Last Sunday in my weekly column in the Sunday Times of Malta I compared the theories of Sygmunt Bauman, the eminent Polish sociologist, with some of the homilies and speeches that Pope Francis delivers. Bauman’s well know theory about what he calls ‘liquid society’ finds resonance in the Pope’s words about the ‘culture of the provisional.’
This is a society which feeds a lack of commitment and superficiality in taking responsibility. The Pope thinks that contemporary society and its prevailing cultural models “do not provide a climate conducive to the formation of stable life choices with solid bonds, built on the rock of love and responsibility rather than on the sand of emotion.”
Relationships are the first victims in a society built on convenience instead of conviction; the buzz of the ‘here and now’ instead of patiently working for a better tomorrow. Such a culture, says Francis, places everything in question and breaks “with relative ease” the possibility of pursuing life paths “with commitment and dedication.”
This is a utilitarian society which considers as important what has some use, generally an economic one. If you are not useful you are discarded.
By mere coincidence, on Monday, the Vatican released extracts from the speech that Pope Francis delivered on Saturday to the participants in the international seminar dedicated to Pope Francis' proposal in the Apostolic Exhortation “Evangelii Gaudium”, for “an increasingly inclusive economy”.
The speech is particularly strong, incisive and important. I share with you a few extracts.
“I believe that this is the strongest moment for anthropological reductionism. What is happening to humanity at the moment is what happens when wine becomes brandy: it passes through a phase of distillation, in organisational terms. It is no longer wine, but it is something else: perhaps more useful, more qualified, but it is not wine!
“For mankind it is the same: man passes through this transformational phase and ends up – and I am serious – losing his humanity and becoming a tool of the system, a social and economic system, a system where imbalance reigns.
“When mankind loses his humanity, what happens to us? What occurs is what I would describe in simple terms as a throwaway policy or sociology: what is no longer useful is discarded, because man is not at the centre. And when man is not at the centre, there is something else in his place and man is at the service of this other thing.
“The idea, therefore, is to save mankind, in the sense of restoring him to the centre: to the centre of society, of thought, of reflection. Restoring mankind to the centre. You do good work. You study, reflect, hold conferences for this reason – so that mankind is not discarded.
“Children are discarded – we all know about today's birth rates, at least in Europe; the elderly are discarded, because they are not 'useful'.
“And now? An entire generation of young people is discarded, and this is very serious! I have seen a figure: 75 million young people, under the age of 25, without work. The 'neither-nor' young: those who neither work nor study. They do not study because they do not have the opportunity, and the do not work because there is no work. Who will be the next to be discarded? Let us stop this in time, please!”
The Pope’s words are so strong that any comments will be superfluous.