Happy Ignorance: The Return of Magical Thinking in the Age of Progress

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Recently, there has been a lot of talk online about the pyramids of Giza, in Egypt. Corrado Malanga and others, with a study published in a (low-impact) journal, have discovered that under a pyramid there are very deep chambers, eight tubular structures that, like the chambers, descend into the depths, and finally eight cubes (on which the tubes rest), each cube with a side of 80 meters. Obviously, it is a study that presents so many methodological problems that the results are invalidated, in fact it is considered a fake, but we are not interested in going into the merits here. What is shocking is the speed with which this news travels. The benevolence with which it is welcomed by almost everyone. The benevolence is so obvious that if today you organize a scientific conference in a university only three people come, perhaps not even your close relatives, on the contrary the events of Corrado Malanga, Pier Giorgio Caria and others are always sold out. Analysts, one day, will explain to us whether these counter-narratives are so dangerous, whether, by polluting the sources, they disaccustom everyone to the scientific method. At the moment we can underline the paradox: the scientific method has contributed not a little to building the world we know, which, despite the rather problematic costs, has provided us with unimaginable benefits .

Who would have thought that with greater progress, rockets launched into space, as well as probes landing on comets, the meticulous calculation of orbits, primordial images of the universe, not to mention medical progress, etc., there would be an increase in flat-earthers and those who believe that the pyramids were built by alien civilizations? Who would have thought that esteemed newspapers, proudly progressive, would have entrusted writers with astrology pages? And who would have thought that these writers, educated thanks to the constant work of the scientific method, would have dedicated themselves to writing horoscopes and would have entered into spiritual territories that ultimately put everything on the same level? That is, Corrado Malanga and Jonathan Bazzi, both, hang around the inclined plane of everything is possible. The paradox is that on this level (on which rests not only the community but also the effectiveness of the deliberations expressed by and for the community) there is a strong and visible discrepancy, a disconnection between the mind of progress and the heart of beliefs.

We should try to solve the puzzle, otherwise we end up complaining on the one hand about Trump's fake news and the ease with which, despite, or rather precisely thanks to that type of false narrative, Trump or whoever wins (and of course, we blame ignorance and low education); on the other hand, every day even intellectuals, writers and the like, refined and cultured people, the whole company in short, give credence to other systems of thought that are also false but that are accepted by a part of the population: therefore, in their own way, they stir up trouble under the excuse of divination. Who knows, are those of the sovereign right or those of the astrological left preparing the basis for future counter-narratives? Of course, faced with the pyramids built by aliens, faced with the untouchable astrology (you can make dirty jokes about everyone, even about hungry children, but not about Marco Pesatori or Rob Brezsny), the first thing that comes to mind is: but you writers, intellectuals, artistic directors of festivals and exhibitions, you men and women, workers, you minorities, have you noticed the connection that links cultural and industrial progress, literacy, to well-being, to the collapse of infant mortality and of women due to childbirth, to the increase in average life expectancy? In short, have you noticed that the improvement of these parameters has brought out, favored and strengthened some movements such as feminism and in general the discovery of some important rights? If it were not for the contribution of vaccines, antibiotics, if we had not exploited certain theoretical discoveries on electricity, if we had not yet built hydroelectric plants, turbines, steel pylons, if once our ancestors and now our brothers scattered around the world had not extracted coal and copper with the toil that only miners know, in short without all these innovations that have brought, symbolically and otherwise, light to everyone, and that have allowed children to study, without all this the millennial and oppressive order of the community, an order constituted by economic stagnation, hunger and poverty, this order - we were saying - would have remained the same. Therefore, some rights and emancipation movements and experimental and beautiful communities would not even have emerged.

Do you think that my grandmother just 100 years ago could have had a different role in peasant society? Could she have called herself a lesbian? An artist? She was a very good seamstress: could she have ever opened an atelier? Unfortunately not, at least not at the time, in certain southern countrysides, with practical problems to deal with, very bitter lands. In those conditions no social advancement would have been guaranteed to her, much less tolerated. Nothing to do for my grandmother, too busy removing weeds. Immobility, at least before electrification, which let's remember, arrived in some Italian lands in the mid-70s. Before light, the washing machine, before industrialization, she could not have changed status, neither socially nor sentimentally. Do you think that the love my grandmother expressed was romantic? Or did it concern the more pragmatic dowry, a way to pool some money and secure her future? Do you think that those aunts of mine who said "I donated my womb to Mussolini" were isolated cases? We do not pay attention to the industrialization-emancipation nexus. Nowadays we simply replace the ghosts of poverty, the visions caused by hunger with the visions of mischievous ghosts. On an empty stomach, those peasants saw the ghosts of their relatives gather in deconsecrated churches to celebrate the masses of the dead so that they could deliver to the living a shred of a message from the afterlife as a consolation. On a very full stomach and with many extra pounds, we try to understand who we are through the influences of the planets: they are still ghosts, but the former were at least concrete, they had extenuating circumstances.

And yet we looked for solutions to bring more bread to a hungry world, and we succeeded. So who would have said that we would then find ourselves in a world, yes, without hunger but hungry for astral influences? Then, it goes without saying that the farmers were sick and suffering, so the magic rituals were nothing more than a way to soothe the fear of fragility, at the time it took nothing and a mother in childbirth would lose her milk and the baby would die. But it is difficult to understand what is inside, what wound and what sense of inadequacy a wealthy and well-paid spiritualist of various types harbors. And that in any case, if they told me that they were sick, for existential reasons or because they had suffered a wrong or trauma, I could hug them instead of having to pretend to listen to, as well as tolerate, the bullshit of the moment because it's chic. If we therefore consider this connection, the first thing that comes to mind is: but why do we deal with astrology for psychophysical well-being and not with water pumping plants? There is so much culture in water pumping plants, hydroelectric turbines, nuclear power plants, solar panels, wind turbines that it deserves conferences, debates, clashes. We should pay special attention and encourage the presence in the public debate for those who, while we make the difference between Aquarius and Aries, dig into the bowels of the earth to extract rare and less rare earths, hydrocarbons and horrible fossils that still make the world go round or allow people to expose crazy theories on social media shouting "legalize my opinions".

Yes, we could ask ourselves all this. But it would be a vent. Maybe the question should be shifted. Maybe the problem is that we have become accustomed to progress, maybe the habit or worse the better possibilities that progress offers will make the world collapse sooner than expected, before the climate crisis, before the asteroid. The better conditions that progress offers lead us to overdo it, to overflow with the ego, to suffer from the navel syndrome, the world revolves around us or is against us. Worried as we are about having our say within the next 30 seconds, we miss the importance of what we have learned so far. In doing so, we leave behind the need for measurement, proof, methodology. I am so sure that I allow myself to put forward a thesis: we do not know how old progress is. By virtue of this ignorance we ask ourselves: but how did they build the pyramids? And how did they do it? How did they build Castel Sant'Angelo, and the wonderful castles of Frederick II, and those fantastic baroque churches that dot the center of Rome? Or those on the hills or on the sharp peaks of the mountains? Even in that case, an alien civilization? Then why did the aliens have to focus on the pyramids and not on the houses of my ancestors? Just to please those who believe in the alignments of the planets and astral energies? Why aren't the roofs aligned with the planets? And the houses? Even those mostly built on peaks and moraines to defend themselves from invaders? Who built those structures? An alien civilization or the sweat and muscles of our ancestors, including the many broken donkey backs? I think the latter, donkeys, horses, yes, but also our muscles, which are already worn out at a young age. Considering that until the early 1800s, the fuel that made the world go round was the muscles of our ancestors, who, despite eating little, built a lot of pyramids: skinny, bony, battered, zombies, a life with few dreams other than that of satisfying the desires of emperors and colorful gods.

We know, right, just to say, that the first excavator was from 1882, the first oil well discovered was from 1859, that the first transformer (a device that astrologers and cheap Egyptologists ignore) was from 1885? Even the bicycle is from the late nineteenth century, not to mention revolving doors (1888) and elevators and irons and the first hydroelectric power plant and the gas-fired one started running eighty-odd years ago, at the Neuchatel power plant in Switzerland? Again, the monolithic circuit is from 1958 (before then circuits were soldered by hand, so there weren't all these degrees of improvement). Progress is young. Progress has changed the world and yet, at the same time, not only has it created so much cultural resistance to change, see the pyramids of Giza built by alien civilizations and the writers who talk about horoscopes. But it has changed the world because it has complicated it, we no longer understand it, too much effort, a horoscope a day takes away the effort of analysis. Then, as if that were not enough, the children of the past, thanks to antibiotics, vaccines, tiled bathrooms and sewers, have grown up and once adults, thanks to pills to regulate blood pressure, can tolerate ailments and heart problems and live up to 85 years. Certainly not always in good health. There are many of us, all with energy needs that should not be underestimated. All convinced that where there's a will there's a way, so imagine this micro megalomania full of good will, in constant movement, connected to the micro megalomania of others, thanks to powerful and often perverse technological means, well, you understand well how for the pleasure of being there, you understand in short how much energy we exploit and how little time we have to understand where the energy comes from? The real one, I mean, material, extractive, transformed, put into cables, cooled, changed phase. Do you understand why, on the contrary, we focus on the phantom energy that makes our souls vibrate?

But do you know that the world will end because of astrology and other beliefs? Do you know that if we focus exclusively on astral influences, apart from the fact that no matter how hard astrologers try, even the refined ones, those energies cannot be channeled, but anyway if we talk about those energies or about a flat earth or about tubular structures under the pyramids, or about ethnic substitution, if we give substance to right-wing supremacism and progressive astrology, then the world collapses and ends. It ends because no one thinks about turbines anymore. Who thinks about the new indispensable storage batteries? And about putting better plants into the field and new antibiotics, and new proteins and anti-cancer vaccines? All these innovations require a scientific method and study and tests and trials and failures, while the counter-narratives require writers in the broad sense who tell them as if they were true. The first ones are difficult, they require serious scientific and methodological approaches, they are a pain in the ass but they have changed the world, the second ones are easy and have always been the same, for millennia – just as my peasant grandfather was the same as his great-grandfather and his great-great-grandfather. The problem in the final analysis is the chaos and unpredictability of life. Who would have told my mother who taught the peasants who wanted to free themselves from poverty to read and write that their ancestors with more free time would no longer dedicate themselves to finding solutions but to talking about the flat earth and the wall of ice that contains the ocean? Which then also means failing to do what Dalla sang in “Come è profondo il mare”: “thought like the ocean / you can't block it / you can't fence it in”. Instead, well-being and free time, a full belly, the anxiety of overpowering your neighbor who is also anxious to express his opinion, even if it was a flat-earther stupidity, well, all this is fencing off thought.

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