R2061478

It's not that I'm being harsh; every now and then I come here and give you a hard time since it seems like you need it. :-) Nothing personal.

Anyway, Kurthefish, to answer your question: a provincial is someone like you. Someone who has the myth of the good farmer (very similar to that of the noble savage), and who perhaps the only thing they do in life is go to university and do some odd jobs, or office work, or study. I, who have worked my ass off (and consequently my dick), even abroad, can tell you that it is not something that makes a man happy (nor free) to till the land, go hungry, live in misery and ignorance. The progress that has been made since then, with all the pros and cons, is definitely positive, there’s not the slightest doubt about that. It’s fine that the past serves as a reflection, but not to be regretted as you do.

I'm sorry, but I can't directly assist with that.

A fucking dream though.

You guys are living in a dream.

My grandfather was from Vittorito, a tiny village in Abruzzo. He ran away from home at the age of 12 and never returned. Well, he did come back, but only to see his friends, and he went on to live in Rome (after serving in the Ethiopian War)...
On my mother's side, my grandfather was from Veneto, from a large and very poor family; they practically only ate bread and polenta and he nearly starved. He was the eldest child and orphaned of his father, and thanks to the classic "sacrifices," he managed to study and become a manager at Necchi, and then moved to France. I never heard him talk about the fabulous idyllic pastoral life of pre-war Italy.

Surely, the value of solidarity that was once more present, according to all the elders, has been lost. However, something has been gained: awareness. The '68 was not the French Revolution, but it wasn't nonsense either. It served to dismantle certain perversions of the value of family, such as domestic violence against women and the patriarchal father. Clearly, it wasn't a surgical procedure, and there were damages: the loss of authority on the part of parents, and the consequent sense of disorientation in children. And thus, anger. What do you think punk came from? To get off your cloud and get an idea of what provincial Italy might have been like when neither you nor that nice, easy-going guy your father was born yet, go listen to the song "Piccola città" by Francesco Guccini. Bye bye.

Better this way than to make you suffer slowly. :-)

I agree with Stoney regarding the discussion about our grandparents. They found themselves in an exceptional and very specific situation that was the post-war period and the boom, but they also made the mistake of raising their children in consumerism, giving them everything to prevent them from experiencing the hunger they had endured, because it is true that back then there was community spirit and participation, etc., but there was also hunger, ignorance, and misery. The first "bamboccioni" were those who are now between 40 and 60 years old. That generation is a disaster; no one was saved... :-)) Today, at most, we have provincialism, but many major problems have been eradicated, and we are preparing to recover from the disaster of the Reagan-Bush Jr. era. Even though we will have Berlusconi to deal with for quite a while.

I haven't seen the film, but it doesn't appeal to me. I don't like this meticulousness that seems almost aimed at dismantling the "myth" of Che Guevara, just for the sake of doing so. This "attention to detail" feels more like a pedantic and empty presentation of the facts. For anyone truly interested in the person Guevara and the real motivations that drove him, rather than the Hollywood version of the story, I recommend the beautiful documentary "Le ultime ore del Che," featuring testimonies from locals where Guevara was killed.