“I can’t cross the red light just because I’m able to do it. I would be a hindrance to traffic, I would risk causing accidents, I would cause disorder. This is not freedom“. Giovanna Cosenza, full professor of philosophy and theory of language at the University of Bologna, uses a daily example to explain the famous saying: “My freedom ends where yours begins”. He also uses it to explain the origin of the text Non solo Agamben, signed together with a hundred of colleagues among Italian philosophers and intellectuals. It was created to respond to the intervention of the colleague and academic Giorgio Agamben, held on 7 October during the session of the Constitutional Affairs Commission. Some points: vaccines are still in the experimental phase, the restrictions imposed by the Green Pass – for the first time since the establishment of the racial laws in 1938 – institute second-class citizens, parliamentary democracy is “eroded”. “Our text wants to highlight the will, the thought and the intentions of a majority, among communication scholars and philosophers, who distance themselves from these ideas, exposed by a minority”, continues Cosenza. “Our reading is different and we want it to be clear. In our opinion, the institution of the Green pass and vaccines are simply the only means which the government can use to try to get us out of the pandemic ”.
The text takes into consideration four central aspects of Professor Agamben’s intervention and proposes an antithesis for each. First of all, the contribution of the philosophy against the science: “Although philosophy must certainly assume a critical role in relation to science”, we read, “this critical role cannot fail to respect the scientific results reporting them incorrectly “- It is therefore false to claim” As Agamben did in the hearing a few days ago in the Senate, that anti-Covid vaccines19 are in a experimental phase: have been tested “. Second, the relationship of the State towards citizens. Agamben argues in his hearing that there has already been a shift from “Society of the discipline” at the “Control company”, operated with digital and with the above restrictions. “And we don’t agree”, Cosenza specifies, which refers to the intervention signed by her and the other colleagues: “It is improper to argue that we find ourselves in an era in which the exceptionality has become the rule, and that the goal is the control of the state over citizenship “. Instead, it is “a ‘sanitary emergency. which has nothing to do with other forms of emergency (such as the fight against terrorism). This emergency requires procedures that have always been adopted in these cases to protect the interests of the community”, the article continues. Third, the discrimination between citizens. According to Agamben, “the vaccine is a means of forcing people to have the Green pass, that is, a device that allows them to track their movements to an unprecedented extent”. The philosopher argues that the green certificate is therefore guilty of creating first and second class citizens. From here the comparisons and “legal analogies” made by the professor with Stalin’s Soviet Union and the fascist laws of 1938 unfold. of citizens, having as its purpose simply the protection of society as a whole, reducing the possibility of contagion by encouraging vaccinations. To argue otherwise would be like arguing that the institution of the driving license, made for to limit as much as possible the number and extent of road accidents, determine a distinction between Serie A citizens and Serie B citizens “. Finally, four: individual freedom. “The institution of the Green Pass does not involve any repression of individual freedom, being a condition well known in social communities that a person’s freedom ends when he harms it freedom of another or it damages them “. To consider the opposite, therefore, “It would be once again equivalent to arguing that the adoption of traffic rules is detrimental to individual freedom of movement”, the text continues.
According to Giovanna Cosenzainstead, you need to work on the reassurance. To be implemented with language and communication. “Because a large part of those who still do not want to get vaccinated are actually very afraid. I would try to act on the people closest to them: I would ask them to reassure their loved ones. It is a sinking problem roots in emotionality“. Fears must therefore be dispelled “with work that is also affective, not just rational. Naturally, it is a difficult and delicate intervention ”. Meanwhile, the recent news reports the demonstrations against the introduction of the compulsory Green pass in the workplace and, so far, returns a less serious picture than expected. Does the suggestion proposed by Cosenza apply to everyone? “No. It remains, and will remain, a group of diehards. But in my opinion they are few and will be fewer and fewer ”.