject of thought.
  • It should not be studied, analyzed, and judged externally.
  • The South must think of itself on its own terms.
  • Southern thought means giving the South its ancient dignity as the subject of thought and interrupting the sequence of being thought by others.
  • (Bouchard and Ferme, Italy and the Mediterranean, p. 78)

Southern Values

  • Southern values provide a different perspective.

Challenging Western Myths/Values

  • Typical myths/values of Western modernity include:
    • Unlimited growth
    • Rationality
    • Speed

Occidentalism

  • "Occidentalism," with its emphasis on unlimited growth, rationality, and speed, has negative consequences for democracy.

Consequences of Western Values

  • These values have led to individualism, unlimited consumerism, and unrestrained competition.
  • Communities have been replaced by isolated individuals.

Are Western Values an Issue for Democracy?

  • Is this a challenge for a stable society?

The Impact of Speed

  • In a world dominated by speed, democracy is compromised.
  • Democracy relies on discussion and dialogue.
  • (p. 79)

Occidentalism is Toxic

  • <> has severe ramifications for individuals and societies.

Homo Currens: The Myth of Speed

  • Some individuals flourish in endless acceleration and become "homo currens."
  • However, many others do not.
  • Lasting negative human consequences of Western modernity include atomization, isolation, loneliness, and inability to pause and engage in reflection, conviviality, and care for others.
  • (Bouchard and Ferme, Italy and the Mediterranean, p. 79)

Democracy and the West

  • Democracy is commonly seen as a Western invention.

The West Exports Democracy

  • It is often assumed that the West is responsible to spread this government to the rest of the world.

Dominant Western Values & Reactions to Occidentalism

  • "Occidentalism" provokes two opposite reactions:
    • Passive absorption of Western values which leads to "prostitution of a culture."
    • Rejection by those who cannot catch up, leading to fundamentalism.

Reactions to Occidentalism: Herodianism and Zealotism

  • Occidentalism leads to two equally destructive forms of opposition: Herodianism and Zealotism.
    • Herodians embrace the West as a model, leading to deculturation and the "prostitution of a culture."
    • Zealots engage in reactionary searches for identity to maintain integrity as a subaltern culture, resulting in fundamentalism.

Questioning Occidentalism

  • Is this a real phenomenon?

Islamic Fundamentalism

  • The rise of Islamic fundamentalism can be seen as a response by Zealots.
  • In the 1960s, countries like Algeria, Egypt, Iran, and Syria initially chose a Western path toward modernization (Herodians).
  • When this failed, many turned to Zealotism (fundamentalism).
  • Fundamentalism is often the outcome of failed modernization.
  • (Bouchard and Ferme, Italy and the Mediterranean, pp. 80-1)

From the South to the Mediterranean

  • Shifting focus from just the South, to the broader Mediterranean region which has a cultural and common heritage.

The Size of the Mediterranean

  • The shores of the Mediterranean Sea are close to each other, making it navigable from the beginning.
  • The Other was never far away, reachable in a few days of navigation.
  • "Thinking the Mediterranean" (Southern Thought and Other Essays on the Mediterranean, p. xviii)

The Mediterranean and the Beauty of the Limit

  • No single culture or tradition has successfully imposed a unified vision in the Mediterranean.
  • Continents, religions, societies, and ethnicities have met without one prevailing.
  • Mediterranean thought has developed a consciousness of limits.
  • (Bouchard and Ferme, Italy and the Mediterranean, p. 82)

A Shared Sea Means No Other

  • The Mediterranean, as a sea between lands that does not belong to any of them, is a communal sea.
  • People living on its shores internalized the ideas of diversity, plurality, and limits.
  • This allows for the legitimacy of many points of view.
  • (Southern Thought and Other Essays on the Mediterranean, p. xviii)

Values of the South/Mediterranean (Cassano)

  • These include slowness, contemplation, conviviality, and reflections on heritage of exchange, hybridization, and plurality.
  • They constitute resistance to excesses of modernity and capitalist development.
  • There is no purity, no race to defend, no fundamentalism.
  • "Our ‘we’ is full of Others."
  • (Bouchard and Ferme, Italy and the Mediterranean, p. 81)

Fundamentalism vs. Moderation

  • Moderation means having a sense of limits.
  • Fundamentalism is toxic because it makes us forget the other.
  • The world needs moderation to avoid the intoxication that exists within fundamentalism.
  • Where we end, the Other begins, and no one can claim exclusive right to God’s word.
  • (Bouchard and Ferme, Southern Thought and Other Essays on the Mediterranean, p. xxv)

Can the South Become a Resource?

  • Is their value in it?

The Mediterranean Sea: What Makes It Special

  • It lies between Africa, Asia, and Europe.
  • It features coexistence of different peoples, exchanges, and plurality.
  • It is a small sea with a sense of limits.
  • It is a space where frontiers are mobile confines rather than a clash of civilizations.
  • (Bouchard and Ferme, Italy and the Mediterranean, p. 41)
  • It promotes openness to alterity and offers a Mediterranean alternative.

A New Mediterranean Paradigm?

  • It features a set of alternative values.
  • Polycentric = Pluralism (no fundamentalism)
  • Multicultural
  • Contaminated by Otherness
  • Porous character accommodating diversities
  • Inclusion, vocation to openness
  • Dialogue
  • The tensions between Western and Mediterranean thought

Idealization of the South?

  • Is there a risk that is too romantic of an idea?

Cassano's Sources: 1) Camus

  • In The Rebel (1951), Camus outlined recovering the Mediterranean’s values:
    • Balance between extreme poles
    • Awareness of limits and boundaries
    • Tolerant outlook rooted in common humanity
    • Respect for nature
    • Affirmation of the present against a distant, teleological future
    • (Bouchard and Ferme, Southern Thought and Other Essays on the Mediterranean, p. xxi)

Camus Targeted Aggressive Ideologies

  • Camus targeted aggressive ideologies seeking the superiority of one culture over another.
  • He countered them through a humanistic foundation of tolerance and respect for the other as posited in Mediterranean civilizations.
  • (Bouchard and Ferme, Southern Thought and Other Essays on the Mediterranean, p. xxi)

Camus and Mediterranean Environment

  • Camus emphasized harmony between nature and human beings.
  • In the North, nature is hostile, and humans must protect themselves.
  • The supremacy of Northern Europe emphasized a tradition of thought that did not consider nature as something friendly.
  • Poverty in the South exists, but fundamental goods are available and accessible to everyone.

Mario Alcaro and Typical Mediterranean Values

  • Gift giving, including hospitality, strengthens social relations and weakens mercantile, capitalist exchange.
  • Structures of kinship and friendship are antidotes to modern individualism.
  • A maternal culture of forgiveness counters a patriarchal spirit of belligerence, competition, and retribution.
  • Cult and funereal rites resist the erasure of death (and thus memory and history) in modernity.
  • QUESTION: WHICH DO YOU THINK ARE THE TYPICAL VALUES OF A CAPITALIST SETTING?

Cassano's Sources: 2) Pasolini

  • (See Bouchard and Ferme, Italy and the Mediterranean p. 86)

The Fundamental Contribution of Greek Philosophy

  • Philosophy started in the region.

Western Outlets of Mediterranean Sea

  • Western outlets of Mediterranean Sea and Ocean very vaguely indicated in Homeric poems.
  • The Ocean surrounds the entire earth; it is for Homer a divinity (II. 20,7), a mighty stream and the source of all seas, rivers, and streams (II 21,195-6).
  • From it rise the sun,all the constellations (except the Great Bear) and the dawn, and in it they set (II.5,6; 7, 423 8,485; 19, 1-2, etc.)
  • The 'Homeric question' raises many conflicting opinions about the person and works of Homer: It is thus impossible to reproduce on a map an exact picture of Homer's world.

Odysseus's Journey

  • Since ancient times, the many thrilling episodes in the story has also captured ordinary people's imaginations to the extent that places all over the Mediterranean region have become identified with certain events.
  • Attempts have also been made to trace Odysseus's route.
  • This map shows a possible course he could have taken on his journey home, taking in various places associated with the legend.

The Mediterranean Loses Centrality

  • Initially, the discovery of America did not have an impact on the Mediterranean.
  • However, by the mid-17th century, a North-South axis replaced the East-West one.
  • Northern Europe became the core of a new world system transitioning to a capitalist economy, with England, France, and Holland as maritime powers.
  • 1517: the Reformation and the divergence between Protestant and Catholic Europe (p. 21)
  • The East-West divide turned into a North-South one with the advent of European colonialism and modern capitalism.
  • (Bouchard, p. 21)

The Rise of the Northern, Capitalist System of Values

  • The maturing of northwestern Europe into modern capitalist organizations led to their self-fashioning into beacons of rational enlightenment and civilized modernity.
  • This modernity was understood as distinct from the social and cultural organization of southern and eastern Mediterranean regions.
  • Between the early eighteenth century and the era of Romantic nationalism, this tradition would codify claims of civilizational superiority to justify imperial claims over vast areas of the Mediterranean.
  • (p. 22)

Mediterranean People as the Oriental Other of the West

  • Traits such as codes of honor, familism, magic rituals, patronage, religious syncretism, and shame were understood as forms of resistance and survival to modernization.
  • Postwar anthropology of Banfield, Campbell, Peristiany, Pitt-Rivers, and others was based on renewed understanding of Braudel and bore traces of Mediterraneanism.
  • The people and cultures of the region remained the Oriental others of Western progress.
  • (Bouchard and Ferme, Italy and the Mediterranean, p. 28)