Discovery Attribution - Read the source item:
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'Giovanni Grandi is a professor of moral philosophy at the University of Trieste. As he is currently working on a book: he had planned to spend period in retreat, but not exactly in the way as it is happening right now… What do you think a restorative culture can do, once the pandemic will be soothed? What could be helpful steps or attitude at that point? The good use of words is one of the main issues in restorative practices, and I think this could be an important resource, still in this period, that is characterised – this is my impression, of course – by a distortion of narratives. I mean: on one side, on social-media, we can notice a huge amount of “story-telling” about ordinary life during pandemic. Generally, we find here good narratives. People prefer not to show their pain, and when they do it, very often I notice also a resentment towards other people who continue saying “it will be all right” (“#andràtuttobene” was an unfortunate hashtag in Italy during the very beginning of the troubles). On the other side, in public speaking we can observe a strong use of heavy metaphors: the one of “war” first of all, Covid-19 as “enemy”… I’m not so sure that this is a good choice in language: in Italy also countries that seem to not “fight” with us against the pandemic quickly became “enemies” (particularly in the narrative of some politicians). I mean we have to learn how to use proper words, moreover how to tell publicly the suffering that affected a great part of the population, with respect and without rhetoric, in order to share feelings deeply and to transform suffering not into revenge but into a new power to build positive things, particularly as European citizens. The European Forum has a great challenge, but has a great experience that will be very precious!'