Articoli taggati con ‘European Welfare’
Fragmented We Stand
Rephrasing the famous quote can sketches the picture in which Western world has found itself recently, especially Europe and the Americas. Since the end of 2016, a wave of political and social fragmentation has been sweeping at least two of the most important continents in the world, giving way to a culture of populist nationalism. Often people are not aware of the multiple interconnections affecting their lives, impacting on our own happiness and wellbeing. Nor we realise the “butterfly effect” each of these interconnections has on the other around the world. In their restricted landscapes of the last three years, are the people of these continents happier, freer, richer than they used to be? Do they, do we, have a deep understanding of what make us happy or are we functionally illiterate even about it? Few, basic items contributing to our happiness and well-being are: freedom and respect of other people’s freedom, work, healthcare, the outcomes of good politics and the effects of stable and growing economics, the possibility of living in a friendly environment, both on a psychological point of view and where the effects of the climate change are limited. Social and societal interactions, safe and affordable mobility, broad and uncensured communication. To which, finally, it can be added what anyone considers to be good. In an individualistic culture as the Western one has transformed, declaring that anyone can decide what it is good for him/herself can be considered really the base of the fragmentation we are observing recently, the right anyone claims to have not to homologate or not to be submitted to the law and common rules: “one is one” is the claim that anticipate “first my people”. What kind of culture is generated by all this?
A call for a European Model of Culture
Recent events, such as the election of the provocateur Mr. Trump as President of United States, the increasing migrations phenomena or the rise of new forms of terrorism, ask for a concrete answer from Europe in one of most important characteristics of our political history: the role and the implementation of the so-called Welfare State. When we talk about Welfare State we describe a set of policies, services and other actions that the public bodies of a Country set up in order to improve the life conditions of its own citizenship. Among the benefits that European Countries most frequently provide to citizens, Culture represents a peculiar object, not only for its structural characteristics (intangible assets and so on) but also for the different ways that governments are interpreting this important resource for human and social development. The implementation of the welfare state often includes also culture and cultural policies, but in most of cases, there is no a common interpretation of how (and which) culture should be provided: this is, to our point of view, one of the central key tasks for the European Agenda. Briefly, from one hand we have the most important traditions about cultural heritage but, on the other hand, Europe forgets that culture is, first of all, a contemporary matter of concern. Since ’50s Europe left to the U.S. the role cultural leader and from then, U.S. showed to the world the ideology of the western, developed countries. We divided the world in rich and poor countries, and our culture was the medium through which we stated that yes, we were in the right place of the world.
