Today’s translation is dedicated to my English-speaking followers and subscribers. Here is a thought-provoking piece by the Italian Dr. Massimo Soldati, psychologist, psychotherapist, Postural Integration trainer, secretary of the International Council of Postural Integration Trainers, and author. English text under the first image.
Con una traduzione oggi “al contrario”, cioè per i followers ed iscritti anglofoni, ecco un illuminante intervento del Dr. Massimo Soldati, psicologo, psicoterapeuta, trainer di Integrazione Posturale, segretario dell’International Council of Postural Integration Trainers, autore. Anch’egli approdato da tempo su Substack, invito tutti a leggerlo qui:
No Prisoner be -
Where Liberty -
Himself abide with Thee -
⁓ Emily Dickinson
Once upon a time, kings ruled. If they were good sovereigns, they acted in the best interests of their people, paid artists who created great masterpieces, supported brilliant minds who advanced science, respected the common people’s sentiments, and introduced innovations suited to their nation. If they were bad sovereigns, they were those tyrants commonly described today.
Today, a person with an average level of understanding believes that kings were all tyrants and that we now finally live in a democracy where the People rule, justice is administered fairly, and an elected parliament gives voice to the people’s will. That same person has also been convinced that progress is triumphing and that all it will take is to fight a group of selfish, narrow-minded people attached to their privileges in order to reach the paradise - whether socialist, inclusive, or technological - that awaits us.
Unfortunately, things are not quite like that: real tyrants still exist today, only their clothes have changed. They no longer appear with their thrones and liveries; in fact, they don’t appear at all.
In their place, they’ve put puppets - paid marionettes, each with its own price tag - whose strings they pull at will. You no longer see them. They live in a parallel world where they eat healthy food - not the insect mush or industrial junk they want to force you to swallow - the healthcare system works, and their children attend the best schools where discipline is enforced and they’re properly educated - unlike yours, who don’t respect you, eat poisoned snacks, are glued to their cell phones, and are indoctrinated with “woke” narratives.
Today’s Tyrants hide themselves and make you believe they don’t exist, but they do. They control banks, governments, the justice system, the state apparatus for bureaucratic control, those who carry out their will, and then a vast host of storytellers, without whom this world could not go on: journalists, influencers, scientists, marketing specialists, advertisers, opinion leaders, and teachers.
Giulietto Chiesa called them the “masters of the universe”, the hidden owners of everything, whose existence can only be revealed inductively: they no longer wear crowns, nor do they rule over kingdoms, even though they are in command. When you think about these things, you feel terrible, because the world you were used to see is crumbling around you, so you tell yourself that these are just paranoid, conspiracy-theory-driven thoughts - and the “experts” help you believe that! - that it’s all due to people’s stupidity and greed. But maybe it’s not like that.
Just think about the news campaigns, all reported in the same way and at the same time around the world. Who organizes them? Are they just a copy-and-paste job between publications? And what about the policies of various groups of countries, all exactly the same? Or the intertwining, though here the Newspeak term “intersection” would be more appropriate, between scientific or political trends and major financial and political operations? Or the scientific trends themselves, which hammer our minds - and those of unfortunate students - so relentlessly that without conforming to them, we couldn’t get a job, keep it, or advance our careers? And what about the manipulation of language - the creation of new words, the distortion of original meanings, and their massive dissemination…? Do you really think all this happens naturally, without any orchestration?
He who controls the spice controls the universe
- Baron Arkonnen, from David Lynch’s “Dune”
It therefore seems that the most precious and rare asset today is not oil, but a certain kind of intelligence combined with awareness and ethics. We should coin a new term to define it, because a person can be very intelligent yet completely underdeveloped from an ethical standpoint. Think of doctors who endorse unsafe or harmful drugs, or consider an individual with great emotional intelligence, yet not enough to realize that their sensitivity is being exploited for purposes that are anything but moral, as happens to many environmentalists or NGO contributors. Another form of intelligence is, in fact, linked to self-awareness, self-memory, metacognition, and the ability to think independently - outside the group - without being caught up in the thought processes constantly generated in the world of digital and cultural communication.
I like to call this set of abilities “Free Intelligence.” Unlike other types of intelligence - and there are many - which can be very effective but are not integrated, lack something, or are basically dead, a Free Intelligence is always capable of improvement, always alive, and always growing. The absence of a free and integrated development across the various scales of intelligence causes a person’s growth to halt and stagnate.
It is clear that this kind of intelligence is strongly opposed in a totalitarian world, where the exploitation and degradation of the masses serve to maintain power - whether under a socialist or communist system or under Western capitalism. In the West, we have unfortunately witnessed the transformation of schools from places of Free Intelligence development into sanctuaries of indoctrination. The few educators who tried to continue teaching Free Intelligence, in their own small way, have been purged by directives, bureaucratic controls, and the bullying tactics of a new generation of teachers who advocate indoctrination.
A system based on profit, control, and a weak moral compass, subject to political forces and influencers, requires fragmented or zombified forms of intelligence, such as that of a predator or a sheep in the flock - i.e. the two sides of the same coin.
The wait is long; my dream of you is not yet over
- Eugenio Montale, from The Prisoner’s Dream
Despite the difficulties Free Intelligence keeps flourishing. Although it is hindered rather than encouraged, it is developing here and there around the world. Dead intelligence, with the help of the surveillance society and artificial intelligence, is tending to make the system for tracking down and eliminating this spontaneous flourishing more widespread and efficient. But the paradoxical phenomenon we are witnessing is that the more Free Intelligence is being oppressed, the more people begin to develop it.
Until now, the strategy handed down through the centuries - for example, by Alchemists to escape repression by the Inquisition - has been to remain hidden and to communicate through a language of symbols. Today, with the advent of AI, digitalization, and the surveillance society, the spaces to hide are becoming increasingly limited. But a secret language is no longer needed to communicate, because it already exists: it is the language of the soul, which is within everyone’s reach - anyone who wishes to begin a process of awakening and self-improvement.
It is therefore not necessary to hide. Perhaps dystopian developments in the surveillance society might force us to create aliases or other forms of defense, but the spread of Free Intelligence is now unstoppable, triggered precisely by the attempt to systematically suppress it.
Is it true, prince, that you once declared that ‘beauty would save the world’?
⁓ Fëdor Dostoevskij, from The Idiot
I don’t know if you’ve noticed a certain current trend toward imposing degraded versions of classic cultural creations. The great works and symbols of history are being altered to shock and attract attention. The λευκώλενος Ἑλένη - Helen of Troy, Homer’s “Helen of the white arms” - depicted as an African woman in a recent film adaptation of the Odyssey. Christopher Columbus reduced to a slave trader, or the leaders of the ancient world portrayed as patriarchal brutes. The mind of the unsuspecting recipient of these messages vacillates between rejection, cognitive restructuring, and acceptance of the new perspective imposed by the message.
The person with an average level of understanding almost always chooses the last option, to escape the hassle of thinking independently and mediating between the various versions. To avoid facing social disapproval, they join - in a sort of cultural Stockholm syndrome - the group of enthusiasts. It is so convenient, so gratifying, to identify with a group that is considered smart, progressive, advanced, and intelligent - when in reality one is doing nothing more than surrendering one’s autonomy in thought and judgment, often even renouncing one’s own inner sense of aesthetics, as happens to viewers of certain forms of art that are intimately and occultly satanic.
Today, we don’t need a parade celebrating our sexual preferences, but rather the pride in our own autonomous cognitive faculties. The true “Pride” in which real revolutionaries should demonstrate is that of Free and Human Intelligence. The time for hiding is over. The jailer has new locks and new bars that are increasingly difficult to spot and break through. There is nowhere to go; there is no happy exile. What remains is the ultimate way out: the proud, humble, and mindful cultivation and expression of one’s own soul - the most precious and plundered substance in the universe.
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