Cultural Heritage and Contemporary Change

Series IV, West Europe, Volume, 5

The Essence of Italian Culture and the

Challenge of a Global Age

Edited by
Paulo Janni
George F. McLean

The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy

 Copyright © 2003 by

The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy

Gibbons Hall B-20

620 Michigan Avenue, NE
Washington, D.C. 20064

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication

The essence of Italian culture and the challenge of global age / edited by Paolo Janni and George
F. McLean.

p.cm. – (Cultural heritage and contemporary change. Series IV. West Europe; vol. 5)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. National characteristics, Italian. 2. Italy—Civilization—20th century. 3. Italian—Foreign

countries—Ethnic identity. I. Janni, Paolo. II McLean, George F. III. Series.

DG455.E77 2002 200254967

305.85’1—dc20 CIP

ISBN 1-56518-177-8 (pbk.)

 Table of Contents

Introduction 1
George F. McLean

Part I. Italicity and the Emergence of Culture in Our Time

Chapter I. Italicity: Global and Local 13

Piero Bassetti

Chapter II. Hermeneutics of Culture: Local and Global 25

George F . McLean

Chapter III. Globalization and Italian Culture 53

Robert Royal

Part II. Italians in America

Chapter IV. Italian Cultural Identity and Migration: Italian Communities 69

Abroad and Italian Cultural Identity through Time
Maddalena Tirabassi

Chapter V. Identical Difference: Notes on Italian and Italian American Identities 93

Fred L. Gardaphe

Chapter VI. The Essence of Italian Culture and the Challenge of the Global Age: 113
Italian Cultural Identity and Migration
Michael Barone

Chapter VII. The Making of Identity in a Globalizing World: An Overview of 119

the Italian American Business Community
Consuelo Corradi

Part III. America and Its Italians

Chapter VIII. Italian Americans in a Pluralistic America 137

John Kromkowski

Chapter IX. The Religious Challenge of a Globalizing World for Italian 177
Cultural Identity: Lessons from the American Experience in Public Education
Robert A. Destro

Part IV. Italicity in a Global Age

Chapter X. Locality, Nationality, Globality: The Possible Contribution of

Italianness in the Age of Globalization 189
Mauro Magatti

Chapter XI. Civic Identity without National Identity? Political Identity in a New 217
and Changing Global Context
Vittorio Emanuele Parsi

Chapter XII. Globalization, Religion and Culture: Beyond Conflict, beyond Sovereignty 249
Maryann Cusimano Love

Index 281
 Introduction
George F. McLean

The Heritage

The Western World looks with gratitude and pride to its roots in the Mediterranean. The
development of philosophy and democracy in Greece was translated by the Romans into a system
of law which acted as a broadly civilizing force; this enabled peoples to live together throughout the
Mediterranean basin in the pax romana. With the emergence of Christianity these elements provided
the Church with structure for its work, and in turn were transformed in a deeply humanizing manner.
Augustine, Benedict, Aquinas and others elaborated structures of spirit and of life which transformed
persons from within and reached out to the peoples of Northern, Central and Eastern Europe. This
constituted the first ecumenical era and the initial weaning of a multi-ethnic tradition within the Holy
Roman Empire, East and West.
A fresh elan of cultural creativity emerged in the Italian Renaissance. Its new zest for life and
nature expressed first by Francis of Assisi, provided new ways to look at the cultural creations of the
ancients. It generated intensive, creative interest in geography and astronomy, political structures
and art. Today we still live out the impetus which this "re-birth" gave to the socio-political and the
cultural life of the West.
In all these dimensions of time--ancient and medieval, renaissance and modern--the Italian
experience contains essential keys for understanding the progress of humankind. For the emerging
nations in Eastern Europe and other parts of the world in search of ways to reconstitute social life in
terms of their distinctive cultural identities, the Italian success in fashioning a nation from many
regions, each with its own rich tradition, provides striking lessons. For the peoples of other regions
of the world who look to the West for models to guide their own development, the Italian genius
takes on ever greater importance.
It is the purpose of “Globus et Locus” to work out this content of the heritage of Italy as part
of the heritage of humanity and to determine how this can be communicated and lived in the many
different world contexts. This transnational spirit of Italy, termed “Italicity” is the central topic of
this volume.

The Collaboration

With the realignment of the bipolar geo-political world into a new global order, the human-
izing presence of the Italian peoples must be highly visible and active. This is true above all of
Washington as a focal point where persons and institutes intersect for policy decisions which effect
profoundly the shape of international cooperation and the direction of human progress in our times.
An Italian presence in this context is not a matter of military or economic power; it is rather that
of providing a source of experience and a legacy of wisdom and creativity for shaping modern
culture. More than ever, this cultural endowment needs to be engaged in the process of opening
fundamental human aspirations, inspiring social dynamics and generating the creativity through
which humankind responds to the challenges of our times.
The point of contact with this process of shaping our culture is the university, where literary and
artistic criticism is thought through, where social and political structures are modeled and tested in
debate, where new dimensions of human sensibility and insight are evolved and translated into
methods of social analysis and response. For this reason, as we proceed into an ever more ominous
XXIst century, it is particularly important that the resources of the Italian experience be made visible
and active in Washington through a university structure.
The Catholic University of America (CUA) was particularly suited for this task.

- Its identity has made it especially attentive to the classical and cultural traditions of Italy,
ancient and modern, with its literature, philosophy and the arts.
- Its foundation as a graduate school has given CUA a long tradition of advanced scholarship
with a full range of doctoral programs, not only in the arts and humanities, but also in the social and
natural sciences and in the professions.
- Its relation to the Catholic community gives it special access to the Italian heritage and to the
experience of the Italian-America community in adapting this cultural heritage to the pluralistic
North American socio-political setting.
- Its location in Washington was chosen for presence to the ongoing process of shaping the
cultural life of this nation--this has become increasingly central as the role of Washington in world
affairs develops exponentially.
- It is the home of units deeply involved in issues of culture and change on a national and global
basis, viz., a number of Catholic learned societies, The National Center for Urban Ethnic Affairs
(NCUEA) and The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy (RVP). This recently has
published three volumes of the Edmund D. Pellegrino Lecture Series on the transformations in Italian
life edited by Paolo Janni. These have now joined together in the CUA Center for the Study of
Culture and Values (CSCV).

For these reasons and circumstances – cultural, political and creative -- The CUA Center for the
Study of Culture and Values provides a special place where the Italian heritage can be visible and
active in the construction of yet another stage of ecumenical interaction, which at this dawn of a new
world order is now fully global in character.

The Context

The initiation of this joint effort was dramatic. Originally the program had been envisaged for
the Fall of 2001 as a celebration of Italian culture. But that plan was swept aside by the events of
Sept. 11. suddenly it became clear that cultural heritages in the global interchange of the new
millennia were not unambiguous and could even be supremely dangerous.
Was it time to abandon the distinctive cultures as expressive of the unique creativity of each
people in order to envisage the passive peace of an homogeneous and undifferentiated humanity? If
such a prospective half life – or “march of the clones” – strikes one with horror and revulsion, then
the work of elaborating an alternative future must be correspondingly urgent. For if the distinct
heritages are to continue to play their essential humanizing role, then it is crucial to understand their
nature and interrelations at a much deeper level and in a more sensitive manner.
Providentially, the two partners in the original plan seemed to constitute a uniquely
complementary team to undertake just that work. Globus et Locus was concerned with practical
ways in which the essence of Italian life might transcend the confines of the state of Italy. This led
inevitably to the issue of how one culture could play a creative role in the new global interchange of
peoples. The Center for the Study of Culture and Values, for its part, had encouraged and published
100 book-length studies of how people could draw on their cultures in facing present problems. The
new events pushed it inevitably into the heart of the new crisis; how are culturally awakened peoples
to live peacefully and productively one with another? In view of this new situation the joint program
was rescheduled and recast to read “The Essence of Italian Culture and the Challenge of a Global
Age.”
When the two teams met their complementarity was immediately evident. Neither was able or
interested in doing the work of the other, but each was vitally interested in the challenge being faced
by the other. Session by session over the days of the meeting the discussions grew in depth and
intensity.

The Task

It quickly became evident that as we move from a national to a global age a new set of
challenges, possibilities and opportunities opens. Whereas in the past nations defined themselves in
terms of borders that cut them off and distinguished them from one another, now their uniqueness
lies rather in their ability to relate to other peoples. And whereas tradition had been directed toward
repeating the past, it is seen now as a process of creative transformation in the face of a challenging,
even threatening, future.
It is then no longer possible merely to repeat or revel in the glories of the past; we are challenged
rather to reinterpret our heritages in ways that unveil their healing competencies for life in a changing
world. This is a matter of taking the initiative and playing an active role in the global forum now
opening for life in the new millennium
Hence this volume explores the Italian cultural identity, its evolution in America and across
the world, and the role it can play in the new, and at times troubled, global interchange of peoples
at the many levels of business and politics, migration and religion.
More concretely it seeks:

- To define the challenges and sketch the range and the depth of the distinctive place of Italian
culture, values and life style;
- To introduce to Washington scholars and policy makers some outstanding representatives of
the Italian cultural heritage;
- To look for ways in which the Italian spirit can contribute to the resolution of international
problems; and
- To lay the ground work for a structure to continue and deepen this work through joint
research and informed discussion.

The Structure

Not all of this could, of course, be accomplished in any one set of studies. But the project
could be launched and, with careful follow up, there is already promise of true progress along this
road. The present volume is testimony of that.

Part I, “Italicity and the Emergence of Culture in Our Time,” introduces the characteristics of
Italicity and the hermeneutic issues it entails. It begins with Chapter I “Italicity: Global and Local,”
an introductory and thematic chapter by Piero Bassetti. This initiates the work of teasing out the
specific character of Italicity. If we were still in an international stage built block by block by the
different nations as sovereign states than one could speak simply of Italian, Italian America, etc.
But that night connote a process of self-affirmation and empire building. This is Italy’s glorious
heritage from ancient times, but would not be the proper focus in our times. Indeed other authors
make much of the diminishing sense of sovereignty in the context of the European Union and the
broader emergent global context.
Instead P. Bassetti capitalizes on the endemic weakness of the modern Italian state in order to
free up a rich cultural content that is communicable across borders and able to be drawn upon,
lived and developed not only by the Italian diaspora but by many who would engage and be
engaged by it. This, of course, includes such specific cultural products such as Italian opera, but it
includes as well the particular stylish flair on which a company such as “Italco” can be built, and
on which an institute such as St. Egidio can play a unique role in mediating the most difficult and
dangerous conflicts in the far flung corners of the world.
But Bassetti carries this even further specifying as characteristics of Italicity: compliance with
difference, rather than hegemonic; aesthetic, creative and affective; universalist and cosmopolitan;
with a sense of belonging that is essentially cultural and existential. This launches the project of
Italicity and opens the way for further analysis.
Chapter II by George F. McLean, “Hermeneutics of Culture: Local and Global,” begins to lay
a philosophical foundation for this notion wedding two planes: vertical and horizontal. Vertically,
it notes the long project of objective reason from the days of Aristotle, and how this was radicalized
in the rationalism that characterized the modern mind from the time of Descartes. The very success
of this development when pushed unilaterally has opened by contrast new awareness of human
subjectivity. The result is to add to the search for abstract universal science a new awareness of
the work of creative human freedom. This shapes our attention and confirms the hierarchies of
values and virtues which constitute cultures – and over time, cultural traditions.
For this new dimension of human consciousness there is need to develop appropriate modes
for its interpretation, both as a process of entering within one’s own culture and engaging peoples
who proceed in terms of their own different cultures. Hence Chapter II continues with a study of
the contribution which can and must be made by hermeneutics in the development of any one
culture as well as in relating to other cultures in the increasingly pluralistic life within and between
peoples.
Chapter II suggests, moreover, that hermeneutics itself may be at the brink of a dramatic new
breakthrough. For its fusion of cultural horizons is no longer between two or more cultures, but
between any regional set of particular horizons and the new global whole. At this point the multiple
horizons are not only externally related and compared, but internally constituted by each other.
This is done not only in the context of the whole but in terms of the whole as the ontological
foundation of all reality and meaning. This may well be the major task to be taken up in the century
or even the millennium upon which we are entering.
Chapter III by Robert Royal, “Globalization and Italian Culture,” begins the process of linking
together the project of Italicity introduced in Chapter I and that of globalization from Chapter II.
It identifies the genius of the peoples of the Italian boot for governing, whether in empire or in
Church. It is indicative of the global character of our age and of the ability of Italicity to transcend
boundaries that he would look for new ecclesiastical leadership from beyond Italy thereby
implicitly affirming the emergence in importance of Italicity over Italian.

Part II, “Italians in America,” begins to fill in the broader concepts of Part I with greater detail
on the actual history of the cultural resources of Italy as they spread to North America in the great
diaspora. Chapter IV “Italian Cultural Identity and Migration Italian Communities Abroad and
Italian Cultural Identity through Time,” by Maddalena Tirabassi studies the experience of the
Italian diaspora as it faned out across the world, especially in America. What she describes is not
a simple transplantation of the old country in the New World but the human struggle with its
ruptures and creativity as it evolves the old heritage in new and in some ways richer modes. The
family remains strong and Italian, yet mothers see their daughters become really new women.
Italian foods are transformed. Yet while remaining distinctively Italian, they become the favorite
choice of the ultimately diversified population of America. What emerges is not a replication of
the old country, but a new culture clearly impressed by the old and shared by all peoples.
Chapter V, “Identical Difference: Notes on Italian and Italian American Identities,” by Fred
Gardaphe follows this lead while providing new insights. Chapter VI by Michael Barone, “The
Essence of Italian Culture and the Challenge of the Global Age: Italian Cultural Identity and
Migration,” analyses this experience in terms of migration. Chapter VII by Consuelo Corradi, “The
Making of Identity in a Globalizing World: An Overview of the Italian American Business
Community,” shows how this has worked out in the close interpersonal relations of the Italian
American business community.

Part III, “America and Its Italians,” reviews the field to examine how America and its
predominant culture reacted to the Italian migration.
Chapter VIII by John Kromkowski, “Italian Americans in a Pluralistic America,” is interested
in how this can work out politically. To the degree that it is refined into Italicity, of course, it
moves easily across borders and is quietly interiorized. But Kromkowski tells of a somewhat
different experience, namely, of the loss of culture and values in the inerxorably homogenizing
process called “the melting pot” and of the effort of Msgr. Geno Baroni and of his National Urban-
Ethnic to retrieve these elements in the context of a devolving neighborhoods and communities.
He follows this in the political order in terms of national efforts to outlaw prejudice in terms of
political origin, along with that of religion, age, sex, etc. His report shows these efforts fading as
regards Southern and Eastern Europeans as they are overshadowed negatively by the salient issue
of racial prejudices against blacks, though inequality of opportunity at higher job levels was long
as notable for Southern and Eastern Europeans. It may well be that the subtle ministries of Italicity
on the cultural level could prove more effective than political and legal action.
Chapter IX, “The Religious Challenge of a Globalizing World for Italian Cultural Identity:
Lessons from the American Experience in Public Education,” by Robert Destro follows cultural
identities to their roots in religion. Hence he suggests that the ability of a nation to allow for cultural
diversity is most manifested in the way it makes room for religious diversity. The claim that
education can be separated from religion is itself a specific cultural and theological position which
becomes less tenable all the time. Yet it feels much of the intercultural tension that has generated
fundamentalist reactions. Destro sees the resolution of this issue as a major challenge for the future.

Part IV, “Italicity in a Global Age,” suggests how the importance of Italicity and its analogs
in other cultures promises to become more, rather than less, important for life in a global age. What
it brings to light is something suggested earlier in Part I, namely, that the very nature of political
sovereignty is changing. Thus Chapter X, “Locality, Nationality, Globality: The Possible
Contribution of Italianness in the Age of Globalization,” by Mauro Magatti sees globalization as
a double disconnect. One is structural as the economic order transcends control by individual
nations or even regional blocks or trading zones. But this is not all, for with the transfer of the
economic powers to transnational and even global forces there comes the need to adjust the laws
in ways that put a primacy on property, a characteristic rather of common law cultures and
medieval systems. The other disconnect is subjective. This enables a new affirmation of local
cultural sensitivities as well as of the global. In these terms the global becomes precisely not a
leveling homogenization, but an evocation of new creative diversification. This may help the effort
at cultural retrieve begun by Barone in terms of ethnicity in the more conflictual period of the 60s.
In the end Magatti would use the continuing role of the state as an essential mediator between these
local and global dynamics.
In Chapter XI, “Civic Identity without National Identity? Political Identity in a New and
Changing Global Context,” by Vittorio Emanuel Parsi focuses more directly upon the state and its
sovereignty. This at first seems counter factual as it might be interpreted as a reaffirmation of an
outmoded nationalism, but carefully and with profound effect. Professor Parsi analyses what is
happening to sovereignty. Without ever letting go of its importance he shows its progressive
transformation in terms of globalization. Rather than seeing the global process as an external
extension of economic, political and informational networks beyond the nation, he examines the
profound changes that this works upon national sovereignty in a process which he rightly terms
“globalization from within.”
The contribution of this pair of Italian scholars is decisive in showing how Italicity is not an
esoteric phenomenon relating to Italian culture, though Italy may have special abilities in this
transformation of sovereignty. What begins to emerge is much more dramatic, namely, that the
development of Italicity may be a broader phenomenon inherent in globalization and hence a
harbinger of a major evolution of all peoples in our times. This provides the volume with
heightened importance as being not simply about Italicity, but about the inner workings of
globalization as it deeply transforms the life of all peoples.
Chapter XII by Maryann Cusimano Love, “Globalization, Religion and Culture: Beyond
Conflict, beyond Sovereignty,” opens to what had only been briefly noted in previous chapters,
namely, that “states cannot solve pressing global problems alone. Can Italian and Italian-American
institutions, such as the Roman Catholic Church in the United States, play a constructive role in
helping to address global problems? Greater attention to the role and resources of adaptive
religious and cultural institutions may help to create effective public-private partnerships for
managing global problems. In ad hoc attempts to manage global problems and bridge
globalization’s gaps, however, alternate ideas of authority and identity may evolve which over
time challenge and change Westphalian sovereign norms. The state is not going away, but it is
increasingly contracting out. As states downsize and decentralize in response to the pressures of
globalization, and as states innovate in response to global problems, nonstate actors such as
religious and cultural organizations perform functions previously performed by states and promote
ideas with unintended consequences for sovereignty.
Italian as an ancient culture and the Italian-American experience as an adaptive immigrant
population reconciling old and new world values, now bring important contributions to bridging
the gaps in globalization. Not the least of these factors which is only now is emerging can best be
called: ‘Italicity.’”

In sum, this volume has taken us on a marvelous journey. It began in Part I with the amazing
reality of the expansive attractiveness of culture, specifically that of the Italian tradition. But to
understand this we needed to look deeply into subjectivity and into the hermeneutics which enables
insight into each cultural tradition as well as communication between them.
 Part II examined concretely how this is seen in the dynamic life of the Italian community as
many migrated to the “new world”. There they suffered prejudice from without and painful
changes between generations. But what has emerged is not only a successful life in the broader
American community, but a conscious reaffirmation and reanimation of Italicity. This is shared
not only by those of Italian descent, but by a broad section of the populace precisely to the extent
that they are sensitive to beauty and to spiritual and cultural values.
Part III, in reverse, looks at how America has striven – not too successfully – to cope with the
great Italian migration through legislation and regulation, as well as through the education in the
public schools.
Part IV examines the implications of this for the global age. Finding that this entailed both a
structural and subjective disconnect it began to appear that globalization was not only a matter of
extension to more peoples or even of inclusion in the world system, but perhaps more
fundamentally a transformation of national sovereignty – globalization from within. In this light
Italicity may well be not only a phenomenon for which Italy is especially apt, but its analogs may
be a destiny which all peoples are called to live.
Just as sailing to America Columbus opened a “New World,” continued analysis of the
concrete theme of Italicity could open an important route for understanding the new global order
presently emerging. This will require navigating the shoals of terrorism, which calls, not for
gunboats, but for uncovering how cultures find their fruition. That is not in closure, but in the
openness of universal engagement. This, of course, will be more than “Italicity,” but along the sea
routes that these initial explorations of the notion of Italicity have striven to open.
 Chapter I
Italicity: Global and Local
Piero Bassetti

“Italicity”

The first question is: why speak of "Italic peoples" rather than in the more usual and traditional
term "Italians"; what distinguishes the concept of "Italic peoples" from that of "Italians"?
By way of introduction a concise answer is provided here, but it will be developed, expanded
and analyzed below.
First and foremost it must be made clear that this is not a “literary" reply, something
originating from discoveries made "in books", but rather an existential one, originating from long
experience in different institutional roles of throughout the world, in meetings and contact with
communities, institutions, and people, in relationships and shared (planning) experiences with the
preeminent "Italic" business communities everywhere (but especially here in the Americas).
In short, by "Italic peoples", and so by "Italicity", what is meant is a belonging in the widest
"cultural" sense: not as ethnic or linguistic belonging as with those of Italian origin or who speak
the Italian language or as the legal or institutional belonging of Italian citizens.
In this sense, the concept is similar to that described by George McLean, when he speaks
of the "Re-emergence of Cultural Awareness" and stresses the centrality of the conscience and of
cultural values in building identities.
IT is a transnational community found, to varying extents, on all continents, and not only here
in the Americas and characterized by shared values and interests. Historically, its roots lie in Italian
emigration throughout the world, but it has since undergone many changes and now extends well
beyond those roots.
It is a community many tens of millions of people. It is estimated that there are at least 60
million people of Italian origin throughout the world; if this estimate is extended to include
"Italophiles", it may rise to 200 million. It comprises many different human or social groups:

- Emigrant Italians and their second, or third generation descendants, many of whom no longer
speak the Italian language and have not retained Italian citizenship.
- The family members of these emigrants, born in the “new” countries of residence, and who,
though differing in origin and language, at least share a good measure of values and interests.
- The most problematic part of this concept of "Italicity" -- all those who, setting aside ethnic
or linguistic belonging and citizenship, in some way "feel" Italic, precisely because they like and
share the group’s values and interests, which they have come to learn through their encounters
with people, things (Made in Italy) and "tokens" of the "Italic world": information, art, the cinema,
and all the technological instruments that feed our "collective image bank". In this connection, it
should be pointed out that the mobility of people, things and tokens increasingly characterizes the
globalization process, for which reason opportunities for these "encounters" everywhere intensify
and multiply.

Truly to understand who the Italic peoples are, the focus must be on the concept of diaspora,
rather than of migration. The diaspora is a transnational and for many centuries has been crossing
and re-crossing the world, nourishing its interconnections and networks.
 It is not the only diaspora in the global world, but it has interesting and peculiarly distinctive
identities and for this reason may make an original and significant contribution to building a more
humane and peaceful global world. This is the more so after the tragic and highly disturbing events
of September 11th, which have thrown all Western certainty and security into crisis.

The Historic Roots of “Italicity”: Italians in the World over the Centuries

The Italians are, in effect, the Genoans, the Venetians, the Florentines, the Milanese, the
Lombards and so on, that is, all the numerous different regional and local "identities" into which
Italian history is subdivided. Since the early years of the second millennium, they have traveled
the world’s highways and high seas. Beginning in the Middle Ages, colonies of Italian merchants
could be found in London or Constantinople, Antwerp, Seville or Aleppo.
In 1271 the Venetian Marco Polo, at the age of 17, undertook his famous journey to
the Far East with his father Niccolò and his uncle Matteo. His travels throughout Asia were to
last 24 years, including a long stay at the Imperial Mongol Court. Marco Polo returned to
Veniceonly in 1295. In 1283, there were 14 Italian banks in London’s Lombard Street; in Paris,
the Rue des Lombards had 20 Italian banks by 1292.
But not only merchants and bankers moved throughout the known “pre-Colombian” world.
There were also artists, university teachers, architects, artisans, churchmen, and political exiles. A
popular 15th-century proverb bears witness to the great mobility of the inhabitants of Florence:
"Sparrows and Florentines may be found throughout the world". When Vasco de Gama reached
India, after a long, adventurous circumnavigation of Africa, he found that some Venetian
merchants were already there. A citizen of Chioggia – Nicolò de’ Conti – lived and traveled in
India and Indonesia between 1415 and 1459.
With the "discovery of America" and the birth of the new world, the horizons of the Italian
diaspora were extended. Navigators and merchants, monks and churchmen, artists and intellectuals
began to travel not only in Europe, Asia and Africa, but also in the Americas. Under Spanish rule,
though emigration to the Americas was prohibited to foreigners, between 1535 and 1538 (thanks
to exceptions granted to Italian states that were subjects of Spain or its allies) there were already 6
people originating from the Kingdom of Naples, 2 from the State of Milan, 3 from the Kingdom
of Sicily, 1 from Lucca, 1 Florentine, 14 Genoese, 1 from Turin, 1 from Piedmont and1 from
Cremona in the new world.
Clearly then long before the Unification of Italy and the great mass migrations of the late 19th
century, the numbers of Italians were steadily increasing in both American hemispheres.
As may be seen from studies carried out in recent years in the United States, in an area like
Philadelphia, an initial community of Italian origin formed and consolidated in the period between
the eve of American independence and the 1870s. During that period, leadership made up of
tradesmen, businessmen and entrepreneurs emerged as the first "ethnic" intermediaries between
the Italian community and the United States society. At the same time, significant community
institutions were created, such as the first parish for Catholics of Italian origin (1852). The first
Italo-American Provident Society, the Italian Association of Union and Brotherhood, was formed
in 1857, by Italians who first and foremost were Ligurians.
Italian emigration to America, it should be recalled, was not only an economic emigration. As
the historian Ruggiero Romano has written, "there were more than a few Carbonari, and in general
Italian patriots who, after the failure of the various revolts, uprisings and revolutions of 1821, 1831,
1840 found refuge in America". Political exiles, too, were part of the panorama of Italian
"mobility" before Unification, anticipating a significant dimension of the mobility of people in our
global world.
In the year of the Italian Unification – 1861 – many Italians, though they considered
themselves Piedmontese, Lombards, Venetians, Tuscans, Sicilians and so on, had already settled
throughout the world.
According to data from the General Census of 1861, 77,000 were living in France, 14,000 in
Germany, 14,000 in Switzerland, 12,000 in Alexandria, 6,000 in Tunisia, and above all – for the
purposes of this study – 500,000 in the United States, and the same number in the rest of the
Americas.
The key point, then, of this short and partial historical breakdown is that the Italian diaspora
in the world has old roots. In some ways it belongs to the essential characteristics of Italian identity
even before the country achieved national unity, before the first unified state and citizenship were
born, before the Italian language truly became a spoken language used by the great majority of the
inhabitants on the peninsula. All this occurred only gradually over a long process destined to be
completed only with the birth of television after the Second World War.
Running the risk of the “anachronism” inherent in such opinions and language, in essence it
may be said that over the centuries the Italian diaspora has been a precursor to the “glocal”
community.
It is a diaspora of “localisms” (Venetians, Genoese, Florentines, Milanese and so on) typical
of the many urban and regional identities that are interwoven into the country. At the same time it
is a “global” and cosmopolitan diaspora, traveling the world in the name of values. For example,
the Roman Catholic faith, the thirst for knowledge, the spirit of adventure. It also sougth interests:
money which spurs merchants and bankers to travel and profit which derives from production and
business. All were by characterized a “universal” vocation.
Behind the “imagined community” of Italic peoples, there are centuries of trans-territorial
mobility of the peninsula’s inhabitants, their cities, and their various constituent political bodies.
This preceded transnational mobility, that is, even before the modern “nation” was born.
This mobility was not only migration; there were many different reasons behind it. It took
place in different ways, involving not only leaving, but also returning. It is significant, in this sense,
that of the 14 million Italians who left the country between 1876 and 1914, there was a high
repatriation rate. More than half of them returned to Italy; many were to emigrate more than once
during their working lives.
In connection with “returning”, it should be noted that recently, there has been
a massive return to Italy by Argentineans of Italian origin: another significant and current example
of mobility.
To conclude this point, the “Italic peoples” are the descendents of this centuries-long process
of mobility and of diaspora. They did not have behind them – unlike other great transnational
diasporas – the long history of a strong and unified nation state, an exclusive and “protected”
identity politically and militarily. Rather, their roots lie in a history divided into different smaller
identities, which only recently have come together into a joint identity. For this reason, it maintains
an unusual and significant “acceptance of differences”.

Globalization and the Diaspora: The Italic Peoples and Their Values

Over the last few decades, the world has gone from the age of internationalization to that of
globalization. The first age, which began in the late 19th century, was one of great mass
migrations originating primarily from Europe. It was stimulated by need and, at the same time,
attracted by the "American dream".
During this period, the United States absorbed and assimilated peoples. It gave rise to an
original "nation of nations", and created the extraordinary melting pot so widely known today.
In the second period – today’s globalization -- the glocal, founded on the global
interlinking made possible by the technological revolution, has thrown the melting pot into crisis.
This has been transformed it into a new, more complex, more divided reality, in which belonging,
loyalties and identities tend increasingly to be multiple.
Today’s globalized world is increasingly one of transnational diasporas: from the “historic”
Jewish, Spanish and Anglo-Saxon diasporas to the Chinese, Indian, Arab and, last but not least,
Italic diaspora.
As has been said, it is, inevitably, a world of multiple belonging, where “transidiom” is used.
This linguistic phenomenon is the post-modern offspring of people’s mobility and the triumph of
electronic communications. “Diasporic public spaces” are formed and cultivated, made up of a
growing set of transnational relationships. These are physical, but also virtual via the web which
today is available at least potentially to everyone.
One of the consequences of this phenomenon is the transformation of the traditional concept
of “identity”. It should be noted that the United States at the center and “heart” of the world
increasingly is seen not in the traditional image of the melting pot, but rather - in the words of
anthropologist Arjun Appadurai, an Indian who lives and works in the United States – as “a node
of a post-national network of diasporas. . . . They are no longer a closed space where the magic of
the melting pot may operate, but one of the many diasporic points of exchange, in which people
come to seek their fortune, but without any longer resigning themselves to leaving their country
of origin behind.”
In our glocal world, identity is increasingly less a “given”; increasingly it is more a “process,”
built up through social practices that take place in increasingly numerous and extensive “spaces.”
These extend from territorial and local spaces where the communities of the different diasporas
live together and interweave, to the virtual-global spaces of the web. In these the imagination is
nourished by encountering people, things, and tokens. It plays a new and decisive role, not
comparable with any experiences of the past.
In this way, throughout the world human groups are formed that we could define as
“communities of feeling”. These begin to imagine and feel things in common. For the first time
they have the opportunity to know and choose existential possibilities and life models that are
different and are practiced by “others” and “elsewhere”. In other words, communities whose
identity is not so much, and not only, ethnic, linguistic or political-institutional, based on
citizenship, but rather are culture- and value- based.
In this context, identities appear to be increasingly “fluctuating.” They are constructed,
transformed, interwoven, and subjected to constant and completely new challenges and tensions.
Loyalties and belonging differ and multiply. In some cases they enter into conflict; in others they
give rise to new and original cultural and value-based “cross-breeds”.
In the light of these considerations and in this frame of reference, it may be possible better to
understand “Italicity” and how Italicity can differ from, and go beyond, “being Italian”.
Undoubtedly it has strong historical roots in terms of identity, linked to centuries of Italians’ trans-
territorial and trans-national mobility. But it is not limited to these roots, although it continues to
nourish itself through them.
 In the age of globalization and post-national and trans-national diasporas, the Italic peoples
have become, in substantive terms, a diaspora interlinked internally by a “common feeling” more
than by a common ethnic-linguistic and national belonging. What is this “common feeling”; what
are the essential values – and the shared values of Italicity that are being described, the “essence
of Italian culture”?
On the basis of experience and reflection, the author can try to outline a general picture, an
initial, partial and provisional “repertory” of shared values and connected interests.
These are values that to some degree have a particular glocal configuration. They originate
from long experience in many particular “places” (small villages, towns, the regions of the
“Boot”). But over time people have been forced by the need to emigrate in search of work or have
chosen for exploration, business, or religious vocation to travel and encounter the “globe”.
In brief, these great values are:

- Multiple belonging and the acceptance of differences. The values are linked to the history of
multiple local identity traditions, and at the same time to the short, late and “weak” experience of
a nation state. They long coexisted and in some respects still coexist with other pre-existing
identities. Today increasingly the coexist also with the new-born European identity.
- A conception of belonging that is essentially cultural and existential, rather than ethnic-
linguistic or legal-institutional. Thus, at least potentially, they are more “malleable” and open to
dialogue with those who have a “different” belonging, as well as to contributions from other
identities. It may not be by chance that after the Second World War Italian public opinion was one
of the most favorable in Europe towards European integration which entailed an attenuation and
dislocation of national sovereignty at a new European Community level.
- The central role of the family and of family relationships in the fabric of social relations.
This pre-eminent value runs transversely through state and national belonging. It contributes to
“attenuating” and to “softening” the traditional harshness of power and force incarnating in the
modern, Hobbesian “Leviathan-state”. Even when Italy took the path of the ethical, totalitarian,
militarized state, fascism had to come to terms with this historical, anthropological background,
and it is clear, in the end, who were the winners and losers.
- Christian, and more precisely Roman Catholic values, that have contributed and still
contribute to forming in many respects the identity of Italians and of Italic peoples. Here values of
the person and family are pre-eminent over those of state and nation; values of universalism and
cosmopolitanism, linked to feelings of humanity; values of a “non-economistic” conception of
economy which cannot be separated from an ethical view of life.
- The aesthetic sense and the values of good taste and beauty. These have played a large part
in Italian history, and are embodied not only in the extraordinary heritage of art and culture that
distinguishes the country, but also in lifestyles. These are universally known today thanks to the
triumph of Made in Italy and more recently have been discovered and loved by millions of people
throughout the world.
- The values of enjoyable and creative work, whose roots run deep in Italian history, from the
centuries-long artisan traditions often bordering on art, to the more recent experience of design
and Italian style built into ones – including technological products – of the Italic genius.

It should be made clear that this repertory of values does not take the form of a claim to a
superiority or exceptionality of the “Italic peoples” compared to other peoples and diaspora in the
world. That would be some sort of “masked chauvinism”. Two considerations bear witness to this
warning and to this sense of the limits Italians have and must preserve.
First, it is known full well that each of these values has “another face” in the form of potential
negative values, oft-experienced in history. Pluralism and tolerance always risk becoming
relativism and indifference; love for the family can turn into “amoral familism” with little respect
for institutions and public ethics; Roman Catholic values became the Inquisition, and more
recently have been tempted towards closure and fundamentalism; creativity in life and work risks
becoming disorder and lack of organizational purpose. Clearly, all of these are traditional and well-
known negative Italian “stereotypes” that the first generations of emigrants had to pay for.
Second, Italian history contains not only peaceful religious, intellectual or mercantile
experiences of traveling around the world, but also colonial conquests, fascism, and forms of
organized violent crime exported to other countries.
But what is to be stressed is that today’s Italicity – as a “community of feeling” arises from a
selection and a synthesis of positive values. It comes also from what is now a consolidated defeat
of totalitarian and imperial experiences. Finally it comes from the more recent, but equally
consolidated fading of the “stereotypes” that have long given a negative image to Italian emigrants
throughout the world.
What is open to “reconciliation” is the Italy of art, science and culture; of religiousness of
transnational humanitarian volunteer work, both religious and secular; of cultured, welcoming
tourism; of beautiful, functional Made in Italy products; of small-scale yet dynamic and
courageous entrepreneurship; of the organized creativity of the famous “industrial districts”; and
of a greatly admired and sometimes envied ability to “know how to live” and “live well”. In this
sense, Italicity is a great resource to be used to tackle the challenges of the global world. This is
clearly a theme that merits reflection.

“Italicity” and the Challenges of the Global World When Certainty Is in Crisis

The tragedy of September 11th 2001 for the first time struck the world’s greatest power “at
home.” It placed the “variable” of unpredictable planetary and technological terrorism squarely on
the world stage so that the global world now shows all of its ambivalence.
On one hand, there is the extraordinary potential for development offered by scientific and
technological innovation, by the increased production of goods and services, by the opening of
countries and markets. On the other hand, there is the increased inequality and level of conflict
(among states, ethnic groups, social groups), the consequently increased disorder and insecurity,
and the increasingly evident inadequacy of the global system’s capacity for governance.
It is increasingly clear that no “empire”, no great power – not even the greatest in human
history – can alone guarantee order and security. Above all, no power can do this only or chiefly
using the tools of military might, without an overall strategy for the intelligent use of all resources
– human, cultural, technological, institutional, and others. Enemies who “network” (international
terrorism first and foremost) with “other networks” must be countered using the same acentric
and bottom-up rationale that characterizes the enemy networks.
The great post-national and trans-national diasporas – and, in particular, that of the Italic
peoples – are among these resources. They criss-cross the planet and interconnect it; they have
a glocal nature that enables them to “act locally and think globally”; they know what it is to live
as the “different” people; they are thus potentially able to act as “intermediaries” among different
cultures and peoples. The Italic peoples, in particular know and practice this multiplicity of
belonging and loyalties.
For the United States seen now not as a melting pot, but as a “node of a post-national network
of diasporas” awareness of the positive potential of the great diasporas which run through it is
becoming an urgent necessity.
The diasporas, too, can have something of an ambivalent nature. Diasporas such as, fro
example, the Islamic cultural matrix, which is possibly the most “dissonant” with regard to
Western society, may bring connections and resources, as well as conflicts, to the countries they
move through. Multicultural societies, as is known, always oscillate between the “royal road” of
integration and risks of conflict and separatism. In Italy, too, people have begun to discuss these
concerns, since migratory processes towards the country have become notable.
The strategic question for countries that are “nodes of diasporas” is therefore: how to enhance
the positive potential of their diasporas in order to face the challenges of the global world -- peace,
development and social unity? In other words, how to “take the best” from each of the diasporas;
how to “metabolize” their best universalist, cosmopolitan, non-fundamentalist aspects?
It can be said in this general framework that the diaspora of Italic peoples stands as an original
resource, and is among the least ambivalent ones.
The values of this diaspora already outlined above are:

- a “compliant” identity with no hegemonic claims deriving from strong colonial and imperial
traditions;
- “unresentful” as is often the case of peoples who have undergone, or are still undergoing,
domination and oppression, and who therefore feel “humiliated”;
- “aesthetic,” sensitive to the universal value of beauty;
- “affective,” aware of the deep and non-rational dimensions of human life; of the value of
feelings expressed in the experience of family life; of the value of “sympathy”, understood
etymologically as an instinctive “feeling close”;
- “universalist,” based on the search for universal and shared values;
- “cosmopolitan,” which expresses itself in the desire to deal with the “other,” in an intellectual
and aesthetic attitude that is open to different cultural experiences, and in a personal capability to
succeed in other cultures and populations by listening, asking, looking, touching, intuiting and
reflecting.

The Italic peoples may make a contribution to dealing with the challenges of the global world
with identities and values of this type. Perhaps, from this standpoint, it is neither naive nor Utopian
to think that “another world may be possible”.
We fully realize the dramatic nature of the challenges with which the United States is faced
today. We know full well that, as the leader of the global world, most of the burdens and
responsibilities for the future of this world lie on its shoulders.
But that is exactly why we are interested and willing -- as "Italic peoples" -- to open a
dialogue on our possible role and on our possible contribution to a strategy that will be able
to meet these challenges, aware that we can win only by working together.
 Chapter II
Hermeneutics of Cultures in a Global Age
George F. McLean

The Emergence of Subjectivity

In the context of the many crises with which we have been greeted in entering upon the new
millennia it is dangerous to raise the question of the role of philosophy. For if, with Aristotle,
philosophy is something to be taken up when the basic needs of the times are cared for then
philosophy is in danger of being shelved for many generations to come. On the other hand,
philosophy may have to do with our nature and dignity -- with what we are, and with what we are
after -- and hence with the terms in which we live as person and peoples. If so then philosophy may
be not the last, but the first consideration or at least the most determinative for life in our trying
circumstances.
During the last century human knowledge of the physical universe was totally transformed by
breaking into the atom and discovering its structure. The effect was not only scientific advance but
the joint threat of the atomic bomb and the great promise of atomic energy. It is the contention here
that similarly philosophical understanding today has shifted from being a work of deduction by
specialists working in abstraction from the process of human life, to deep engagement at the center
of human concerns under the pressures of life's challenges. From external objective observation life
is now lived in terms also of internal self-awareness where human freedom with its cultural creativity
and responsibility become central. The playing field has shifted, the challenges have risen
geometrically and with them the potential not only for death but of life. To understand this we need
to review the steps, negative and positive, by which this breakthrough from mere objectivity to
subjectivity has occurred.

The Crisis of Objective Reason

These pressures force us to cross a new divide as we enter into the new millennium. To see this
we need to review the history of reason in this epoch. The first millennium is justly seen as one in
which human attention was focused upon God. It was the time of Christ and the Prophet; much of
humanity was fully absorbed in the assimilation of their messages.
The second millennium is generally seen as shifting to human beings. The first 500 years
focused upon the reintegration of Aristotelian reason by such figures as Ibn Sina, al-Ghazali, Ibn
Rushd and Thomas Aquinas.
The second half of the millennium, from 1500, was marked by a radicalization of reason.
Whereas from its beginning human reason always had attempted to draw upon the fullness of human
experience, to reflect the highest human and religious aspirations, and to build upon the
accomplishments of the predecessors -- philosophers sensed themselves as standing on the shoulders
of earlier philosophers -- a certain Promethean hope now emerged. As with Milton's Paradise Lost,
it was claimed that humankind would save itself, indeed that each person would do so by his or her
power of reason.
For this, Francis Bacon1 directed that the idols which bore the content of the cultural tradition
be smashed; John Locke2 would erase all prior content of the mind in order to reduce it to a blank
tablet; René Descartes3 would put all under doubt. What was sought was a body of clear and distinct
ideas, strictly united on a mathematical model.
It was true that Descartes intended later to reintroduce the various levels of human knowledge
on a more certain basis. But what he restored was not the rich content of the breadth of human
experience, but only what could be had with the requisite clarity and distinctness. Thus, of the content
of the senses which had been bracketed by doubt in the first Meditation, in the sixth Meditation only
the quantitative or measurable was allowed back into his system. All the rest was considered simply
provisory and employed pragmatically and only to the degree that it proved useful in so navigating
as to avoid physical harm in the world.
In this light the goal of knowledge and of properly human life was radically curtailed. For
Aristotle,4 and no less for Christianity and Islam in the first 1500 years of this era, this had been
contemplation of the magnificence and munificence of the highest being, God. By the Enlightenment
this was reduced to control over nature in the utilitarian service of humankind. And as the goals of
human life were reduced to the material order, the service of humankind really became the service
of machines in the exploitation of physical nature. This was the real enslavement of human freedom.

Subjectivity: the New Agenda

To read this history negatively, as we have been doing, is, however, only part of the truth. It
depicts a simple and total collapse of technical reason acting alone and as self sufficient. But there
may be more to human consciousness and hence to philosophy. If so in analogy to the replacement
of a tooth in childhood, the more important phenomenon is not the weakness of the old tooth that is
falling out, but the strength of the new tooth that is replacing it. A few philosophers did point to this
other dimension of human awareness. Shortly after Descartes Pascal's assertion "Que la raison a des
raisons, que la raison ne comprend pas" would remain famous if unheeded, as would Vico's
prediction that the new reason would give birth to a generation of brutes -- intellectual brutes, but
brutes nonetheless. Later Kierkegaard would follow Hegel with a similar warning. None of these
voice would have strong impact while the race was on to "conquer" the world by a supposed omni-
sufficient scientific reason. But as human problems mounted the adequacy of reason to handle the
deepest problems of human dignity and transcendent purpose came under sustained questioning and
more attention was given to additional dimensions of human capabilities.
One might well ask which comes first, the public sense of human challenge or the corresponding
philosophical reflection. My own sense is that they are in fact one, with philosophical insight
providing the reflective dimension of the human concern. In any case, one finds a striking parallel
between social experience and philosophy in this century. To the extreme totalitarian repression by
the ideologies of the 1930s there followed the progressive liberation from fascism in World War II,
from colonial exploitation in the 1950s and 60s, of minorities in the 1970s and from closed societies
in the 1980s. Throughout, like the new tooth the emergence of the person has been consistent and
persistent.
Thus, Wittgenstein began by writing his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus5 on the Lockean
supposition that significant knowledge consisted in constructing a mental map corresponding point
to point to the external world as perceived by sense experience. In such a project the spiritual element
of understanding, i.e., the grasp of the relations between the points on this mental map and the
external world was relegated to the margin as simply "unutterable". Later experience in teaching
children, however, led Wittgenstein to the conclusion that this empirical mental mapping was simply
not what was going on in human knowledge. In his Blue and Brown Books6 and in his
subsequent Philosophical Investigations7 Wittgenstein shifted the human consciousness or
intentionality, which previously he had relegated to the periphery, to the very the center of concern.
The focus of his philosophy was no longer the supposedly objective replication of the external world,
but the human construction of language and of worlds of meaning.8
A similar process was underway on the continent in the Kantian camp. There Husserl's attempt
to bracket all elements, in order to isolate pure essences for scientific knowledge, forced attention to
intentionality and to the limitations of a pure essentialism. This opened the way for his understudy,
Martin Heidegger, to rediscover the existential and historical dimensions of reality in his Being and
Time.9 The religious implications of this new sensitivity would be articulated by Karl Rahner in his
work, Spirit in the World, and by the Second Vatican Council in its Constitution, The Church in the
World.10
For Heidegger the meaning of being and of life was unveiled and emerged -- the two processes
were identical -- in conscious human life (dasein) lived through time and therefore through history.
Thus human consciousness became the new focus of attention. The uncovering or bringing into light
(the etymology of the term "phe-nomen-ology") of the unfolding patterns and interrelations of
subjectivity would open a new era of human awareness. Epistemology and metaphysics would
develop -- and merge -- in the very work of tracking the nature and direction of this process.
For Heidegger's successor, Hans-Georg Gadamer,11 the task becomes the uncovering of how
human persons, emerging as family, neighborhood and people, by exercising their creative freedom
weave their cultural tradition. This is not history as a mere compilation of whatever humankind does
or makes, but culture as the fabric of the human consciousness and symbols by which a human group
unveils being in its time.
The result is a dramatic inversion: where before all began from above and flowed downward --
whether in structures of political power or of abstract reasoning -- at the turn of the new millennium
attention focuses rather upon the emerging upward exercise of the creative freedom of people in and
as civil society as a new and responsible partner with government and business in the continuing
effort toward the realization of the common good.

Cultural Traditions and Civilizations

This achievement of modern hermeneutics in enabling the interpretation of human

consciousness from within has made it newly possible to comprehend the nature of culture as
constituted progressively of the development of values and virtues.

Values and Virtues

The drama of free self-determination, and hence the development of persons and of civil society,
is most fundamentally a matter of being as the affirmation or definitive stance against non-being
elaborate it the very beginning of Western philosophy in the work of Parmenides, the first Greek
metaphysician. This is identically the relation to the good in search of which we live, survive and
thrive. The good is manifest in experience as the object of desire, namely, as that which is sought
when absent. Basically, it is what completes life; it is the "per-fect", understood in its etymological
sense as that which is completed or realized through and through. Hence, once achieved, it is no
longer desired or sought, but enjoyed. This is reflected in the manner in which each thing, even a
stone, retains the being or reality it has and resists reduction to non-being or nothing. The most that
we can do is to change or transform a thing into something else; we cannot annihilate it. Similarly,
a plant or tree, given the right conditions, grows to full stature and fruition. Finally, an animal
protects its life -- fiercely, if necessary -- and seeks out the food needed for its strength. Food, in
turn, as capable of contributing to an animal's sustenance and perfection, is for the animal an auxil-
iary good or means.
In this manner, things as good, that is, as actually realizing some degree of perfection and able
to contribute to the well-being of others, are the bases for an interlocking set of relations. As these
relations are based upon both the actual perfection things possess and the potential perfection to
which they are thereby directed, the good is perfection both as attracting when it has not yet been
attained and as constituting one's fulfillment upon its achievement. Hence, goods are not arbitrary or
simply a matter of wishful thinking; they are rather the full development of things and all that contrib-
utes thereto. In this ontological or objective sense, all beings are good to the extent that they exist
and can contribute to the perfection of others.12
The moral good is a more narrow field, for it concerns only one's free and responsible
actions. This has the objective reality of the ontological good noted above, for it concerns real actions
which stand in distinctive relation to one's own perfection and to that of others -- and, indeed, to the
physical universe and to God as well. Hence, many possible patterns of actions could be objectively
right because they promote the good of those involved, while others, precisely as inconsistent with
the real good of persons or things, are objectively disordered or misordered. This constitutes the
objective basis for what is ethically good or bad.
Nevertheless, because the realm of objective relations is almost numberless, whereas our actions
are single, it is necessary not only to choose in general between the good and the bad, but in each
case to choose which of the often innumerable possibilities one will render concrete.
However broad or limited the options, as responsible and moral an act is essentially dependent
upon its being willed by a subject. Therefore, in order to follow the emergence of the field of concrete
moral action, it is not sufficient to examine only the objective aspect, namely, the nature of the things
involved. In addition, one must consider the action in relation to the subject, namely, to the person
who, in the context of his/her society and culture, appreciates and values the good of this action,
chooses it over its alternatives, and eventually wills its actualization.
The term `value' here is of special note. It was derived from the economic sphere where it meant
the amount of a commodity sufficient to attain a certain worth. This is reflected also in the term
`axiology' whose root means "weighing as much" or "worth as much." It requires an objective
content -- the good must truly "weigh in" and make a real difference; but the term `value' expresses
this good especially as related to wills which actually acknowledge it as a good and as desir-
able.13 Thus, different individuals or groups of persons and at different periods have distinct sets of
values. A people or community is sensitive to, and prizes, a distinct set of goods or, more likely, it
establishes a distinctive ranking in the degree to which it prizes various goods. By so doing, it
delineates among limitless objective goods a certain pattern of values which in a more stable fashion
mirrors the corporate free choices of that people.
When this is exercised or lived, patterns of action develop which are habitual in the sense of
being repeated. These are the modes of activity with which one is familiar; in their exercise, along
with the coordinated natural dynamisms they require, one is practiced; and with practice comes
facility and spontaneity. Such patterns constitute the basic, continuing and pervasive shaping
influence of one’s life. For this reason, they have been considered classically to be the basic
indicators of what one’s life as a whole will add up to, or, as is often said, "amount to". Since
Socrates, the technical term for these especially developed capabilities has been `virtues' or special
strengths.
Cultural Traditions

Together, these values and virtues of a people set the pattern of social life through which
freedom is developed and exercised. This is called a "culture". On the one hand, the term is derived
from the Latin word for tilling or cultivating the land. Cicero and other Latin authors used it for the
cultivation of the soul or mind (cultura animi), for just as good land, when left without cultivation,
will produce only disordered vegetation of little value, so the human spirit will not achieve its proper
results unless trained or educated.14 This sense of culture corresponds most closely to the Greek
term for education (paideia) as the development of character, taste and judgment, and to the German
term "formation" (Bildung).15
Here, the focus is upon the creative capacity of the spirit of a people and their ability to work as
artists, not only in the restricted sense of producing purely aesthetic objects, but in the more involved
sense of shaping all dimensions of life, material and spiritual, economic and political into a fulfilling.
The result is a whole life, characterized by unity and truth, goodness and beauty, and, thereby,
sharing deeply in meaning and value. The capacity for this cannot be taught, although it may be
enhanced by education; more recent phenomenological and hermeneutic inquiries suggest that, at its
base, culture is a renewal, a reliving of origins in an attitude of profound appreciation.16 This leads
us beyond se lf and other, beyond identity and diversity, in order to comprehend both.
This constitutes the basic topology of a culture; as repeatedly reaffirmed through time, it builds
a tradition or heritage about which we shall speak below. It constitutes, as well, the prime pattern
and gradation of goods or values which persons experience from their earliest years and in terms of
which they interpret their developing relations. Young persons peer out at the world through lenses
formed, as it were, by their family and culture and configured according to the pattern of choices
made by that community throughout its history -- often in its most trying circumstances. Like a pair
of glasses values do not create the object; but focus attention upon certain goods rather than upon
others. This becomes the basic orienting factor for the affective and emotional life described by the
Scotts, Adam Ferguson and Adam Smith, as the heart of civil society. In time, it encourages and
reinforces certain patterns of action which, in turn, reinforce the pattern of values.
Through this process a group constitutes the concerns in terms of which it struggles to advance
or at least to perdure, mourns its failures, and celebrates its successes. This is a person's or people's
world of hopes and fears in terms of which, as Plato wrote in the Laches, their lives have moral
meaning.17 It is varied according to the many concerns and the groups which coalesce around them.
As these are interlocking and interdependent a pattern of social goals and concerns develops which
guides action. In turn, corresponding capacities for action or virtues are developed.
This sense of tradition is vivid in premodern and village communities, but would appear to be
much less so in modern urban centers. Undoubtedly this is in part due to the difficulty in forming
active community life in large urban centers. However, the cumulative process of transmitting,
adjusting and applying the values of a culture through time is not only heritage or what is received,
but new creation as this is passed on in new ways and in response to emerging challenges. Attending
to tradition, taken in this active sense, allows us not only to uncover the permanent and universal
truths which Socrates sought, but to perceive the importance of values we receive from the tradition
and to mobilize our own life project actively toward the future. This diachronic sense of culture will
be treated more below.
But because tradition has sometimes been interpreted as a threat to the personal and social
freedom essential to a democracy, it is important here to note that a cultural tradition is generated by
the free and responsible life of the members of a concerned community or civil society and enables
succeeding generations to realize their life with freedom and creativity.
In fact, the process of trial and error, of continual correction and addition in relation to a people's
evolving sense of human dignity and purpose, constitutes a type of learning and testing laboratory
for successive generations. In this laboratory of history, the strengths of various insights and behavior
patterns can be identified and reinforced, while deficiencies are progressively corrected or elimi-
nated. Horizontally, we learn from experience what promotes and what destroys life and,
accordingly, make pragmatic adjustments.
But even this language remains too abstract, too limited to method or technique, too
unidimensional. While tradition can be described in general and at a distance in terms of feed-back
mechanisms and might seem merely to concern how to cope in daily life, what is being spoken about
are free acts that are expressive of passionate human commitment and personal sacrifice in re-
sponding to concrete danger, building and rebuilding family alliances and constructing and
defending one's nation. Moreover, this wisdom is not a matter of mere tactical adjustments to tem-
porary concerns; it concerns rather the meaning we are able to envision for life and which we desire
to achieve through all such adjustments over a period of generations, i.e., what is truly worth striving
for and the pattern of social interaction in which this can be lived richly. The result of this extended
process of learning and commitment constitutes our awareness of the bases for the decisions of which
history is constituted.
This points us beyond the horizontal plane of the various ages of history; it directs our attention
vertically to its ground and, hence, to the bases of the values which humankind in its varied circum-
stances seeks to realize.18 It is here that one searches for the absolute ground of meaning and value
of which Iqbal wrote. Without that all is ultimately relative to only an interlocking network of
consumption, then of dissatisfaction and finally of anomie and ennui.
The impact of the convergence of cumulative experience and reflection is heightened by its
gradual elaboration in ritual and music, and its imaginative configuration in such great epics as
the Iliad or Odyssey. All conspire to constitute a culture which, like a giant telecommunications dish,
shapes, intensifies and extends the range and penetration of our personal sensitivity, free decision
and mutual concern.
Tradition, then, is not, as is history, simply everything that ever happened, whether good or bad.
It is rather what appears significant for human life: it is what has been seen through time and human
experience to be deeply true and necessary for human life. It contains the values to which our fore-
bears first freely gave their passionate commitment in specific historical circumstances and then
constantly reviewed, rectified and progressively passed on generation after generation. The content
of a tradition, expressed in works of literature and all the many facets of a culture, emerges progres-
sively as something upon which personal character and society can be built. It constitutes a rich
source from which multiple themes can be drawn, provided it be accepted and embraced, affirmed
and cultivated.
Hence, it is not because of personal inertia on our part or arbitrary will on the part of our forbears
that our culture provides a model and exemplar. On the contrary, the importance of tradition derives
from both the cooperative character of the learning by which wisdom is drawn from experience and
the cumulative free acts of commitment and sacrifice which have defined, defended and passed on
through time the corporate life of the community as civil society.19
Ultimately, tradition bridges from ancient philosophy to civil society today. It bears the divine
gifts of life, meaning and love, uncovered in facing the challenges of civil life through the ages. It
provides both the way back to their origin in the arché as the personal, free and responsible exercise
of existence and even of its divine source, and the way forward to their goal; it is the way, that is,
both to their Alpha and their Omega.

Civilizations

On entering into the new millennium we stand at a point not only of numerical change to the
series 2000 or even of a change within a system as with a substitution of political parties, but at a
point of revision of the very nature of world ordering itself. Earlier the issue was one of the
possession of territory under the leadership of great Emperors or of the physical resources and the
military-industrial power that entailed. More recently we have seen the world divided by ideologies
into great spheres. Since the end of the Cold War, however, it is suggested famously in the work of
Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order,20 that the world
order is being remade on the basis of the pattern of civilizations. The tragic events of 9/11 show how
violent this remaking can be.
This reflects a deep transformation in interests and epistemology. Before attention was oriented
objectively, that is, to things as standing over against (ob-against; ject-thrown) the knowing subject.
In this perspective their quantitative characteristics, according to the classical definition of quantity
as parts divided against parts; were particularly salient and were given major importance.
In this century the subject and its intentional life -- or subjectivity and values -- have come to
the fore and phenomenological methods have been developed for their identification and
interpretation. Whether it was philosophers who brought this realm of subjectivity into central
awareness or whether it was attention to subjectivity which evoked the development of the
corresponding philosophical methodologies can be disputed. Probably the philosophical methods
provided the reflective dimension and control over the new self-awareness of human consciousness.
In any case, it is suggested that the new world order will be based not on the resources we have, but
on the civilizations we are: not on having but on being.
According to Huntington the notion of civilization seems to have developed in the 18th century
as a term to distinguish cultivated peoples from the barbarian or native populations being
encountered in the process of colonization. In this sense it was a universal term used in the singular.
It implied a single elite standard of urbanization, literacy and the like for the admission of a people
into the world order. When the standard was met the people was "civilized"; all the rest were simply
"uncivilized".
In the 19th century a distinction was made between civilization as characterized by its material
and technological capabilities and that characterized by a more elaborate political and cultural
development in terms of the values and moral qualities of a people. The two terms tend to merge in
expressing an overall way of life, with civilization being the broader term. Where culture focuses on
the understanding of perfection and fulfillment; civilization is more the total working out of life in
these terms. Hence civilization is culture, as it were, writ large.
This appears in a number of descriptions of civilization where culture is always a central
element: for F. Braudel civilization is "a cultural arena",21 a collection of cultural characteristics and
phenomena; for C. Dawson: the product of "a particular original process of cultural activity which
is the work of a particular people";22 for J. Wallerstein it is "a particular concatenation of worldview,
customs, structures, and culture (both material culture and high cultures) which form some kind of
historical whole."23
Taken as a matter of identity it can be said that a civilization is the largest and most perduring
unit or whole -- the largest "we".24 The elements included are blood, language, religion and way of
life. Among these religion is "the central defining characteristic of civilizations,"25as it is the point
of a person's or peoples deepest and most intensive commitment, the foundation on which the great
civilizations rest.26 Hence the major religions (Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Confucianism) are
each associated with a civilization, the exception being Buddhism which came as a reform
movement, and was uprooted from its native India and lives only in diaspora among other nations.
Civilizations perdure over long periods of time. While empires come and go, civilizations
"survive political, social, economic even ideological upheavals."27

International history rightly documents the thesis that political systems are transient
expedients on the surface of civilization, and that the destiny of each linguistically and
morally unified community depends ultimately upon the survival of certain primary
structuring ideas around which successive generations have coalesced and which then
symbolize the society's continuity.28

But this does not mean that they are static. On the contrary it is characteristic of a civilization to
evolve and the theories of such evolution are attempts to achieve some understanding of the process,
not only of the sequence of human events but more deeply of the transformation of human self
understanding itself. Famously, Toynbee theorizes that civilizations are responses to human
challenges; that they evolve in terms of establishing increasing control over the related factors,
especially by creative minorities; that in the face of troubles there emerges a strong effort at
integration followed by disintegration. Such theories vary somewhat in the order of stages but
generally move from a preparatory period, to the major development of the strengths of a culture or
civilization, and then toward atrophication. In any case these imply extend cycles extend over very
large periods.
It is significant that in the end, however, Huntington is not able to give any clear definition or
distinction of civilizations. Whereas Descartes would require just such characteristics for scientific
knowledge, Huntington notes that civilizations generally somewhat overlap, and that while no clear
concept can be delineated civilization are nonetheless important.

Civilizations have no clear cut boundaries and no precise beginnings and endings. People
can and do redefine their identities and, as a result, the composition and shapes of
civilizations change over time. The cultures of peoples interact and overlap. The extent to
which the cultures of civilizations resemble or differ from each other also varies
considerably. Civilizations are nonetheless meaningful entities, and while the lines between
them are seldom sharp, they are real.29

In this light it can be seen that a shift of world order to a pattern not of empires or commercial
blocks, but of civilizations bespeaks a great development in human consciousness, beyond the
external, objective and physical, to the internal and subjective, the spiritual and indeed the religious.
In contrast to Descartes it appears that what is most significant in the relations between peoples,
indeed what defines them as peoples, is a matter not accessible by scientific definition, but for more
inclusive aesthetic appreciation. It is in these terms that one's life commitments, personal relations,
and interactions between peoples are realized.
We have seen now the nature of cultural traditions and of civilizations as constituted by freedom
as it forms values, virtues and cultures. We must look next into hermeneutics as the method whereby
these can be interpreted and applied in a mutually cooperative manner for a global age.
Hermeneutic Interpretation and Application of One’s Cultural Tradition

Dialectic of Whole and Part

First of all it is necessary to note that only a unity of meaning, that is, an identity, is
intelligible.30 Just as it is not possible to understand a number three if we include but two units, no
act of understanding is possible unless it is directed to an identity or whole of meaning. This brings
us directly to the classic issue in the field of hermeneutics, described above as the hermeneutic circle,
namely, knowledge of the whole depends upon knowledge of the parts, and vice versa. How can we
make this work for, rather than against us in the effort to live our cultural tradition in our global
days?
Reflection on the experience of reading a text might prove helpful. As we read we construe the
meaning of a sentence before grasping all its individual parts. What we construe is dependent upon
our expectation of the meaning of the sentence, which we derived from its first words, the prior
context, or more likely a combination of the two. In turn, our expectation or construal of the meaning
of the text is adjusted according to the requirements of its various parts. As we proceed to read
through the sentence, the paragraph, etc., we reassess continually the whole in terms of the parts and
the parts in terms of the whole. This basically circular movement continues until all appear to fit and
be expressive.
One set of problems regarding a hermeneutics of tradition concerns not its content but rather
its relation to the present, for if our present life is simply a deadening repetition of what has already
been known, then life loses its challenge, progress is rejected in principle, and hope dies. Let us
turn then from tradition as a whole to its hermeneutic application in our days.

Novelty

To understand this we must, first of all, take time seriously, that is, we must recognize that
reality includes authentic novelty. This contrasts to the perspective of Plato for whom the real is
idea or form which transcends matter and time, while these, in turn, arc real only to the degree that
they imitate or mirror the ideal. It also goes beyond the perspective of rationalism in its search for
simple natures which are clear, distinct and eternal in themselves and in their relations. A fortiori,
it goes beyond simply following a method as such without attention to content.
In contrast to all these, to recognize novelty – especially the novelty of our living of our own
tradition – implies that tradition with its authority (or nomos) achieves its perfection not in
opposition to, but in the very temporal unfolding of, reality. For the human person is both deter-
mined by, and determininative of, his changing physical and social universe. Hence, to appreciate
moral values one must attend to human action: to the striving of persons to realize their lives, and
to the formation of this striving into a fixed attitude (hexis). In distinction from physics then, ethos
as the application of tradition consists neither of law nor of lawlessness, but concerns human
institutions and attitudes which change. Ethical rules do not determine, but they do regulate action
by providing certain broad guidelines for historical practice.31
What is important here is to protect the concrete and unique reality of human life -- its novelty
-- and hence the historicity of our life. As our response to the good is made only in concrete
circumstances, our cultural tradition and our ethics as a philosophic science must be neither purely
theoretical knowledge nor a simple historical accounting from the past, but we must enable our
cultural tradition via our moral consciousness to help in concrete circumstances.

Application and Prudence: Ethics vs Techné

In this an important distinction must be made between technè and ethics. In tcchnè action is
governed by an idea as an exemplary cause which is fully determined and known by objective
theoretical knowledge (epistême). Skill consists in knowing how to act according to a well
understood idea or plan. When this cannot be carried out some parts of it are simply omitted in the
execution.
In ethics the situation, though similar in being an application of a practical guide to a particular
task, differs in important ways. First, in moral action the subject makes oneself as much as one
makes the object: the agent is differentiated by the action itself. Hence, moral knowledge as an
understanding of the appropriateness of one’s actions is not fully determined independently of the
situation.
Secondly, the adaptations by the moral agent in applying the law or traditions found in the
various cultures do not diminish them, but rather correct and perfect them. In themselves laws and
traditions are imperfect for, inasmuch as they relate to a world which is less ordered, they cannot
contain in any explicit manner the response to the concrete possibilities which arise in history. It
is precisely here that man’s freedom and creativity are located. This does not consist in the
response being arbitrary, for Kant is right that freedom without law or some traditional guiding
nomos has no meaning. Nor does it consist in a simply automatic response determined by the
historical situation, for relativism too would undermine the notion of human freedom. Human
freedom consists rather in shaping the present according to a sense of what is just and good and in
a way which manifests and indeed create for the first time more of what justice and goodness
means.
That laws and tradition are perfected by their application in the circumstances appears also
from the way they are not diminished, but perfected by epoche and equity. Without these, by
simple mechanical replication the law would work injustice rather than justice. Ethics, therefore,
is not only knowledge of what is right in general but the search for what is right in the situation.
This is a question, not of mere expediency, but of the perfection of the law and tradition; it com-
pletes moral knowledge.32
The question of what the situation is asking of us is answered, of course, not by sense
knowledge which simply registers a set of concrete facts. It is answered rather in the light of what
is right, that is, in the light of what has been discovered about appropriate human action and exists
normatively in the tradition. Only in these terms can moral consciousness go about its major job
of choosing means which are truly appropriate to the circumstances. This is properly the work of
intellect (nous) with the virtue of prudence (phronesis), that is, thoughtful reflection which enables
one to discover the appropriate means in the circumstances. These now include the new
components of one’s own living cultural tradition; they include as well the other participants of a
pluralist civilization. Indeed in the new global context they include all civilizations with all existent
differences.
In sum, application is not a subsequent or accidental part of understanding, but rather
codetermines this understanding from the beginning. Moral consciousness must seek to understand
the good, not as an ideal to be known and then applied, but rather by and in relating this to oneself
as sharing the concerns of others. In this light our sense of unity with others begins to appear as a
condition for applying our tradition, that is, for enabling it to live in these global times.
There is then a way out of the hermeneutic circle. It is not by ignoring or denying our horizons
and prejudices, but by recognizing them as inevitable and making them work for us. To do so we
must direct our attention to the objective meaning of the text in order to draw out, not only its
meaning for the author, but its application for the present. Through this process of application one
serves as midwife for the historicity of tradition or culture, and enables it to give birth to the future.33

Hermeneutic Interpretation of Other Cultural Traditions

We must now see how hermeneutics can help toward a better understanding of the structure
of communication between peoples, what dynamisms separate us, make sagacity (sunesis)
difficult, impede our judgment and thus inhibit living our traditionin a pluralistic context?34
Thus far we have treated, first, the character and importance of tradition as the bearer of long
human experience interacting with the world, with other men and with God. It is constituted not
only of chronological facts, but of insights regarding human perfection and values and virtues
which over time have been forged into cultures and civilizations in man’s concrete striving to live
with dignity, e.g. the Indian ideal of peace, the Greek notion of democracy, the enlightenment
notions of equality and freedom. By their internal value each stands as normative in relation to the
aspirations of those who live within that culture.
Secondly, we have seen the implications for the content of tradition of the continually
unfolding circumstances of historical development. These do not merely extend or repeat what
went before, but constitute an emerging manifestation of the dynamic character of the classical
vision articulated in epics, in law and in political movements.
It remains now to look at how, conscious of our own tradition, we can live it faithfully and
fruitfully with others in a time of intensifying intercultural engagement and cultural pluralism.
In brief the glorious character of a cultural tradition has its down side. For the greater be that
tradition and the more beautiful, successful and satisfying the life it engenders, the more one is
liable to remain therein in a process of mere repetition. Innovation and creativity shrivel and the
response to new challenges is less vigorous, innovative and successful. If we hear only the same
stories, fables and proverbs we remain locked into one mind set or horizon. The way out requires
access to new stories which reflect the life experience and creative responses of other peoples.
Their effect is not so much to add to our culture from without elements that are alien and
incongruous, but to enable us to look afresh at our own cultural tradition and to draw out in a
creative manner new responses to the new challenges we face.

Dialectic of Horizons

In encountering other cultural traditions we begin to look more consciously into our own
tradition and come to a prior conception of its content. This anticipation of meaning is not simply of
the tradition as an objective or fixed content to over against us. It is rather what we reproduce
uniquely in our hearts and minds as we participate in the evolution of the tradition, thereby further
determining ourselves as a community. This is a creative stance reflecting the content, not only of
the past, but of the time in which I stand and of the overall life project in which I am engaged. For
the cultural tradition it is a creative unveiling of its content as this comes progressively and histori-
cally into the present and, through the present, passes into the future.35
 In this light time is not a barrier, a separation or an abyss, but rather a bridge and an opportunity
for the process of understanding; it is a fertile ground filled with experience, custom and tradition.
The importance of the historical distance it provides is not that it enables the subjective reality of
persons to disappear so that the objectivity of the situation can emerge. On the contrary, it makes
possible a more appreciative meaning of our own and other cultural traditions, not only by removing
falsifying factors, but by opening new sources of self and inter-subjective understanding and new
perspectives. These reveal in the traditions unsuspected implications and even new dimensions of
meaning of which heretofore we were unaware.36
Of course, not all our acts of understandings are correct, whether they be about the meaning
of another culture, its set of goals or a plan for future action. Hence, it becomes particularly important
that our understandings not be adhered to fixedly, but be put at risk in dialogue with others.
In this the basic elements of meaning remain the substances which Aristotle described in terms
of their autonomy or of standing in their own right, and, by implication, of their identity.
Hermeneutics would expand this to reflect as well the historical and hermeneutic situation of each
person or cultural tradition in the dialogue, that is, their horizon or particular possibility for
understanding. An horizon is all that can be seen from one's vantage point(s). In reading a text or in
a dialogue with other cultural traditions it is necessary to be aware of our horizon as well as that of
our partners. When our initial projection of the meaning of another's words, the content of a cultural
tradition or a sacred text will not bear up in the progress of the reading or the dialogue, our desire to
hear our interlocutor in the conversation drives us to make needed adjustments in our projection of
their meaning.
The assessment of what is truly appropriate requires also the virtue of sagacity (sunesis), that
is, of understanding or concern for the other. One can assess the situation adequately only
inasmuch as one in a sense undergoes the situation with the affected parties. Aristotle rightly
describes as truly terrible the one who can make the most of the situation, but without orientation
towards moral ends or concern for the good of others in this situation. Hence, there is need for
knowledge which takes account of agent as united with the others in mutual interest or love.
This enables us to adjust not only our prior understanding of the horizon of the other with whom
we are in dialogue, but especially our own horizon. One need not fear being trapped in the horizons
of our own cultural tradition or religion. They are vantage points of a mind which in principle is open
and mobile, capable of being aware of its own horizon and of reaching out to the other's experience
which constitutes their horizons. Our horizons are not limitations, but mountain tops from which we
look in awe at the vast panorama all of humankind and indeed all of creation. It is in making us aware
of this expansion of horizons that hermeneutic awareness accomplishes our liberation.37
In this process it is important that we remain alert to the new implications of our cultural
tradition. We must not simply follow through with our previous ideas until a change is forced upon
us, but must be sensitive to new meanings in true openness. This is neither neutrality as regards the
meaning of our tradition, nor an extinction of passionate concerns regarding action towards the
future. Rather, being aware of our own biases or prejudices and adjusting them in dialogue with
others implies rejecting what impedes our understanding of our own tradition and that of others. Our
attitude in approaching dialogue must be one of willingness continually to revise, renew and enrich
our initial projection or expectation of meaning.

Dialectic of Question and Answer

 The effort to draw upon a tradition and in dialogue to discover its meaning for the present sup-
poses authentic openness. The logical structure of this openness is to be found in the exchange of
question and answer. The question is required in order to determine just what issue we are engaging-
-whether it is this issue or that--in order to give direction to our attention. Without this no meaningful
answer can be given or received. As a question, however, it requires that the answer not be settled
or determined. In sum, progress or discovery requires an openness which is not simply
indeterminacy, but a question which gives specific direction to our attention and enables us to
consider significant evidence. (Note that we can proceed not only by means of positive evidence in
favor of one of two possible responses, but also through dissolving counter arguments).
If discovery depends upon the question, then the art of discovery is the art of questioning.
Consequently, whether working alone or in conjunction with others, our effort to find the answer
should be directed less towards suppressing the position of another culture and the questions it raises,
than toward reinforcing and unfolding these questions. To the degree that their probabilities are built
up and intensified they can serve as a searchlight. This is the opposite of both opinion which tends
to suppress questions, and of arguing which searches out the weakness in the other's argument.
Instead, in conversation as dialogue with other cultures and civilizations one enters upon a mutual
search to maximize the possibilities of the question, even by speaking at cross purposes. By mutually
eliminating errors and working out a common meaning, we discover truth.38
Further, it should not be presupposed that a text or tradition holds the answer to but one question
or horizon which must be identified by the reader. On the contrary, the full horizon and above all its
transcendent source is never available to the reader. Nor can it be expected that there is but one
question to which the global text or its multiple traditions hold an answer. The sense of any text, (a
fortiori the global text,) reaches beyond what any human author intended.
Because of the dynamic character of being as it emerges in time, the horizon is never fixed but
is continually opening. This constitutes the effective historical element in understanding. At each
step new dimensions of the potentialities of the tradition opens to understanding. Especially, the
meaning of a text or tradition lives with the consciousness – and hence the horizons – not of its
author, but of the many who live the tradition with others through time and history. It is the
broadening of their horizons, resulting from their fusion with the horizon of a text or a partner in
dialogue, that makes it possible to receive answers which are ever new.39
In this the personal attitudes and interests of the various cultures are, once again, highly impor-
tant. If the interest in developing new horizons were simply the promotion of one’s own
understanding then one culture could be interested solely in achieving knowledge for the purpose of
domination over others. But this would lock one into an absoluteness of one's prejudices; being fixed
or closed in the past or in oneself they would disallow new life in the present. In this manner powerful
new insights become with time deadening pre-judgments which suppress freedom.
In contrast, an attitude of authentic openness appreciates the nature of one's own finiteness. On
this basis it both respects the past and the multiple cultural traditions and is open to discerning the
future. Such openness is a matter, not merely of new information, but of recognizing the historical
nature of man. It enables one to escape from limitations which had limited vision thusfar, and enables
one to learn from new experiences. It is recognition of the limitations of our finite projects which
enables us to see that the future is still open.40
This suggests that openness does not consist so much in surveying others objectively or obeying
them in a slavish and unquestioning manner, but is directed primarily to ourselves. It is an extension
of our ability to listen to others and other cultures, and to assimilate the implications of their answers
for changes in our own positions. In other words, it is an acknowledgement that our cultural heritage
has something new to say to us. The characteristic hermeneutic attitude of effective historical con-
sciousness is then not methodological sureness, but devout listening and a readiness for experi-
ence.41 Seen in these terms our cultural heritage is not closed, but the basis for a life that is ever
new, more inclusive and more rich.

Hermeneutics for a Global Age

Today we are challenged not only to draw upon our past or to live with others in a pluralistic
community. We are newly challenged by economics, politics and especially informatics to live in a
context in which our lives are impacted by the entire global context all at once. This requires an
expansion of hermeneutics as the fusion of horizons becomes a meeting not only with another
cultural tradition, but with all as parts of a larger whole. For this it becomes necessary to think in
terms of the whole. In this some brief notes on the thought of Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464) who
analyses what it meant to think in terms of the whole at the juncture of the medieval and Renaissance
thought could prove helpful.
The thought of Cusa retains a mark of the ancient tradition with its focus upon unity of which
Cusa notes four types: (1) that of the single, individual entity, (2) that of a collection of such
individuals, (3) that of the whole of which the individuals are parts, and (4) that of the one divine
Absolute from which all come and to which all are directed

Diversity as Contraction

The situation is delicate however, for in attending to the whole it is imperative to avoid the kind
of abstractive thinking described above in which personal uniqueness is dismissed and only the
universal remains.42 Cusa's solution is found in the notion of contraction, that is, to begin from the
significance of the whole and to recognize it in the very reality of every individual, so that the
individual shares in something of the ultimate or definitive reality of the whole of being. One is not
then an insignificant speck, as would be the case were I to be measured quantitatively and contrasted
to the broad expanse of the globe. Rather I have the importance of the whole as it exists in and as me
-- and the same is true of other persons and of the parts of nature.
The import of this can be seen through comparison with other attempts to state this participation
of the part in the whole. For Plato this was a repetition or imaging by each of that type of the one
ideal form. Aristotle soon ceased to employ the term participation as image (mimesis) because of the
danger it entailed of reducing the individual to but a shadow of what was truly real. Cusa too rejected
the separately existing ideas or ideal forms. Instead what had been developed in the Christian cultures
was a positive notion of existence as act43 whereby each participant in being was made to be or exist
in itself. This is retained by Nicholas of Cusa.
But he would emphasize that the being in which each person or thing participates is the whole
of being.44 This does not mean that in a being there is anything alien to its own identity, but that the
reality of each being has precisely the meaning of the whole as contracted to this unique instance.
To be then is not simply to fall in some minimal way on this side of nothingness, but rather to partake
of the totality of being and the meaning of the whole of being, and indeed to be a realization of the
whole in this unique contraction or instance. Things retains their identity, but do so in and of the
whole.
De Leonardis formulates this in two principles:
 - The principle of Individuality: Each individual contraction uniquely imparts to each entity an
inherent value which marks it as indispensable to the whole.
- The principle of Community: The contraction of being makes each thing to be everything in a
contracted sense. This creates a community of beings interrelating all entities on an ontological
level.45

Hierarchy of the Internally Related

After the manner of the medievals Cusa saw the plurality of beings of the universe as
constituting a hierarchy of being. Each being was equal in that it constituted a contraction of the
whole, but not all were equally contracted. Thus an inorganic being was more contracted than a
living organism, and a conscious being was less contracted than either of them. This constituted a
hierarchy or gradation of beings. By thinking globally or in terms of the whole, Cusa was able to
appreciate the diversity of being in a way that heightened this ordered sense of unity in which
relationships are not externally juxtaposed, but internal to the very make up of the individuals.
This internal relationship is made possible precisely by a global sense of the whole.46 For this
Cusa may have drawn more directly from the Trinity, but this in turn is conceived through analogy
to the family of which individuals are contractions. This, in turn, is lived in the interpersonal relations
in a culture grounded in such a theology and especially now in the global reality constituted of
economics and politics information and relations between civilizations. The philosopher can look
here and find special manifestation of being. Indeed, hermeneutics47would suggest that this
constitutes not only a locus philosophicus whence insight can be drawn, but the prejudgments of
philosophers which constitute the basic philosophical insights themselves. The critical scientific
interchange of philosophy is a process of controlled adjustment and perfection of these insights.
In a family all the persons are fully members and in that sense fully of the same nature. But the
father generates the son while the son proceeds from the father. Hence, while mutually constituted
by the same relation of one to the other, the father and son are distinct precisely as generator and
generated. Life and all that the father is and has is given from the father to the son. Correspondingly,
all that the son is and has is received from the father. As giver and receiver the two are distinguished
in the family precisely as the different terms of the one relation. Hence each shares in the very
definition of the other: the father is father only by the son, and vice versa.
Further, generation is not a negative relation of exclusion or opposition; just the opposite -- it is
a positive relation of love, generosity and sharing. Hence, the unity or identity of each is via relation
(the second unity), rather than opposition or negation as was the case in the first level of unity. In
this way the whole that is the family is included in the definition of the father and of the son, each of
whom are particular contractions of the whole.

Explicatio-Complicatio

Cusa speaks of this as an explicatio or unfolding of the perfection of being, to which corresponds
the converse, namely, folding together (complicatio) the various levels of being constitutes the
perfection of the whole. Hence Cusa's hierarchy of being has special richness when taken in the light
of his sense of a global unity. The classical hierarchy was a sequence of distinct levels of beings,
each external to the other. The great gap between the multiple physical or material beings and the
absolute One was filled in by an order of spiritual or angelic beings. As limited these were not the
absolute, yet as spiritual they were not physical or material. This left the material or physical di-
mension of being out of the point of integration.
In contrast, Cusa, while continuing the overall graduation, sees it rather in terms of mutual
inclusion, rather than of exclusion. Thus inorganic material beings do not contain the perfection of
animate or conscious being, but plants include the perfections of the material as well as life. Animals
are not self-conscious, but they integrate material, animate and conscious perfection. Humans
include all four: inorganic, animate and conscious and spiritual life.
In this light, the relation to all others through the contraction of being is intensified as beings
include more levels of being in their nature. On this scale humans as material and as alive on all three
levels of life: plant, animal and spirit, play a uniquely unitive and comprehensive role in the hierarchy
of being. If the issue is not simple individuality by negative and exclusive contrast to others (the first
level of unity), but uniqueness by positive and inclusive relation to others, then human persons and
the human community are truly the nucleus of a unity that is global. This line of reasoning Cusa
carries to its epitome in his theology of Christ as both man and God.

Global Dynamism

Thus far we have been speaking especially in terms of existence and formal causality by which
the various beings within the global reality are to specific degrees contractions of the whole. To this,
however, should be added efficient and final causality by which the ordered universe of reality takes
on a dynamic and even developmental character. This has a number of implications: directedness,
dynamism, cohesion, complementarity and harmony.48 Cusa's global vision is of a uniquely active
universe of being.

Direction to the Perfection of the Global Whole: As contractions of the whole, finite beings are
not merely products ejected by and from the universe of being; rather they are limited expressions
of the whole. Their entire reality is a limited image of the whole from which they derive their being,
without which they cannot exist, and in which they find their true end or purpose. As changing,
developing, living and moving they are integral to the universe in which they find their perfection or
realization, and to the perfection of which they contribute by the full actuality and activity of their
reality.
This cannot be simply random or chaotic, oriented equally to being and its destruction, for then
nothing would survive. Rather there is in being a directedness to its realization and perfection, rather
then to its contrary. A rock resists annihilation; a plant will grow if given water and nutrition; an
animal will seek these out and defend itself vigorously when necessary. All this when brought into
cooperative causal interaction has a direction, namely, to the perfection of the whole.

Dynamic Unfolding of the Global Whole: As an unfolding (explicatio) of the whole, the diverse
beings (the second type of unity) are opposed neither to the whole (the third type of unity) nor to the
absolute One (the fourth type of unity). Rather, after the Platonic insight, all unfolds from the One
and returns thereto.
To this Cusa makes an important addition. In his global vision this is not merely a matter of
individual forms; beings are directed to the One as a whole, that is, by interacting with others (unity
three). Further, this is not a matter only of external interaction between aliens. Seen in the light of
reality as a whole, each being is a unique and indispensable contraction of the whole. Hence finite
realities interact not merely as a multiplicity, but as an internally related and constituted community
with shared and interdependent goals and powers.

Cohesion and Complementarity in a Global Unity: Every being is then related to every other in
this grand community almost as parts of one body. Each depends upon the other in order to survive
and by each the whole realizes its goal. But a global vision, such as that of Cusa, takes a step further,
for if each part is a contraction of the whole then, as with the DNA for the individual cell, "in order
for anything to be what it is it must also be in a certain sense everything which exists."49 The other
is not alien, but part of my own definition.
From this it follows that the realization of each is required for the realization of the whole, just
as each team member must perform well for the success of the whole. But in Cusa's global view the
reverse is also true, namely, it is by acting with others and indeed in the service of others or for their
good that one reaches one's full realization. This again is not far from the experience of the family
and civil society, but tends to be lost sight of in other human and commercial relations. It is by
interacting with, and for, others that one activates one's creative possibilities and most approximates
the full realization of being. Thus, "the goal of each is to become harmoniously integrated into the
whole of being and thereby to achieve the fullest development of its own unique nature."50

Notes

1. Francis Bacon, Novum Organon, De Sapientia Veterum (New York, 1960).

2. John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (London, 1690).
3. René Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1911), I.
4. Aristotle, Metaphysics, XII.
5. Tr. C.K. Ogden (London: Methuen, 1981).
6. (New York: Harper and Row).
7. Tr. G.E.M. Anscombe (Oxford: Blackwell, 1958).
8. Brian Wicker, Culture and Theology (London: Sheed and Ward, 1966), pp. 68-88.
9. (New York: Harper and Row, 1962).
10. Documents of Vatican II, ed. W. Abbott (New York: New Century, 1974).
11. Truth and Method (New York: Seabury, 1975).
12. Ivor Leclerc, "The Metaphysics of the Good," Review of Metaphysics, 35 (1981), 3-5.
13. Ibid.
14. V. Mathieu, "Cultura" in Enciclopedia Filosofica (Firenze: Sansoni, 1967), II, 207-210; and
Raymond Williams, "Culture and Civilization," Encyclopedia of Philosophy (New York:
Macmillan, 1967), II, 273-276, and Culture and Society (London: 1958).
15. Tonnelat, "Kultur" in Civilisation, le mot et l'idée (Paris: Centre International de Synthese),
II.
16. V. Mathieu, "Cultura" in Enciclopedia Filosofica (Firenze: Sansoni, 1967), II, 207-210; and
Raymond Williams, "Culture and Civilization", Encyclopedia of Philosophy (New York:
Macmillan, 1967), II, 273-276, and Culture and Society (London, 1958).
17. Laches, 198-201.
18. H.-G. Gadamer, Truth and Method, translated from the 2nd German edition, 1965, by G.
Barden and J. Cumming (New York: Seabury, 1975), pp. 245-253.
 19. Ibid. Gadamer emphasized knowledge as the basis of tradition in contrast to those who
would see it pejoratively as the result of arbitrary will. It is important to add to knowledge the free
acts which, e.g., give birth to a nation and shape the attitudes and values of successive generations.
As an example one might cite the continuing impact had by the Magna Carta through the
Declaration of Independence upon life in North America, or of the Declaration of the Rights of
Man in the national life of so many countries.
20. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996).
21. On History (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1980), pp. 177, 202.
22. Dynamics of World History (La Sulle, Il: Sheed + Ward, 1959), pp. 51, 402.
23. Geopolitics and Geoculture: Essays on the Changing World System (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1992).
24. Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order (New
York: Simon and Schuster, 1996), p. 43.
25. Ibid., p. 47.
26. C. Dawson, p. 128.
27. F. Braudel, History of Civilizations (New York: Penguin, 1994), p. 35.
28. A. Bozeman, Strategic Intelligence and Statecraft (Washington: Brassey's, 1992), p. 62.
29. Huntington, p. 43.
30. Ibid., p. 262.
31. Gadamer, pp. 278-279.
32. Ibid., pp. 281-286.
33. Ibid., pp. 235-242.
34. Ibid., pp. 278-289.
35. Ibid., pp. 261-264.
36. Ibid., p. 262.
37. Ibid., pp. 263-264.
38. Ibid., pp. 333-341.
39. Ibid., pp. 273-341.
40. Ibid., pp. 336-340.
41. Ibid., pp. 319-324.
42. Of Learned Ignorance.
43. G. McLean, Plenitude and Participation: The Unity of Man in God (Madras: University of
Madras, 1978); Tradition, Harmony and Transcendence (Washington: The Council for Research in
Values and Philosophy, 1994), pp. 95-102.
44. Of Learned Ignorance, pp. 84-88.
45. David De Leonardis, Ethical Implications of Unity and the Divine in Nicholas of
Cusa (Washington: The Council for Research in Values and Philosophy, 1998), p. 228.
46. Of Learned Ignorance, I, 9-10.
47. H.-G. Gadamer, Truth and Method (New York: Crossroads, 1975).
48. De Leonardis, pp. 233-236.
49. Ibid., p. 235.
50. Ibid., p. 236.
 Chapter III
Globalization and Italian Culture
Robert Royal

Religion, like other large-scale human structures, is one of those things that our postmodern
condition is supposed to have made problematic. Identification with a particular spiritual tradition,
like identification with a state, a locale, and other historic markers of identity, has been put under
a great deal of pressure by various factors in a globalizing world. We have far more knowledge of
a wide array of belief systems and ways of practicing religion than in the past. This is not only
through electronic media, but through daily contact with people of other faiths in the workplace
and on the street in our various pluralist societies. At the same time, adherence to formal
institutions of all kinds B churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples B is assumed by most
analysts to be weakening, and there is some evidence in certain parts of the world that this is true.
But I want to begin these reflections from a different perspective: the very forces that have
given rise to the assaults on simple identity, be they postmodern or globalizing, have inevitably
produced a counter-reaction. Human beings are by nature religious and will remain so, with
religion serving as one of the counterweights to the vast impersonal forces of the postmodern,
globalized world. The phenomenon of what is often referred to as Fundamentalism in various
world religions is partly the result of threats to human identity. It is wrongly regarded, by grouping
them all together, as a refusal to deal with modern problems. Some fundamentalisms are a flight
from the world. But the turn to religion is one way human beings seek to anchor themselves in the
very midst of modernity. Much of it is better thought of as a product of our situation, rather than a
flight from it. I believe that the same is true of our identification with a territorial state, with local
communities, with families, and with other deep sources of the self. These identifications will
become more valued, not less so, as globalization proceeds.

Italian Cultural Identity and Intercultural Dialogue

On the religious challenge of a globalizing world for Italian cultural identity I have few firm
opinions, primarily because it is so difficult to form a clear idea of contemporary religion or of
Italian Culture in the abstract. Religion means many things globally; very few religions fit exactly
the model people coming from Christian, Jewish, or Islamic points of view might expect.
Hinduism, perhaps, presents a rough analogy to our traditions, but much of Buddhism can only be
called atheistic. Tribal religions may or may not have the kind of overarching cosmic framework
we think of as central to religion. Confucianism or Zen could be classified as philosophies, rather
than religions. Scholars of religions have difficulties sorting these things out. But for functional or
descriptive purposes, we might think of religion as the human beliefs that offer us the deepest and
broadest systems of meaning. That is why Marxism or modern Western liberalism can serve as a
sort of religion for some people.
Similarly, I find it hard to know exactly what Italian culture means globally. One thing we can
say as a kind of first approximation to the subject is that Italy has never been B from the time of
the Roman Empire to our own day B a very theoretical society. The collapse of a strict
Enlightenment rationality in postmodernity does not disturb Italian culture as much as it might
others, because Italians never relied as much on that form of rationality for their social or religious
lives. So Italy is well placed to maintain its cultural traditions, however we might define those, in
our globalizing world.
Globalization, it is worth recalling, did not begin in the last few decades with the invention of
jet travel, satellite communications, or the Internet. It began in 1492 when a visionary Genoese
navigator sailed from Europe and set us all on the course of knowing that we live in one world.
Prior to Columbus, people spoke in the abstract about the globe and its peoples; Columbus made
the growing experience of that unity a reality. And as I have argued in my book 1492 and All That,
it is not true to say that this early form of globalization was merely the beginning of Western
imperialism or the economic exploitation of the world by Europe.
Columbus did seek material rewards; they were the only way he could justify his enterprise
of the Indies to those who would have to invest in it. He also sought compensation so that he and
his family could live after his days as an explorer ended. But to limit our analysis to these factors
is to overlook the very real role that the navigator’s faith and courage played in his epic discoveries.
I am convinced that he saw his voyages as one of the ways to preach the Gospel to all nations and
arrive at the end times when Christ would return. But the cynical view also fails to appreciate the
way that Europe was interested in other parts of the world as no other culture then or since. It is
no accident that the early missionaries undertook the first studies that led to the later development
of anthropology, ethnology, comparative religion, and so forth. At least for the West, economics,
religion, and cultural curiosity were present at the start of global integration. We would be wrong
to neglect any of them today.
Any analysis of the prospects of Italian culture in the religiously globalized world must, I
believe, operate simultaneously on two levels. First, there is the level of what continental
Europeans, following Habermas, usually call the life world. In more Anglo-Saxon regions, we
usually speak of these as the structures of everyday life. I find the expression better because it is
less tied to philosophical echoes from German idealism and other traditions of thought that may
distract us from the reality itself. In this mode of analysis, the habits of ordinary people B their
cuisine, family affections, local social relations, economic activities, and religious practices B are
examined as constituting the true texture of life in any age. In every one of these categories, Italy
has been and remains a source of attraction for many around the world. In North America, Italian
restaurants are by far the most popular; Italian families B Mafia aside, and sometimes the Mafia
as well B are admired as offering the kind of warmth people from other backgrounds would like
to find in their own families; and Italy’s long ability to produce beautiful environments while
offering social and economic opportunities is a kind of model to architects and municipal planners.
We also see, not least in American films, a fascination with the kind of Catholic parish that is
common in Italy and not uncommon here, with its wealth of statues and artwork celebrating local
saints and particular religious figures. All this interest, I think, reflects a certain thinness in our
Anglo-Saxon heritage: we admire and are grateful to the British for their economic and political
sanity. But no one turns to Britain for the thick and rich practices of a good life.
There is, of course, a second level of cultural analysis that must be added to this picture and
brought into its proper relation with the first. This level involves large-scale public institutions of
politics, economics, and education. Here, too, there are admirable Italian traits that are less well-
known or even entirely neglected. Americans are suspicious about governmental powers and
believe others, especially Europeans, should be so as well. Our suspicions do not deny
government’s proper role, but show our belief that liberty requires constant vigilance against
potential tyranny. That is one place where Americans and Italians are largely in agreement.
 What I think needs further elaboration in the Italian case, however, is how the two levels B
the culture of everyday life and the culture of public institutions B work together sometimes with
happy results. I always think of Italian behavior towards Jews during the Second World War as
the best example of this. Italy’s behavior was not perfect; some Italian Jews fell afoul of the
virulent anti-Semitism and absurd racial theories promoted by the Nazis. And the wildly
exaggerated criticism of Pius XII’s alleged “silence” during the persecution of the Jews B though
mistaken B points to some failings that should not be overlooked. But I think Italy’s relatively
good behavior B or perhaps I should say the good behavior of many Italians B says a great deal
about the way that the everyday level of Italian culture with its welcoming and tolerant ways, and
the large public level, co-operated in producing something good. France certainly did not show the
same cultural virtues. Italians may be reluctant to speak about this part of their past, but as an
American, I have no such reluctance and say it deserves proper recognition.
It deserves recognition for itself, but also because it tells us some things about religious factors
in an age of globalization. We cannot deny that Italian Catholicism played a positive role in that
behavior at a very difficult time. And that contribution is an important datum for our own time
when the events since September 11 and the continuing turmoil in the Middle East make it appear
to some that religion is always a force for conflict. Like any other human thing, religion can be
and often has been a bone of contention. But human beings are by nature religious. The much
discussed secularization of societies as they modernize has not proved itself to be empirically true.
In Europe, perhaps, there has been a falloff in participation in religious institutions. But spirituality
and religiosity of a kind have continued even there, according to social surveys. So unless we
intend to relegate religion to a wholly private realm B something both impossible and unjust B we
have to find some way to sort out the good from the bad kinds of public religious influence in our
globalized world
I think the Italian experience has much to teach here. To begin with, the Catholic Church as
an institution operates on what can only be called an old Roman model. The central papal authority
in union with subsidiary local dioceses is essentially an administrative feature of the late Roman
Empire, its own way of acknowledging Globus et locus. Dissenting Catholics in America often
say they are “Catholic, not Roman,” meaning they want to do what they want to do B mostly in
sexual matters B without papal interference. Italy’s history, of course, reflects some of the
difficulties when the Church and the State are too close, producing anti-clericalism at times even
among Catholics. But whether these complaints are justified or not, they overlook the remarkable
achievements of the multiplicity within unity that the Church has offered. Just think back to the
ways throughout history that popes and bishops have resisted improper exercises of power by the
state, or how the Church as an outside authority helped Solidarity in Communist Poland and
continues to defend persecuted Catholics in a place like China today. You may believe that the
whole institutional framework is clumsy, but what large-scale human structure is not? And we
should not undervalue the institution’s proven durability. As the American poet Ezra Pound once
said, any institution that could survive “the picturesqueness of the Borgias has a certain native
resilience.” Say what you will about the Roman Empire or the Roman Catholic Church; the old
Romans of both kinds know how to govern.

Islam and the Dialogue of Civilization

 And there are advantages to the right kind of centralizing structures. The American Islamist
Bernard Lewis has argued in his recent book What Went Wrong?: Western Impact and Middle
Eastern Response that one of the reasons we Westerners find dealing with Islam frustrating is that
it has no clerical hierarchy. As we have seen, even terrorist actions that seem far outside the central
Islamic traditions may be condemned by one scholar, praised by another, with no way of resolving
the question. The Conference of Islamic Nations meeting in Kuala Lumpur, precisely because it
represents the usual Muslim confusion of Mosque and state, had different in agreeing that blowing
up women and children in Israel is simply wrong, as the best Muslim tradition clearly believes.
There is too much emphasis on the political context, too little pure religious reflection backed up
by religious authority.
I have deliberately singled out this feature of Islam because I think it cuts across the grain of
some lazy analysis in the West. Many journalists and politicians believe that the Muslim world
needs to separate itself from religious authority, to undergo a Reformation and Enlightenment on
the Western model. In a sense, it has had its Reformation, which like the Christian Reformation
introduced greater puritanical furor into the Middle Eastern mix. This was called Wahhabism,
which began in Saudi Arabia in the nineteenth century. Its growth in the Middle East and support
by Saudi Arabia, not least here in the United States, has produced no little potential trouble for the
future.
In a similar vein, Western hopes for an Islamic Enlightenment fail to come to grips with the
specific nature of Islam. The kind of Enlightenment that occurred in the West would be thought of
as simple unfaithfulness in the East. Furthermore, this overlooks the very real limits of the
Enlightenment, for all its benefits, even in the West. This lies at the heart of the postmodern turn.
It may be possible for some sort of internal evolution to occur in Muslim societies that will make
them peaceful and respectable partners in a global dialogue. But we should not deceive ourselves:
if that evolution comes, it will have a Muslim character; it will not be likely to resemble anything
in Western history.
Since September 11, we have heard a great deal again about the clash of civilizations. Samuel
Huntington’s thesis in the book by that name had fallen by the wayside somewhat prior to the
terrorist attacks. You will recall that Huntington argues that the large cultural formations of the
world, which he rightly sees as stemming from the cultus, the religious traditions, are permanent
features of the world that may lead to conflict. The reason that End of History has not come, said
Huntington, is because the secularization thesis has proven false. Indeed, the American sociologist
of religion Peter Berger has spoken of a coming “Desecularization of the World” as peoples
exposed to the impersonal forces of modernity and globalization seek a firmer identity in their own
deepest traditions.
We may argue over the details or consequences of Huntington’s thesis, particularly whether
cultural differences automatically lead to serious conflicts. For instance, I often notice as a person
who lives in a primarily Anglo-Saxon culture, but has spent a fair amount of time on the European
continent, that there is a wide gap between the pragmatic approaches of England and North
America and the more theoretical modes of thought of the continent. There is a kind of
schizophrenia within the European tradition itself that leads to different ways of behaving. There
was a time when such differences loomed large; and they persist. But would any of us say today
that they must inevitably lead to conflict?
The same might be argued about conditions across cultural traditions. China, for example, is
a large country that will play an ever larger role in world affairs. Its form of Marxism presents a
problem, but perhaps also some opportunities. If one reads Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book it is
astonishing how much Marx may be made to speak like Confucius. And the basic Confucian and
Chinese talent for commerce has made even its Marxist rulers look upon market economics in a
far different way than the old Soviets or tercermundistas. So we do have differences of a very deep
nature. But much depends on the quality of the religious or philosophical tradition that we find
ourselves engaging. And much depends on our own ability to draw on the fullest and deepest levels
of our own religious tradition to respond with openness and a spirit of co-operation to other
cultures.
For the foreseeable future, Christian/Islamic relations will be a sore point. We in the West
have no necessary conflict with Islam. In Bernard Lewis’ reading, even Muslims themselves are
divided between those who think that the current turmoil in their countries is the result of their
own failures, and those who think that someone outside has harmed them. Any dialogue between
the Christian West and the Muslim East will first need to settle some thorny practical problems
such as the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. But even if we could reach a tolerable political and
economic settlement, we will still have to engage in a cultural dialogue that will engage the more
basic problem of religious difference, and not only in Islamic countries, but in places such as India.
There Hindu Fundamentalism has arisen in response to the same forces of globalization that have
inflamed many other parts of the world. It has led to violence that never existed in India’s generally
tolerant history, against Christians and other Westerners.

The Catholic Tradition and the Dialogue Of Civilizations

The Catholic Church has many resources for such a dialogue of civilizations. As another
sociologist of religion, Ernst Troeltsch, once observed, we have two main forms of religion in the
West: the Church and the sect. The Church model, of which the Catholic Church is the pre-eminent
representative, sees as part of its responsibility to be engaged with all dimensions of society. That
is why the Church developed its just war teaching and why modern Catholic social thought has
elaborated notions like subsidiarity and solidarity. The sect, by contrast, flees contact with the
world. We have many such sects in the United States, groups that basically believe it is a corruption
of the pristine purity of the religious body to soil itself with the affairs of the world. Each model
has its advantages and drawbacks. But for those of us who believe that Christianity has and needs
to have a role in the important work that faces us in the modern world, it is a great advantage to
possess a tradition that has accumulated rich conceptual tools and flexible practices from its long
engagement with several civilizations.
What do we most need from our religious traditions in our time of globalization B
globalization of linkages and globalization of conflict? I would suggest that we need something
that could be called the spirit of Dante. Dante is, of course, one of the greatest figures in Western
civilization and therefore represents many things. But the thing that we might best learn from him,
and that a properly ambitious Italian culture might offer to the world, is a drive to respect
everything B theology, mysticism, philosophy, poetry, science, history, geography, and politics B
in a single civilizing vision. That spirit need not be identified with a crushing drive for mastery or
hegemony, as it often is in the modern world. The individuals Dante describes in
the Commedia have vigorous lives, precisely because they are allowed to be themselves in their
fullness, but are also viewed against a larger background.
Any attempt at such a universalism today, of course, is very ambitious and cannot be carried
out by a single individual or a small group. It would take a fairly large number of people all striving
to work along similar lines to weave the many loose strands of modern civilization into a
substantial fabric. We are all quite aware of the many obstacles, including simple, practical ones,
to this pursuit. Even one small area of science exceeds the capacity of individual scientists
themselves to know thoroughly. But our awareness of the complexity and extension of modern
knowledge need not hamstring us. We need to know how much detail we need for purposes of
cultural integration, and how much we can leave aside as important but less central detail.
Let me say as a Catholic and deep admirer of Italian culture that, for all these reasons, I hope
the next pope will be another non-Italian. One of the problems internal to Catholicism that has to
be frankly faced was the unfortunate perception since the Counter-Reformation that the Church
was closed in on its own backward-looking culture. The creative energies of the High Middle Ages
and the Renaissance had evaporated, and nothing in the Church seemed capable of galvanizing a
new, forward-looking approach to culture. The European culture that had formerly been internal
to the Church and produced the great philosophy, poetry, art, and music that is so much a part of
the Italian patrimony, had to develop outside the Church for many reasons too complicated to trace
here. Suffice to say, though, that the confident criticism of a figure like Voltaire B that the Church’s
anti-intellectualism and corruption would soon lead to her demise B proved absolutely wrong. The
papacy since Leo XIII has been a vibrant element in European and world culture. And under John
Paul II the Church is perhaps the most respected moral authority in the world.
That authority derives in no small part from the Polish Pope’s capacity to present the rich
Catholic tradition in terms relevant to the future of the world. If Voltaire were alive today, for
instance, he would be shocked to find that the postmodern secular culture of Europe had all but
abandoned its once robust faith in reason. And that the Pope in Rome had become one of the most
vigorous advocates of a more confident and more ambitious reason that seeks truth not only in the
everyday framework of the world, but in every sector of reality open to human knowledge,
including the knowledge of the divine. Voltaire might also be shocked that the Church was the
great defender of human life. The wide acceptance of abortion and growing acquiescence in
euthanasia and assisted suicide are an ideological narrowness stemming from the more
fundamental belief in the radical autonomy of individuals which needs to be countered by a more
humane vision. We have reached the point where countries are regarded as relatively less free or
actual offenders against human rights because they do not allow abortion. Countering this long
slide into individual autonomy is difficult and requires a certain cultural position. I do not think
that an Italian pope could be as effective at this moment in history in making the world aware of
the Church’s universalism in the face of this sectarianism. Situations change rapidly, and the right
Italian perhaps could do so. But paradoxically, at least for the moment, the great riches of Catholic
culture, a large percentage of which are Italian, may have greater influence in the world if they are
advanced by a non-Italian.
Speaking as an American from an American perspective, I might even go so far as to say that
it might be best if a non-European were to become the next pope. I do not say this from sentimental
or politically correct motives. Both Europe and the United States, in my opinion, would benefit
from some fresh currents of thought on the two central principles of Catholic social thought:
solidarity and subsidiarity. These concepts have obvious affinities with the twin drive towards
globalization and localism in the world as a whole. But Europe and America have some limited
perspectives on these two processes. Subsidiarity as it is currently practiced in the European Union
does not seem to me to be adequate to protecting the concrete needs of local communities. On the
contrary, it is very idea of subsidizing the local has allowed larger national and international bodies
to be involved in a variety of strictly local decisions.
 In the United States, a similar process has been underway for some time. Its Constitution was
carefully calibrated by the Founding Fathers to give only specific “enumerated powers” to the
national government. States rights B and by states Americans mean the regional entities such as
New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, or Virginia B were regarded as important checks on the
excessive power of the federal government. After the Civil War, the term states’ rights was used
by some states in the South to resist changes demanded by the North in the civil rights of
Americans of African descent. That unfortunate element in American history made it possible to
erode and, in some instances, almost eliminate the earlier, very robust notion of local control over
local affairs. Recent U. S. Supreme Court decisions have tended to restore greater power among
the states. But this trend, in my view, has not yet gone nearly far enough, and a change in the
members of the court could easily return us to a more centralized government far from the classical
spirit of the American Founders.
So both Europeans and Americans need to rethink the idea of subsidiarity in the light of the
centralizing tendencies of the European Union and the U.S. government. For that purpose, we need
input from the deeper sources of our own traditions and from other cultural currents. And we are
about to get them. In a few decades, the Americas and Africa will each have more Christians than
does Europe. Asia will still have fewer, but not for long. So as Europe becomes the third or fourth
Christian continent in terms of size, it will have to introduce the new Christians to the fulness of
Christian culture and principles, as well as welcome their input as to their concrete embodiment in
the world.
Take the notion of solidarity. In Sollecitudo rei socialis, John Paul II spoke for the first time
of solidarity as a virtue. He emphasizes that individual element because too often solidarity has
been thought of as a set of policy mechanisms for helping the poor, the marginalized, and the
victims of natural or man-made disasters. Solidarity must find expression in public policies, but
we know that those very policies may sometimes have perverse effects. In Centesimus Annus, the
Pope rightly points to the ways that social assistance, culminating in the social assistance state,
may actually discourage the very individual initiative and enterprise they are intended to foster.
These cautions have applications both at national and international levels. The way to be sure that
we have good global input is to pay attention to local Christian churches. The Catholic Church, for
example, not only runs an administrative structure of dioceses and parishes around the world.
Catholic Relief Services offer the most extensive, permanent social assistance of any institution.
The Church’s minute knowledge of local conditions and its global capacity to transmit that
knowledge to governments and international institutions is a unique resource in the global age.
One final notion from the tradition of Catholic Social Thought is the common good. There is
no good definition of this notion in papal documents or even in the work of social theorists, yet it
is indispensable. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says (no. 1924) that the common good is
“the sum total of social conditions which allow people, either as groups or individuals, to reach
their perfection more fully and easily.” The perfection spoken of here has both spiritual and social
dimensions, which may be distinguished in theory but in practice are closely related. Both
American and Italian culture, at their best, have recognized that the virtues of the people contribute
not only to individual well-being, but to social benefits as well. All societies that originate in
European culture have tended in recent decades to overlook the importance of popular virtue. We
have focused far more on economic, political, and military policies as constitutive of the common
good. But it is impossible to conceive how our institutions will flourish without the proper
formation of our peoples; and that formation is far more a product of family, church, and education
than it is of public institutions.
 Another factor that threatens Europe and America even more than these questions is the
demographic collapse of advanced societies. Thus far, the United States has continued to maintain
its population, and even to grow slightly, primarily because of immigration. Our immigrants come
mostly from Asia and Latin America, and despite the problems brought by any large wave of
immigration, they contribute a great deal and are assimilated into American culture reasonably
well. How long this will continue to work B especially given the decline and corruption of
indigenous American cultural forces B remains to be seen. But those in America who care about
Europe cannot help but be alarmed at the European birth rate. This, of course, is a complex question
that deserves much attention. But I would simply point out that the Church’s worries about the
consequences of birth control B worries that were and are shared by other Christian churches B
may here show its practical value. No one wants to return to a time of too many children for
families to support. The Church accepts the spacing of births by morally licit means. But it is a
profound question that deserves a searching answer whether a contraceptive mentality has not
made Europeans and Americans less generous, less welcoming of life than they once were.
Economic factors are insufficient to explain this phenomenon. We are wealthier now than at any
time in our past; yet we find it difficult to welcome children. Italy and the United States once had
a very different view of children, families, and the virtues they foster. We need to find some way
to return to our better cultural traditions and attitudes.

Conclusion

In conclusion, let me quote the words of an always wise Italian, Luigi Barzini. At the
beginning of his book The Europeans he notes something that no one else B European or American
B ever noticed in the American Constitution. The very first sentence of that remarkable document
announces that the people of the United States are seeking to form “a more perfect union.” Barzini
comments that Americans “by their nature, have never been satisfied with mere perfection.” This
has led to some of the great achievements as well as several great follies on the part of the United
States, Barzini counsels that Europe itself, as it sought to pass from a bickering group of historic
nations to union would do well to adopt this goal “immediately, today, tomorrow at the latest,
without wasting one more hour, or waiting for one more windy and inconclusive meeting of
experts.”
European unity now exists. America and Europe now share the leadership of an equally rapid
growth in world integration. The Catholic Church, an institution that has had global reach since
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries is itself well situated for what the current Holy Father has
often referred to as “the new springtime of the Church.” The dominance of all three of these
entities, which have their roots in Europe, does not mean that we need to impose our own values
on other regions and religions. It would be not only wrong, but imprudent to do so. Historical
processes have a pace of their own. Italian religion and culture more generally have had what are
perhaps the most easygoing ways of all the European nations without losing the essential creative
element that is the hallmark of a living civilization. Its contribution to a more perfect global union
could become a model for what the West needs in order to engage in a productive dialogue with
the rest of the world.
 Chapter IV
Italian Cultural Identity and Migration. Italian Communities
Abroad and Italian Cultural Identity through Time
Maddalena Tirabassi

This paper deals with Italian cultural identity within Italian communities in the United States
and investigates how, and how far, the Italian diaspora can be considered a vehicle of italicity.
The construction of Italian cultural identity was influenced by: the cultural and political
attitude toward emigrants in the home country, the image Italy had in the course of time in the
countries of settlement and, more recently, the way the media represented the ethnic group. In the
United States the media’s power in constructing and circulating ethnic stereotypes seems, in fact,
to be deeply affecting Italian American identity today. This presentation will examine these aspects
and, through a concise analysis of the Italian experience in the United States, will try do define
how Italian American ethnic identity has been constructed over time. The range of possibilities
opened by globalization to maintaining and developing ethnic identities will also be examined.
This analysis will cover the period between the beginning of Italian emigration to the United States
and the present.

Italy and Emigration

Italian emigration has been defined by Fernand Braudel as the greatest migration in modern
times: around 26 million Italians left the country over a 100 year period. The phenomenon can
now be considered over, as from 1973 to the present, the net Italian migratory balance is negative.
It should be noted, however, that between 1986 and 1997 some 528,700 Italians (57 per cent of
them from the islands and Southern regions) left the country, 66 per cent of them going to northern
Europe, and 22 per cent to North America.1 The pattern of emigration over time is closely
connected with ethnic identity. The presence of a not negligible trickle of migrants in the recent
past may interact with established communities, possibly reinvigorating them to some extent.
Notwithstanding the huge numbers, the relationship between Italy and its emigrants was
characterized by very weak governmental policies toward the emigration phenomenon, which has
affected the country throughout its national history. The first major emigration law was passed in
1901, twenty years after the beginning of mass emigration.2 During the peak years of mass
emigration, Italians "were still to be made", meaning that an Italian national identity had to be
constructed, to quote Massimo D’Azeglio. The scarce interest of the state towards its emigrants,
together with the recent constitution of the Italian State and the weakness of the ties between
different areas of the country, helps to explain why the Italian diaspora’s identity lacked strong
national connotation.3 Local and regional cultures were, on the other hand, very strong. Dialects
were, to all extents, the native language of most migrants, given the lack of a national language.
This, in turn, made any form of communication and cohesion more difficult. The state was also
bypassed by the Italian business community, which established economic relationship along local
or family networks. A diaspora transcending the nation state was thus already at work by the end
of the nineteenth century.
The scarce sensitivity of the newborn Italian State toward its emigrants created a void that laid
the foundation for the relative success of Fascist propaganda in Italian colonies. It was in fact only
in the twenties, with Mussolini in power, that the Italian state changed its conception of emigrants,
to quote Dino Grandi: “the poor, despised emigrant, forced to beg in a country he did not belong
to, [changed] into an Italian abroad and thus regained for his homeland.”4 The official label of
“italiani all'estero” (Italians abroad) was adopted in 1927, when Fascism forbade emigration in
response to the United States Quota Acts on immigration and opted for demographic expansion
through its imperial policy. Fascist exponents were divided on the policy to be adopted toward the
emigrants; eventually those in favor of the adoption of American citizenship by Italians abroad
won. It was thought that they could influence the United States government to have a more
favorable policy towards Fascist Italy. On the question of citizenship, Fascist and United States
strategies therefore converged. As observed by Luigi Villari in 1939: “If World War and Fascism
have reinforced nationalist feelings among Italians, the progress made by Italians has helped to
reinforce the value of Italian voters in American politics.”5
In the long term, the attempt to renew emigrants’ loyalty to the Italian state in order to obtain
political solidarity was bound to fail. World War II showed the loyalty of Italian Americans to
their new country and the ultimate failure of Fascist propaganda.6 During those years, there
emerged as a trait of Italian American identity the immigrants’ double yet asymmetric loyalty to
both the United States and Italy: sentimental ties to the home country and political loyalty to the
United States. Il Progresso Italoamericano, the most important newspaper in the Italian
community, well illustrates this point: the English section was strongly pro-Roosevelt, while the
Italian section stood with Mussolini.7
On the other hand, Fascism’s interest in Italian communities abroad, in its effort to bind Italian
emigrants to the nation state and to the regime, has had consequences which are still felt today.
Throughout this process, the very world italianità obtained a Fascist aura, making it a bit
unpalatable for the democratic republic which was born in 1946.

Italians in the United States: From Little Sicilies to Little Italies

When Italians arrived in America, they were barely able to communicate among themselves;
as Rosa, the protagonist of one of the most famous biographies of an Italian woman remarked,
people of other Italian regions were almost considered as strangers as Americans.8 The
development of an Italian identity, as has been pointed out by the sociologist Francis Ianni,
occurred together with the development of an Italian American ethnic identity: “The very term
‘italiano’ referring to nationality, applied to these provincial emigrants, . . . was at best a metaphor;
the category ‘italiano’ was itself an invention of the new world as was the ethnic category
‘italoamericano’.”9 This process is well described in an article on the invention of Italian ethnicity:
“To Americans, their provincial and village identities, so important to the immigrants, were
meaningless; these were lumped together into ethnonational categories, Irish Catholics, Italians,
or Poles (or more likely, Micks, Wops, and Polacks).”10 As Jonathan Sarna has
observed, “miniature melting pots fused these particularistic elements into larger collectivities”.
11 In acquiring an Italian ethnic identity in America they did not give up their campanile or
regional affiliation, they simply added a new identity. Family, paese, Italy, America, to put it very
schematically, were their identity layers. I add America because from the moment they set foot in
the United States, no matter how long they stayed, they became “americani” in the eyes of those
who remained in the home country. Even the wives who stayed at home were called “le
americane,” as testified to by Italian social inquiries at the time, such as the Faina Report, and by
many autobiographies.12
 Their percorso from Italian immigrants to American citizens of Italian origin was also deeply
influenced by United States policies which, in turn, always reflected social, economic and political
attitudes toward the new immigrants. In particular, when the failure of the Anglo conformity
model, with its strong anti-Catholic connotation, and the subsequent melting pot vision proved
their inadequacy during the First World War years, and Americanization policies were
undertaken,13 Italian immigrants started to actively negotiate their ethnic identity in the United
States. This subject has been well documented by social inquiries of the time: immigrants
continuously “negotiated” between home country and American culture, and in so doing they were,
up to a certain point, able to choose to keep or to change customs.

Family

At the turn of the century, when most immigrants arrived in America from the poorest Italian
regions, the ideal model of an Italian American family was still far off. Recent scholarship has
dismantled the stereotype of a family characterized by an idyllic cohesiveness and affection,14
showing that pre-modern family assets and values dominated. Material living conditions were
easier to improve, even if emigration to America seemed, in the beginning, to accentuate them: for
instance, health problems worsened because of unhealthy housing conditions, but modernization
in this field occurred rapidly.15 Infant mortality, which was extremely high in Italian families --
120 deaths per thousand births in 1918 --, fell to 54 in 1932, in line with the rate for American
whites. Fertility rates were also soon equal to the American.16
On the other hand, certain customs and attitudes often represented an obstacle to successful
integration in American society. In particular, this refers to the position women and children held
in Italian American families. Since the immigrant family is where ethnic values were negotiated
at their very core, we shall take a closer look at this. The immigrant family, as has been well
depicted in the sociological works of the 1920's and 1930's, had areas of conflict: the main ones
were the generation gap between first and second generations, i.e. between parents born in Europe
and their American-born children, and the gender rift.
The field was closely examined by social workers of the time, since social work with
immigrants included various aspects of the immigrants' culture: attitudes toward children,
education, work, health, food habits. The inter war years were crucial to the Italian community
since they saw the passage from the first to the second generation, and second generation problems
soon emerged showing the difficulties that the immigrant culture had in adjusting to the new
environment.
An area of cultural conflict between the old and the new generations was that of American-
born daughters' relationships with boys and, more generally speaking, decisions about marriage.
In the United States the modern idea of egalitarian marriage was by that time accepted by all
classes, implying the freedom to choose one’s partner and, therefore, marriage for love. Second
generation Italian women’s marital choices were guided by parents toward “very” endogamic
marriages. To be very schematic, primary and literary sources show that: a compaesano held the
first position, followed by a corregionario; then came a husband from the same southern, northern
or central area. It took generations to expand the possible choices to a foreign Catholic. Italian
immigrant daughters rebelled up to a certain point, as more than one girl declared to the social
workers: “I don't want to marry an Italian, they are too bossy. I want to marry an Americanized.”
By “Americanized” they meant an Italian man who had immigrated many years before. Years
later, in a recent book of interviews by Connie Maglione, many women also gave replies of this
kind: “I swore that I would never marry an Italian.” “I was determined not to marry an Italian-
American.” As emerges from many witnesses, girls demanded the right to choose perhaps a
compatriot, but more Americanized, to be able to see him outside the family, to be able to go out
with boys without being obliged to marry them. They did not want a dowry, they wanted to go out
with boys without getting engaged.
Another area of conflict was the ethnic group's attitude to women working: As sociologist
Luise Odencrantz noted as early as 1919, women's work “was a necessary evil induced by
conditions of American life which did not in any way alter their dependent position.”
In fact, young women, who worked mainly in clothing, packing, candy and artificial flower
factories, were not allowed to use even the smallest part of the money they earned, or to enjoy
even basic freedoms, if not that of working. This was the cause of many a family argument. Even
if work is not in itself emancipatory because it does not offer a corresponding freedom of
movement, the request to be able to use part of the wages to enjoy consumer goods, from clothes
to entertainment, led away from the traditional family orientation and challenged the paternal
authority which had been unquestioned up till then.17
The most difficult relationships were between mothers and daughters because of the new
position the latter found in America. Both school and work favored going out of the house.
Italian women (and children), the victims of patriarchal authority, were the first to challenge
the traditional power structure of their ethnic culture in the New World.18 Change might not have
occurred without a redistribution of power within the family. The immigration experience, and the
consequent assimilation process, brought tools to the weaker members of the family which helped
them to readdress their roles. Americanization, if considered in its broader meaning, meant
development of individualistic values and thus helped women to reject pre-modern values and
certain traditions. This was true especially as Americanization entailed education,19 the right to
vote and the right to work; taught home economics, housekeeping and child rearing; and in a more
general sense pushed for the development of personal autonomy. Men, for their part, sought in the
family a guarantee of cultural continuity with the Old World, proven by the frequent search for a
wife from the country of origin and by the attempt to maintain their traditional role of unchallenged
authority.
There emerges from the reports of social workers a very active relationship between workers
and those they helped. Young Italian women, far from passively accepting the worker's advice,
turned to them any time they felt they could gain support for their demands for independence from
the family.
Immigrant mothers were under particular pressure because they found themselves in the
situation of having to exercise the dual role – the traditional one of protecting and transmitting the
values of their own culture in a context which was radically different to the native one – and that
of continuous mediation between old and new roles and values in order to adapt themselves and
survive in American society. Their difficulties were worsened by the fact that their daughters
showed themselves to be particularly keen to grasp the opportunities for independence offered by
American society, which had already recognized more rights for women. These included the right
to education, to participation in social events and more in general the right to greater independence
from the family. Out of this difficult relationship, in which normal generational conflicts were
worsened by the experience of emigration, often emerged among the defeated mothers. They were
not able to mediate with a society they did not know, the daughters who found new strength in the
American example to challenge maternal authority, and the family in general. They remained
without having acquired the basic elements of the new culture. The first two generations had to
pay the price of the rapid modernization of customs within the immigrant family, in which all
elements were brought simultaneously into play. On the other hand, the liberating impact for the
women of a modern society must have borne fruit with a surprising rapidity given the way women
started to work, increased their educational level, etc. This did not mean giving up ethnic culture
and its values, but it tended to show the great flexibility of Italian-American women who managed
to become agents of integration for the whole ethnic group. They grasped the many useful aspects
in American society in order to improve their position within the family and for suitable social
integration.
According to this interpretation, the actual social processes which shaped the families of
Italian immigrants may be much more complex and ambiguous than actual stereotypes would lead
us to think. For once an identitarian model is defined in the public sphere, once a cultural issue has
been “adopted” by the media industry or in political discourse, it has a life of its own. The narrative
centered on family themes has become a crucial element in the definition of Italian Americans: its
cultural expressions have become “true” in themselves, and have actively redefined features of
italicity on the global scale. I am thinking of both the bright side (movies like Moonstruck and
Tarantella) and the dark side (the theme of the famiglia in the Mafia movies). Thinking also of the
political use of the family theme by Mario and Matilda Cuomo. This is, by the way, a good example
of the pluralistic nature of the cultural fields of italicity. For the source of the images and
metaphors, icons and symbols, is not to be found in Italy itself as a supposed “center,” Italy itself;
but is rather the result of a network, where the diaspora is no less relevant than the metropolis.

Food

Italian cuisine has become an icon of Italian ethnicity, but it required many years to begin
appreciated in America. Some historians maintain that the most visible Italian cultural model is
Italian food traditions. But, as many studies recently done on Italian immigrants’ dietary customs
shows, Italian American cucina is the best example of an invention of an ethnicity fueled by
different tides of immigration.20 Italian cucina today is a sort of regional melting pot, a
construction like the Italian identity. We shall begin with a few examples of how immigrants ate
at home, and comparisons with the immigrant diet in the United States.
The contadino's diet at the end of the century was very poor. When working in the fields, men
ate three times a day and took their meals of bread and vegetables in the fields; there was usually
a vegetable soup at dinner, and wine was sometimes part of the diet. These meals were considered
part of the giornaliero's pay. In Calabria the contadino diet consisted of bread, olive oil, and
vegetables at noon, polenta or beans or potatoes at dinner. Meat was eaten only at great festivities;
for the poorest, bread was made out of lentil flour and wild weeds, without oil, when the harvest
was bad.21 We have a list of the foods eaten by a Sicilian farmer over the year: 4 hectoliters (22
gallons) of wheat, 360 liters of wine, 40 kilograms of cheese, usually ricotta which is the poorest
in terms of calories, 80 kilos of pasta, 15 kilograms of rice, one kilogram of meat.22 In Puglia, too,
the diet was made up of cereals and bread plus olive oil, beans, maize, and carobs. Because salt
was very expensive, sea water was used to season foods.23 In Campania, Fedele de Siervo, the
inspector in charge of the regional enquiry, tried to evaluate the calorie content of the contadino
diet, calculating a daily average of 130 grams of protein, which was considered
satisfying.24 A giornaliero's diet in Monteleone, Calabria, was made up of: 1.2 kilograms of maize
bread, one of salted sardines, 0.8 kilograms of potatoes or boiled vegetables one soldo's worth of
salt, and oil.25
 Sophonisba Breckinridge's 1921 classic study, New Homes for Old , reports the diets of the
immigrants from different ethnic groups. Among Italians the diet of a Sicilian family from Palermo
is described. The family has four children ranging from ten months to seven years. The author
says “they have been in America over twenty years, but their diet is little changed”.26 If we
compare their American diet to the description reported above we notice that there are many
changes in their daily diet, even if the recipes and the ingredients may be the same as those of the
home country.27 First of all they had breakfast every day: coffee or chocolate, toast, Italian
cookies; meat, salad, bread and fruit for lunch; spaghetti, stuffed peppers, bread and fruit for dinner
is the Monday summer menu. The diet changes every day and it always includes meat or fish and
fruits, plus various vegetables. On Sundays it was richer: homemade macaroni with tomato sauce,
veal pot roast, corn, eggplant, bread, fruit salad.28
Social workers often complained that Italians’ diet, even if healthy, was too expensive: in
order to maintain their traditional habits, they had to spend a lot on imported ingredients such as
olive oil, cheese and so on.29 In Italy a few years later, when the Faina inquiry was made, an
improvement was noticed in the contadini’s diet in the regions with the biggest emigration, with
meat in the maccheroni sauce on Sundays and an increase in slaughtering pigs. In terms of eating
they did not change their habits in America, but they were able to realize their ideals: “In America
everyday is festa.”30
From the American side at the end of the nineteenth century, there were prejudices regarding
certain ingredients Italians used and their way of preparing food: oxalic acid present in tomatoes
was considered carcinogenic, pork was decried by hygienists, spicy foods were connected with
alcohol consumption, garlic was regarded “with particular horror,” and in general mixing many
ingredients in cooking was considered bad for digestion.31
By 1910, teaching immigrants to cook in the American way was becoming a profession. As
far as Italians were concerned, the campaign was doomed to failure: they never accepted the
American way.32 While Italian immigrant women took courses in American domestic economy
they resisted taking courses in cooking.33 During WWII “Victory gardens” and food preservation
campaigns said nothing new to Italian Americans, who had devised strategies of planting vegetable
gardens in backyards and window sills since their arrival in the United States. By the Twenties
there was a complete change in American attitudes toward Italian food customs: the healthiness of
the Italian diet started to be praised. Social workers complaints regarded only the cost of imported
food and efforts were made to make Italians substitute it with American ones, though still with
little success. By then Italian cuisine was becoming fashionable among Americans.34
An essay from a Canadian scholar, Luigi Pennacchio, on “Italian Immigrant Foodways in Post
Second World War Toronto,”35 illustrates how generations of immigration matter in terms of
identity. Among the many things he notes, in painting a Canadian picture very similar to the
American one in the 1920’s, there is children’s discomfort over their lunch boxes, full of provolone
and mortadella sandwiches (the second generation peanut butter & jelly syndrome), which
illustrates the way Italian American food went from prejudice to acceptance in Toronto. He cites
the case of a food store chain that in the 1990’s changed its name in Italian neighborhoods from
“Loblaws” to “Fortinos” and “Rocco’s.” But the best part of the article is the one in which he
shows how quickly Italian American foodways permeated the Canadian way of eating:

An informant from South-East Asia related the following: “Abdul [son] insists on
eating Canadian [emphasis mine] foods such as Calabrese bread, prosciutto, salami, and pasta.
He refuses to eat our food, and this has become quite a concern to my husband and me. Even the
Master [spiritual leader] has remarked alarmingly at this development among our children.”
In terms of eating, Italicity has succeeded in permeating American society. The very use of
Italian names for food, recipes and restaurant dishes, which has become more and more common,
testifies to it. La cucina italiana proves once again to be the best example of Italicity, which is over
and above Italian tradition.

Italians and the American Landscape

In some cases Italian immigrants were even able to embrace Italian artistic traditions; this
occurred through the immigration of artisans, who became a vehicle of another sort of Italicity. To
quote Regina Soria, author of a study on this subject, American Artists of Italian Heritage, 1776-
1945:

After publishing a dictionary of Nineteenth-century American artists in Italy, for the next
twenty years I have researched Italian immigrant artists in the United States, fascinated by
the continuing relationship and exchange of inspiration between Italy and America. In fact,
if Italy has been the pollinator of American art for the American artists who since the birth
of the Republic came to Rome, Florence and Carrara to learn painting and sculpture, it has
also been the pollinator for the American artists of Italian heritage whose “ingrained
qualities,” love of color and form, I invariably found in my research. I listed 350 artists:
sculptors and painters, but also stone cutters, marble carvers, figurinai and stucco
decorators, bronze casters, puppet makers, wood carvers, carousel figure makers, iron
mongers, poster designers, anyone, in fact whose works took a visual form. All these
diverse artists played an important role in the shaping of America.36

The urban landscape changed as immigrants created Little Italies; Italian ethnic
neighborhoods were, and in some cases still are, recognizable.
In concluding this first stage in the formation of Italian ethnic identity in the United States,
the 1920’s and 1930’s were, on the whole, years in which the modernization of customs opened
the way to the construction of an ethnic identity that was bound to survive. Immigrants’ material
culture, culinary habits and dialects changed to meet the requirements of the new society, but often
did so according to a supposed tradition. On the whole, a modernized Old Country life style was
reconstructed in America.

The Construction of Italian Ethnicity

The post-war years marked the economic success of the Italian community in the United
States. On the other hand, those were the years less marked by a visible role for ethnic identity.
This is well summarized in a seminal article on the invention of Italian ethnicity published
inAltreitalie in 1990, written by some of the most prominent scholars on immigration, Vecoli,
Pozzetta et al.:

to many observers in the 1940’s and the 1950’s it appeared that Italian Americans were
comfortably melting into the melting pot as particularly the second generation realized
increased social mobility, adopted middle class values, and joined in the rush to mass
 consumerism. By the 1960’s, however, third and fourth generation Italian Americans
unexpectedly began to assert their distinctiveness as part of wider ethnic revival
sweeping America.

Italian Americans joined with other ethnics to renegotiate their ethnicity in the midst of a
national political crisis during which dominant societal values and identities came under increasing
assault. . . . Once again, the self-conscious crafting of symbols, rituals, and images became
heightened as Italian Americans attempted to generate as much internal unity as possible, lay claim
to being fully American, and inscribe a more dignified place for themselves in the dominant
narrative of American history. This diversity of opinion was further sharpened by the proliferation
of Italian American organizations of all kinds during the sixties and seventies. Upwardly mobile
and social climbing individuals, for example, attempted to fashion a more positive image by
focusing on the glories of old country high culture, seeking to connect Italian Americans with the
accomplishments of Dante, Da Vinci, and other renowned Italians. In a variant of this strategy,
other Italian Americans sought to cash in on the cachet of contemporary Italian design and style,
by consuming Gucci, Pucci, Ferrari, etc.
Status anxieties engendered by negative stereotypes inherited from the era of peasant
immigration generated intensified efforts to highlight the “contributions” of Italians to the
development of America. Seeking to compensate for insecurities, filiopetists campaigned for the
issuance of commemorative stamps to Filippo Mazzei and Francesco Vigo; recognition of
exceptional immigrants such as Constantino Brumidi, Father Eusebio Chino, and Lorenzo da
Ponte; and erection of monuments to other overlooked notables.
Perhaps the most vigorously fought struggle was the successful effort to have Columbus Day
declared a federal holiday. Such a strategy, common to all ethnic groups, challenged the standard
rendition of American history – indeed, often stood it on its head – by showing how the group’s
values and heroes were instrumental in shaping national development.37

During those years, ethnic cultural traits that had been hidden, or preserved within the
private sphere of family and ethnic neighborhoods, were reevaluated in a public and
political dimension. Ethnic diversity was finally considered a value by society at large.
Italian American studies were offered in American colleges and universities, and a body of
literature on the Italian experience in America was created – all in parallel with a greater
reflection on the meaning of Italian ethnic identity.
During the phase which marked the revival of ethnicity, 1970-1980, ethnicity was
considered a cultural construction relative to a given time in history, constantly reinvented
to face changes either internal to the group or within the society of settlement.38

Ethnic Identity and Globalization: from Little Italies to Virtual Communities

If in the past it was true that there were as many emigration histories as immigrants, now the
question is complicated even more by the number of generations of immigration, since the
perception of Italian identity is very much related to the immigrant generation to which one
belongs. From a rapid look at the biographies of Italian American authors and literary critics in
Italian Americana, very few belong to a generation that goes farther back than the second or third.
Italian American literature and literary criticism, as well as cinema, offer a deep insight into
Italian American identity today. In the last fifteen years there has been a publishing flurry in terms
of novels and literary criticism.39 The reason is, as many authors say, it took years before they
decided to break the wall of silence. A journalist and author very well known to the American
public, Gay Talese, declared that he had started to write Unto the Son, the novel about his father’s
life, in 1955, and interrupted his writing because:

temevo che un libro imperniato sul passato di mio padre potesse concentrare su di lui
un’attenzione indesiderata e . . . persino qualche derisione da parte dei suoi amici e vicini
americani appartenenti alla conservatrice comunità anglosassone . . . del New Jersey, dove
dopo trent’anni di residenza mio padre era accettato come un integrato cittadino
statunitense. . . . L’istinto di protezione nei confronti di mio padre non dovrebbe stupire gli
scrittori italoamericani della mia generazione. Non proteggere l’intimità della propria
famiglia . . . nella propria produzione letteraria era considerata una mancanza
imperdonabile all’interno del nostro gruppo etnico, prevalentemente originario dell’Italia
meridionale e ancora condizionato, persino a distanza di una generazione o due dall’arrivo
in America dai nostri genitori o dai nostri nonni, dalle antiche esortazioni alla discrezione,
alla dignità familiare e al mantenimento de segreti.40

Another Italian American author, Mary Jo Bona, in her introduction to The Voices We
Carry writes:

The writers collected in this anthology all acknowledge implicitly the dual and conflicting
role involved in being a daughter of Italian/Sicilian ancestors and the writer who breaks
away from the traditions imposed by the code of omertà in order to write the family’s
secrets. . . . We live the closely knit Italian/American culture which (quoting Tina De Rosa)
“regardless of our education, expects us to get married and have babies”. What this culture
did not expect was for Italian/American women to be married with children and write.
Writing the family secrets may very well border the treason.41

As Fred Gardaphe very perceptively points out in Italian Signs, American Streets, the
polarities between which Italian American identity worked in the past, omertà and la bella figura,
had to be overcome in order to develop a literary canon.42
Talese’s testimony introduces another important element that explains the delay in the growth
of an Italian American literature. He states that he did not want to interfere with his father’s full
integration into WASP society.
As Anthony J. Tamburri states, using Daniel Aaron’s interpretation, there are:

three stages non Anglo/American writer might pass. The first stage writer is “the pioneer
spokesman for the . . . unspoken for” ethnic, racial, or cultural group – that is the
marginalized. This person writes . . . with the goal of debunking negative stereotypes . . .;
the second stage writer abandons preconceived ideas in an attempt to demystify negative
stereotypes . . . presents characters who have already sunk “roots into the native soil,” . . .
readily indicates the disparity and, in some cases, may even engage in militant criticism.43

It is only in the third stage that Italian ethnic writers, having appropriated the culture of the
dominant group, and feeling “entitled to the intellectual and cultural heritage of the dominant
group” speak out uninhibitedly as Americans “but without abandoning the cultural heritage.”
 Italian ethnic women writers testify to this development by redefining their identity and by
rescuing their family history through writing. They are no longer afraid of breaking ethnic codes
and, in the meantime, they are eager to disrupt taboos, no longer worried about family or American
public judgement. Their writings, far from dismissing ethnic culture, tell much about their identity
which is well rooted in family cohesiveness, and consciously far from the Anglo American model
based on separation and autonomy.44
Helen Barolini’s Umbertina, published in 1979, now a classic of Italian American literature,
well orchestrates ethnic and gender identity through a family story of various generations of
women.45 Umbertina’s search for her roots testifies to mobility and not the survival of an archaic
past. Tina, her daughter, does research on Dante in Italy, embraces Italian culture, but is not prone
to nostalgia for the archaic Italy of her forefathers. The voyage to Italy in this novel represents the
overcoming of the ethnic family identity and marks the acquisition of consciousness of an Italian
identity which we would call italic. This new identity does not contrast with her American one.
Today, just like Tina, many third generation Italian Americans do not have to rely on family
myths about Italy, as they can easily visit the country of origin, and comfortably live their multiple
identity.
Loretta Baldassar, an Australian scholar of north-eastern Italian origin, illustrates this point
by analyzing the importance of emigrants' visits home as a significant moment in the migratory
process, useful for the study of the territory-identity relationship. On the basis of an analysis of
visits home by first, second and third generation emigrants from a small town in North-Eastern
Italy, currently living in Australia, she reaches the following conclusion. For the first generation
of immigrants, the return visit often represents a moment of spiritual renewal; whereas for the
second and later generations, the visit home is frequently seen as a rite of passage which leads to
a transformation in their identity. The ethnographic data she presents are used to discuss the
concept of de-territorialized identity, according to post-modern theories. At the same time, the data
serve to provide an understanding of how it is possible to construct a sense of identity through
emigration. Such an identity lies somewhere between the country of origin and that of adoption.46
To the descendants of emigrants, globalization also means easier contact, either through travel
or communications.

Militant Ethnicity

The web revolution has also brought about a new wave of ethnic consciousness, as shown by
the intensive use of ethnic forums, the proliferation of genealogy web sites, the spread of sites
related to Italy. A call for papers by the American Italian Historical Association47 that appeared
on the web read:

Contest “Italian American Culture: Its genesis, shape and prospect.”

Contestants should define Italian-American culture: what it is, what it is not, its relationship
to American culture (how it is a part of it, complements it, and/or works against it), how it
relates to the many other sub-cultures/minorities in America including ethnic, racial and
gender classes. Emphasis should be placed on both how Americans of Italian descent
identify themselves and how they are identified by others. The essay must include the roots
of IA culture, how it came to be what it is today, and the likely direction it will take in the
years ahead. In essence, where and how does the Italian-American culture fit into America?
Will it be able to help America defeat terrorism or any other enemy inimical to America's
 cherished institutions? Will it be able to help America deal with its "culture wars"
and continue to be a world leader in espousing democratic and humanitarian principles?
Do the values of the organized crime stereotypes represent the essence of Italian-
Americans or are they more closely akin to the Antonin Scalias, Lee Iacoccas, and
countless unsung heroes of this world?

Apart from the interest it shows towards ethnic identity today, the call for papers
mentioning “organized crime stereotypes» shows that negative stereotypes still affect Italian
Americans. It refers to a topic which seemed to be vanishing twenty years ago. Italian Americans
are disturbed by the way the media portrays them mainly as members of organized crime. To quote
Hamid Nacys: “In highly mediated postindustrial societies the popular culture they produce and
consume, especially television, continually reconstructs and circulates collective identities.”48
A book written by a third generation Italian American journalist and author, Maria Laurino,
expands the analysis to all the stereotypes, showing the power of the media - film in this case – to
affect peoples' identity. She poses the question going back to Sartre on anti-Semitism: “The victim
of stereotyping who internalizes the characteristics he is said to possess, attempts to separate
himself from the negative image . . . they live in the fear their acts will correspond to the
stereotype.”49 According to this definition, she shows how annoying portraits of Italian
Americans such as Travolta's macho, “exaggerated Bensonhurst Italians” may be. “The screen
personas force Italian-Americans into a . . . no win position: choose to be a Bensonhurst Italian or
an assimilated American . . . both share an uncertain sense of self and fierce defensiveness.” There
must be a third way, she seems to suggest Laurino.
The web on the whole shows a revival of defensive ethnicity. The target are serials such as
David Chase’s the Sopranos and Bella Mafia, Teddy Bears dressed in a pinstriped suit with a
violin case named Guido, even the Simpsons are sometimes called in as non politically correct.
The issue is so strongly felt that even authors and film directors such as Mario Puzo and Martin
Scorsese50 are asked to change the subjects of their books and movies.
Another kind of defensive ethnicity is represented by the revival of filiopietism, the
celebration of great Italians in order to reassure one's own ethnic origins, which had been dismissed
by thirty years of social history on Italian Americans. To quote the presentation by the author in a
recent book on this subject, Heritage Italian-American Style: “From chariots to Ferrari. If you have
Italian ancestors you will go with pride at your own long heritage of art, science, music, literature,
history and food.”51
The H-Itam web forum moderators try to orient the discussion on more positive policy
concerning Italian identity, such as developing Italian ethnic studies and Italian culture in general.
Defensive and constructive policy are at work together. It is too early to judge a medium that has
only been widely used the last ten years, but we may say that the Internet has shown that ethnic
issues are still very much at stake, that it has furnished new instruments to ethnic activists, and that
it facilitates contacts within the Italian diaspora.

Conclusions

Italian emigrants and their descendants developed their ethnic identity thanks to their capacity
continuously to transform and elaborate their culture, and to reconcile multiple identities. Italians
in America, as a self-conscious ethnic group, were on the edge of extinction when, thanks to the
ethnicity revival in the seventies and the web revolution of the nineties, many people started to
consider themselves part of a diaspora. To use the term introduced by an American historian,
Donna Gabaccia, one of the few who has used the diaspora approach to study Italian emigration,
they see themselves as part of a plurality of diasporas, which reinforce themselves through their
ties with their regions of origin.52 This was possible also because transnational relationships were
an essential element of Italian ethnic communities. The community’s ties with the home country
had in fact been developing over a century, bypassing the nation state, connecting local sites on
the two sides of the ocean. Contact and exchanges, which had never been interrupted, were made
more visible, easier and faster by the ICT revolution.
Paradoxically, the rebirth of an active Italian American milieu, in the wake of the “new
ethnicity” movement, took place at a time when the structural underpinnings of a specific Italian
American identity were being eroded. As Richard Alba pointed out, territorial and social mobility,
together with increasing rates of exogamy among Italian Americans, implied not only the
disappearance of the traditional Little Italies, but also a growing trend towards families of mixed
ancestry. In such a situation, identities and their redefinition become much more a matter of
subjective orientations, of personal interrogatives, of voluntary choices, than a matter of a more or
less objective process of transmission.
Even in this case, we are reminded of the relative autonomy between structures and cultures;
the twilight of the structural preconditions of ethnicity may very well coincide with a dawning of
new ethnic cultural and organizational expressions.

Notes

1. Caritas di Roma, Dossier Statistico ’97, Roma, Anterem, 2001, pp. 53-4.
2. Luigi De Rosa, “Introduzione” in Gianfausto Rosoli (ed.), Scalabrini tra vecchio e nuovo
mondo, Roma, Cser, 1989, pp. 5-13.
3. Maddalena Tirabassi, “Introduzione” a Edmondo De Amicis, In America, Vibo Valenzia,
Monteleone Editore, pp. 7-26; Vanni Blengino, Oltre l’oceano. Un progetto di identità, gli
immigrati italiani in Argentina (1837-1930), Roma, Edizioni associate, 1987, p. 106.
4. Stefano Luconi, La “diplomazia parallela.” Il regime Fascista e la mobilitazione degli
italo-americani, Milano, 2000, p. 45.
5. Ibidem.
6. Maddalena Tirabassi, “Enemy Aliens or Loyal Americans?: The Mazzini Society and the
Italian-American Communities,” Rivista di Studi Anglo-Americani, 4-5, 1984-85” pp. 399-425;
“Nazioni Unite (1942-1946): l'organo ufficiale della Mazzini Society,” Aa. Vv., L'antifascismo
italiano negli Stati Uniti durante la Seconda guerra mondiale, Roma, 1984, pp. 295-313.
7. Maddalena Tirabassi, "La Mazzini Society (1940-46): un'associazione di antiFascisti
italiani negli Stati Uniti", in Italia e America dalla Grande Guerra ad Oggi, Giorgio Spini, Gian
Giacomo Migone, Massimo Teodori (eds.), Venezia, 1976, pp.141-58, p.145.
8. Marie Hall Ets, Rosa. The Life of an Italian Immigrant, The University of Wisconsin Press,
19701 1999, pp. 163, 170. Maddalena Tirabassi, “Not to be Afraid, Rosa's Travel”
in Methodologies of Gender, Mario Corona e Giuseppe Lombardo ed., Roma, Quaderni dei Nuovi
Annali, 31, 1993, pp. 603-13.
9. Francis Ianni, “Identità etnica o etnotipo?” in Aa. Vv., Euroamericani, Torino, 1987, pp.
201-15, p. 202.
10. Kathleen Neils Conzen, David A. Gerber, Ewa Morawska, George E. Pozzetta, Rudolph
J. Vecoli, “The Invention of Ethnicity: una lettura Americana,” Altreitalie, 3, 1990, pp. 42-43.
 11. Jonathan D. Sarna, “From Immigrants to Ethnics: Toward a New Theory of
‘Ethnicization’,” Ethnicity, 5, 1978, pp. 370-78; Rudolph J. Vecoli, “The Search for an Italian
American Identity: Continuity and Change” in Italian Americans: New Perspectives in Italian
Immigration and Ethnicity, Lydio Tomasi (ed.), New York, Center for Migration Studies, 1985,
pp. 88-112.
12. Eugenio Faina, Inchiesta parlamentare sulle condizioni dei contadini nelle provincie
meridionali e nella Sicilia, Roma, Tipografia nazionale di Giovanni Bertero, 1909; Maddalena
Tirabassi, “Trends of continuity and signs of change among Italian migrant women” in Valeria
Lerda Gennaro, a cura di., Le stelle e le strisce. Studi americani e militari in onore di Raimondo
Luraghi, vol. I, Milano, Bompiani, 1998, pp. 283-298.
13. Anna Maria Martellone, La questione dell’immigrazione negli Stati Uniti, Bologna, Il
Mulino, 1980, pp. 157-72 Maddalena Tirabassi, “Un decennio di storiografia statunitense
sull'immigrazione italiana” in Movimento Operaio e Socialista, II, (gennaio-giugno 1981), pp.
145-60.
14. Maddalena Tirabassi, “Emancipation through Americanization? The International
Institutes and Italian Immigrant Women” in Joseph Scelsa, Salvatore LaGumina and Lydio
Tomasi, Italian Americans in Transition, New York, American Italian Historical Association,
1990, pp. 81-88, Linda Gordon, “Family Violence, Feminism and Social Control,” Feminist
Studies, 12, 3(autunno 1986), pp. 453-76; “Single Mother and Child Neglect, 1880-
1920,” American Quarterly, 1985, pp. 173-92.
15. Tamara Hareven, “Modernization and Family History. Perspectives in Social
Change,” Signs, 2,1(Autumn 1976), 190-206; “The History of the Family as an Interdisciplinary
Field,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 2(1971), pp. 399-414; “The Family as a Process: The
Historical Studies of the Family Cycle,” Journal of Social History, 7(Spring 1974).
16. Massimo Livi Bacci, L'immigrazione e l'assimilazione degli italiani negli stati Uniti
secondo le statistiche americane, Milano, Giuffrè, 1961, p. 15; John Briggs, “Fertility and Cultural
Change among Families in Italy and America", American Historical Review, 91, 5(December
1986), pp. 1129-45; Ira Rosenwike, "Two generations of Italians in America: Their Fertility
Experience", International Migration Review, 7, 23(Autoum 1973), pp. 271-280.
17. Stuart e Elisabeth Ewen, Channel of Desire, Mass Images and the Shaping of American
Consciousness, New York, Mc Graw Hill, 1982; William Leach, "Transformation in a Culture of
Consumption: Women and the Department Stores", Journal of American History, 71, 2
(September 1984), pp. 319-42.
18. “Second generation Problems,” Interpreter Release, XII, 18 (April 1935), pp. 159-
62, Evelyn Hersey, The Emotional Conflicts of the Second Generation. “Interpreter Release Clip
Sheet,” XI, 14 (July 1934), pp. 83-89; Irving Child, Italian or American? The Second Generation
in Conflict, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1943; Judith Smith, Family Connections , A
History of Italian & Jewish Immigrant Lives in Providence Rhode Island 1900-1940, Albany, State
University of New York Press, 1985; John D'Emilio, Estelle B. Freedman, Intimate Matters. A
History of Sexuality in America, New York, Harper and Row, 1988.
19. Illiteracy in Italy, 1871-1881

Total Population Male Female

1871 1881 1871 1881 1871 1881
Abruzzi e
Molise 86,83 83,3 79,69 74,82 93,63 91,26
 Campania 82,4 78,41 76,40 71,61 88,82 85,05
Puglie 86,52 83,11 81,64 77,63 91,24 88,41
Basilicata 89,62 8732 83,62 80,67 95,33 93,56
Calabrie 88,77 87,02 82,06 79,79 95,44 93,96
Sicilia 87,22 83,97 83,03 78,85 92,21 89,53
Source: Stefano lacini, Atti della Giunta per l’Inchiesta Agraria sulle condizioni della classe
agraria, Roma, Forzani, 1881-85 (since now on IIA).
20. Peppino Ortoleva, “Tradition and Abundance. Reflections on Italian-American
Foodways,” Altreitalie, 7 (gennaio-giugno 1992), pp. 53-70; Paola Corti, “Il cibo
dell'emigrante,” Il Risorgimento 44, (2, 1992), 363-78; Id., “Consuetudini alimentari; L'esperienza
di una catena miratoria,” Storia d'Italia: Annali, vol 13: L'alimentazione (Torino, 1998), 683-719;
Donna Gabaccia, We Are what We eat. Ethnic Food and the Making of Americans, Cambridge,
Harvard University Press, 1998. Simone Cinotto, Una famiglia che mangia insieme, Torino, 2001.
21. Stefano lacini, Atti della Giunta per l’Inchiesta Agraria sulle condizioni della classe
agraria cit.; Eugenio Faina, Inchiesta parlamentare sulle condizioni dei contadini nelle provincie
meridionali e nella Sicilia, Roma, Tipografia nazionale di Giovanni Bertero, 1909, Ascanio
Branca, Basilicata e Calabrie, IIA, 1883.
22. Damiani, Sicilia, IIA, 1884.
23. Angeloni, Puglie e Abruzzi, IA, 884, 465.
24. Fedele de Siervo, Campania, IIA, 1882, 335.
25. Giuseppe Morabito, Calabria, IIA, 1883, 422.
26. Sophonisba Breckinridge, New Homes for Old, New York, 1921, p. 335.
27. Peppino Ortoleva, “Tradition and Abundance. Reflections on Italian-American
Foodways,” cit.; Paola Corti, “Il cibo dell'emigrante,” cit.; Id., “Consuetudini alimentari;
L'esperienza di una catena miratoria,” cit.; Caterina Rapetti, Archivi familiari. Storie, volti e
documenti dell'emigrazione lunigianese, Lunigiana, 1986, p. 48.
28. Sophonisba Breckinridge, New Homes for Old, pp. 335-40.
29. Maddalena Tirabassi, Il Faro di Beacon Street. Social Workers e immigrate negli Stati
Uniti (1910-1939), Milano, 1990, pp. 90-91.
30. Phyllis H. Williams, South Italian Folkways in Europe and America. A Handbook for
Social Workers, Visiting Nurses, School Teachers and Physicians, New York, 1938, p. 62;
Tirabassi, “Trends of continuity and signs of change among Italian immigrant women,” p.
290; Id., “A tavola in America everyday is festa,” paper presented at the AIHA Conference,
Pittsburgh, 1996, Centro di documentazione, Fondazione Giovanni Agnelli, Torino.
31. Harvey Levenstein, “The American Response to Italian Food, 1880-1930,” Food and
Foodways, 1, 1, 1985, s.p.
32. Michael J. Eula, “Failure of American Food Reformers among Italian Immigrants in New
York City, 1891-1897,” Italian Americana, Winter 2000, pp. 86-99.
33. Harvey Levenstein, “The American Response to Italian Food,” cit.
34. Donna Gabaccia, We Are what We eat. Ethnic Food and the Making of Americans,
Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1998.
35. Luigi Pennacchio, “Italian-Immigrant Foodways in Post-Second World War
Toronto,” Altreitalie 24 (gennaio-giugno 2002), in print.
36. Regina Soria, “The role of the artists of Italian heritage in the shaping of
America,” Altreitalie, 15 (gennaio-giugno 1997), pp. 6-17.
 37. Kathleen Neils Conzen, David A. Gerber, Ewa Morawska, George E. Pozzetta, Rudolph
J. Vecoli, “The Invention of Ethnicity: una lettura americana,” cit., p. 52-53.
38. Ibidem.
39. Tamburri, 1996; Bona, 1994. VIA e Italian Americana, Fred Gardaphe, Italian Signs
American Streets: Reading Italian/American Novels, Durham, Duke University Press, 1996,
Francesco Loriggio, ed., Social Pluralism and Literary History. The Literature of Italian
Emigration, Toronto, Guernica 1999.
40. Gay Talese, 1993, p. 33. “Dove sono i romanzieri italoamericani?” Altreitalie, 10,1993,
pp. 33-43.
41. Mary Jo Bona, The Voices We carry. Recent Italian/American Women’s Fiction,
Montreal: Guernica, 1994, pp. 11, 13; Id., “Historicizing Community,” Italian American Writing
Since World War II, John Paul Russo, ed., Italian Americana. XVII, 2, Summer 1999, pp. 143-6;
Id.,Claiming a Tradition. Italian American Women Writers, Carbondale and Edwardsville:
Southern Illinois University Press, 1999.
42. Fred Gardaphe, Italian Signs, American Streets cit.
43. Tamburri, Anthony J., “Towards a (Re)definition of Italian/American Literature,” in
Francesco Loriggio, (ed.), Social Pluralism and Literary History. The Literature of Italian
Emigration. 1996, pp. 188-205, pp. 193-94.
44. Merullo, Roland, “Working against Cliché,” Italian Americana, XVIII, 1, Winter 2000,
pp. 41-3; Meyer, Lisa. “Breaking the Silence: An Interview with Tina De Rosa,” Italian
Americana. XVII, 1, Winter 1999.
45. Barolini, Helen, Umbertina, Afterword by Edvige Giunta, 1979, New York, The Feminist
Press, 1999.
46. Loretta Baldassar, “Tornare al paese: territorio e identità nel processo
migratorio,” Altreitalie, 23 (luglio-dicembre 2001), pp. 9-38.
47. H-ITAM: listserv was created by Dominic Candeloro in 1995, see “H-ITAM A virtual
Piazza for Italian American Studies,” Altreitalie, 19, 1999, pp. 87-103. It hosted 188 messages in
1996-1998, now there are around 5000.
48. Diaspora, 1, 3 winter 1991.
49. Maria Laurino, Were You Always An Italian?: Ancestors an Other Icons of Life in Italian
America, New York and London, Norton&Company, 2000, p.140.
50. Martin Scorsese, A personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies,
three tapes.
51. In H-ITAM, 5.19.2002.
52. Donna Gabaccia, Italy's Many Disporas ; nn the application of the term diaspora to Italian
emigration see M. Tirabassi review of Steven Vertovec and Robin Cohen, a cura di
Migration, Diasporas and Transnationalism, An Elgar Reference Collection, Cheltenham, UK,
Northampton (Ma.) Usa, 1999, pp. 663, in Altreitalie, 23, Luglio-Dicembre 2001, pp. 89-92.
 Chapter V
Identical Difference:
Notes on Italian and Italian American Identities
Fred L. Gardaphe

The experience of Italian immigration to the United States can help us explore the effects of
globalization on the identity of Italians. Italian immigrants to the United States were in the position
of constantly negotiating their relationship between the local cultures of their origin and of their
land of immigration. This process has enabled Italian Americans to grow into a more glocalized
American. Such experiences as the adoption of the English language and the refusal to maintain
Italian can gives us a glimpse into the difference between Italianity and what Professor Basetti has
coined as “Italicity.” The renunciation of the national experience of Italian immigrants involved
the processes of emigration, immigration, and the formation of Little Italy. The creation of Italian
America, as I see it, was a defensive reaction that helped protect the vulnerable Italian immigrant
through the replanting process. As the Italian moved more and more away from the little Italys,
the risks and the rewards became greater. For example, many immigrant men received U.S.
citizenship by fighting in the various wars.

Global and Local

The interaction between global and local often took place in schools, and sometimes even in
homes through what was brought in by the mass media. The Italian American learned early not to
depend on a single master national narrative to explain U.S. identity, thus American identity could
be seen as a syntheses of competing narratives to which individuals are exposed. Close
examination shows that Italian American identity was formed from both history and story. Until
recently there has been a film/fiction emphasis in Italian American culture, as opposed to a non-
fictional emphasis via documentary studies. When we begin to examine just what it is that can be
called Italian American culture, we see that Italianità becomes a closet with all the claustrophobia
that small spaces encourage. For example, rarely can one see an horizon in an Italian American
film or novel. Even the paintings by Italian Americans tend toward the urban, the crowded and
close up as opposed to possible meditations on the open spaces of the country, the unknown and
the natural. Instead there is a claustrophobic concentration on the known and the familiar, as
though reality and history was a mantra that could make everything safe were it simply repeated
often enough.
Where the local identities are strong is where Italian Americans are an integral part of political
and social infrastructure; it is weak where there is little or no connection to that community.
Fortunately, Italian Americans were cut from nation before Italy had created a strong sense of
national identity. This experience facilitates the movement away from Italianity and toward
Italicity.
The idea of a glocal identity requires acknowledging multiple identities. This can best take
place if we first acknowledge it in ourselves, and then understand and acknowledge it in others.
This is why it is so important for Italian Americans to understand their own histories. If this does
not occur the problem is that Italian Americans will become fixed on how others identify them: as
gangsters, buffoons, obsessed with food and the other ways society packages and consumes
commodities inspired by Italian culture. While much of this representation and commodification
is simply so much spice to create alternatives to the bland, Anglo-Saxon fare, it is also a way to
project opposites to a people obsessed with separating good and evil, light and dark, black and
white.
Without knowledge of ethno-history, without knowledge of ethno-stories. Individual ethnic
groups are limited to reacting to what others produce and kept from creating their own expressions.
Italian Americans are being defined by others not by themselves.
One key to understanding this is the loss of the language, which happened when
communication flow stopped between parent and child, between one generation and another. By
the time I learned to speak standard Italian, those who spoke Italian would not respond because all
they knew was dialect, and many were dead. I had to go to others then to gain an understanding of
what being Italian was, is and could be. By the time I traveled to Italy I did not recognize it. As
though I was my own grandfather returning, I was looking for the Italy that he placed into my head
from his memory and which by then was over 50 years old. My son will have a different experience
this summer when I bring him to Italy for the first time. A 17 year old has an ability to learn Italy
that far exceeded mine at the same age.
We need studies of how and why dialects and language were lost. We also need to understand
how Italian Americans lost a vital sense of irony that would enable them to grasp how this loss
took place, what actually was lost, and to examine the toll taken on Italian American identity by
the traumas of immigration and two world wars. We also need to examine the various elements
that make up identity, in terms of race, gender, class, and lifestyle. Italian Americans must find out
where they are in relation to each of these elements. As they do, they will no doubt begin to grow
different from each other and more like the other Americans with whom they interact.
The work of Italian American intellectuals, while in many ways the avant garde of Italian
American culture, has not yet been a strong part of Italian American identity. Now that we are
developing Italian American studies at all levels of education, Italian American culture will
become part of the American educational system in ways unimaginable to previous generations.
What is called for is nothing less than to include Italian American histories and stories in the body
of material that one must master to be considered American. Obviously only that which works will
be maintained, but for that to happen one must be exposed to as much as possible.
But this will not be easy. Even Italians have not paid attention to Italian American thought
and culture, sometimes seeing in it a mirror of its own weaknesses or own past, refusing to see
how some people chose to answer that infamous “Questione Meridionale” that never seems to go
away. The vital familism of Italian American culture has permeated American culture through the
work of such artists as Francesco Capra, a Sicilian immigrant. He defined America through the
power of his films which have touched many generations, giving credence to the notion that while
Italians may not have come to the U.S. with valuables, they have certainly come with values. This
also comes into play in such strange places as HBO’s The Sopranos, in which an Italian American
producer-director is redefining what it means to be a citizen of the United States in a post millennial
culture. David Chase (formerly DeCesare) is returning the focus on the mother/son paradigm
previously suppressed by such artists as Mario Puzo, Francis Coppola, Martin Scorsese, and
Michael Cimino. Before we can understand all this, we must become familiar with the way Italian
Americans have been defined and redefined since the arrival of the first Italian immigrants to the
United States.

The History
 Between 1920 and 1950, the number of Italians immigrating to the United States diminished
each year. No longer were Italians leaving their homeland by the thousands. Two reasons are
usually given for this: during this period living conditions in Italy had greatly improved and the
American government had placed limits on the numbers of people who could immigrate to
America from any one country. However, the end of World War II brought a new wave of Italian
immigration, and these immigrants would change the definition of Italian America.
For the children and grandchildren of the first major wave of Italian Immigration to the United
States, these new arrivals came as the enemy they had defeated, the people they had liberated.
They came as their people, and most Italian Americans wanted nothing to do with them. But no
matter what they wanted, their arrival would forever change the identity of the Italian in the United
States.
I saw my family as finally becoming Americans when the Fazzolo family moved in next door.
They were the new Italians, and even though our lives were separated only by a picket fence and
a small garden that the previous owners had neglected for years, we were worlds apart. Until they
moved in, whether or not we wanted it, we were America's Italians. In spite of the fact that our
speech was only seasoned with the Italian that was the only language of our grandparents, in spite
of the fact that hamburgers and hot dogs had long since replaced lunches of “pasta e fagioli” or
escarole and beans, and in spite of the fact that the red, white and blue had become our new
“tricolore,” we were still the Italians, if only because others saw us as having different names,
noses, or skin color. But this all changed the day the Fazzolo family moved in next door.
It was early spring when their moving van pulled up outside our home. I was out front,
bouncing a rubber ball against the front stoop steps. Pretending not to notice them, I continued
playing while the family ferried boxes and furniture from the street onto their front porch. My
mother yelled for me to lend them a hand, and I pretended not to hear her, She came out of our
house, grabbed me by the arm and dragged me over to their front steps where they had gathered to
take a break.
When my mother tried to speak to them in English, they could barely respond and so Mr.
Fazzolo asked if she spoke Italian. She tried, but she spoke a dialect that hadn't changed in over
thirty years, one peppered with Italian/American words like “basciamento,” that made them
snicker and scratch their heads. When the new immigrants heard her speak what she thought was
good Italian, they laughed. As though in some form of retaliation, I decided it was OK to laugh
and mock their broken English. I helped them, only because my mother had forced me, but
throughout the whole ordeal not a word passed between us.
These were the Italians who immigrated to America during the 1950s. We called them
immigrants with wings, for they came to America in airplanes, unlike like my grandparents, who
had crossed the Atlantic in overcrowded boats. These people came with a truckload of possessions,
not like my grandparents who were lucky if they could carry along a cardboard suitcase or a burlap
sack stuffed with what they had to bring to America. You would have thought that there would
have been a natural affinity between the two groups of immigrants, but nothing could have been
more different. They came better educated and with a greater knowledge of America than had their
turn-of-the-century predecessors. They had been prepared by years of association with American
soldiers, and the subsequent media invasion of their culture. They arrived more like Americans,
yet they remained quite different. To us they were the new greasballs, and we wouldn't let them
forget it.
It took a few years for the Fazzolos to become more like us, but in the process we were
becoming more like them. Mrs. Fazzolo would send over samples of her homemade cooking. My
grandfather worked with Mr. Fazzolo to triple his yearly production of wine. My grandmother
joined Mrs. Fazzolo in their backyard for the drying of tomatoes into paste. They rejuvenated my
grandparents' Italian and kept the sound alive so that later, when I finally decided to study my
ancestral language, my pronunciation would be near perfect.
Years later, after I had learned Italian, I went back to my old neighborhood and spoke, for the
first time, at length with the people next door in what I came to call “our language.” I learned that
Mr. Fazzolo had been a “partigiano” during the war and had spent three years in a fascist prison
until he was freed by Allied soldiers. He told me of having witnessed the machine gunning of
innocent people by the Nazis, he told me of how his father had been shot by a firing squad, he told
me of how his whole family had been driven out of their village for fear of their lives. And all that
he told me made me ashamed of how we had treated them when they first moved into the house
next door.
Essentially their immigration had created two types of Italian Americans. They maintained
contact with Italy, and every few years took trips back. But as the years passed, and the trips grew
fewer and farther between, the people next door eventually grew to be different from contemporary
Italians so that if for some reason a new emigration to America had begun, our next door neighbors
would be viewed by the new immigrants as American.
This whole experience forced me to question just what it was that the experience of
immigration to America could do to a human being. In our efforts to preserve an Italian/American
culture, are we just preserving a memory that is frozen in time? For the people next door had a
different memory of Italy than had my grandparents, than even I have since I've traveled back. It
made me realize that with each wave of immigration the image of Italy changes, just as the
experience of being American changes. In their own peculiar way, the people next door, brought
me closer to my Italian heritage, but only after I realized that my idea of being American was
falsely rooted in trying to distance myself from them. For I thought, and wrongly so, that the only
way for me to be American was to alienate the people next door.

Self Definition

Italian Americans are as different from Italians as the egg is different from the eggplant. There
is a familiar word connected to each, but they are two very different things. There are as many
different definitions of Italian/Americans as there are Italian Americans, and the same goes for
Italians. We have a tendency, when we use the word Italian American, to refer to a specific segment
of Italian America: the children and grandchildren of those who immigrated from southern Italy
during the turn of the century. Even though most of today's Italian Americans can indeed trace
their past to this period of immigration, we cannot forget that there were political refugees during
the 1850s from northern Italy, and that after World War II there was an entirely new wave of
immigrants whose experiences were completely different from earlier immigrants. So, when we
use the word Italian American we cannot claim to be all-inclusive. Examples of how these different
identities have been and continue to be created and how they change can be found in the art created
by Italian Americans.
For more than one hundred years, Italian American artists have been defining and
documenting the Italian experience in America; yet Italian Americans are still very much at a loss
for who they are. In less than three generations, Italian Americans have assimilated so rapidly and
so well into the American way that they have become strangers, not only to contemporary Italians,
but strangers unto themselves. This alienation can be observed in the experience of many Italian
American writers.
Unless Italian American writers succeed in the eyes of non-Italian Americans, they are rarely
supported by their own “paesani.” Novelist and professor Ben Morreale addressed this lack of
support in my interview with him that appeared in a 1985 issue of “Fra Noi.”

Perhaps our problem has been that we’ve never developed an audience. Unlike other, ethnic
centered writers such as Philip Roth, who from the very beginning of his career has had a
Jewish audience, we've never been able to depend on our own people to buy and read our
books. During our early development as writers, we've had to rely on those outside our
ethnic group to encourage our storytelling. We've almost set ourselves up for isolation.

The isolation that Morreale speaks of has created a situation which affects the Italian
American identity. Why have Italian Americans never been able to effectively join hearts and
minds to make the most of what they have experienced in this country? Why are our artists and
scholars often viewed as ragpickers, rummaging through remnants of the past to piece together
images of Italian American history and culture?
The answers to these questions lie in the Italian Americans themselves. Often there is a wish
to forget about and even deny the difficult immigrant past that made it difficult for Italians to
become accepted as Americans. Today's Italian Americans, the ones who have successfully
achieved middle and upper class status, more often than not want to erase the memory of the times
when they were not welcome in this country. This wish creates a confused culture. On the one
hand, there is a common memory of a land, a language and a different way of life; on the other
hand, there exists the memory of a lasagna that nonna used to make. Which is stronger? “For this
my life, their death made ample room,” says Joseph Tusiani in his poem, “The Song of the
Bicentennial,” and with what have Italian Americans put into that room?
Ask anyone, even any Italian American, to name one Italian American writer and if you are
lucky you will hear the name of Mario Puzo. Even though there are over two hundred Italian
American novelists who have published excellent works, our food has fared better than our authors'
creations. And what does that tell us?
Even though they have made it past many social and economic barriers to the American
cultural mainstream what have Italian Americans contributed to it? Do they still have a
distinguishable identity? With no language to link them to Italy what do they have in common
other than memory that grows more mythic as generations progress? Their generations have gone
from having first hand knowledge of Italy to having a memory of Italy, to having a memory of
Little Italy, to having a memory of people who used to live in Little Italys. The immigrants instilled
in their children an image of Italy as the old country. Those of us who have traveled to Italy in the
past ten years have found a new country that has made us realize that the Italy of our grandparents
is as impossible to find as the Land of Oz. What will happen to that memory in future generations?
With such a diluted memory, what do we have that we can call our own, that we can call common
cultural experiences? And how will experiences in contemporary Italy change those memories into
myths?
We have done little if anything to put the best of what has come from our culture into the
minds of our children. It is no wonder, now as I sit on scholarship committees which award money
to Italian Americans students, that the candidates I interview know little if anything of their culture.
When I ask the question “What does being Italian American mean to you?” The most common
response is, “Well, my family and I eat meals together.”
Well, so do herds of cows.
There must be more to our identity than the fact that some of us eat big family meals once in
a while. Certainly answers such as the ones offered show that these scholarship candidates identify
with their Italian heritage through their family. But is the family the only place where these
students can learn about their Italian heritage? What will happen when these students move away
from their families, as is the American way, and develop their separate lives? Given what is
happening to the American family (it is shrinking, splitting up, and constantly being wooed by the
media into disintegration) what of our Italian heritage will our youth carry into the next generation?
What will our future generations inherit from us that will still be called Italian?

Heritage

To answer these questions we need to define terms like inheritance and heritage? Do we all
inherit the same heritage? We can probably discuss this notion of our heritage for a long time
without coming to any agreement. One way to begin any controversial discussion is to start with a
definition of terms. According to the American Heritage Dictionary, “heritage” means: 1. property
that is or can be inherited; inheritance. 2. Something other than property passed down from
preceding generations; legacy; tradition. 3. The status or lot acquired by a person through birth;
birthright. The Italian word for heritage is eredita, which means: 1. the transmission of patrimony
from the dead to the living; 2. the transmission of parental characteristics to children.
There are physical and spiritual dimensions to our heritage. If the characteristics and the
processes of transmission never changed then we would see little difference between ourselves
and the many generations of Italians and Italian Americans that came before us.
For anyone who has examined his or her physical and spiritual states lately, it is no surprise
that there is indeed a great deal of difference visible when we begin comparing generations. Yet
some things do move through generations unchanged and we tend to refer to these characteristics
as our heritage. However, beyond the packaged products, costumes, and food, our heritage is
composed of processes, ways of behaving, ways of being.
Typically these products and processes move from generation to generation by way of elders,
both in their words and their actions. I still can't stand to see food wasted, and have often avoided
ordering a full meal in a restaurant when I'm with my children. This is something I learned from
my grandparents and parents. It is often looked upon as crude behavior, but a slice of bread insures
total consumption of any sauces or gravies on my plate. My sister is really the true keeper of this
tradition in our family; she can turn a fried chicken leg into a piece of bony pipe. This waste-not
attitude is one of those physical products of our heritage.
In terms of processes, the stories of our past, especially when told by our elders, has been the
major vehicle by which our heritage is transmitted from generation to generation. But this process
became endangered when Italians migrated to America. Loss of shared primary languages, lack of
shared environments (as children leave not only the homes, but the neighborhoods and often the
states of their upbringing), contributed to the distortion of our heritage.
When our families relinquished the task of storytelling to radio, television and film, the inside
stories remained locked away and only the outside stories were accessible. Those outside stories
are the shadows that haunt us in stereotypes.
 Shadows are caused whenever an object is illuminated. The purpose of throwing light on a
subject is to get a better look at it. Unfortunately, it seems that whenever the light is thrown on
Italian Americans, the only things that people see are the shadows. If you think of media exposure
as the light and Italian Americans as the subject, then you might wonder why all the beauty (and
most of the reality) of our heritage ends up in the shadows. I believe the answer lies not in what
our heritage is, but how it is perceived. To determine appropriate perceptions means controlling
the light. Whether it’s writing, sculpting, dancing or singing, Italian Americans in the arts are often
practicing their talents in the shadows of their community. I know of many actors who must resort
to playing Italian stereotypes in order to survive in the business; to feed their families they must
often play the parts that producers and directors have designed for them. And how many of us
know and read our Italian American writers?
Occasionally we control the aim of the light, for example at organizational gatherings,
conferences, exhibitions and performances, but for the most part the number of viewers at these
events is minimal to the number who see such films as The Untouchables, Saturday Night
Fever,Moonstruck or Goodfellas.
Most regions that have Italian Cultural centers are able to create and promote an alternative
to these Hollywood visions. But, in comparison to Hollywood, the light is of low wattage. Often
there are such events as Feste Italiane, which can provide a regular forum for the experiencing of
Italian American life, but even then the light only lasts a few short days. For many years Italian
American artists have learned the process of creating and projecting light onto Italian American
heritage, but it is not enough to provide a means for Italian Americans artists to reach the public
(through educational opportunities); the public must reach their art. There must be images out there
that reflect the realities faced by Italians and Italian Americans.
People learn by imitating the people and images by which they are surrounded. Any parent
can attest to this. We send our children to schools to learn how to become a part of society, to learn
what society is, and how they can improve it through their contributions in the areas of business,
arts, science, government--through whatever area they choose to study.
What is it that our children are learning from us and the society we have created for them?
When I was going to school I learned two things about Italians in America: Christopher Columbus
discovered this country and Al Capone robbed it. I've had to live with the legacies of both these
men, but will my child have others to identify with?
A few years ago, Geraldo Rivera, attempted to uncover the secret treasure trove in the
basement of Al Capone’s hotel. When he knocked down a wall on live television only to reveal an
empty room, America should have gotten the message that behind the image of Al Capone, there
is nothing. There is no further mystery waiting to be uncovered. There is only dirt and an empty
hole. The Capone story was all surface and no depth. When we dig into the past in that direction
we will find nothing of value. So let us begin digging in other directions.
A good education should provide the student with a knowledge of the past, an awareness of
the present and the tools to develop a vision of the future. We have left our children with better
financial support than we were given. But if we want to support the continuing education of our
young Italian Americans, it is time we turn our attention and our resources to what the American
educational institutions have neglected: Italian American history and culture.
To strengthen their ethnic identification we must increase their awareness of what it meant to
be Italian in the past, what it means to be Italian today and the prospects for continuing to identify
with our ethnic background in the future. One of the best ways to explore this identity, I believe,
is to look to our writers. In 1971 Michael Novak’s The Rise of the Unmeltable Ethnics woke
Americans to the realities that “white” ethnicities were not lost in a fog of assimilation. Novak
pointed to the ambivalent attitude of progressive intellectuals toward the early 20th century
immigrant as one example of how the idea of a melting pot was, and would no doubt always
remain, a myth. Their ambivalence, said Novak, resulted from their privileging of individual
accomplishments over those of the family and community. For Italian Americans, the fifth largest
ethnic group in the United States, the years since the publication of Novak’s book have been
challenging in terms of developing leaders on all fronts. But they have most challenging in
developing intellectuals, those who Novak describes as creators, rather than distributors, of
intellectual culture. Those Italian Americans who have become intellectuals have followed a model
in which alienation from one’s birth community and often birth class, was more often than not;
this was a requirement for acceptance into the club. Never stabilized by political lobbies, cultural
foundations, or endowed university professorships, American intellectuals of Italian descent have
never had an institutional home connecting them to their ancestral culture, nor have they
consciously set upon building a community through which Italian/American culture might be
transmitted. In less than three generations, Italian Americans have assimilated so rapidly and so
well into the American way that they have become strangers, not only to contemporary Italians,
but unto themselves. This alienation can be observed in the experience of many Italian American
writers.
In a 1987 Fra Noi interview, Jay Parini, celebrated novelist and poet, revealed that his most
recent fictional effort, The Patch Boys, was a novel of recovery--one in which he had been able to
use the Italian elements of his upbringing to tell a story, and in so doing could regain aspects of
his heritage which, for the most part, had previously been ignored or untapped.

Italianità

Parini's recovery of “Italianità” is indicative of the sentiment and spirit of many of today's
younger Italian American writers who wish to remember, to preserve a past and a culture that has
shaped their lives. This act of recovery implies an attempt to restore something that once was an
integral part of one's identity. But just what is this “Italianita” that writers such as Parini are
interested in recovering?
“Italianità” is many things. But we must remember that more than anything else “Italianità”
is an invention, a construction that each builder tailors to his or her own ideas. Some scholars
suggest that the idea is primarily a fascist construction used to build an Italian nation; but what
these scholars forget is the pre-fascist notions developed by the authors of the Risorgimento.
“Italianita,” in America, is quite different from that notion as it developed in Italy. However, in
both countries, this construction is tempered by the images that the larger culture permits being
presented to the public.
Italianità can be whatever leads young Italian Americans back to the real and mythical images
of the land, the lifestyle, the values, and the cultural trappings of their ancestors. It could be
language, food, a way of determining life values, familial structure, a sense of religion, it can be
all of this and certainly is much more.
Many of the Italians who immigrated to the United States did so before there was a united
Italy. Most of those leaving southern Italy left during a period in which “Italianità” was just
beginning to develop as a geo-political identity. In fact, most of what we know about those early
immigrants leads us to believe that they identified themselves with their home town or region
rather than with Italy as their country.
 And so what we refer to today as “Italianità” would have been called, only a few generations
earlier, “Barese,” “Abruzzese,” or “Milanese.” Through assimilation, such regional divisions today
are secondary to national identity. For example, these days, when two Italian Americans are
introduced to each other, quite often one of the first questions raised is “And what part of Italy do
your people come from?”
Though regional identification is still possible, even in third and fourth generation Italian
Americans, the tendency is to relate to each other first as Italian Americans. This established Italian
American identity is composed of the qualities that separate us from Americans of other ethnic
backgrounds. If we can isolate these characteristics then we can begin to identify the ingredients
of what goes into “Italianita” and so we can construct a basis for establishing a distinct Italian
American culture.
Because they were identified as foreigners, whether because of their dress, food, native
language or accented Italian English, first and second generation Italian Americans suffered both
misinterpretation and prejudice. These early generations, the ones from which our first writers
emerge, had a closer connection to and thus a stronger identification with Italianita. This meant
that they were forced to either defend that identity or disguise it with new names, new fashions, or
other assimilative techniques.
Very often, one's Italianità, became something that prohibited entrance into the American
cultural mainstream, and so quite often it was a label that one avoided. Early in their education,
many Italian Americans were taught that their ethnicity was worthless. Leonard Covello, who with
the help of novelist Guido D'Agostino, wrote The Heart is the Teacher, recounts this experience:

During this period [1900s], the Italian language completely ignored. In fact, throughout my
whole elementary school career, I do not recall one mention of Italy or the Italian language
or what famous Italians had done in the world with the possible exception of Columbus,
who was pretty popular in America. We soon got the idea that Italian meant something
inferior, and a barrier was erected between children of Italian origin and their parents. This
was the accepted process of Americanization. We were becoming Americans by learning
how to be ashamed of our parents.

Covello's words explain, in part, why so many first and second generation Italian Americans
found economic paths and the more popular cultural avenues (sports and popular entertainment)
easier to travel on the journey to becoming American. These choices enabled success without
strong identification with what was considered an immigrant way of life. Very few of these
immigrants or their children ventured into the field of letters, and those that did, were considered
cultural immigrants, just as their parents had been considered economic immigrants; they faced
same prejudice and discriminations at the cultural level that their parents had at economic and
social levels.
With the publication of Blood of My Blood in 1974, Richard Gambino, presented the first
popular study of what it meant to be Italian American. This book, the first best seller by an Italian
American that did not feature organized crime, perhaps more than any piece of fiction, was
responsible for setting off the third generation's search for a usable past. Gambino's approach,
weaving historical, sociological and psychological data with personal anecdotes, combined the
story telling techniques of earlier writers with the power of non-fictional material to give a
framework and an insight to the development of an Italian American consciousness.
Assimilation

The successful and rapid assimilation of Italians into the American mainstream has happened
on many fronts. If the children of Italian immigrants to America became true Americans in the
economic sense, then it was their children who have become Americans in the cultural sense. These
children, whose connection to the immigrant experience is more mythical than real, based on story
as opposed to experience, were the first generation of Italians in this country to enter the literary
arts in any great number.
The rush to become Americans was very often characterized by the third generation's inability
to speak the language of their immigrant grandparents. Much of the immigrant experience would
be denied, erased and misinterpreted in this process. Much of Italianita would have been lost had
not the “Roots” phenomenon of the late 1970s entered the consciousness of young Italian
Americans. 1976 was the year of the American Bicentennial, a year in which the examination of
the American cultural conscience was in vogue. Black writer Alex Hailey, published Roots, a non-
fictional account of his search for his African ancestors. Hailey's work had repercussions
throughout America, prompting Americans of all ethnic backgrounds to search for their own
roots. Roots drew its share of imitators; epic novels such as Howard Fast's The Immigrants rose to
new heights on bestseller lists. Italian American writers such as Helen Barolini made sure that the
Italian story was included.
Barolini's Umbertina tells the story of three generations of Italian American women: the
immigrant grandmother, the American mother, and the identity seeking third generation daughter.
This epic novel reveals, for the first time, the plight of the immigrant through the women's eyes.
This novel gives us in true fiction, what previous writers could only give us through an
autobiographical, episodic perspective. In an important essay. Barolini explains how she, a child
of immigrants, came upon this distanced perspective. “I had to make the long journey to Italy, to
see where and what I came from, to gain an ultimate understanding and acceptance of being
American with particularly shadings of ‘Italianita.’ To say that I was at odds with the dominant
American culture is an understatement. It is the essence of a lifelong psychological conflict.”
Today's Italian American writers are presented with greater economic, educational, and social
opportunities than their predecessors. Thus they are in position to become makers and shapers of
American culture. They also come to the task of writing with a greater knowledge of the world
outside their ethnicity. Born into a more economically secure, and by immigrant standards a more
“American” home, third generation Italian American writers were able to pursue the education that
was often considered a luxury by earlier generations. Many of these younger writers were the first
in their families to attend college. As a group, they would be the first equipped with academic
skills that would enable them to take a more intellectual approach to the literary arts. In almost
every case, academic literary study preceded publication of their first works of fiction. These
advantages place them in better positions to examine their cultural makeup, to use it in telling their
stories, and to redefine what it means to be Italian American.
Today, we can see that “italianità” is a fluid concept, one that is redefined each time an artist
addresses it in his or her work, each time an American chooses to relate to his or her ancestral
heritage. Until we come to terms with what Italian Americaness means to us, we cannot become
good Americans. To deny or distort a part is to tamper with the whole; we must encourage a
diversity within our notion of italianità, just as we must embrace the diversity that defines America
and Italy. Teachers of Italian need to build off the natural curiosity that lies, often dormant, in
students of Italian ancestry. They must feed the hunger they might not even know they have, to
know about the culture which, often in silence, they have inherited. Once the student’s identity is
connected to the language, the students will begin to teach themselves and continue the process of
redefining themselves as Americans of Italian descent. Until this is realized, we will not be able to
see that to make eggplant Parmesan you have to break eggs and slice eggplants. Now while this
may seem to be a daunting task to undertake as an individual, it is quite easily accomplished
through existing organizations. Italians are notorious for not joining public groups, but this is a
legacy left over from a political system that did all it could to alienate peasants. We must learn the
lesson in America that in order to get things done we need to work in numbers, together in groups
that are dedicated to the survival of the Italian language, the Italian spirit and the Italian way of
life. This is the only way an Italian American identity will mean something more than the past.
I believe that the future of Italian American culture is in educational institutions and that the
future of American education is in the streets. By this I mean that the Italian American family can
no longer bear the burden of keeping and passing on Italian culture. This also means that the
educational institutions must look to the private sector to support areas like the arts and humanities
that are not naturally fed by the economy. This makes Italian Americans and the educators vital
partners in the development of the future American. Italian Americans, who have finally exceeded
the average for achieving a higher education and are well seated in the middle and upper classes
of American society, are in good position to foster the inclusion of their culture in all American
institutions. The need for that inclusion has never been more necessary.
There are projects underway across the country to address these issues. The Italian American
Cultural Foundation Inc., of Cleveland, Ohio, is a not-for-profit corporation that purchases books
by and about Italian/Americans and donates them to high school and college libraries. Students
are encouraged to read a book and respond with book reports or essays. The IACF has also recently
raised the funds to endow a program in Italian American Studies at John Carroll University in the
name of Cleveland’s Archbishop Pilla. UNICO has successfully initiated programs that helped to
raise endowments for chairs in Italian history at the University of Connecticut, Seton Hall and with
the help of OSIA at California State University at Long Beach. Now they have directed their efforts
to help secure the first privately endowed chair in Italian American studies at Stony Brook
University where there is the Center for Italian Studies and a full-fledged program in Italian
American studies that will develop archives both to preserve what we know and create new
knowledge.
As director of Italian American studies, I teach courses both in the European and American
studies programs. One course, “American Identities” has as a goal for each student to understand
the history of the creation and recreation of American identities and to see themselves in the
process of fashioning their own identity. Many are first- or second-generation immigrants who
need to see and consume a multiplicity of narratives so that they can imagine beyond the narrow
confines of the local into the vast horizons of the global; the goal of this interaction is the creation
of the glocal identity.
Within Italian American culture a glocal identity must be understood in terms of race: coming
to terms with whiteness and the privileges awarded those who adopt and maintain racist thinking;
of gender: understanding contemporary and historical power relationships between men and
women; of lifestyle: coming to terms with various sexualities; of religion: how different religions
came to be practiced in the United States; of class: understanding the economic system and their
place in it. We must all understand how these elements condition behavior and identity. The
ultimate goal is to create a self-knowledge based on self-study that will then prepare us for another
study and other knowledge. The transmission of anyone's heritage is more and more being
controlled by institutions; artistic, educational, economic, political and religious institutions have
replaced the family as the means of conveying cultural values. When we have learned this, and
moved to insure that such institutions are sensitive to our Italian American identities and heritage,
then we will begin to concentrate on the light that illumines and not the shadows that distort.

Bibliography

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Boelhower, William. “Adusting Sites: The Italian-American Cultural Renaissance.” Adjusting
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Bona, Mary Jo. Claiming a Tradition Italian/American Women Writers. Carbondale, IL:
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Story-Telling. Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1993.
 Chapter VI
The Essence of Italian Culture and the Challenge of the Global Age:
Italian Cultural Identity and Migration
Michael Barone

The subject assigned for this talk—Italian cultural identity and migration to the United
States—presents some difficulty. Of course some of the Italian immigrants to America were people
of great culture. They included intellectuals of great renown with wide-ranging knowledge of
culture. But the great mass of Italian immigrants were men and women who had relatively little
contact with high culture. The large majority of Italian immigrants to the United States came
between the years of 1890 and 1914. About 90 percent of them were from southern Italy which 30
years before 1890 were not part of Italy at all, but part of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Some
came from the great cities of Napoli and Palermo, but the great majority were paisani, from small
villages, people who spoke in dialect—Napolitano, Calabrese, Siciliano, Pugliese—rather than
Tuscan Italian.
The culture they brought with them was not so much the high culture of Dante or
Michelangelo, but the village culture of the region or village from which they came. Still, that
culture was vibrant, and contained elements of genius. The Italian eye—the visual acuity that
somehow, inarticulately, understood the harmonious proportions of visual art—was part of their
heritage. We can see it in the vernacular architecture of the Italian village in which the proportions
of the structure and the grace with which it fills its allotted space shows an inarticulate appreciation
of the aesthetic principles which govern the buildings of Rome and of Palladio: somehow
everything is just right. In America the Italians lived in neighborhoods where the buildings were
not of their own design, and the exterior landscapes of the Little Italies of New York and Chicago
and Cleveland and Boston did not necessarily show this aesthetic principle. But the interiors of
these structures did, at least as Italian-Americans achieved enough affluence to redesign them and
build them anew. To those fortunate enough to enter the Italian brownstone house or restaurant,
the unprepossessing exterior yielded, to beautiful paneling and marble work worthy of the classical
and Renaissance Italian heritage. As Nathan Glazer notes in his chapter on the Italians in Beyond
the Melting Pot, there is never a lack of men with talent for carpentry or craftsmanship in an Italian
neighborhood.
The Little Italies today have become mostly depopulated; yet this tradition lives on, quietly
and anonymously in the suburbs. It is in the work of leading interior designers of Italian descent,
whose work is sought after by the most affluent and fashionable members of American society.
Another tradition the Italian immigrants brought with them was tailoring. The story is best
told by Gay Talese, whose parents were immigrants from Calabria and who set up a clothing store
in the Presbyterian precincts of Ocean City, New Jersey. Talese tells the story of his grandparents’
tailoring work in Calabria, in which in one instance a nephew-apprentice made a bad cut and
destroyed the fine cloth for a pair of suit pants for a local grandee apparently involved in organized
crime. The uncle managed to convince the client that the fashion in Paris was for pants with a
horizontal cut stitched up in the middle of the leg—hoping nervously that the man was not well
enough acquainted with high fashion to know that the story was a fabrication. In Ocean City his
father tailored men’s suits and his mother designed and sold dresses of the highest style in a town
which was a summer beach resort. Though their shop was just a block from the beach, he never
saw either parent in a bathing suit or with sand in their toes. Talese himself, after a brilliant career
in journalism and as an author, is always impeccably dressed in suits of a distinctive and stylish
cut. The tradition of Italian tailoring and of appreciation for clothes designed and crafted with
aesthetic flair, is by no means universal in America; yet it has affected and enhanced the national
style.
Then there was the opera. Italian immigrants, with very little money and spending most of
their hours working, often at low-wage manual labor, nevertheless often had a fine appreciation
and intimate knowledge of the operas of Verdi and Puccini. They did not necessarily form a large
part of the audience in America’s opera houses—they did not have the money to be able to afford
seats at the Metropolitan Opera as impecunious Italians did at La Scala. But they did sometimes
attend, and with the development of recordings and broadcast media, they became prime and
discerning audiences for the early records of Enrico Caruso and the Saturday radio broadcasts of
the Metropolitan Opera.
Their children in turn built on this musical heritage and created some of the finest American
musical popular culture. Starting in the 1930s, Italian-American crooners became enormously
successful popular singers. The prime example, of course, is Frank Sinatra, but there were many
others—Vic Damone, Perry Como, Tony Bennett, whose career continues today. Their first efforts
were of the nature of Elvis Presley’s: Sinatra was a heartthrob of teenage girls, who screamed in
ecstasy as he entered a performance venue or when he sang. But their careers were long lasting
and their abilities far transcended the genre of teenage music. Their sensitive rendition of both
melody and lyric, their exploration of the gamut of emotions from joy to despair, from celebration
to lament—created a popular culture of high quality, and one which would not have existed in this
country without their presence,
In food, the Italian immigrants, from the south of Italy, did not bring with them the great
cuisines of the Italian north—the cotoletta milanese, bistecca fiorentina, pesto genovese. They
cooked with olive oil, not butter, and could usually afford a lot of pasta but not very much meat.
But cocina italiana became, in time, standard American food. Spaghetti with meatballs, with
tomato sauce or ragu, was established as a common American food, by the 1930s. The pizza—an
exotic, unusual food when I was growing up Detroit in the 1950s—became a staple of American
life by the 1970s; more than any other it is the food of American children today. The principles of
Italian cooking are not always followed: in Italy the portions of each course are small, restrained;
while American restaurants may advertise “all the pasta you can eat.” But the culinary
consequences of Italian Americans cannot be overestimated. American food is increasingly Italian-
influenced; one can even find in major and minor metropolitan areas, supermarkets with authentic
Italian ingredients and Italian restaurants that would pass muster in Italy itself.
Politics and religion were the subject of much of my chapter on Italians in The New
Americans: How the Melting Pot Can Work Again. Politics was not a central preoccupation of
Italian immigrants to the United States. In the Italy of the years around 1890 and 1900, politics
was primarily a matter for the elites, particularly in southern Italy. Italian men could vote, but
typically they voted for local notables whose political success was a reflection of their prominence
in the local community—they were large landowners, proprietors of the few local businesses,
ancestral scions who took deference as their due. Of course these things were changing as we learn
how in Tomasi di Lampedusa’s The Leopard. But the habits of mind that Italian immigrants
brought from Italy did not necessarily reflect these changes. In the great cities of the United States
to which virtually all immigrants migrated politics was dominated by political machines—some
run by Yankee Protestants, most by Irish Americans who did not willingly enlist immigrants from
other countries in their ranks. In some places the Italian vote was targeted by opportunistic
machines, but by no means always. Italian immigrants, unlike the Irish then or blacks today, did
not vote overwhelming for either major American party. Their political preference was affected
by where they came from in Italy and by the political situation in the city where they settled. There
was some sentimental attachment to Italy: many Italian Americans looked with favor on Mussolini
in the 1930s—though almost none did after December 7, 1941—and many Italian voters resented
Franklin Roosevelt’s comment in June 1940, after Italy invaded France, that the hand that held the
dagger has stabbed his neighbor. But that was more a resentment of the Italian-American criminal
stereotype than an endorsement of Mussolini’s regime.
A similar pattern obtains with respect to religion. As Glazer pointed out, Italian immigrants
were not uniformly Catholic. Many were affected by the anticlericalism which was the policy of
the leading parties in the Kingdom of Italy in the years around 1890 and 1900, and the Church,
like other institutions, was often deeply distrusted. Adherence to strict Catholicism grew stronger
among the second and third generations of Italian-Americans than it was among the first.
Moreover, the Catholicism that did prevail was more about the traditions of village and city
saints—the various San Gennaros—than it was about technical Catholic doctrine; more about
figures like Padre Pio (who lived some of his early years in the United States) than about Popes
Pius IX, Leo XIII and Pius X. In addition, the Irish dominated the Catholic hierarchy in the United
States just as they dominated the urban machines of the Democratic Party. The first Italian
American bishop was not appointed until 1954.
My point is that the Italian cultural influence in America is largely not the product of high
Italian culture, but the product of the vernacular. The Italian immigrants who came to the United
States between 1890 and 1914 and between 1918 and 1924, when American immigration laws
largely shut the flow of migration off, were mostly southern Italians. Like most immigrants from
Latin America today, they came from a society with very low levels of trust in institutions. Italian
immigrants did not trust the government, or businesses, or labor unions, or the church, or any other
institution; they trusted only in their families and hard work. They did not see their salvation in
politics or government—rather, they saw government and politics as something to be avoided; the
intelligent position was to keep your head down, to keep quiet, to escape notice by the people who
ran the major institutions of society. The Italian immigrants did not trust the schools, either; like
today’s Latino immigrants, their children tended to leave school early, and to seek jobs in the
private sector—even in the unregulated, black economy—so they could help support their families
and, after that, to work their way up if possible. They left little imprint on the institutions of high
culture in America.
But the vernacular culture, in the United States as in Italy, had its own great strengths and has
had its own notable achievements. The Italian immigrants recognized the claims of the higher
culture early on. Glazer, in Beyond the Melting Pot, notes the tendency of Italian communities to
erect statues in memory of great Italians—statues of Dante and Michelangelo, Puccini and Verdi,
Mazzini and Garibaldi, and of course, more than anyone else, of Christopher Colombus. They
came to know, early on, that for all the modesty of their claims for Italian vernacular culture, they
were also heirs to a higher culture that had contributed massively to European and American
civilization. Their own personal knowledge of, and connection to, these cultural icons was
limited—except for the opera. The connection of their children, grandchildren and great-
grandchildren to these cultural traditions is often attenuated indeed, if not nonexistent. And their
connection to the high culture of Italy today—to the literature of Italo Calvino or Umberto Eco
(despite his one bestselling book), to the design culture of Milano or Firenze—is no greater than
that of Americans generally, which is to say not very much.
 And yet in many ways America today—with all its strengths, all its resiliency, all its
creativity—is in important ways a country in which the Italian vernacular culture has made a
visible, enduring and vital imprint. It would not be the same country, it would not be as rich and
as vibrant, without the contributions the Italian immigrants and their offspring have made over the
last century and a few years. This Italian contribution is not alone: the contributions of Eastern
European Jews, of Poles and Germans, of Irish and Scandinavians, of today’s Latino and Asian
immigrants, have also played a part in making America what it is today. But the Italian contribution
should not be forgotten. I would venture to say that it is not forgotten, though it is not often
articulated in America today. As Italian-Americans increasingly populate the highest levels of
American society—in politics and in business, in popular culture and high culture, in great
institutions from labor unions to the Catholic Church—the Italian-American cultural influence
increasingly permeates American society, even as it becomes less of an identifying characteristic
of individual Italian-Americans themselves. There is not a complete or entirely satisfying fit here
between the vernacular contributions of Italian-Americans and the high culture of Italians in Italy.
Yet there is some relation, some commonalty, which needs to be recognized, respected and
remembered.
 Chapter VII
The Making of Identity in a Globalizing World: An Overview of the
Italian-American Business Community
Consuelo Corradi

Introduction

For all of us modernity turns even the smallest choices and the most fundamental values into
“risky freedoms.”1 On the one hand, individualization means dissolution of pre-established forms
of social life. On the other, we wonder which are the ways of life that emerge when the former
ones, established by the old tradition or the State, fall into pieces. The dissolution of known styles
of life does not entail a social void, but, if anything, “exceeding fullness”. The options that modern
subjects have at their disposal are many, and the distinguishing characteristic of this situation is
that the subjects have to learn to incorporate this “exceeding fullness” into their biographies. At
times, exceeding fullness can be perceived as chaotic and menacing, but it can also be perceived
as a rich opportunity for personal mobility and enhancement.
In these pages I sketch a portrait of the Italian-American global business community. I see it
as one interesting starting point for a renewed understanding of the making of identity in
modernity, i.e., in the context of the unprecedented combination of greatness and danger which
caracterizes our globalizing world. There is a wealth of sociological and philosophical literature
dealing with the subject of modern identity. This literature seemingly draws two different patterns:
on the one hand, we are presently climbing to a higher level of social integration, a higher level of
social life as opposed to mid-1900s, on the other hand, societies are now declining. Losing and
forgetting important features they are threatened by social disintegration.
I am myself dissatisfied with both of these views. Sociologists – I believe – still have to come
to grips with and capture the unique combination of greatness and danger, individualization and
new community bonds, single-mindedness and ambiguity, which caracterizes modern age
individuals, or better. A growing number of social actors acquire in modernity a sense of oneself
as a being with inner depths, as well as being in the context of enormously growing possibilities
of risk and freedom. Italian-American entrepreneurs are a very good example of this.
There is another important reason why a portrait of the Italian-American global business
community makes an interesting point for the making of identity in modernity. As Charles Taylor
has put it,

There is a question about ourselves – which we roughly gesture at with the term ‘identity’
- which cannot be sufficiently answered with any general doctrine of human nature. The
search for identity can be seen as the search for what I essentially am. But this can no longer
be sufficiently defined in terms of some universal description of human agency as such, as
soul, reason, or will. There still remains a question about me, and that is why I think of
myself as a self. This word now circumscribes an area of questioning. It designates the kind
of being of which this question of identity can be asked.2

The Italian-American business community is made of entrepreneurs, who are restless and
mobile individuals, active in a globalizing world. As I will try to show in the following pages,
speaking to them, listening to their experiences and perceptions of the economic and social context
in which they live and to which they relate gives us rich access to identity. This is privileged, not
because it defines identity once and for all, or because it applies a better and more accurate
universal description of human agency, but merely because we are thus invited to listen to them to
comprehend their ways thinking and see them as selves.
Hence, my stronger claim is that in order better to understand globalization and the Italian
contribution to it as an instance of modernity, we must go back to the words, lives and experiences
of concrete, ordinary people.

The Business Community

I have followed the development of the Italian business community with great curiosity,
passion and scientific interest. This interest was originally stimulated by a research that the
Association of the Italian Chambers of Commerce in the world commissioned, in 1990 with the
University of Rome in which I was engaged. The research used an explorative approach to
investigate the characteristics of an emerging global community.3 Global, in this context, meant
that the business community crossed over various identities, different national territories and
several economic spaces, all of which were relevant to its action. Emerging referred to the fact
that, as we would later verify, although the business community wasn’t conscious of behaving like
a community, it already had all the characteristics. Since then, I have constantly monitored this
subject.4
By “Italian global business community” I refer to the body of companies and entrepreneurs
who operate in different countries while maintaining constant connections with Italy. Piero
Bassetti has defined it as Italicity,5 meaning a wide group of people who identifies with the values
and lifestyles directly related to Italy: “a millenary culture, a lifestyle targeted to quality, a taste
for beauty in its uniqueness, the predilection for values of peace rather than war, and an innate
charm, because unlike other people, Italians don’t consider foreigners as enemies, but interact with
them in such a way that facilitates communication.”6
In the context of this paper, I will deal only with the Italian-American business community,
i.e. the group of entrepreneurs that live and work in the USA and Canada. This is not a
homogeneous group, and is made up of different types of companies and entrepreneurs. In a few
words, we can identify four basic types:

1. The “ethnic” entrepreneur, who is born in, and closely linked to the Italian-American
community.
2. The “modernizing” entrepreneur, who in spite of being born within (and belonging to) the
community, follows an economic and a social model which we could define as globalizing.
3. The Italian citizen who moved abroad.
4. The American citizen who does business with Italy.

Each type is characterized by particular traits, and the first two types include some interesting
sub-types. The entrepreneurship of the Italian Diaspora has risen to such levels of social
integration that it can no longer be considered “ethnic” in an old-fashioned sense. In the context
of this paper, ethnic acquires the new meaning of rooted, as opposed to disembodied or
“independent” of any particular place or region.7 Here I will use the most general meaning of the
expression “Italian-American business community”. All the excerpts are taken from interviews
with Italian-American entrepreneurs.8
Main Characteristics

The expression “business community” is in fact a paradox, as it juxtaposes a “cold” element

(business) and a “warm” one (community). Thus, economic exchange can be described as a
network of vertical lines (indicating rationality, i.e., attention to profits and meticulous calculation
of costs and advantages), and horizontal lines (indicating values, i.e., attention to all those mutual
relationships among individuals who share a strong sense of belonging to the same place or group).
Two examples of this intertwining of cold and warm lines follow:

1) T. M., majority shareholder of an important company for technical servicing of agricultural

and industrial machinery on the East Coast, says: “The beginning of my love-story with Fiat was
quite accidental. In Boston there weren’t many Fiats, and everybody used to call them “Fixit It
Again, Tony” because the machines used to break down quite often. My name is Tony.
Consequently, people at the workshop where I worked at the time, used to say ‘Well, now Tony is
here, he can fix the machines’. I took this joke quite seriously. I understood that there was a real
need, and I began to study in the evenings in order to understand how these Fiats were built and
which were the most common faults. So, after a while, I could fix Fiats for a third of the price.
This is how it all began.”9
2) M.P. is a businesswoman who was born in Italy and moved to America with her parents
when she was only a few months old. She and her sister are the owners of two metallurgical
establishments. When she had to buy new machinery for the production of iron rings, she compared
an Italian company with a German firm. Finally, she chose the Italian product, mainly because,
being already familiar with the culture and the language of our country, she found the contacts
much easier. “When we deal with Italians, it is easy to understand each other – she says – we speak
the same language, we come from the same country, we share a Latin origin.”

What we have here, then, are two examples of a network consisting of the cold dimension of
“business” and the warm dimension of “community”. In the first example, it seems as if it is the
community that enables the future entrepreneur to identify a market need, as well as his ability to
satisfy it. In the second example, the community becomes an informal network of contacts and a
privileged channel for reaching the market. These cold and warm lines intertwine. Warm lines do
not disappear in the globalizing world, but on the contrary are reinforced.
The business community is a societas, that is to say a free association of individuals deprived
not only of the State’s presence, but also of a specific territory. However, although it is without an
organized hierarchy and is rather dispersed, its identity can be considered neither uncertain nor
weak. The business community is not a “steady and factual reality”, but, rather, a project, and this
is what, as we shall see, determines its identity. By saying that the business community is
dispersed, I mean that it does not originate from a particular territory, although it obviously belongs
to many. The manipulation of various symbols such as money, professional specialization, the
label made in Italy and so on, therefore helps the construction of identity as a project. As a
consequence, it facilitates its re-introduction in those socio-economic spaces within which it can
recognize itself.

Values and Interests of the Business Community

 From a theoretical perspective, I find the distinction between values and interests unsatisfying;
it has lost its heuristic power. However, I will not go deeper into this, but will list some of the
fundamental values/interests which act as the fuel, and sometimes the glue, of the Italian global
business community.

Beauty and Good Taste

The taste for beautiful things guides the entrepreneur. He or she believes that customers buy
Italian products because they are more beautiful, made with greater care and better refined. The
Italian way of life, which distinguishes Italian people from the rest of the world, is actually
determined by good taste and by an harmonious approach to life. In some cases, the entrepreneur
buys an Italian machine (and not, for example, a German one), because it is more beautiful: “It
was better made, more beautiful, the seat was more comfortable and it wasn’t made of some
horrible plastic, but of fabric”.
This is how the owner of one of the largest Italian restaurants in Chicago, that developed into
a successful catering and entertaining business, understands his mission: “My lasagna is better
than other people’s lasagna, but also, “I have fun while I eat your lasagna”... This is not a small-
sized, fashionable restaurant, high class cuisine. I don’t think this is Italy. In Italy everything must
be happy and must have a touch of bonanza. And bonanza doesn’t make you feel bad.”10

The Family

For every entrepreneur the family really is a fundamental element. Very often, the family is,
or has been, the first economic resource of the entrepreneur. When the company was born, the
entrepreneur`s wife and his children started working in it, even if that implied making huge
sacrifices. More often than not, the children carry on their father’s business, thus making the
company less ethnic and more globalizing. Only the loyalty towards the family is as intense as the
attention to profit. As one interviewee clearly stated, “I went to work in my father’s restaurant
because I loved my father, I really loved him. I believe in love, it is really basic. There is nothing
cleaner than mother and son, father and son. There is no egotism, it’s there.”
Family relations that are above and beyond profit and economic interest can also explain the
extraordinary capabilities for strain and success of the Italian global entrepreneurs. They are not
alone but are emotionally supported; they can face risk and strain for, in any case, they can always
count on unconditional acceptance by their family. “Italian people can do whatever they want
because they can always go back to their families.”11

What is Deeply Symbolic, then, is also Deeply Commercial

“Italy sells well.” The Italian business community is founded specifically on the ability to
transform a rich symbolic heritage into a strategic economic resource simply by manipulating it
with great skill: the old recipe for homemade bread, the “Mamma Rosa” cake, Fiat, etc. can (and
have) become, with time, small economic empires.
And what is symbolically Italian? This is the implicit answer of one interviewee:

At home everything is Italian. . . . No, not the electronic appliances or things like that, those
are things that are very well done by Americans and Germans, no, I mean good taste things,
 things that give pleasure to life, like furniture, sofas, curtains. . . .Look at this curtain fabric,
you can’t find this in America. . . . The sofa, even the pans have a different style, Italian
design this is what they call it here. The more personal things are, the more they are
Italian.”12

The Strong Relationship between Interests and Community

The Italian community often “creates” both the entrepreneur and his/her skills; the latter are
never imported from outside, but are born within the network of primary and secondary
relationships the entrepreneur establishes with his/her context. The community is also, and quite
fundamentally, the market-reference of the business community which over a certain period of
time (namely from one generation to the other), becomes a global community.

At the beginning our clients were the people who were coming from Italy. These people
used to eat a lot of bread. They were used to eating bread with anything. It was normal to
go to a house and deliver 6 or 8 loaves of bread 2 pounds each. We delivered two to three
times a week. Families were larger and there were more people eating at home. It was easy,
we knew exactly how much bread we needed for the following day, so we made it and
delivered it. We began by delivering bread in the trunk of a Chevy 56, and then we grew.
We had four vans that visited all the neighbourhoods. We went to Roselan, there was an
Italian community there... We went to Blue Island, Highwood and Highland Park, they
were all Italian communities. We chose places where we thought there were people coming
from Italy, who were still all grouped together: Chicago, Noridge, Cicero and Berwyn...
So these were the places where we concentrated.13

The Weak Relationship with National Identity

Contrary to other Diasporas, the Italian one didn’t coincide with the scattering of an entire
nation, but rather with the dispersion of local communities. It was in fact the natives of Sicily,
Veneto, Piedmont, etc. who emigrated, not “the Italians”. This is demonstrated also by the fact that
the Italian business community is organized on the basis of local communities: the “Sons of
Sicily”, the “Calabrians of America”, the “Natives of Veneto in the World”. Let us listen to the
words of one interviewee:

Italy?... We tought about it very often, but it was something quite mysterious, for me it was
only Naples that was farther and farther from the boat, and at the end you could only see
the Vesuvio, so a strip of land, something lost but, how can I say it? not very concrete. Our
town was concrete, our godfather and our relatives were concrete, Italy not really.14

Furthermore, as one of our interviewees stated very clearly, “he who does serious business
does not belong to any particular country.” Or – as another interviewee put it – “no place is too far
if there is business, no place is too close is there is none.” Consequently, the already weak sense
of Italian national identity is made even weaker by the loyalty to profit.

Real or Hoped-for Italy

 The economic sector of the Italian Diaspora can refuse to recognize itself as part of a “nation,”
but it would never avoid acknowledging a common origin, as it would never refrain itself from
considering Italy as its emotional, economic and symbolic referent. Emotionally speaking, i.e.,
when talking about their lived experiences and their memories, entrepreneurs replicate the same
mixture of contradictory attitudes which characterize many emigrants. They hover between
idealization and devaluation, nostalgia and refusal, memory and repression, love and resentment.
Italy is “the most beautiful country in the world”, “I am proud of its great past, great heritage”,
“I was not born in Italy but I have memories as if I was really born there”. Or, in the touching
words of an entrepreneur who owns a medium-sized winery firm in Napa Valley: “We went away
from Sulmona because we wanted to. . . . We didn’t run away from it, it is just that, there, the land
is like a milkless breast. Here in America, the land is generous and free. . . . I didn’t want to speak
Italian with my children. Only sometimes, at night, I like to play Verdi, the opera, and nobody,
really nobody can disturb me. Sometimes I spend so much time that my son comes and says “Dad,
what are you doing? That language really has a special sound for you.” And then, I really don’t
understand, tears come to my eyes.”15
Whatever the case, Italy always plays the part of an economically stable referent, a partner
who is searched for and desired. “They used to tell me I had to expand, to launch out on a larger
market . . . because I had the ability. . . . I thought about it and considered the possibility on paper.
. . . Then I said ‘No. I sell Italian products to people who still have Italy in their hearts. . . . I make
dresses and shirts the Italian way. . . . I import Italian cheese and Italian wines from the Southern
Italian regions…because there are many people from Calabria and Abruzzo. . . . Of course, I can
sell my products to other people as well, to Americans. Last Christmas, I delivered almost 60
thousand packs of mixed Italian products, and at least half of those were delivered to the American
and Irish neighborhoods. . . . But I live and sell in the local Italian community. . . . I am happy with
this…with four good, modern companies. . . .”16

Individualism

Entrepreneurs are individuals in the strongest sense of this concept. As such they are
characterized by their ability to decide, their tendency to risk, the possibility they have of making
different choices, a great enthusiasm for new projects, together with selfishness and discipline.
“For me, the single, most extraordinary feature in business . . . really is the ability of fast decision-
making. If you interview 20 managers and ask each of them “Are you able to take a tough
decision”, they will all say “Yes, of course”, then you look at their faces and know that their
interpretation of this ability is very limited. For instance, I worked for a man who used to say “Give
me all the facts, and I will make a decision”. Well, why the hell would you need him, if you have
all the facts? Decision comes by itself. . . . When I try to understand why I am not afraid of taking
tough decision, and why I take them, and why they are fast, well, I do believe that every time an
employee comes into my office with one problem, I owe him an answer. If I let him go without an
answer, well it means he doesn’t need me.”17
Every entrepreneur underlines the Italians’ tendency to anarchy, their constant inclination to
assume the role of free riders, free from any obligation and community encumbrance. The rule is
“among Italians, every man for himself, and God for us all”.

A Core of Localism within a Global Vision

 To remain, quite concretely, within the boundaries of a local environment, is the
entrepreneur`s “cognitive cunning”. He/she thus achieves an efficient economic action. This
cleverness plays two fundamental roles. On the one hand, it maintains the tension between the two
discontinuous levels of “globalization” and “localism” (to which correspond the related paradigms
of “modernization” and “tradition”). On the other, the concretely lived experiences of the local
environment, its warm emotional dimension and face-to-face relationships, and the (at times
denied) involvement of the economic actor with the community – prevent the entrepreneur from
falling prey to the same inflexible model of procedural rationality, which sometimes seems to
distinguish globalization.
Such abstract rationality is, in fact, only apparent. By remaining within a local environment,
the entrepreneur is able to maintain his/her flexibility, and he/she is able to make decisions in very
difficult situations, relaying not only on rationality but also on intuition. As one of the people we
interviewed beautifully put it, “Whenever there’s a difficult decision to be made in the company,
I never make it rationally, with a business plan at hand and a consultant sitting next to me, but I
guess. I guess because my roots are strong”.
Localism, embeddedness into an ethnic community can enhance “economic rationality”. Here,
again, is a paradox of italicity. As one entrepreneur living in Toronto beautifully put it:

My company has offices in nine countries, and contacts in more than 20. . . . My employees
from the different offices in the States come to see me, I look at their faces, they try to hide
their surprise but I can see it. . . . It’s my office, it’s so small, you see, the furniture is old,
. . . the couch you sit on is uncomfortable, some springs are broken. . . . And also, this
building is not at the right address, like . . . the business district . . . near the Fair, it is still
in the Italian neighbourhood. . . . I laugh when I see their surprise. I don’t say anything, but
I can say it to you. This is the office I stay in ever since I began, and my father was next
door. . . . This is where we began. . . . Caffè Italia at the corner is just the same. . . . Many
things have disappeared, the neighbourhood is changing, and even Englishmen come to
live here . . . . But I find the smells, I don’t know, some things that are in the air or in front
of my eyes and, how can I say it?, they make me rest. . . . This is a hideaway, and I will go
on staying here. . . . You see, tomorrow I will be in Chicago and the day after tomorrow in
Los Angeles, but just thinking that my office is here and that I will come back to it, is
something that helps me. . . . On Saturdays and Sundays I don’t want to go away. . . . I take
a walk in the streets and I feel good.18

Or, in the funny words of another entrepreneur: “Ethnic community is like parmesan cheese
on tagliatelle. . . . You can always not have it. . . . Now my clients live in a great number of North
American cities, . . . but if you don’t have it is worse, it doesn’t taste as good.”19

The Denial of the Community

Because of the absence of public and civic participation and loyalty, entrepreneurs tend to
deny the existence of a manifest Italian business community (understood as their privileged and
primary circuit of action). The internal contacts which develop horizontally within the Italian-
American community are in fact presented in a fairly reductive way. And yet, the same business
people who deny the community, admit that among “Italian people” one feels very rapidly at ease.
There are no misunderstandings, but a sort of agreement determined by the same way of
approaching problems, the same ability to adapt to different situations, the same flexibility, the
same taste for the risks and the pleasures entailed by every human relationship.

A community among us entrepreneurs, is that what you mean? Well maybe cooperation,
maybe for a project which is too large for only one of us. . . . But this never happens, we
are all so individualitic here in Philadelphia. . . . Maybe solidarity, if somebody has a
problem and other people in the same field think that they too could be bound for the same
risk, then we have solidarity . . . here, among us who know each other from childhood. . . .
With other people is much more difficult.20

No, among Italians, everybody for himself and God for all, and God must have a lot of
work . . . Irish, Germans, Koreans, they really are united, they move as a block, we are not
able to do that: work, our family, and that’s all.21

The Refusal of Efficiency and Standardization

Italian entrepreneurs define themselves as outgoing, capable of understanding intuitively

some fundamental aspects of their customers, co-workers, possible partners etc. This “Italian
spirit” is identified by many entrepreneurs as a fundamental aspect of a supposed “national
character;” quite often it is really a project, and not a natural given. For example, when the
entrepreneur still occupies a marginal position in the local society, he/she learns to use this Italian
spirit to cope with risky and complex situations in which rationality and dominance are not at hand.

We are the greatest of all; we should not say this aloud . . . but we are the greatest. . . .
Nobody can beat an Italian entrepreneur. We are creative, practical, astute; we are fast in
letting go, but we are also very determined and other people don’t expect this. I think we
are fastest, we immediately see things as they are. . . . They talk, calculate; we use intuition.
Besides, we know people, we can “feel” them at first glance and we are seldom wrong.22

Identity

The construction of identity relates to the constitutive symbols and the unifying and collective
representations of a social system. This corresponds not necessarily to the material conditions of
life of a social system, but to its own representation of itself as a cohesive whole. On a personal
level, the making of identity is a question about ourselves. It is, simply, what I think of myself as
a self.
Under what conditions is the making of identity a successful project? Or, better, under what
conditions does it give rise to strong, independent, rooted, organized and self-centered individuals
who are able to navigate in our globalizing world and make the most of it for themselves? When
is it that individuals do not feel menaced by globalization but, on the contrary, have the ability to
face risk and overcome it? What is the specific contribution of Italian culture to this?
Summarizing what we have seen so far, then, we can say that for the Italian global business
community, identity is constituted by:

a. A group of ethnic (as opposed to Nation-State) characteristics: the Italian and Italian-
American stereotype, the Italian spirit.
 b. A group of cultural and social characteristics according to which the larger community is
organized.
c. A group of interests, stronger and, in my view, much more binding than values, which often
are prescriptive and work as a unifying force within the community.
d. A double national reference: it can be strong or weak, real or presumed, factual or simply
planned. Occasionally, it leads to a feeling of permanent division (“I am not a resident, I
am only passing by, I have been passing by for 40 years now”), but more often than not it is
experienced as a further resource on which the individual can rely according to the necessity and
the convenience of the moment (“I am proud of my Italian heritage”).

The sense of identity is reached thanks to a fairly unstable balance between total dispersion
and an extremely strong sense of “Us”. A global community is capable of maintaining the sense
of belonging to an original group thanks to a paradox: a “double belonging” and the spatial distance
which characterizes it. As we have seen above, the Italian business community is characterized by
a multiple register which can become contradictory and, occasionally, openly conflictual, but never
in an aggressive or violent way. The register can therefore range from the sense of belonging to
the community to its denial, from the emphasis posited onto the individual to the acknowledgment
of a strategic “Us”, from the exaltation of the family to the acceptance of the individual’s total
responsibility, from love for Italy to resentment.
As a conclusion, I would like to summarize the main traits that, in my view, make this possible,
i.e., help the construction of a vital, symbolic, locally rooted community within the process of
globalisation. We have seen traits in the words of our interviewees, and how they speak about
themselves. These traits are:
1. Strong ethnic or regional, as opposed to Nation-State, roots.
2. Double national loyalty at the level of social and cultural, not political, life.
3. Denial of community, which is matched by an active reinforcement of community.
4. Definition of oneself as a self-centered individual. Member of, not a group, but at most a
family.
5. Unresolved tension between global/local, cold/warm, modern/traditional perspectives in
almost every aspect of life.
6. Perception of this tension, not as a permanent source of conflict, but as a rich, symbolic
source of economic opportunity.
7. Ability to reduce reality’s complexity through the exercise of risk.
8. Ability to transform a rich symbolic heritage into a strategic economic resource.
9. Tendency to perceive reality through the singular, the unique, as opposed to abstracts
concepts.

This is the paradigmatic value that the business community has for the study of Italian culture
and values in a globalized world. The business community is, so to speak, a fiction which allows
a strong sense of “Us” in a world which tends to the individualization of the ways of life. But there
is a lot of truth and passion in this fiction! There is a lot of energy which is used to deny it and,
simultaneously, to keep it alive!
The entrepreneur belonging to the Italian-American business community constructs his/her
identity as a project. He/she constantly moves between different levels (local/global), opposed
loyalties (community/profit), and split nationalities (USA/Italy). The sense of the community is
intermittent, as it goes on and off according to necessity and the (always economic, occasionally
social) convenience dictated by the circumstances. Global identity is a dynamic process, a
permanent tension which is never solved. It is an incessant and exhausting work, and it corresponds
to the risky assertion of freedom.
It would be very interesting to compare this Italian-American business community model with
other economic global models, based on ethnic or Nation-State identity. Are they also based on
paradoxes, double loyalties, global-local dynamics? Or, rather, are they organized by rationality
and domination, prestige and power?
But this, of course, would be the aim of a different paper.

Notes

1. Ulrick Beck, I rischi della libertà. L’individuo nell’epoca della globalizzazione (Bologna,
Il Mulino, 1997).
2. Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1989), p.
184.
3. Consuelo Corradi and Enrico Pozzi, Il mondo in italiano. Gli italiani nel mondo tra
diaspora, business community e nazione, I quaderni di Impresa e Stato (Milano, 1995).
It is thought that there are 50-60 million Italics in the world. Even though we do not have
satisfactory estimates regarding Italic entrepreneurship, it is worth remembering that our research
considered, on the ground of all five continents, over 5,000 companies and 180 businesspeople,
who were interviewed in North and South America. In 1995, the companies members of the Italian
Chambers of Commerce in the world were 25,000. Today, they are more or less 30,000, with a
critical mass of almost 200,000 contacts.
4. Consuelo Corradi, “La business community italiana: dati e caratteristiche”, Affari sociali
internazionali, 2, 1997; and “La rete delle business communities italiane nel mondo: una risorsa
strategica per il Paese”, Politica internazionale, December 2001.
5. Piero Bassetti, Globals and locals! Fears and Hopes of the Second Modernity (Lugano:
Giampiero Casagrande Publisher, 2002), pp. 64-77.
6. Ibidem, p. 66.
7. Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity (Stanford, Stanford University Press,
1990), p. 19.
8. Cf. C. Corradi and E. Pozzi, Il mondo in italiano.
9. Cf. Corradi and Pozzi, Il mondo in italiano, p. 93.
10. Ibidem, p. 140.
11. Ibidem, p. 111.
12. Ibidem, p. 182.
13. Ibidem, p. 118.
14. Ibidem, p. 136.
15. Ibidem, p. 137.
16. Ibidem, p. 167.
17. Ibidem, p. 98.
18. Ibidem, p. 160-161.
19. Ibidem, p. 168.
20. Ibidem, p. 132,
21. Ibidem, p. 170.
22. Ibidem, p. 104.
 Chapter VIII
Italian Americans in a Pluralistic America
John Kromkowski

The American urban crisis and violence experienced during the 1960s established a context
from which the problematic of Italian and Italian-American cultures can be broached, and certain
elementary findings presented and catalogued. Consideration of elementary findings are essential
to a topic such as this because social realities are complexes of interactive phenomenon comprised
of ideas, institutions and populations. Moreover, such complexes have a particular historicality as
well as an ontological dimension; they are processes of participation in the mystery of human
existence. This process of self and group articulation for the persons and groups of persons engaged
in such complexes include the lived experience of meaning and/or the search for meaning as well
as the explications of such complexes. The latter, at times, become the very ideas that in fact create,
recreate and develop forms of consciousness and new institutional supports for the organization of
social realities informed by such insights and explications.
Even the most rudimentary explication of Italicity within the American reality must include
the powerful articulation of personal and group meanings and the new sense of cultural pluralism
that erupted in this era. These eruptions within public action and consciousness persisted through
the formation of institutions and practices related to these new symbolizations of order,
collectively shared meaning and the emergent cultures rooted in a type of ‘peoplehood’ that may
by a uniquely American socio-cultural phenomenon. This type of ‘peoplehood’ can be
characterized by its situation in a large immigrant receiving country, by the variety of cultural
traditions from which these immigrants arose, by the existence of conquered populations in
addition to immigrants and by the large scale federal republican form of governance infused, in
part, with an abstract form of universalism and legalism.
Historically in practice the regime’s original restrictions on participation were quite limited.
The regime was structured to assure outcomes that would be balanced by the division of powers.
This was aided by its design as a mixed regime with sufficient powers and types of representative
that in effect fostered the ongoing influences of liberalization caused by market forces and political
democratization. The most ominous regime crisis, the civil war/war among the states, near the
mid-point of the 19th century was a pivotal macro factor for the development of the regime1 and
for the historical grounding of the role of immigration, and a fortiori for the concept
of Italicity within the American reality.
The post-civil war era of urbanization and industrialization and the cultivation of immigration
as human capitalization strategy, primarily in the Northeast, Midwest and Far west, initiated a set
of nationalizing dynamics as well as cultural contradictions. These related to the capacity and
rapidity of these social forces to the imaginary expectation and transformative tasks of
incorporating immigrants into the American reality.
This brief and elementary sketch of the precursory factors within the American experience is
parallel to the development of the European Union and its agendas and expectations regarding the
relationship between: spheres of governmental and social being, the cultural and meaning-bearing
aspects of social realities and the diverse traditions of various forms of ‘peoplehoods.’ These are
found both within and at the margins of the Europeanizational dynamics of markets, as well as in
the rational action of consensual governance, the expectations of such a process, and the tasks
required to achieve these goals.
 Understanding and applying the concept Italicity to the American context can begin by
reviewing the contemporary process of reconceptualizing and redefining American history found
in the following elementary periodization related to Italicity.
It is a truism that America is a land of immigrants. Some of these immigrant groups achieved
great success quickly while others endured major difficulties at first, but have come to find the
American dream of equality and prosperity. Still others have yet to achieve their dream in America.
One of the largest and most successful immigrant groups has been Italian Americans. They
were here in small numbers during the periods of discovery and early nationalism. They began a
great migration at the turn of this century. They experienced discrimination, but have achieved
substantial success.
An examination of the history of Italian Americans will give us not only in depth
understanding of the history of this single group, but also will help students to understand the role
of ethnicity and heritage in American life. The following periodical outline and extensive
bibliography provide a short and yet detailed pathway by which the exploration of the relationship,
of ethnic and racial groups to each other and to the American goal of civic nationalism. This should
be added to the body of insight and documentation expressing the Italo-American facet of Italian
culture and Italicity as a world-wide phenomena. An even more extensive list of observations
could be compiled if locally focused studies of neighborhood cultures were added to the
bibliography. Comprehensive small scale studies and fine-grained analysis are particularly
relevant to cultural studies. Such examinations of local realities for their experiences and for how
they have been portrayed in American popular culture reveal the tension between the lived cultures
and cultural artifices. These have been increasingly articulated in a variety of forums and modes
of communications that transmitted into the global. That is, the glocalization of ethnically and
nationally rooted cultures as occurred which has occurred has provided new modalities of
existence and new forces of human expression.
In this context an examination of American ethnicity is perhaps more important now than at
any time. European integration and the expansion of market forces and communication capacities,
as well as the search for deep insight into the bounding substances of human community and the
ethical and social values embedded in cultures, suggest that such research may be related not only
to tracing the ongoing presence of things Italian, but also to the wider matter of recovering the
truths of human existence. This can articulate new findings associated with the stunning pluralism
of cultures, the endemic problematic of respecting and understanding diversity, discovering fuller
dimensions of the mystery of human imagination, and its social applications to the task of peaceful
resolution of conflict and development of humankind in our time. In this respect, while America
cultural and ethnic diversity have the power to help unite America, but they can also be divisive.
The American experience suggest that each of us, from whatever heritage, needs to understand our
own history and culture in order better to accept and celebrate the multiple heritages of America.
Understanding Italicity requires the inclusion of the Italo-American experience into the canon of
materials and methodologies used to explicate the essential contours of ItaIicity from the
particulars and contingencies that concretely reveal themselves in broadest outline in the following
schematic of American ethnic history. This constitutes the context within which the Italo-American
reality emerged as a facet of the wider phenomena of Italian culture and related to the larger
problematic of explicating Italicity as a social form.

1. America: The Colonial Period

1.1 Some perspective on ethnicity
 1.2 The earliest Americans — an ethnic survey
1.3 Italians in early America

2. From the Revolution to the Civil War

2.1 American reaction to the new immigrants
2.2 The ethnic diaspora

3. The Growth of America, 1865-1920: The Great Migrations

3.1 Italian American diaspora
3.2 The role of immigrant groups in America
3.3 American reaction in law and violence

4. America between the World Wars

4.1 Who owns America?
4.2 Immigrants in urban America
4.3 The beginnings of the Italian American success story

5. Italians become Americans, 1945-Present

5.1 Italian Americans in World War H
5.2 Sinatra and DiMaggio; From Vito Corleone to Tony Soprano
5.3 Ethnicity, Popular Culture, and Public Perceptions

6. The Dawn or Twilight of Ethnicity?

6.1 Socio-demographic data on the American ethnic community
6.2 The newest immigrants
6.3 American nationalism or balkanization?
6.4 The process of assimilation... does it still work?

7. Ethnicity, Race and Civic Nationalism

7.1 Defining America in the 21St Century

The foregoing periodization of the Italo-American experience is but the first of elemental
aspects from which its specific contribution can be discerned. The American interpretative
tradition and the self-interpretative contributions from within the Italo-American community must
be added so as to augment the latent narrative illustrated in the seven-step periodization found
above. The bibliography attached to this paper constitutes the second level of cultural artifacts that
represent the Italo-American component of Italicity.
In addition to this periodization and the appended bibliography of materials which rearticulate
and reexplicate the ‘peoplehood’ to whom the concept of Italicity may be appropriate, the
following sources are included:

Appendix 1. US Census Data in aggregate for Ethnic Populations

Appendix 2. A Profile of the social/economic anatomy of Italian Americans
Appendix 3. A Index of Ethnic Concentration by Congressional Districts
Appendix 4. Two Public and Issues Opinion Profiles of Italian Americans
 The discussion of the validity and truth-value of these elementary characteristics are aspects
of the American reality related to the search for Italicity in America. The following types of
elementary materials form an essential and existential grounding for furthering a globalizing sense
of the variety of meanings of reality envisaged in the concept of Italicity or (as may be more
technically correct) the new ‘cultural articulation’ or ‘symbolization of meaning’ called Italicity.
Whether Italicity will become the next articulation of meaning and sufficiently credible within the
American reality depends on how well it can be folded into the following account and other
accounts of race and ethnic relations in America.
The American search for meanings of ethnicity and race occurred in the frayed and shredded
fabric of order in American cities, especially in the urban, ethnic and immigrant neighborhoods at
the intersection of social, educational, economic and ideological change. The implications and
consciousness of ethnicity and race in America extends well beyond the immediate situation of
conflict and violence. The tragedy of the era that began over four decades ago is intensified when
one recalls its origins in the moral impulses, the universal human claims to justice, and the banner
of social justice through integration.
The Civil Rights Movement was sustained by an outpouring of religious passion for universal
rights that should not be denied by invidious discrimination. The action of the Supreme Court to
end school segregation in 1954, the Civil Rights Acts of 1964, the Immigration Reform Acts of
1965 embodied the open society of the liberal imagination and the American aspiration of the post
World War II era which espoused the freedom of all people and the end of discriminatory practices
in domestic policy and the end of colonialism throughout the world. This vision of a free
international order was shaken early on by the formation of new imperial conquests and
dominations. The dream of an integrated society at home erupted with the revival of local group
conflict. This became especially searing to the entire nation through the televised images of police
action and civil disobedience, and the violent world of urban conflict, including widespread
destruction, arson, and the emergence of ideologies of racial and ethnic hatred. To be sure the
manipulation of ethnic and racial division was fostered at the highest levels of national leadership:
the politicization in campaign appeals preyed on the fears of people. It revived the latent nativism
of the American Know-Nothings that resurrected the KKK and rekindled xenophobic. Anti-
Catholic and Anti-Union impulses of the past yielded a welter of additional strains to the shouts
of cultural and generational change.
The upshot of such public policy and political rhetoric coupled to the division concerning
Vietnam and deindustrialization tended to polarize ethnic and racial relations. Moreover, the
institutionalization of racial and ethnic categories by the Office of Management and Budget in
Directive 15, 1972 rigidified relationships among designated minority groups and the so-called
white majority. The meaning and efficacy of “affirmative action” produced new tensions between
Jewish-Americans and Blacks, Women and Blacks, and the “Silent Majority” and “Special
Interest”. The divisiveness of such contentions devolved and fragmented the founding vision of
social justice and good relationships among the diverse populations that constituted America.
This impasse in group relations and the trauma of violence remembered and the bitterness of
suffering endured echoed in the fractured inter-racial, multi-ethnic coalitions that attempted to pick
up the broken pieces of the dream of equality and integration. The consequences of twenty-five
years of expanded immigration merged into these seething cauldrons of race and ethnicity that
existed throughout America in many and varied forms of group conflict and competition.
This is not to say that all issues are racial and ethnic, but to suggest that in most contexts an
ethnic factor hovers and shrouds the development and resolution of controversies. In some contexts
these relationships periodically erupted into violence. This situation has continued into the 1980s
and 1990s. The accounts of daily papers, news and opinion magazines bear witness to the ongoing
quandary, much more complex and nuanced than the problematic posed to the nation by Gunnar
Myrdal in the challenging analysis The American Dilemma. In retrospect it seems that Moynihan
and Glazer's Beyond the Melting Pot (1963) was closer to the heart of the matter. Thus while the
intellectual formulation of the centrality and ongoing character of ethnicity and race related issues
was unsettled, the praxis of American society, economy, culture and polity lurched into the
unknown terrain of change. The expansion and transformation of the urban landscape altered the
systems of cultural transmission that mediated the personal, community and public worlds that
America had experienced. Add to this ferment the bold strokes of various judicial and
administrative devices of the national government that sought to end dejure and defacto racism at
every level of public life.
By 1980 the nation scene has utterly discredited in the popular political imagination as a
source of leadership for better ethnic and race relations. The Reagan Revolution simply announced
that a color-blind society was the American ideal. His budget coup of 1982 diminished national
resources devoted to national initiatives related to ethnic studies, school desegregation, and various
discretionary vehicles which funded bridge building efforts to depolarize and develop community-
based cooperation among groups at the ragged edges of race and ethnic relations.
All of these elements have entered our current legacy and portions of this violent and tension-
filled era continue to shape the shared mentalities that determine our understandings of race and
ethnic relations. Given the record of regimes and polities throughout the world and the unspeakable
brutality of ethnic war and the invocation of ethnic passion that terrorizes populations in Europe,
the Middle-East, Africa and throughout the globe, the American record has not contributed
singularly nor significantly to the carnage of the twentieth century. Nonetheless, America is a
country that promised hope and dignity. Its criteria of excellence imposed by its proclamation of
liberty and justice for all are standards which deepen the gap between vision and reality and strain
our best resolves to assure cultural justice and wholesome relations among ethnic and racial
groups. Thus the American experiment in pluralism and democracy can be instructively explored
in the American experience indicated in the following theses:

- Ethnic and race relations over the past three decades have become spatially disengaged as
settlement patterns driven by the segmentation of the housing market have tended to cluster and
divide as well as isolate and segregate persons by education and income;
- The persistence of media messages that divide and designate such as Black-White, Hispanic-
Anglo, Immigrant-American is stereotypic and not sufficient to the nuances of exiting group
relations;
- The media highlighting of divisive and exclusionary mono-cultural educational and cultural
agendas tends to caricature ethnic and race relations, thus exacerbating disagreements and
divisions; and
- Mean-spirited interpretations of multiculturalism, and the attendant mood of cultural warfare
and perceived threat to the core values of the American tradition, are vastly over dramatized.

The forgoing combination of factors leaves a vast public deficit and gap in understanding the
importance of education that is inclusive and pluralistic. Nor do these dimensions address the need
for education that is supportive of democracy, economic well-being and the peaceful civilizing
function of appreciation for the diverse wonders of cultural endowments. Moreover, the patent
reality of the American situation proclaims that since its founding America has been necessarily
associated with a variety of commingling heritages. These relationships have included domination
and denial. They have provoked strategies of isolation and integration, as well as superficial
expectations that such alternative categories as: class and interest; individual merit and expertise;
and citizenship and nationalism would be sufficient. Some thought these would be satisfying
replacements for the symbolic, yet all too human, affinities of community and the persistence of
ethnic-racial factors that have been institutionalized and constitutive of the America order and
regime. The search for alternative approaches to inclusiveness in group relations may be found in
the following findings:

Beginning in the decades of most profound turmoil and tension the National Center for
Urban Ethnic Affairs (NCUEA) worked with local ethnic community leaders to design and
apply remedies for the personal, community and institutional trauma at the edges urban
and ethnic diversity. The purpose of this work was to find evidence and arguments for the
pivotal insight and action derived from the pioneering attempts of local communities to
fashion a catholic policy of inclusivity regarding ethnicity and race relations. This method
and goal are as relevant today as in the 1970s. In fact they are more relevant because na-
tional complacency and fanciful disengaged theoritization of literary ethnicity and the
works of ethnic/racial imaginations that proliferated dream-world expectation during the
1980s contributed to the bankruptcy of practical and proven approaches to resolving group
relations at the local level. Moreover, the lack of national leadership in this period is
responsible also for the paucity of vetted and community authenticated model curricula
and materials that were beginning to be developed in the late 1970s by the DOE Ethnic
Studies Program, Title IX, Elementary and Secondary Education Act and the Public and
Community Programs of the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities.

The following selections yield glimpses into the creative elan that NCUEA and its founder
Msgr. Geno Baroni brought into being from their encounters with local level efforts to shape and
share the burdens and benefits of pluralism. The communities that were the focus of this work
were in the older industrial cities of the Midwest and east. Exploring the findings that emerged and
are associated with this work will suggest other facets of moral imagination especially the embed-
ded in community practices that promote the development of personal character and public
institutions that enhance the shared sense of civility essential for urban accord. This personal,
community and institutional approaches are grounded in a body of thought and action articulated
in social justice teaching of Pope Paul VI’s letter, A Call To Action, of May 14, 1971, issued on
the eightieth anniversary of the encyclical, Rerum Novarum. These social justice teachings are
based in a pre-enlightenment tradition that is significantly different from the insularity of the
Anglo-American intellectual foundations that drove the climate of opinion and determined the
legal and political discourse within which race and ethnicity were discussed and decided upon in
America. Curiously post modern in tone, The Call to Action, posits the interrelations of person and
community as both essentially and phenomonologically the warrant of the moral and institutional
reforms prescribed. Paul VI wrote:

There is an urgent need to remake, at the level of the street, of the neighborhood or of the
great agglomerative dwellings, the social fabric whereby man may be able to develop the
 needs of his personality. Centers of special interest and of culture must be created or de-
veloped at the community and parish centers, and spiritual and community gatherings were
the individual can escape from isolation and form a new fraternal relationship.

Within this form of moral and institutional discourse the NCUEA aspired to build up the city
as the place where persons and their expanded communities would create new modes of neighbor-
liness and relationships of social justice based on a much fuller register of ethnic variety than the
American convention and practice legitimated. In this regarded Msgr. Geno Baroni and his
associates set-out to reform the language of racial and ethnic relations. Their insistence on ethnicity
as a category in itself was an important addition in as much as it invited America to differentiate
beyond such dichotomous terms as Negro and White, as well as regional terms such as Anglo and
Chicano. Thus the development of a new model of multi-ethnic discourse and community practice
emerged at the margin for public recognition.
NCUEA convened a Workshop on Urban Ethnic Community Development under the auspices
of the United States Catholic Conference and The Catholic University of America. At this
conference, community spokes persons, ethnic leaders and other interested persons struggled to
answer the principle question “Is there an ethnic dimension to America’s urban malaise?” A
transcript of the arguments indicates two conflicting viewpoints. On one side stood those who
rejected the use of the term “white ethnic” and the things that it connoted. They said:

The concept of white ethnic is a fiction of the media, most Polish and Italo-Americans do
not call themselves white ethnics. They eat kielbasa and spaghetti and speak a few Polish
or Italian words, but they are Americans. They have been melted into the great American
melting pot. Group discrimination is no longer a serious problem for them. Most are
working people and their woes are related to economics and other problems with which
every other working man in the United States must cope. To talk about white ethnics and
their needs is to promote artificial social distinctions and intergroup discord that will foster
polarization.

Others expressed an opposing view, contending that:

The melting pot is a fiction. Ethnic group loyalties are a fact of life. It is a mistake to
suppress ethnic communal ties and values, as the “assimilationalists” have attempted, for
both are necessary to the mental health of the individual and to the stability of the com-
munity of which they are a part. It is true that most of us are still working people, but
whatever our occupation or income we hold our heritage in high regard. We are fearful that
our children, stripped of a strong group identity, will become defenseless and be unable to
cope with the pressures which are a prominent part of today’s society. The demagogue
exploits the rootless man whose fears compel us to think and act in a manner which is
inconsistent with our needs and those of others. It is not necessary to affirm that we are
Americans; we know that and we are proud of it. But don’t forget that many are reminded
of their “ethnicity” when they hear Polish jokes or illusions that any office seeker of Italian
descent must be involved in criminal activities. Because stereotypes of this kind have been
perpetuated over generations and still thrive, many of our people carry invisible wounds.
To recognize our uniqueness is not to promote inter-group hostilities. On the contrary, as
long as man is without commonalties of some kind and values which guide him through
 difficult periods of his life he will be unable to relate to, and work with, others on the basis
of respect and good will.

As the opposing sides clashed, most the protagonists began to listen to one another and, in
turn, revised some of their earlier preconceptions. Thus, a young organizer with a “working class
agenda,” after talking to Polish and Italo-American spokespersons, began to appreciate that the
single most important common bond in many urban communities is ethnic group self-identity.
Members of ethnic organizations, on the other hand, were reminded that the issues which were
urgent to most of their people were related not to their threatened heritage but to “nitty-gritty”
economic concerns, like wages, inflation, unemployment and taxes. Baroni provided the synthesis
in which he argued that after decades of the “racial polarization” and valiant, but often quixotic,
urban social legislation directed towards the most disadvantaged blacks and poor white, it was past
time to realize that no social program or urban recipe can succeed without the American working
class. Yet that ethnic variety of the working and middle class was an untapped source of creative
energy from which a new model of cultural democracy should be sought. His approach to this
problematic was to make persons experience the ground from which a fresh exploration of
American identity could begin. The following stories are illustrative of the new approach to
understanding the impasse in racial ethnic relations. They suggest the new model of personal
community and institutional reformulation required to overcome the limits of the still current
dichotomous understandings of American pluralism.

Kevin. My father spoke Italian; he did not speak English very well and had an accent. They
told me I should forget about my father’s language and culture if I wanted to get a job when I grew
up. If I forgot about his culture, I could be president or anything I wanted to be. I went to public
school all my life until the third year of college. They had some missionary nuns who were Irish
come in and try to teach us religion. I was already ahead of them because if you go to a public
school it is really a Protestant school and you learn all the Protestant hymns. I was reading from
the King James’ Bible and reciting the Lord’s Prayer the Protestant way. These Irish nuns wanted
to change my name to Kevin. From Geno to Kevin. I told my father. And my father said, “No
Kevin. He don’t look like no Kevin.” “My mother still tells me that if God had wanted me to be a
politician, he would have made me Irish Catholic.”
Rocky. I got a nephew who lives in Philadelphia. His name is Rodney Ruggerio. He doesn’t
know who he is. He lives six blocks from Puerto Ricans and he’s afraid of them. He lives five
blocks from blacks and he doesn’t understand them. He lives three blocks from the university
where there are lifestyle people. They wear sandals. They have long hair. My sister says they look
like Jesus. But Rodney says he’s afraid of the lifestyle people at the university. And then in school,
guess what Rodney’s studying. He’s studying a $5 million course called “Man: A Course of Stud-
ies.” That’s great. That’s great. It’s the most advanced educational curriculum. So my nephew says
to me, “Hey, Uncle Geno. Guess what? I’m studying Eskimos. They’re great.” So he’s studying
Eskimos. He’s afraid of the blacks in his city. He’s afraid of the Puerto Ricans. He’s afraid of the
lifestyle professors and their children. But the great tragedy is that he doesn’t know who he is. He
has no sense of his own identity. And that is very, very important. You can’t say on top of people
some history and background about someone else if they don’t know who they are.
White Boots. This is how I learned about living in a cultural democracy. When I was in the
third grade, the teacher asked us to stand up and say what we had done over the weekend. And I
said we had made wine. That’s what you did on the weekends in September and October when I
was growing up. And the teacher said, “That’s nice. Tell the class.” So I said, “We made wine with
our bare feet.” And she said, “Stop. We don’t do that in America.” I was so embarrassed. I started
to cry and created quite a stir. So I went home to my father and he said, “Well, we’re going to
make some more wine.” And I started to cry and tried to get away. “What’s the matter,” he said.
So I told him that the teacher said that we don’t make wine with our bare feet in America. So my
father said some things I cannot say here. And he went down to the company store to buy a little
pair of white boots, because if that’s the way they want it, that’s the way they were going to get it.
So we sent the teacher a bottle of wine for Christmas.
John. I went to Alaska where they wanted to put in some housing. Housing in Alaska is
horrendous, very expensive. A house, about two rooms, costs $120,000, and they didn’t have any
plumbing. They never had plumbing. They had to blast the ice to put in plumbing. They built 12
houses in a circle and in the middle of the circle they built the little community center. Very expen-
sive. A couple of hundred thousand dollars for 15 square feet. A year later I went back. Six of the
houses are missing. I wanted to know what happened to the houses. I go into the community center.
Guess what? They’re burning the houses for fire wood. They didn’t want to live in these houses.
They want to live all together in the community center. That’s what I mean when I say it’s
important for human development that we involve people in the decisions government makes for
them.
I was on an Indian reservation and I saw an empty hospital. I said, “How come that hospital
is empty?” They said, “Our tribe never had a hospital. We didn’t want the damned hospital.” But
somebody in Washington said they needed a hospital and the government built the hospital. And
the hospital is still there empty. That shows the government has to let people have their own dignity
and worth.
A teacher said to me, “I now have some new kids in the class and I don’t know how to teach
them.” And I said, “What do you mean, ‘new kids?’” And she said, “I’m not sure if you call them
black or Chicano or Mexican or Hispanic or Latino or what. It’s very uncomfortable with the ‘new
kids’ because I am inter-culturally incompetent.”
Now that’s a revealing and honest statement, and it could be made by people in professions
like teaching, and in industry, politics, public service and business. And she said to me, “Not only
am I uncomfortable as a person, but I’m uncomfortable as a professional.”
So I said to her, “What have you been teaching for 25 years?" And she said, "Dick and Jane.”
“But I don’t think it’s any good to use that book to try to teach white kids and black kids and
Hispanic kids about the American way of life.”
That tells us something about America. We deny class. We deny race. We deny diversity. And
that’s a tragedy.
These parables and reflections defuse the manipulative exacerbation of ethnic and race
relations and they became a well spring from which organizing community-based initiatives de-
signed to reinterpret the immigrant and ethnic experience. A national convening of community-
based activists called the Bicentennial Race Ethnic Coalition--BERC -- emerged.
In June 1974 the Berc Conference hammered out a set of conceptual formulations. The
following account of the BERC perspective suggests its urban ethnic concerns. For each of the
three thematic areas of Bicentennial planning: Heritage, Festival and Horizons, the BERC group
synthesized their concerns and conceptualized their critique: In the area of heritage and education,
the emphasis was on the ethnic experience in American education and the ethnic and racial
contributions to the building of America.
 History has been made unpopular by persons who would use it to teach a specific lesson.
Ethnic and racial Americans must understand their past before they can chart a useful future. This
means that they must avoid narrowness while at the same time emphasizing the richness that the
ethnic and racial groups have contributed to the American pluralistic experience. This experience
of “otherness,” which has been a hallmark of the American experiment, must not be feared or
shunned, but must be accepted in terms of its contributory role in America’s heritage.
In the area of Festival and the Arts, the focus was on the need to legitimize the cultural
diversity of American life by preserving and developing ethnic and community arts, music and
folk ways, and by providing a means of expression for the benefit of diverse communities. The
basic statement of this philosophy:

Far from being a cultural melting pot, we are a nation whose diverse and singular blend of
cultural expressions yields a different flavor with every tasting. It is a fact of our society
that the channels for cultural expression and appreciation of the diverse groups of which
we are comprised are not well developed. Our culture is our essence made visible. Whether
it is manifested in the mundane or the profound, it adds inspiration, satisfaction and plea-
sure to our lives. The extent to which our citizens are limited from a full experience of their
right to cultural expression is the extent to which we condemn ourselves to a bland and
homogenized national existence.

The Horizon dimension focused on the economic and social revitalization of neighborhoods.
Issues concerned neighborhood restoration and preservation, economic growth and stabilization,
and the permanent duty to serve basic human needs of all citizens. The statement focusing on
economic and social revitalization of neighborhoods said:

Because people’s behavior is affected primarily through the surroundings where most of
their experiences occur, we believe that economic and social revitalization of racial and
ethnic neighborhoods is one is the key means of bridging the existing gap between the two
nations which make up this country - that of the rich and that of the poor.

In each of these areas participants from the more than 21 different ethnic groups contributed
their own ideas about appropriate agendas for action recommended a fully representative advisory
body to assist in funding and legislative consultation and review, and to serve as an outreach
network for ethnic and racial groups throughout the country.
The BERC initiative quickened the development of a unique political perspective which
establishes a set of criteria from which an interesting and provocative view of the American
domestic policy emerges. At bottom, the thrust of BERC supports a new vision of urban and
cultural policy. This concept prompted studies and program recommendations which set out to
remedy the malaise in the civic culture of America during the mid 1970s.
The American regime is a design and dream of liberty and justice for all that might have been
pushed to a higher level in the electoral campaign and Inaugural of 1992. There was an invocation
of a more ancient memory than that with which most are acquainted. The inspirit of deepest
memory with its prescription to care for our endowment of rock, river and tree was intoned by the
Inaugural poet, Maya Angelou. Her account of the peopling of this country, the healing of divisions
and the fresh and gentle good morning closed this public liturgy.
 The timeliness of reconsidering the relationship of ethnicity and race was underscored by the
announcement in the Federal Register of the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) call for
public comments on Race and Ethnic Standards for Federal Statistics and Administrative
Reporting.2 Currently OMB is reviewing Directive 15 which decades ago institutionalized certain
national aspects of the modern civil rights movement that began in 1954. This extended to the civil
rights and immigration reform laws of the mid-1960s and was amended into the statutes and related
judicial action policy in OMB Directive 15 approved by President Carter in 1977.
But beginning from President Nixon there was an administrative action that can be viewed as
the governmental institutionalization of a cruelly shortsighted and narrow political wedge designed
to broaden the base of Republican support in the South and to marginalize protected populations
and programs. It would appeal to public administrations and employees, but with little or no effect
on the social relations or the development of race and ethnic relations in America. The mind-set
derived from this perspective led to the redistricting of Congressional districts in 1992. The Bush
Justice Department and Republican activists fostered the isolation of African American voters in
Congressional districts. This increased the number of African American Congresspersons, while
simultaneously increasing the influence some have argued of Republicans in newly created safe
districts and the subsequent marginalization of African American Congresspersons in the
Republican Congress. Thus the marginalization strategy of protection and isolation through the
politics of categories continues to play itself out in the fears and hopes of minority relations in
mainstream American institutions. Whatever the motive and intention as well as the current impact
of Directive 15, it established the current practices of defining minority status in America. The
current categories are: American Indian or Alaskan Native, Asians or Pacific Islander, Black,
Hispanic, and White.
The following statement regarding the future of federal policy regarding ethnic and race was
developed by a coalition of researchers and advocates concerned about the inclusivity and
accuracy, as well as the narrow politicization of equal protection and due process that hampered
race and ethnic relations and public policy implementation during the post civil rights era. The
statement begins with an appeal to support the collection of ancestry data in the U.S. Census 2000:

The ancestry question on the decennial census is the only source about the ethnic
composition of our nation’s population. We know the value of statistics on ethnicity and
the importance of maintaining a national reservoir of accurate and reliable information on
society’s changing demographic composition.

Ancestry is important regardless of racial identity. Equally essential is our ability as a

nation to capture the rich, complex and dynamic nature of Americans’ identity with their
immigrant roots and ethnicity, in a way that includes all countries of origin, and all
generations. Without the ancestry question, data on ethnicity is incomplete and skewed and
prevents a comprehensive picture of our country’s overall patterns, assimilation, mobility
and success.

Census data on ancestry have been used by a wide spectrum of stakeholders including:

1. Educators and human service providers who use the data to ensure that programs are
inclusive and representative of the local populations;
 2. The private sector whose use of ethnic data continues to expand as corporations,
researchers, journalists and marketing professional seek to identify, study and reach more discreet
segments of the population;
3. Politicians are increasingly interested in knowing the types of ethnic groups who vote for
them and subsequently where fund raising foci must be;
4. State, county and municipal agencies are recognizing the growing need to identify and reach
constituent groups beyond racial classification;
5. Federal agencies such as the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights which recognizes the need
for ancestry data to monitor discrimination based on national origin.

These arguments for the collection and use of ancestry information and its value for public
policy claim that it would yield an adequate reflection of pluralism in America. This inclusive
position is one critical current clarification of race and ethnic issues in America. Another
perspective gained popularity during the 1980 and 1990s: its advocates prescribed a color-blind
approach. They include critics of the persistence of ethnic identity and in place of the dense
symbols systems of cultural tradition and religiosity propose an alternative form of symbolization:
American-whiteness and the harkening to the original founding of the republic and its
enlightenment origins of reason and rights as the foundation of person and social order. One aspect
of this modern invocation of American universalism emerged in the twentieth century search for
an appropriate U.S. public policy to ensure equal employment opportunity. The warning and
challenge that De Tocqueville posed regarding democracy in America and participation for
marginalized groups finally was taken-up and launched during World War II.3 To achieve national
unity among racial, nationality and religious groups in the midst of a wartime crisis, President
Franklin Delano Roosevelt took the first dramatic step to end employment discrimination in
defense industries and the armed services On June 25, 1941, he issued his famous Executive Order
No. 8802,4 banning discrimination based on race, creed, color, or national origin in defense plants,
government offices and the armed services. He also established the nation’s first Fair Employment
Practices Committee (FEPC) in the Office of Production Management and later recognized and
strengthened it, locating the FEPC in the Executive Office of the President.5
By his initiatives Roosevelt provided the citizenry of the United States with the classic
formulation, “because of race, creed, color, or national origin,” thereby identifying the individuals
and groups whose right to equal employment opportunity would be safeguarded under the law.
That legal phraseology, with significant additions, prevails to this day. While other categories (sex,
age, handicap, etc.) were later added to the list, the existence of unfair treatment of job applicants
and employees on account of their national origin was recognized in the earliest definitions of
individuals and groups which the government sought to protect. The term “national origin” was
born out of the public debate and legislative history of the early federal immigration laws which
created quotas of immigrants on the basis of national origin. Just as it was clear that the national
quota system intended to discriminate against immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe, it
was equally clear that the President’s Executive Order sought to prevent such discrimination in
public and private employment.
At the state level, the pioneering step was taken by New York in 1945.6 The New York State
Legislature enacted a law declaring that equal opportunity employment was a civil right. Using
the formulation established at the federal level, the law stated that:
 Practices of discrimination against any one of New York’s inhabitants because of race,
creed, color, or national origin are a matter of state concern . . . such discrimination
threatens not only the rights and proper privileges of its inhabitants, but menaces the
institutions and foundation of a free democratic state.7

Realizing that a statute which simply outlawed discrimination was not enough to erase the
practice of discrimination, the New York state legislature also established an educational,
investigative and enforcement agency, the State Commission Against Discrimination.8 Other
states soon followed New York’s lead. By 1962 twenty-two states, embracing two-thirds of the
nation’s population, had passed FEPC (Fair Employment Practices Commission) laws.9 Using the
standard formulation, state laws prohibited employment discrimination on the basis of race, creed,
color or national origin.10 Thus at the state level “nationality” barriers to jobs had, from the
beginning, become unfair labor practices which were legally prohibited because they were deemed
to deny U.S. residents equal opportunity in employment.11

The Civil Rights Era

The 1960’s witnessed a concentration, long overdue, on the civil rights of Afro-Americans.
During this decade unprecedented actions were taken, in both the governmental and
non-governmental arenas, to guarantee equality of opportunity for Black Americans. Such a
national outpouring of concern, from the private sector at first and from the public sector later,
resulted in three giant steps by the federal government on the road toward equal employment
opportunity. These advances laid the legal framework which eventually enabled civil rights
agencies to insist upon affirmative action by public and private employers alike.
Two federal executive orders set the pace. In 1961 President John F. Kennedy issued
Executive Order 10925 on equal opportunity in federal employment and federally assisted
construction.12 The most significant contribution of Kennedy’s executive order was the insistence
that contractors:

take affirmative action to insure that applicants are employed, and that employees are
treated during employment without regard to their race, creed, color or national origin.13

Four years later in 1965, Executive Order 11246 was issued by President Lyndon B. Johnson.
It required that every government contract contain provisions such as the following:

The contractor will not discriminate against employees or applicants because of race, color,
religion or national origin.
The contractor will take affirmative action to insure that applicants are employed without
regard to such factors.14

The agency charged with the enforcement of President Johnson’s Executive Order was the
Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) of the U.S. Department of Labor.
Through these two executive orders, “affirmative action became part of the federal vocabulary
and legal weaponry which the executive branch of the U.S. government used to enforce equal
treatment in employment. Despite the specific moral thrust behind these orders -- directed at
redressing the historical wrongs done to Black Americans, the requirement for affirmative action
imposed upon employers was also intended to protect those women and men who, because of their
national origin, may have been victims of job discrimination.
The second step was the passage by Congress of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and most
specifically Title VII. This declared that it was against the law for an employer “to fail or refuse
to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with
respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such
individual’s race, color, religion, sex or national origin.”15 For the first time in the twentieth
century, Congress itself had passed legislation to insure equal employment opportunity and created
an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to enforce the law. Furthermore, Title VII added
to the employment actions forbidden by law, discrimination based on sex. Despite the fact that the
congressional debate centered preponderantly on discrimination because of race or color, national
origin was also included.16
The law omitted any reference to “affirmative action.” In fact, it contained a special provision
that:

Nothing contained in this title shall be interpreted to require any employer . . . to grant
preferential treatment to any individual or to any group because of the race, color, religion,
sex, or national origin of such individual or group on account of an imbalance which may
exist with respect to the total number of percentage of persons of any race, color, religion,
sex, or national origin employed by any employer . . . in comparison with the total number
of percentage of persons of such race, color, religion, sex, or national origin in any . . . area,
or in the available work force . . . in any area.17

Expanding the Federal Enforcement of Civil Rights Laws

With the passage of the Civil Rights Act, new powers became available to the government to
fight employment discrimination. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)
became one of the central agencies in the struggle. Its powers as they developed were stronger than
a simple reading of the language of the Act indicated. EEOC, for example, could issue regulations
determining what was discriminatory in employment. The EEOC also could require private
companies to hire certain numbers of minorities and women, and to award back pay to those
determined to be victims of discrimination by the threat to bring action which would demonstrate
discrimination.18
Another agency with considerable power was the Office of Federal Contract Compliance
Programs (OFCCP). Operating under executive order the OFCCP had authority to use “affirmative
action” to overcome occupational discrimination. It could require those receiving federal contracts
to set goals for hiring and promotion of women and minority employees to overcome under
representation of these classes.19
In addition to those agencies concerned with a direct attack on discrimination many other
federal bodies could also take action against discrimination, either under statute or through the use
of their own regulations in the industries they regulated. The Federal Communications
Commission, for example, could take action against discrimination on broadcasting through its
regulation of the air waves.20
The major change in the enforcement of civil rights laws against overt direct discrimination
because of race, was the increasing concentration on practices which had discriminatory impact
upon protected groups of employees, particularly minorities and women. These new enforcement
priorities went beyond consideration of single isolated acts of unlawful treatment of job applicants
and employees to employment patterns and practices which had discriminatory impact upon
hundreds of thousands of employees.21 To establish such impact and to eliminate institutionalized
discrimination, statistics were needed to prove that an employer’s practice resulted in unfavorable
treatment of groups protected by law. Statistical head counts which revealed under representation
of a given group in the employer’s work force became a first sign of discrimination which violated
the law. Employment statistics required by the federal government became the basis of compliance
reviews by OFCCP staff, the employer’s self-analysis of non-discrimination in employment, and
evaluation of the employer’s performance with regard to goals and timetables. With the consistent
support from the U.S. Supreme Court, statistical analysis came to be used routinely to establish
a prima facie case of discrimination.22 An affirmative action program by the employer came to
be appropriate remedy for any discriminatory under representation or under-utilization revealed
by the statistical data.23 In 1981, the U.S. Civil Rights Commission pointed to the critical
importance of statistical analysis for the federal effort to ensure equal employment opportunity:
In recent years, statistical procedures interpreting data based on race, sex, and national origin
have been the dominant means for detecting the existence of discrimination. Their use is premised
on the idea that the absence of minorities and women from the economic, political and social
institutions of this country is an indicator that discrimination may exist.24
The Commission went on to note that:

Gathering statistical data by race, sex and national origin, which is almost universally
practiced and well established in the law, is a critical element in compliance efforts and
program planning.25

The key to the success of the federal agencies’ new broader approach to the removal of
employment discrimination were the reports which employers were ordered to complete
periodically at the behest of federal agencies such as the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission or the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs. These various reports
required the counting of employees by their race (either Black or White), sex (either male or
female), Hispanic (including Black and White), American Indian (including Native Alaskans, or
Asian, including Pacific Islander).26 Among these groups perhaps only Hispanics could be
considered as a “national origin” group. Because information on discrimination against Americans
of Southern and Eastern European ancestry was sparse, it was not deemed necessary to collect data
on their employment status.
The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs indicated the existence of
discrimination against Americans of Southern and Eastern European ancestry and created
affirmative action programs for them. However, this program was not as stringent as that for others
protected groups.
To carry out Executive Order 11246, the OFCCP issued a set of regulations which required
that each government contract contain the following clause:

The contractor will not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment
because of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. The contractor will take affirmative
action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during
employment, without regard to their race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.27
 In defining the purpose of an affirmative action program, the regulations specifically excluded
“religion” and “national origin”.

An acceptable affirmative action program must include an analysis of areas within which
the contractor is deficient in the utilization of minority groups and women, and further,
goals and timetables to which the contractor’s good faith efforts must be directed to correct
the deficiencies and, thus to achieve prompt and full utilization of minorities and women.28

Private employers with government contracts were obliged to complete Employer

Information, EEO-l or others, as part of their affirmative action compliance. The EEO form
required “accurate and complete” information on several groups but only one European nationality
group: Americans, the ultimate origins of whose culture was Spain. Accordingly, employers were
not required to keep records of Americans of European origin, except those whose heritage can be
traced to a part of the Iberian peninsula.
In a subsequent regulation titled Guidelines on Discrimination because of Religion or
National Origin, OFCCP argued that:

Members of various religions and ethnic groups, primarily but not exclusively of Eastern,
Middle and Southern European ancestry, such as Jews, Catholics, Italians, Greeks and
Slavic groups, continue to be excluded from executive, middle management and other job
levels because of discrimination based on religion and/or national origin. These guidelines
are intended to remedy such unfair treatment.29

The regulations provided that employers “must take affirmative action to ensure that
applicants are employed and that employees are treated during employment without regard
to their religion or national origin.”30

The regulation went on to provide that if after a self review, especially at the occupational
levels noted, the employer finds deficiencies he or she “shall undertake appropriate outreach and
recruitment activities.” Those suggested include better internal communications and procedures in
regard to the employer’s obligation, review of employment records to determine internal
availability of members of various religious and ethnic groups, and special recruitment efforts
including use of religious or ethnic groups, and special recruitment efforts including use of
religious or ethnic press.31 The regulations did not provide for Federal review of the effort nor the
systematic collection of data on the groups discriminated against.
In fact, the federal government explicitly barred the collection of data on any groups except
the officially recognized minorities. As noted above regulations pertaining to the collection of data
by the EEOC provide for the keeping of records only on the following: “Black (Negroes),
American Indians (including Alaskan Natives), Asians (including Pacific Islanders), Hispanic
(including persons of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Central or South American or other Spanish
origin or culture regardless of race) white other than Hispanic and totals.”32 The regulations
further provide that “only those categories of race and national origin prescribed by the
Commission may be used.”33 In November, 1981 John Hope III, acting staff director of the U.S.
Commission on Civil Rights indicated that: “EEOC regulations do not require or permit the
collection and maintenance of statistics that separately identify employees of Southern and Eastern
European origin”34 (emphasis in original).
 The non-collection of data on most European nationality groups effectively excluded them
from consideration for most affirmative action programs. Similar approaches were also taken by
state agencies charged with ensuring non-discrimination and equal employment opportunity. For
example, the Illinois Department of Human Rights regulation stated forcefully and clearly that:

No public contractor shall discriminate . . . against any applicant for employment, or in

terms or conditions of employment of any employee . . . because of race, color, religion,
sex, marital status, national origin or ancestry, age, physical or mental handicap unrelated
to ability, or unfavorable discharge from the military service.35

In setting enforcement guidelines, however the department omitted “national origin,”

“ancestry” and “religion,” and confined affirmative action to minorities and women:

Each public contractor . . . shall . . . determine if minority persons or women are

underutilized . . . if underutilization exists . . ., the contractor . . . shall take appropriate
affirmative action to rectify any such underutilization.36

Thus in the 1970’s the federal government itself became the major source of the data which
was necessary to discover the existence of under representation or underutilization of women and
protected minority groups. The failure of the government to collect comparable data on national
origin groups such as Americans of Southern and Eastern European ancestry made it difficult to
determine the existence of discrimination by the standards which the government sets for proof.
The decision to count only certain minorities and to exclude members of European ethnic
groups helped concoct a “majority” group for the United States which lacks any of the cultural and
social attributes that define the protected groups. All European ethnic groups, other than those
from a part of the Iberian Peninsula, henceforth were counted as “white”. Significantly, this
statistical category created inadvertently by government policy was given currency when it was
appropriated (sometimes in distorted form) by the national media as a description of everyday
reality in America.37
European ethnic groups which sought to muster the evidence needed to support a charge of
adverse or disparate impact were forced to assemble the statistical data on their own, without the
assistance of the federal government.38 Attorney Rachel Rossoni Munafo pointed out that:

The government’s definition of a “minority” has created serious problems for the white
ethnic groups. Since white ethnics are classified as non-minorities, no agency compiles
official data concerning them. From a statistical standpoint, therefore, white ethnics are
virtually invisible. As a result of this classification scheme, legislators and bureaucrats who
rely on social statistics in shaping public policy inadvertently ignore the white ethnic
groups. White ethnics who are victims of discrimination, therefore, must try to prove this
without the benefit of group statistics. The burden is difficult, if not impossible to
overcome.39

The burden of proving discrimination without the statistical data that is needed is a costly and
difficult process that few plaintiffs have been willing to carry out or able to afford. In a review of
federal court cases charging discrimination based on national origin, Joseph G. Allegretto noted
that:
 The absence of necessary statistical information presents a nearly insurmountable barrier
to a person of Polish, Irish, or Russian ancestry who wished to bring a disparate impact
case.40

As a result, Oscar A. Ornate, an arbitrator and professor of manpower management at New

York University’s Graduate School of Business Administration concluded that “the issue of
discrimination on the basis of national origin has thus far been subsidiary to the issues of race,
color, and sex in court cases.”41
In his testimony before the U.S. Senate subcommittee, Leonard F. Walentynowicz, executive
director of the Polish American Congress in Washington, D.C., called attention to another
unintended consequence of the federal government’s failure to assemble data with regard to the
employment status of European ethnic groups. He noted that this neglect “creates unfair attitudes
among those in power, including judges, as it gives them a convenient excuse to assert that those
groups who are not being counted either have no problem or have no standing to assert their
rights.”42 Walentynowicz cited a recent decision of the U.S. District Court in the District of
Columbia in the case of Bachman v. Pertschuk (C.A. 76-0079), which excluded Polish Americans
and other white ethnics from the benefits of a stipulation regarding the hiring 45 practices of the
Federal Trade Commission.43 Notwithstanding that the action was maintained only by Blacks as
a class, the decision included all members of the designated minorities.44
The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights highlighted the central importance of statistical data as
evidence in cases of alleged discrimination. In a 1981 report on affirmative action the Commission
noted:

In recent years statistical procedures interpreting data on race, sex, and national origin have
been the dominant means for detecting the existence of discrimination. Their use is
premised on the idea that the absence of minorities and women from the economic, political
and social institutions of this country is an indicator that discrimination may exist.45

Unfortunately except for a few limited studies on academic institutions and government
agencies and on “executive suites” representation in selected corporations in certain cities, few of
the data available on the occupational status of Americans belonging to Southern and Eastern
European groups were prepared for the purpose of ascertaining patterns of over- and under
representation that would indicate discrimination.46 The major obstacles researchers face in doing
a comparative analysis of the occupational status of American ethnic groups and of assessing the
impact of ethnicity and discrimination on that status over time can be summarized as follows:

1) There is no consistent way of identifying groups.

2) The Bureau of the Census does not ask a “religious” question in its collection of data
because of constitutional limitation on such inquiries by the government.

For some students of race and ethnicity this represents a serious limitation of the usefulness
of the information the Bureau of the Census provides on the income and occupational distribution
of Americans of Southern and Eastern European ancestry. Perhaps the foremost critic of this
limitation is Andrew M. Greeley who argued that the ethnic tabulations in Current Population
Reports:
 combined Protestant and Catholic Irish, Protestant and Catholic and Jewish Germans, and
Catholic and Jewish Poles. There is some reason to think that it is precisely the combination
of religion and nationality that constitutes ethnic identification for a considerable number
of Americans.47

Rosen agrees with Greeley’s assessment of Census data when she writes that:

the Census does not ask religious identification. This seriously limits the value of Census
data. When certain ethnic groups have been differentiated by religion in other surveys,
there have been significant differences between Catholics and Protestants in education,
occupation, income and other variables.48

3) Information is not available for most groups of Americans of Southern and Eastern
European ancestry. Most governmental and non-governmental studies deal only with the largest
groups such as Poles and Italians.
In the absence of data to guide such policies, it would of course be difficult to prepare
affirmative action plans that would remedy alleged discrimination against Americans of Southern
and Eastern European ancestry. However, in certain cases individual agencies have begun the
process of affirmative action for members
In Illinois the State Human Rights Act was amended effective July 1, 1982 to require that a
national origin class be added to the listed protected classes subject to the affirmative action
mandates of the Act.
For those specific nationality groups which, by rule of the Department of Human Rights, are
to be covered by the Illinois Human Rights Act, state agencies will be required to undertake
affirmative action programs and record-keeping such as a: “(1) comparison of the agencies’
employment members in any national origin group with the proportions of that group in the
available labor force; (2) measures for increasing employment of groups found to be under
represented in the labor force; and (3) for agencies with over 1,000 employees, evaluation of the
impacts of employee selection devices used by the agencies on the members of the same group.”49
A few years earlier a more modest affirmative action program was instituted for Italian
Americans at the City University of New York. Issued by Chancellor Robert Kibbee as a
“voluntary affirmative action directive” to the CUNY Council of Presidents, it provided that in the
face of a long history of discrimination against Italian Americans at the University, the institution
was designating Italian Americans as an affirmative action category in addition to those so
categorized under existing federal statutes and regulations. The University’s affirmative action
office was, in addition, instructed to include Italian Americans in the data collected for affirmative
action programs.50
In the wake of the evidence from the executive suite studies51 of Detroit, Chicago
corporations and Buffalo banks, and the expressed concern of leaders of Southern and Eastern
European Ethnic groups, the two most important federal agencies charged with the enforcement
of federal laws and executive orders in the area of employment discrimination, the Office of
Federal Contract Compliance Programs and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
issued Guidelines which defined “national origin” discrimination. The EEOC Guidelines cited
such discrimination as the:
 denial of equal opportunity because of an individual’s or his or her ancestor’s, place of
origin; or because an individual has the physical, cultural or linguistic characteristics of a
national origin group.52

These Guidelines specified further that individuals could not be denied equal employment
opportunity:

for reasons, such as (a) marriage to or association with persons of a national origin group;
(b) membership in, or association with an organization identified with or seeking to
promote the interests of national origin groups; (c) attendance or participation in schools,
churches, temples or mosques, generally used by persons of a national origin group; and
(d) because an individual’s name or spouse’s name is associated with a national origin
group.53

The EEOC Guidelines also singled out, among other examples, such practices as height and
weight requirements and fluency-in-English requirements which tend to exclude individuals on
the basis of national origin.
In spite of the new guidelines, however, leaders of Southern and Eastern European ethnic
groups and others have continued to express a concern that federal agencies are currently
inattentive to the employment discrimination experienced by Americans of Southern and Eastern
European ancestry. Dr. Myron B. Kuropas an Illinois educator and former presidential special
assistant, observed that various European “ethnic groups,” following the lead of the visible
minorities, began to demand a greater sensitivity and responsiveness from the federal government.
He concluded that:

After twenty years of attempting to sensitize the federal establishment . . ., the pleas of
Euro-Ethnics to the government are either politely ignored or dismissed as racist in
effect.54

There is of course, genuine cause for the concern that the struggle against national origin
discrimination does not have as high a priority as the attempts to eliminate other forms of dis-
crimination in occupation. In addition to the lack of effort in regard to data collection, federal
agencies charged with enforcing equal employment opportunity, for all practical purposes, have
not focused upon the issue of discrimination against European ethnic groups in their published
reports. An interest in affirmative action and national enforcement has produced ambivalent
conclusions.
The search for remedies has prompted some groups to adopt a legal strategy. The American
Jewish Committee, American Jewish Congress, Hellenic Bar Association of Illinois, National
Italian American Foundation, National Advocates Society, National Medical and Dental
Association, Polish American Affairs Council, Polish American Congress, Polish American
Educators Association, Ukrainian Congress Committee of America (Chicago Division) and
UNICO International have joined in various amicus curiae briefs in scores of civil rights and
affirmative action cases.
 Though this approach has its proponents the overall satisfaction level with such strategies and
the ambivalence regarding remedies indicate that such legal approaches really beg the central
question. A variety of answers point to its nature. Andrew Greeley has argued against quotas and
affirmative action along the following line:

The basic difference between a racial quota and minority ‘affirmative action’ is that in the
former it is easy to tell who the victim is, while in the latter it is harder to identify the one
who is being discriminated against. Make no mistake about it, in ‘affirmative action’
programs there are victims. You cannot discriminate in favor of someone without
discriminating against someone else.55

Roman Pucinski, a former U.S. congressman, Chicago Alderman and longstanding leader of
The Polish Americans in Chicago, denied publicly that Poles wanted to be included in any quotas
established by a federal judge.56 Michael Novak, chairman of the Slavic American National
Council, in an interview published in Perspectives, a quarterly magazine of the U.S. Commission
on Civil Rights, Summer 1980, made his position clear: “I’m against quotas, but if society wants
quotas then everyone should be included.” Aloysius A. Mazewski, president of the Polish National
Alliance and the Polish American Congress, criticized “so-called affirmative action program” and
then said: “You are actually creating a quota system which is abhorrent to our democracy. If that
is your goal, then include as part of affirmative action the national origin of our citizens. The Polish
American community represents 21 percent of the city’s population and pursuant to the theory of
your program, we are entitled to 21 percent of police department, fire department and all city
employees.”57 Businessman Jeno F. Palucci of Minnesota, chairman of the National Italian
American Foundation based in Washington, the foremost coalition of Italian-Americans that
includes Congressional leaders and a network of professionals in various fields, wrote: “A
misconception about the Bakke case is that whites are against Blacks on the issue of affirmative
action. For Italian-Americans and other white ethnics, at least, that simply is not true. In fact, we’re
more in favor of affirmative action than Blacks are -- because we are yet to benefit from it, and
need it badly.”58
Whether anyone has benefitted, however, is the genuine question.
If there is an agreement among leaders of Southern and Eastern European Ethnic groups that
more federal attention must be paid to the problem of national origin discrimination, there is little
consensus about the most appropriate remedies, particularly as they might be applied to the various
city, state and federal mandates calling upon public and private employers to install affirmative
action programs. A range of opinion, however, can be sorted out. Some, without qualification,
oppose any affirmative action hiring quotas based on race, creed, color, sex, religion and national
origin, or any combination thereof. Some who dislike affirmative action hiring ratios would
support them for their group if the society insisted on having them for others. Some are in favor of
affirmative action programs which would give preference to those who are socially, economically
or educationally disadvantaged and which would drop the present goals and timetables that give a
hiring advantage based solely upon some racial, ethnic or sex classification.
It is not likely that the problem of national origin discrimination will disappear in the future.
In fact one may argue with confidence that national origin discrimination will, in the near future,
surface as a major issue. The National Center for Urban Ethnic Affairs report entitled The
representation of Poles, Italians, Latinos and Blacks in the Executive Suites of Chicago’s Largest
Corporations, indicates that neither of these protected nor the not-designated minorities groups
have made minuscule steps toward inclusion into these corridors of power. This suggests that the
entire process is tortuously slow as is the movement from margin to mainstream. The
accompanying rhetoric and investment in public enforcement exacerbates group relations owing
to perceptions that are not founded in the realities of aided or unaided economic and social
integration. The magnitude of these disparities is clear: Despite the fact that 47 percent of the
metropolitan area’s population was Polish, Italian, Black or Hispanic, these groups account for 5%
of the total directors. Poles make-up 11.2% of the population, but only 0.5% of the corporate
directors are Poles; Italians who comprise 7.3% of the population have 2.2% of the directorships;
Hispanics with 8.2% of the population hold 0.2% of the directorships and Blacks who comprise
20.15 of the population hold only 1.8% of the directorships.59
In view of the problem indicated by executive suite studies and statistical data pointing to
serious under representation in some occupations as well as mobility barriers for Americans of
Southern and Eastern European ancestry, it is imperative that the federal government agencies
concerned with enforcement of Civil Rights Laws increase their efforts in this area. The most
pressing problem remains, as this report shows, the systematic collection of data on the
occupational status of Americans of Southern and Eastern European ancestry to determine the
existence and patterns o discrimination. The question cannot be addressed until federal data
collection policy is changed and those groups are included among the ethnic and racial groups for
whom data is collected, analyzed and monitored for evidence of discrimination. The assurance of
equal opportunity for all Americans of Southern and Eastern European ancestry as well as the new
immigrants that have settled in increasing numbers since 1965 in public and private employment
must begin with their equal treatment in the collection of information by their government. Perhaps
the judicial elaboration of these particularly the Supreme Courts unanimous decisions in Saint
Francis College v. Al-Khazraji 9 (1987, 85-2169) and Shaare Tefila Congregation v. Cobb (1987,
85-2156) relying as they do on the Civil Rights Law of 1865 and Voting Rights Law of 1870 and
the clear legislative intention to include all races in the protection of law and prohibitions against
discrimination based on race, which most interestingly and ironically included the widest range of
non-Anglo-Americans. Thus when Congress in the post civil war era spoke of race they in fact
were addressing what today we would call ethnicities or nationalities. The Courts turn to this basis
for non-exclusionary support for remedies derived from racial and ethnic discrimination has
opened the door to action that has been bottled-up in the administrative and regulatory maze that
has been in part reported in the forgoing account.
Thus the analysis of national level concerns regarding inclusive information on race and
ethnicity has lead us toward the local level interactions that constitute the foundation of civility
from which national governance must draw its authority. Law rest on the foundation of political
consent. The record of top-down approaches and its efficacy leave much to be desired. The renewal
of bonds of common citizenship may in fact be the current social invention of such bonds in various
places and among various populations. A review to the American historical experience in search
for a romantic, nostalgic bond of social, racial, ethnic solidarity would be a flight into imagination.
The various periods of conflict and consensus indicate that the political formulation of shared
values and fair procedures for the regulation and distribution of resources are the building blocks
on which equitable race and ethnic policy must rest. Thus the local must drive the national agenda
as the personal must enable the political, least the use of power and legality lose their potency
which at bottom are derived from consent and not demanded by state coercion and enforcement.
 At this level and from this fundamental perspective the resolution of race and ethnic issues
reveals their essential character as political questions of values and resource allocation. For such
choices to be deliberated and decided new metropolitan structures that are both regional in their
scope and community-based neighborhood in their scale will be needed. A new architecture of
governance is a necessary new dimension that must be addressed as were the prior questions of
law and policy in this field. To fashion such mechanism and social/political/ governmental
invention is the awesome challenge America faces, which is to say we must rethink federalism in
light of American pluralism and the growing backlash to administrative and legal answers to
political questions and problems that have driven us into distrust and isolation from the rich variety
of race and ethnic traditions that our common citizenship can make accessible to all. Only regional
consensus along such lines will be sufficient to carry a national agenda of fairness and non-
exclusionary race and ethnic policy into its appropriate place in the American dream. The pursuit
of liberty and justice for all -- the normative aspiration that is the fount of the American inspiration
-- generated the American dream and the American reality.
The American reality is the garden that we must cultivate well lest it turn barren because the
capacity to renew that spirit in our time has been lost. The letter of the law should not blind us or
invite us to neglect of the political and governmental development that is needed to make law live
in the persons and communities that need governance. Race and the law are so complexly woven
into the texture of personal identity and groups processes that few generations have been forced to
probe its dynamics. Looking at the past practice in this arena may enable us to avoid doing
something singularly stupid. This post modern and minimalist advisory is but a code invitation to
move past the crisis of the moment and to address the fundamental question. In the words of
Georges Bernanos: The worst, the most corrupting of lies are problems poorly stated.

Notes

1. See Charles A Kromkowski, Recreating the America Republic: Rules of Apportionment,

Constitutional Change and American Political Development-1870 (Cambridge University Press:
Cambridge, 2002)
2. Federal Register, June 9, 1994. pp. 1-5.
3. See, e.g., James E. Jones, Jr., "The Transformation of Fair Employment Practices,"
in Federal Policies and Worker Status since the Thirties (Madison, Wisc.: Industrial Relations
Research Association, 1976).
4. CFR., 1928-43, Comp., 957. The Fair Employment Practices Committee was described by
the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights as the "first government-wide administrative machinery de-
signed to implement a national policy of non-discriminatory employment and training." See U.S.
Commission on Civil Rights, Report on Employment, 1961.
For some of the background to Executive Order 8802, see A. Philip Randolph, "Why Should
We March," Survey Graphic, November 1942.
5. Executive Order 9346, May 27, 1943.
6. Jones, "The Transformation of Fair Employment Practices, pp. 170-171. See also Duane
Lockhard, Toward Equal Opportunity: A Study of State and Local Anti-discrimination Laws (New
York: MacMillan, 1968), pp. 21-24; and W. Brook Graves, Fair Employment Practice Legislation
in the United States, Federal State - Municipal (Washington, D.C.: Legislative Reference Service
of the Library of Congress, 1951), pp. 15-48.
7. As cited in Robert Senser, Primer on Interracial Justice (Baltimore: Helicon, 1962), p. 111.
 8. Ibid., p. 111.
9. Ibid., p. 112.
10. Ibid.
11. Over the years the scope of employment covered by law was extended to encompass
"recruitment of potential employees; selection criteria in hiring, e.g., educational or experiential
qualifications, application forms, interview procedures, testing; promotion and transfer procedures
(e.g., career pathways, 'fast tracking,' seniority, training opportunities) wage and salary structure;
employment benefits; layoff procedures; and disciplinary and grievance procedures." U.S.
Commission on Civil Rights, Affirmative Action in the 1980's: Dismantling the Process of
Discrimination (Washington, D.C., 1981), p. 46.
12. N. Glazer and R. Ueda, "Policy against Prejudice and Discrimination," Harvard
Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups, p. 855.
13. Executive Order No. 10925, Sec. 312-14, 3 CFR, 1959-63 Comp., 448.
14. Executive Order No. 11234, CFR. 1964-65 Comp. 339. President's order followed passage
of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
15. Civil Rights Act, 78 Stat. 253 (1964), as amended 86 Stat. 103 (1972), hereafter cited as
Civil Rights Act.
16. The Congressional debate on Title VII indicated the meaning which Congress intended to
give to the phrase "national origin." Congressman James Roosevelt explained that "Anglo Saxon"
was too broad a term to use to designate a specific national origin, said, "May I just make very
clear that 'national origin' means national. It means the country from which you or your fore bearers
came from. You may come from Poland, Czechoslovakia, England, France, or any other country.
It has nothing to do with broad terms such as the gentleman has referred to." (110 Congressional
Record 2548-9 91984). "It is apparent that Congress intended to include within the category of
'national origin' members of all national-groups and groups of persons of common ancestry,
heritage or background. This has been how the term has been interpreted by the EEOC and the
courts." Barbara Lindemann Schlei and Paul Grossman, Employment Discrimination
Law (Washington, D.C.: Bureau of National Affairs, 1976), p. 246.
17. Civil Rights Act, Section 703 (j) of Title VII.
18. Glazer and Ueda "Policy against Prejudice and Discrimination," p. 856.
19. Ibid.
20. Ibid.
21. Ibid., pp. 856-857.
22. Schlei and Grossman, Employment Discrimination Law, p. 1161. "Perhaps the most
significant development in employment discrimination has been the dominant role that statistics
have come to play in some cases, statistical evidence alone has been found sufficient to establish
the prima faciecase. Such reliance on statistical proof is an extension of earlier decisions relying
on statistical evidence to prove discrimination in jury selection cases, school systems, and voting
rights. This focus on the actual impact of the employment practices normally requires a careful
assessment of the race and ethnic composition of the persons who pass a given test, who satisfy a
given prerequisite, who became hired in a given job, or who make up a given work force or general
population. Such assessments and comparisons can best be expressed in statistical terms." See also
Arthur B. Smith, Jr., Employment Discrimination Law (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1979), p. 463.
Smith cites the phrase, "statistics... tell much and courts listen," from Alabama v. United States,
304 F 2d 583, 586 (5th Cir.) Aff'd, per curium, 371 U.S.
23. Glazer and Ueda "Policy against Prejudice and Discrimination," p. 856.
 24. Affirmative Action in the 1980s: Dismantling the Process of Discrimination, p. 31
25. Ibid.
26. See, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Employer formation Report,
EEO-l and others.
27. 43 FR 49249, Part 60-1.4.
28. Ibid., Part 60-2,10.
29. 43 FR 49266, Part 60-5n.1.
30. Ibid., Part 60-50.2.
31. Ibid.
32. U.S. Code of Federal Regulations, Part 29, Section 1631,302 (c) (1).
33. Ibid., Section 1607.4B.
34. John Hope III, Acting Staff Director, U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, letter to Larry S.
Pugel, Executive Board Member, Slavic American National Assn., Nov. 9, 1981.
35. State of Illinois, Department of Human Rights, Rules and Regulations, Article VII, Section
7.1, effective March 3, 1981.
36. Ibid.
37. See for the example series of articles by Kathy Sawyer in the Washington Post (April
11-13, 1982), entitled: "Jobs: The Pursuit of Fairness." Ms. Sawyer claimed that "48 million
able-bodied white Anglo males in the civilian work force" were not covered by the "federal
affirmative action machinery."
The writer's use of "white Anglo" showed a basic, if common, confusion about national origin
and the ethnic composition of American society. It is difficult to perceive Jews, Irish Turks,
Iranians, Morrocans, Egyptians, Armenians, Greeks, French, Canadians, Poles, Algerians, Italians,
Finns, Danes, Swiss, Ukrainians, and others as "white Anglos".
"Discrimination of this type involves employment practices that are neutral and objective on
their face but that fall more harshly on one group, the plaintiff's, than on other groups." Joseph G.
Allegretto, "National Origin Discrimination and The Ethnic Employee," Employee Relations Law
Journal, vow. VI, no. 4, pp. 545-546. Adverse impact results from policies or practices having
disparate impact not justified by business necessity and assumes "a lack of intent to discriminate
and that the practices complained of are neutral on their face." Schlei and Grossman, Employment
Discrimination Law, p. 203.
38. "Discrimination of this type involves employment practices that are neutral and objective
on their face but that fall more harshly on one group, the plaintiff's, than on other groups." Joseph
G. Allegretto, "National Origin Discrimination and the Ethnic Employee," Employee Relations
Law Journal, vol. VI, no. 4, pp. 545-546. Adverse impact results from policies or practices having
disparate impact not justified by business necessity and assumes "a lack of intent to discriminate
and that the practices complained of are neutral on their face." Schlei and Grossman, Employment
Discrimination Law, p. 203.
39. A. Munafo, "National Origin Discrimination against Americans of Southern and Eastern
European Ancestry: A Review of the Legal History and Judicial Interpretations," The Catholic
Lawyer, Winter 1979, pp. 55-56.
40. Allegretto, "National Origin Discrimination and the Ethnic Employee," pp. 546-547.
41. "Arbitrators and National Origin Discrimination," The Arbitration Journal, June 1981, p.
34.
42. L. Walentynowicz, "Civil Rights Issues of Euro-Ethnic Americans, p. 437.
43. Ibid., p. 437-438.
 44. Ibid., p. 438.
45. Affirmative Action in the 1980's: Dismantling the Process of Discrimination
46. The paucity of data extends to the academic world. Americans of Southern and Eastern
European ancestry are almost invisible to the scholars who educate government officials and
provide the scholarship on which informed policy is based. One study that looked at the neglect of
these groups by American sociologists was: Abraham D. Lavender and John M. Forsythe, "The
Sociological Study of Minority Groups as Reflected by Leading Sociological Journals: Who Gets
Studied and Who Gets Neglected?" Ethnicity, October 1976, pp. 388-398.
NCUEA's survey of the three journals generally recognized as the leading journals in
American sociology (the American Journal of Sociology, the American Sociological
Review and Social Forces) published 481 articles between 1900 and 1984 about U S. minorities.
Only 19 of these articles studied ethnic groups whose ancestry could be traced to Southern and
Eastern Europe. The 481 articles were distributed among these minorities: Asiatics (35), American
Indians (22), Hispanics (21), Blacks (344), Jews (28), Southern and Eastern European groups (19)
and other (12). The scholarly articles on these groups were: Czechoslovakian (1), Greek (2),
Hungarian (2), Italian (4), Lithuanian (2), Polish (3), Russian (3), Serbian (1), Slovak (l) and
Yugoslavian (1). An article on Polish-Italian intermarriage was counted for each group.
In view of the small amount of attention given to non-Black ethnic groups in the sociological
literature, it is no wonder that so little is known about ethnic-ethnic, ethnic Black, and
ethnic-dominant society relations. To the extent that the purpose of sociology is to focus attention
on problems in the society, it must be recognized that some non Black ethnic groups are oppressed
in the United States. Most proponents of ethnic studies will agree that Blacks are understandably
America's first priority because of degree of oppression and because of numbers, but that other
groups should also be studied more.
47. Greeley, Ethnicity in the United States, p. 35. It is worth noting in this regard religion that
was last asked in the 1957 Current Population Survey. Attempts were made to revive the question
20 years later, but it was not included because of non-response problems which ended up affecting
all data.
48. Rosen, "Employment and Ethnicity," p. 741.
49. State of Illinois Department of Human Rights, Rules and Regulations Article VII, Section
7.1. The new program is unique in the country. Joyce McKissick of the Illinois Department of
Human Rights indicated that the Department has checked all state statutes; did mailings to all state
agencies which were responsible for the enforcement of laws barring discrimination in
employment; and checked with those attending a meeting on the International Association of
Human Rights Organizations. This survey produced no information on the existence of any
affirmative action program (collecting statistics, setting goals and timetables, etc.) involving
nationality groups, other than Hispanics. Chicago Tribune, March 15, 1982.
50. Calandra, A History of Italian American Discrimination at CUNY, p. 35. Also See,
Dominic R. Massaro, "Italian Americans as a Cognizable Racial Group", Italian Americans in A
Multicultural Society, in Race and Ethnic Relations Annual Editions, 1996/97.
51. See NCUEA, Minority Report: The Executive Suite, Blacks, Latinos, Poles and Italians,
(Washington, D.C.).
52. 45 (FE) 65636 (1980).
53. Ibid.
 54. "Intergovernmental Relations and Ethnicity," in Civil Rights Issues of Euro-Ethnic
Americans, p. 542. Kuropas formerly was the Special Assistant to the President for Ethnic Affairs
and serves as the Supreme Vice-President of the Ukrainian National Association.
As a result of that consultation the USCCR urged "appropriate federal agencies to explore
ways of gathering appropriate employment data" on Americans of Southern and Eastern European
ancestry. See United States Commission on Civil Rights, Affirmative Action in the 1980's:
Dismantling the Process of Discrimination, November, 1981, p. 40, note 48.
55. Andrew Greely, Chicago Tribune, July, 1978.
56. See Chicago Defender, January 29, 1976
57. See Perspectives, USCCR, Summer, 1980. Perspectives
58. See "For Affirmative Action for Some Whites," New York Times, Nov. 26, 1977. See also
the statement by the Community Relations Committee of the Illinois Division of the Polish
American Congress, to which Alderman Pucinski had taken exception. The Committee said that
"the Polish Community supports the affirmative action 'quota system' and believes that the only
thing wrong with the quota system is that Polish Americans are not included," Chicago Defender,
Jan. 29, 1976.
59. See Minority Report: The Representation of Poles, Italians, Latinos and Blacks in the
Executive Suites (Washington D.C.: NCUEA 1985).
 Chapter IX
The Religious Challenge of a Globalizing World for
Italian Cultural Identity:
Lessons from the American Experiment in Public Education
Robert A. Destro

Introduction

Religion, like air, is so much a part of life and culture that it is rarely noticed by those who
draw upon it as a constituent part of their identity. Religion touches each of us deeply, and exerts
a profoundly formative impact on our beliefs, behaviors, and modes of thinking. It is a fundamental
part of the life of every individual and culture. It shapes the character of the individual citizen, and
helps to define the concept of family. It is a major building block in a nation’s culture, and exerts
a profound impact on its politics and government.
The role of religion and religious belief in the life and experience of any culture is therefore
an important area for academic study and research. It helps the people of a nation to understand
the role of this important element in their own history and outlook, and provides an important basis
for interaction with cultures other than their own.
Such discussions can be threatening. Religious sensibilities are exquisitely sensitive, and
criticisms are not taken lightly. Cultures do not often have a well-developed vocabulary that allows
for creative and respectful explorations of religious differences, and the duties imposed by faith
are not often viewed starting points for inter-cultural understanding.
Most Italians and Italian-Americans have an instinctive understanding of the relationship of
Catholicism to Italian culture. Though academicians and social commentators may disagree on the
precise meaning of the concept of Italicity,” it is fair to assume that those who accept the concept
would concede that the religious heritage of Italians plays an important role in shaping our
understanding of what “is,” and what “should be.”
Many Americans, by contrast, would begin a discussion of the role of religion in public life
with at least a symbolic bow toward the principle of “separation of Church and state.” Though
religion has played a significant role in the development of American concepts of liberty and
justice, the general tendency is to view the “challenge” of religious diversity as something to be
feared and controlled, rather than embraced as a “social fact” of the human condition.
This paper suggests that both the “challenge” of globalization itself, and the “challenges” that
religion and culture create for the globalization process, should be viewed as an opportunity rather
than an obstacle. To the extent that we view the “challenge” of religion and religiously based
culture as a barrier to be overcome, the process of globalization will be more difficult and time-
consuming, the cause of human rights will suffer, and the world will become a far more dangerous
place. To the extent that we view the “challenge” of religion and religiously-based culture as an
opportunity to learn from one another about fundamental precepts of duty and respect, the process
of globalization will be no less difficult, but it will proceed more quickly, sink deeper roots, and
present far fewer dangers to either the cause of human rights or the preservation of world peace.

Education and the “Globalization” of Local Communities

 One of America’s great legal thinkers, United States Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell
Holmes (1841-1935), is famous for having observed: “A page of history is the starting point for
this paper, which suggests that the assimilation experience of Catholic immigrants in the United
States provides a useful microcosm in which to study the religious and cultural challenges of
globalization. Its specific focus is one of the most contentious issues in American cultural history:
government attempts to manage the assimilation and enculturation of immigrants by controlling
religious expression in publicly funded schools. Dubbed “The School Question” by late nineteenth
century American politicians, government attempts to preserve the common religious culture of
the nation have a long and interesting history in the United States and abroad. Schools are the
means by which families and communities transmit culture, philosophy, and religion to the next
generation of adult citizens. They are therefore one of the first social institutions to react to the
stresses and strains of the “globalization” process. Accommodation of religious difference in the
schools has been an issue at the state level from colonial times to the present,1 and at the federal
level since the 1870s.2 In recent years it has become an important issue in the European Union as
well.3

Education Law: “Localizing” Cultural Politics

One of the favorite observations of the late Speaker of the United States House of
Representatives, Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill, Jr., is that “all politics is local.” Though the process of
globalization often highlights national and regional concerns, most countries, including Italy and
the United States, are regions of the world that are, themselves, composed of distinct sub-regions
with their own culture and identities.4 We can therefore learn a great deal about the process of
“globalization” by examining the human rights experience of religious and ethnic minorities at the
local level.
The cultural impact of religious and demographic change on established local communities is
a constant theme in American history. From the early seventeenth century through the early federal
period (1620-1805), local communities set and enforced policy governing the accommodation of
cultural and religious traditions viewed as “foreign.” Prior to the great immigration waves in the
1800’s, American society was almost entirely Protestant. So too were those who either sought
converts or agitated for religious accommodation. Fear of cultural change led many local
communities to utilize legal structures that reflected the dominant cultural consensus – such as an
established church – to control or suppress the cultural influence of the newcomers.5
American history from the beginning of the nineteenth century to the present shows the
enormous impact of “globalization” on local culture. The “Great Atlantic Migration,” which began
in the 1820s, brought millions of European immigrants to the United States. Their impact on local
culture was immediate and profound. The schools reacted accordingly. In some cases, the religious
sensibilities of the immigrants were accommodated because no one complained.6 In others, the
courts simply denied the obvious: that the religious practices of the majority constituted a use of
the law to safeguard its own religious culture at the expense of others.7 But in no instance were
Catholic schools or their students permitted to utilize public funds to run schools more conducive
to their cultural and religious traditions. State constitutions were amended to ensure that control
over the major culture-forming institution in the community – the public schools – would remain
in the hands of the Protestant majority.8
As the United States made the transition from a largely agrarian to a largely urban population,
the law changed again. Concerned that the growing political power of the Catholic immigrant
community might sweep away the carefully crafted political structures designed to leave others in
charge of the public education system,9 opponents of religious education turned to the courts.
Their claim was that any tax payment in support of a program of religious education violates the
human and civil rights of taxpayers who do not wish to support the religious teachings of others.
The Court accepted their theory, and their invitation to craft a series of “global” (or “national”)
rules regarding the role of religion in society, government, and education.10 The significance of
this development for present purposes is that the Court made no attempt whatever to hide the
religious roots of its preference for the cultural legacy of “Common Christianity” (Protestantism).
The late Justice Robert Jackson of the United States Supreme Court described the problem facing
the United States in the following words: It is no exaggeration to say that the whole historic conflict
in temporal policy between the Catholic Church and non-Catholic comes to a focus in their
respective school policies. The Roman Catholic Church, counseled by experience in many ages
and many lands and with all sorts and conditions of men, takes what, from the viewpoint of its
own progress and the success of its mission, is a wise estimate of the importance of education to
religion. It does not leave the individual to pick up religion by chance. It relies on early and
indelible indoctrination in the faith and order of the Church by the word and example of persons
consecrated to the task.
Our public school, if not a product of Protestantism, at least is more consistent with it than
with the Catholic culture and scheme of values. It is a relatively recent development dating from
about 1840. (Citations omitted) It is organized on the premise that secular education can be isolated
from all religious teaching so that the school can inculcate all needed temporal knowledge and also
maintain a strict and lofty neutrality as to religion. The assumption is that after the individual has
been instructed in worldly wisdom he will be better fitted to choose his religion. Whether such a
disjunction is possible, and if possible whether it is wise, are questions I need not try to answer.11
Today, the law has changed again. Academic and popular commentaries extol the importance
of multiculturalism and “diversity,” and American primary schools are so committed to
bilingualism that it is difficult to find a public school that teaches an effective course in English
grammar and syntax. (It is thought to be “unwelcoming” to students whose first language is other
than English.) Immigration has reached all-time records, with no end in sight, and the expectation
is that American will welcome the newcomers without much regard for the preservation of their
own culture.
Strangely absent from this commitment to “diversity,” however, is the point made by Justice
Jackson and quoted above. How should American culture deal with the religious challenges posed
by the belief systems of the immigrants pouring into the United States from South and East Asia,
Africa, and Caribbean, and Latin America? Reported human rights cases track the friction that
these beliefs cause for the native population,12 and underscore the need for careful consideration
of subject.

Managing the process of Cultural Change in a Globalizing World

It should not be surprising that much of the debate in the United States over the politics of
cultural assimilation has taken place in an educational setting. Educational policy is a combination
of law and custom that seeks unabashedly to inculcate the young with the civic and moral values
the culture holds dear.13 The way in which government officials react to religious and cultural
differences says much about the way in which a culture will react to the challenge of globalization.
if we take seriously Justice Holmes’ further admonition that “the life of the law has not been logic
but experience,” we will see that in order to meet the challenges of globalization, we must
“empathetically appropriate” the experiences of our forebears. We must try to understand how
their experiences illuminate the policies that guided their actions, and influenced the policy choices
they have made. We must, in short, “immerse ourselves in history”14 and consider with care the
mistakes we have made in “defending” our respective cultures against the religious based beliefs,
practice, and cultural traditions of others.
The American experience with “globus et locus” teaches some important lessons about human
right and the need to foster respect for the cultures and religions those who would become members
of a local community. The American ideal is that one’s religion should be irrelevant to a person’s
place in the civic community, but American society has yet to resolve its profound ambivalence
concerning the need for religious and cultural assimilation. It is no accident that as recently as
1987, it was thought perfectly acceptable for a major political figure – then-Governor of Virginia,
Douglas Wilder – to question the political loyalty of Catholics in general, and of then-Supreme
Court Justice nominee, Clarence Thomas, in particular. Today, Muslims – even those who are
native born – are assumed by some to be disloyal. Orthodox religious believers are equally suspect,
for it is assumed that they cannot think critically, or for themselves. In this view, assimilation into
a generic “value structure” is the only path to peace.
There is, of course, another way. To make a concerted effort to understand the role of religion
in the formation and maintenance of cultural identity, and all of the interactions that are influenced
by that identity in daily life: education, business, family, government, art, music, and literature –
to name only a few.

Understanding Cultural “Identity”

Understanding the concept of “cultural identity” is not an easy task. It requires first an
understanding of one’s own culture, and of the concept of “culture” in general. It then requires
careful study of the ways in which culture affects the formation of the individual.
Americans are not well-prepared by either their education, or their understanding of civics
that their identity as “An American” rests solely on their willingness to internalizes a recognizably
“American” vision of a political community. In many immigrants, the measure of one’s
willingness to become “an American” is measured in negative terms: by the degree to which one
is willing to jettison the language and culture of one’s country of origin.
The concept of “Italicity” is thus a very useful construct. It invites academic speculation
concerning the nature and scope of Italian cultural identity that transcends the boundaries Italy. It
invites careful study of the impact of religion and religious education on the development of a
distinctively Italian culture, a distinctively “Italian” mode of thinking, doing business, and a
distinctively “Italian” way of integrating religion into public life. It has promise because it suggests
that there is something in Italian culture that transcends the nation – and can survive apart from it.
This, of course, is the great challenge. Americans of Italian descent will watch with interest
as Italians grapple with the growth and centralizing tendencies of the European Union, and with
the cultural dislocations that will be caused by the free movement of capital – and jobs – throughout
the EU. We will want to know – and compare – the ways in which European Union nations deal
with immigrants, both legal and illegal, and manage the cultural dislocations caused by
accommodating their cultural needs. We will want to know – and compare – how European
approaches to education reflects its stated commitment to the principle of subsidiarity,15 and how,
if at all, “Italicity” will survive the homogenizing tendencies of the mass media. Most of all, we
will want to learn how Italians will impart a sense of “Italicity” to the hundreds of thousands of
undocumented immigrants who cross into Italy each year.

Developing a Common Research Agenda

If we are to engage the challenge of globalism in general, and grapple with the challenge of
religious pluralism in particular, there is a need for a common research agenda. We must
understand that the task of building trust begins with small steps designed to build confidence. We
must identify common problems, form joint working groups to address them, and learn from each
other in the process. The following topics would be excellent places to start:

1. What is “Italicity,” and how does the religious culture of Italy influence its character?
2. How does the “Italicity” of a native-born Italian differ from that of Italians who have never
been to the land of their ancestors?
3. Education and the challenge of globalization: maintaining a balance between cultural
preservation and human rights.
4. The role of national culture and religion in understanding business and business ethics.
5. The family in religious and cultural traditions.
6. Functional approaches to cultural preservation.
7. The importance of understanding and maintaining important national and cultural symbols.

I will close by noting that the development of a joint research agenda is a very “American”
way to approach the topic of globalization. Americans like joint project. We say: “What can we
learn from the process of working together?” It is time to institutionalize the process, and to explore
the potential of the enormous resource that lies in our common cultural heritage: Italicity.

Notes

1. See, e.g. Cooper v. Eugene School District, No. 4J, 301 Or. 358, 723 P.2d 298 (1986), app.
Dis.480 U.S. 942 (Sikh teacher may not wear religious head scarf).
2. See, e.g., United States v. Board of Education for School District of Philadelphia, 911 F.2d
882 (3d Cir. 1990) (Muslim teacher may not wear head scarf).
3. See, e.g., Dahlab v. Switzerland, European Court of Human Rights, 42393/98 (15/02/2001)
(Muslim teacher may not were head scarf)’ Das sog, “Kruxifix-Urteil,” 32 BVerfGE (1995). See
also Silvio Ferrari, The Emerging Pattern of Church and State in Western Europe: The Italian
Model, 1995 B.Y.U.L. Rev. 421. See generally Thomas Kamm, “The New Battle of Poitiers,
France Sees Muslim Youths Turn to Fundamentalism, and Fear of Violence Grows,” The Wall
Street Journal Europe, Thursday, January 5, 1995, at 1 (reporting that the decision of many French
Muslim students at the University of Poitiers to wear the veil has led to a university ban of the
practice).
4. See, e.g., Joel Garreau, The Nine Nations of North America (New York: Houghton Mifflin
Co., 1981).
5. See, e.g., Rys Isaac, “Evangelical Revolt: The Nature of the Baptists’ Challenge to the
Traditional Order in Virginia, 1765 to 1775,” 31 Wm. And Mary Quarterly, 345-368 (1974).
Professor Isaac’s article notes the important cultural components of the Virginia experience, and
their relationship to “assumptions concerning the nature of community religious corporateness that
underlay aggressive defense against the Baptists.” Id. At 368. That the revolution’s republican
ideology played a major role in rendering such assumptions illegitimate, and led to the eventual
adoption of a policy of “accommodation in a more pluralist republican society” in Virginia is
significant in both structural and substantive terms. At the structural level, the concern for the
maintenance of the integrity of individual political and faith communities is an important
motivation for the political insistence on the part of the anti-federalists and the states for the
adoption of a Bill of Rights. The Civil War and later voting rights amendments make it clear at the
substantive level that all citizens are members of those “pluralistic, republican communities,” and
are entitled to equal civil and political rights. Notably, each amendment contains an important
structural component as well.
6. During the mid-1800s, the debates usually centered on prayer and Bible reading in the
public schools. In some cases, these practices were upheld because there was no objection from
any of the affected students or teachers. See, e.g., Millard v. Board of Education, 121 Ill. 297, 10
N.E. 669 (1887) (upholding the recitation of a Roman Catholic prayer, the Angelus, when school
closed at noon).
7. In the cases cited here, courts refused to hold that Catholic complaints about compelled
participation in Protestant religious exercises were justified. In this view, readings from the King
James version of the Bible were “nonsectarian” exercises, and Catholic students could be
compelled to participate. See Dohahoe v. Richards, 38 Me. 379, 61 Ma. Dec. 256 (Me. 1854);
Spiller v. Inhabitants of Woburn, 12 Allen (Mass.) 127 (1866); Pfeiffer v. Board of Education of
Detroit, 118 Mich. 560, 77 N.W. 250, 421 L.R.A. 526 (1898); Moore v. Monroe, 64 Iowa 367, 20
N.W. 475 (1884A); Hackett v. Brookville School District, 120 Ky. 608, 87 S.W. 792 (1905);
Billard v. Board of Education, 69 Kan. 53 (1904); Church v. Bullock, 104 Tex. 1, 109 S.W. 115
(1908).
8. The history of these developments is recounted in Michael S. Ariens and Robert A. Destro,
Religious Liberty in a Pluralistic Society (Durham: Carolina Acdemic Press, 2d, ed. 2002), supra,
Chapter 4. See also Pierce v Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510 (1025) (invalidating Oregon law
requiring all students to attend a public school).
9. Paul Blanchard, American Freedom and Catholic Power, 4 (1949).
10. Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, 536 U.S.
11. Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1, 23-24 (1947) (Jackson, Rutledge, Frankfurter
and Burton, JJ., dissenting).
12. See, e.g., Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah, 508 U.S. 520 (1993) (local
laws prohibiting animal sacrifice aimed at adherents of Santeria).
13. See generally, Michael S. Ariens and Robert A. Destro, Religious Liberty in a Pluralistic
Society, Chapter 6, “Religion in the Classroom” (discussing the American experience); Leszek
Lech Garlicki, Perspectives on Freedom of Conscience and Religion in the Jurisprudence of
Constitutional Courts, 2001 B.Y.U.L. Rev. 476 (discussing the constitutional requirements
governing educational practice of several European countries).
14. John T. Noonan, Jr., The Believer and the Powers That Are (New York: Macmillan, 1987),
xiii.
15. See official website of the European Constitutional Convention, the subsidiarity principle
is intended to ensure that decisions are taken as closely as possible to the citizen and that constant
checks are made as to whether action at community level is justified in the light of the possibilities
available at national, regional or local level. Specifically, it is the principle whereby the Union
does not take action (except in the areas which fall within its exclusive competence) unless it is
more effective than action taken at national, regional or local level. It is closely bound up with the
principle of proportionality, which requires that any action by the Union should not go beyond
what is necessary to achieve the objectives of the treaty of European Union.
 Chapter X
Locality, Nationality, Globality. The Possible Contribution of
Italicity in the Age of Globalisation
Mauro Magatti

Introduction

This paper is composed of three main parts. The first is a brief theoretical introduction to the
theme of globalisation in order to lay down the framework within which to place our current phase
of history. The second takes a fresh look at some of the features of Italicity which are significant
in the transition through which we are presently passing. The third is an attempt to link these
together.

Living in the Post-Societal Age

Globalisation is bringing about profound changes in the coordinates of social life.1 We

witness the collapse of the societal myth - the culmination of a century-long historical process –
which aspired to recompose institutional order and subjective experience.
Society, understood as the complex cultural and institutional apparatus which overlapped
institutional organisation and subjective experience within the framework of the nation state, was
the key term of the twentieth century. From the very outset, this term was used in a vague and
evocative sense, with no analytical precision whatsoever. Indeed throughout the nineteenth century
in central Europe, the term Gesellschaft was used to describe a type of social organisation radically
different from the traditional Gemeinschaft.
After a gestation period which lasted several centuries and which took place under the banner
of national identity, the XX century finally realised – albeit for only a short season – the dream of
previous generations. Between the end of the second world war and the fall of the Berlin Wall, we
had a 50 year period during which society triumphed. National societies were able to provide a
framework which made sense for individual life and an institutional framework within which that
collectivity could come about. This was the golden age of society, that is when society was used
commonsensically to indicate a social organisation which coincided with the nation state. It was
within the conceptual framework that it was possible to speak of "American society", "English
society", "Italian society". Globalisation, whatever it means, questions this representation.
In order to understand the ramifications of the breakdown of the societal model which is taking
place in this historical phase, it is crucial to make an analytical distinction between the way in
which this process is experienced by individuals and the collectivity and the transformation taking
place on a structural level. We assume that "globalisation" may be better understood by
simultaneously examining the subjective and the structural sides of the present transformation.
A large amount of the current debate on globalisation focuses on the macro or structural level.
The argument is that the reorganisation in progress is driven by economic forces which are
demolishing the spatialisation of social life imposed by the nation state (Harvey, 1993).
Actually, from a systemic point of view, the situation is nowadays rather different from two
decades ago. Even if we do listen to those who deny that all of this causes the evaporation of the
nation state (Berger, Dore, 1998), the fact remains that the level of sovereignty of national political
power over economic matters is less now than in the past, and that cannot but condition its logic
of action.
However, it is not only the economic sphere: this reorganisation is also – and perhaps above
all – taking place in the cultural sphere. The extraordinary growth in the flow of information and
communication made possible by telematic technologies (Mattelart, 1991, Meyrowitz, 1993;
Morley Robins, 1995) effectively constitutes an autonomous process whose implications must be
adequately evaluated (Virilio, 2000): it is no longer only goods or capital that cross borders, but
also ideas, information and, not least, human beings.
This brings us back to the ideas of society and culture (Geertz, 1999). Traditionally, the two
terms were considered to be interchangeable: each society had its culture – which was relatively
homogeneous – and each culture could live and reproduce itself within a given (spatially located)
society. "Until a few years ago, countries were nations and cultures shared lifestyles. . . . Now
however there are very few countries which at least in part coincide with culturally united societies
. . . the illusion that the world is composed from one end to the other of entities of the same type,
pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, originates from the iconographic conventions of our political atlases.
And it is precisely that, an illusion." (Geertz, 1999:28-9). It is this very presupposition which
becomes no longer valid once reality seems to suggest that cultures are possible without territory
and that there may be a (problematic) coexistence of diverse cultures within each physical space
(Hannerz, 1998).
As far as politics is concerned, troubles comes from the weakening of its power. Economic
and cultural transactions daily cross national borders, pushing towards new forms of
institutionalisation.
Thus, on the structural level, we have the first disconnection which involves the loss of
coincidence over a territory between systemic spheres increasingly organised around an internal
logic of their own. Economic, political and cultural fields tend to organise themselves
autonomously and in spaces which are no longer perfectly overlapping. This explains why the
institutional framework built after the second world war – characterised by the spatial
correspondence between the (national) economy, (national) politics and (national) culture – can
no longer fit the current situation. This does not mean that the nation states evaporate, but rather
that they are driven to change their role and their internal organisation. (Mann, 1997; Sassen,
2000). To put it more simply, this implies the end of the coincidence between institutionalised
environments and what we are used to calling society.
On a subjective level, restructuring our spatio-temporal experience, globalisation radicalises
the experience of modernity which Simmel, at the turn of the century, conceptualised in terms of
diversification and intersection of the social spheres. The point we wish to make is that this
experience, which is typically modern, has been radicalized in the latter part of the 20th century.
The reason is that individuals are no longer simply located at the intersection of different social
circles; our subjective experience undergoes a drastic modification as soon as we begin to come
into daily contact withmultiple worlds which refer to levels of reality which are different from one
another, autonomous from one another and even opposed to one another, although confusingly
interwoven. This involves two main differences from the last century.
In the first place, systems for institutional regulation and cultural recomposition which were
still operating in the 20th century are weakening. Subjective and collective life is becoming
increasingly insecure, while the conviction that for each society there is a corresponding culture
rooted in one place is collapsing: nowadays, every one of us is forced to live with other cultures
and each cultural universe must take account of the Other and what is different.
 In the second place, subjective experience moves within multiple and independent levels of
reality – face-to-face relations, systemic relations, media communications, virtual reality – the
recomposition of which no longer takes place on a collective level, but is left to individual
initiative.
It is, therefore, our experience of the world that changes. According to J. Habermas, this
triggers a qualitative transformation of the social integration which arises from the new
modernising wave crashing on our lifeworlds: the power of redefining and renegotiating the social
space-time within which associative life takes place is no longer a privilege of the wealthier
classes, but a (relatively) widespread condition, a way of being which changes the perception of
reality and the very life of our times.
The different way in which we build relationships with our surrounding environment means
that the space which physically surrounds us is increasingly less able to endow individual life and
create a framework within which to develop collective languages and actions. This is because "the
truth of experience no longer coincides with the place in which it takes place" (Jameson,
1988:349): the actual physical place is no longer a system of communication onto itself and
consequently, the probability of having experiences and meanings in common with those around
us tends to become less. In that which M. Albrow has called disconnected contiguity, (1996:157),
the relation between individuals and the surrounding context is the contrary of the idea of a
functionally integrated society. This gives rise to a whole series of social processes: what is near
– i.e. known, familiar, comprehensible – and what is far – i.e. unpredictable, threatening, uncertain
– is no longer exclusively defined by our direct experience or our spatial location, but becomes
something to be continually negotiated (Bauman, 1999:17). It remains to be seen what sort of
society all this will lead to.
Globalisation, therefore, is here conceptualised as the combination of two disconnections –
the first at a structural level and the second at a subjective one – both of which are becoming more
and more widespread and deep. As Bauman observed, "The endemic instability of the lifeworlds
of the majority of the people in our times is the ultimate cause of the current crisis in public life,
and thus the decline of good society as the objective and reason behind collective action in general
and the objective of the resistance to the erosion of the private/public space, the only space within
which human solidarity and the recognition of common causes can find fertile terrain to grow
"(Bauman, 2000:181).
While refusing to resort to any kind of determinism (whether economic or technological) we
may assume that the process of self-organisation of the great systemic and functional apparatus –
themselves produced by human action – continuously upset the subjective as well as the collective
daily experience. The phase we are going through – in which "the individuals' and small groups'
lifeworlds are being spread through functionally interwoven networks around the world, instead
of corresponding and overlapping through the channels of social integration into larger and more
stratified political entities" (Habermas, 1999:69) – is characterised by a break which is far from
having been repaired.
At this point, we can state that globalisation should not be seen as a trend or a state, but more
modestly, as a break. Instead of setting up a new social or economic order, the breakage of the
balances created after the second world war opens up a series of possible developments: the
formation of new political entities on a regional level, clashes between civilizations, the formation
of a global ecumene, the birth of the network society, the explosion of identity-based conflicts, the
rise of new imperialisms and new centre-peripheral relations, the advent of new social actors and
new levels of social conflictuality, the explosion of international terrorism causing dramatic
political and economic consequences, to name but a few examples. There can be debate as to which
of these outlets is most plausible. But the point is that the final outcome is still largely
undetermined.
In a word, we are in a post-societal age, where the I-We relationship is undergoing a rapid
restructuring. Since we are cruising on a sea whose maps are largely unknown, special care to
sighting is needed.

A New Spatialisation of Social Life

Modernity has coincided with individualisation. Society has extended the spaces of freedom
removing the individual from community control. But this liberation has come up against a limit
in those imagined communities, abstract and universalistic, represented by the nation state. This
has led to the politicisation of social space: actually, the other side of individualisation is the
spatialisation of social life through politics. The state and the individual make up the couple which,
despite all the tensions – set the course for the 20th century. Now, at the moment when our society
is falling apart, the issues which that project was trying to answer - the origin of social bonds, the
sources of solidarity, individual and collective identity – explode once again.
Globalisation marks a spatial rift similar to that of the discovery of America. As then, we have
to revise our perception of reality, and with it the I-We relationship. As we have seen, the idea of
society presupposed a political myth. That is, it imagined a social life entirely designed around and
subject to political authority which was entrusted with the task of building a local and
homogenising individualistic universalism. The thought that the categories of modernism could be
spread around the entire world is not only contested, but also hardly attractive. As Hannah Arendt
wrote, it is dictatorships and mass societies who claim that the world is identical.
Two opposite extremes need to be avoided. On the one hand, this is the desire to reconstruct
the lost homogeneity. This solution has at least two variants: the neofundamentalist one, which
thinks that it is possible to reconstruct complete, homogeneous and closed identities, and the
panpolitical one, which thinks it is possible to extend the domain of politics on a planetary scale.
On the other hand, there is the thesis of those who believe that identity is a relic of the past. These
are the post-modern response which considers irrelevant issues which are highly controversial
(such as identity and social bonds) – and the neoliberalist approach which believes that institutional
regulation can be simply replaced by economic regulation.
We argue rather that in order to face the crises mentioned above we should destroy nothing
that we have built, but rather rearticulate the social space. In actual fact, even in the past, the advent
of society never managed to supplant the community: the former was built on the latter. Thus
globalisation should be viewed as an opportunity (as well as a risk) for enriching social life, adding
a new dimension to the societal and community dimensions, the global dimension. The problem
we are faced with is how to recognise diversity without destroying the conditions for coexistence
and individual freedom.
The process of despatialisation-respatialisation (Tomlison, 2000) is the core of the matter
which is taking place makes it extremely difficult to pursue this objective. Societal modernity was
by definition located within a physical space – defined by national frontiers – within which a
homogenous reality was created that was also sufficiently separate from the outside world. In such
a context, the subject could define himself and others with sufficient clarity, using the spatial
parameter as a discriminator. On a more general level, we must underline that the phase which is
behind us only made crossing space easier, but did not replace it. This can be seen clearly by
observation of daily life which, in societal modernity still was centred around the distinction and
separateness of physical places: home, factory, church and municipality.
Today, however, these clear distinctions no longer exist. The crossing of boundaries by the
flows of which our social life is composed (Appadurai, 1996) destroys that experience. There is
no longer a space outside of or beyond something.
Take politics as an example. In an emblematic way, we can consider the attack of September
11 as the symbol of this transformation. Even the United States, which had made its physical
isolation a central element of its identity, suddenly felt vulnerable. As everyone underlined in the
months that followed, it would be hard to imagine a clash of Western civilization and Islam since
the ‘enemies,’ i.e. the Muslims, are not only ‘out there’ but also ‘in here’, many now live on a
permanent basis in western countries. The construction of the pair, friend/enemy, can no longer be
superimposed on the spatial dimension near/far. In fact, to speak of the war on terrorism clearly
indicates the despatialisation of conflicts.
But similar dynamics can be found in family life. Even the home space which for many
(maybe for most people) continues to be a place of rootedness, is increasing ambiguous. This
which above all to the increasing pervasiveness of communication technology, from the phone
(land line or mobile) to the television (cable or satellite). If, on the one hand, as J. Meyrowitz
(1993) has argued, television above all is responsible for the end to the segregation of the
spheres (public and private, male and female, childhood and adult) and there is a restructuring of
social stages, on the other hand, the domestic environment has more trouble configuring itself as
an other place, separate from the outside and therefore a space for possible reflection, resistance
and structural re-elaboration. In this context, it is no longer possible to preserve an intimacy of
one’s own, a space where there is an interruption in the uninterrupted flow of images and
sensations.
The problem is that there is no longer a clear overlap between space and culture, nor between
institutional organisation and subjective experience: the condition of contemporary man is that of
a pluralisation of worlds which M. Augé defines as (1993) spatial superabundance. The
complexification of social worlds not only results in a quantative superabundance, but the
impossibility of transferring experience from one world to another, from one area to another of the
social experience. A. Giddens states that we are all partially dislocated, some of us tending to find
ourselveselsewhere from the situations in which we actually are. We are never completely at
home. For Z. Bauman, we are partially deprived; our experience is never total. There is always a
part of us that adapts reluctantly, that does not really feel it belongs, that feels the need for some
futher meaning, even to the experiences we ourselves freely choose.
In a world dominated by networks and the web, where the experience of space and time is
fragmented and no longer creates a base for recognition and solidarity, politics can and must
continue to play a crucial role. This is necessary so that social life not be dominated by pure
systemic logics which tolerate only isolated individuals who are no more than cogs in
megamachines of which they control neither the direction nor the functioning. In order to do this,
however, politics must be able to recognise the richness of social life, its complexity and
subjectivity, nurturing, as it were, what otherwise can never grow to maturity. Above all, it must
come up with a new spatialisation compatible with the organisation of contemporary social life.
Present times, however, imply the capacity to go beyond a panpolitical vision of society.
Politics is not above social subjects coordinating the various systemic spheres. Nor is it as T.
Parsons thought, capable of indicating the ends which should be collectively pursued. On a more
modest note, politics must be willing to make its essential contribution to a world sailing in stormy
waters, resolving collective problems which otherwise would remain unresolved and offering its
support to the complex process of the creation of individual and collective identities. As B. Badie
wrote, "territoriality has not dissolved but rather has suffered a blow not only to its claim to
defining a framework for sovereignty, but also to its tendency to exercise decisive control over
social relations and actions" (Badie, 1996:125). Rather than imposing a hierarchy on social life,
politics has the task of supporting systemic differentiation – always with the risk of being hindered
by the return of new monopolistic trends – and recreating spaces of autonomy and freedom for
social subjects and their lifeworlds. In this way, politics can recover one of its roles which is that
of working towards the respatialisation and retemporalisation of social life.

Institutional Weakness and the Case for Italicity

The thesis here is that in this framework the Italian case can tell us something which may
help us in the search for a new social, cultural and political equilibrium.
Compared with other highly developed countries, Italy has undergone a particular
development over the past few centuries. In a certain sense, it could be said that the Italian situation
has remained largely outside the experience of societal modernity in its two main expressions, the
American and the continental. With regard to the first, Italy never had the inviolability which
characterised the USA and made a powerful internal cohesion possible. With regard to the second,
Italy is weak in that it has never managed to furnish itself with solid institutional structures. These
are not capable of creating conditions suited to the formation of a distinct and homogeneous social
and cultural space. We may say that the Italian case cannot be traced to either of the models
mentioned in the work of Toqueville.
To make a long story short, we may say that the most characteristic feature of the Italian
experience has been its institutional weakness. In the opinion of many authors, this weakness is
congenital and is the reason for negative judgments on the Italian case. There is ample evidence
of such negative aspects as: a lack of respect for rules, inconsistency of the elites, widespread
corruption and clientelism, the fragility of democratic institutions, and lack of a sense of civic duty
(Banfield 1959; Almond Verba 1963; la Palombara 1969).
All of these points are justified to a great extent and highlight typical aspects of the Italian
situation. Nonetheless, the Italian case is interesting because – contrary to the norm elsewhere –
these weakness have not hampered economic and social development. This is not intended as some
sort of formal defence of the Italian specificity. The author is well aware of the ambiguity which
characterises this country. But simply and seriously, there are good reasons for claiming that, in
the present context, the Italian case, in all its peculiarity, may not be considered an example of
delay where the traditional process of modernisation is concerned. Rather it is a heterodox
experience from which we can learn some important lessons. It is in fact this very diversity which
makes the Italian case so interesting in times like these. In an age in which many past certainties
no longer hold true, it may be useful to take a fresh look at those historic processes which have
peculiar traits.
The basic reason for this claim is that globalization generalises that very condition of
institutional weakness upon which the Italian situation is founded. As we saw in the first part of
the paper, if there is a trait that characterises the end of societal modernity it is that at the end of
the day the individual nation state can hardly be considered the regulator of human relations. This
institutional weakness characterises the era and probably that which is yet to come. This creates a
whole series of problems which we are only now beginning to conceptualise. Let us see, therefore,
what can be said about the Italian experience.

Nation State and National Identity

From a historical point of view, Italy follows the model from nation to state, but with an
important variation. Writers and historians, scientists and intellectuals drew up an Italian identity
long before the nation state was thought up or created.
The Italian case is peculiar in so far as the national cultural identity was created while
maintaining a clear autonomy from the political identity; also the national culture was unable to
produce the effects hoped for at the moment when the nation state came into being. Italy is the
prototype of a nation state which appeared from nowhere, unable fully to interpret the national
sentiment which already existed among the Italians. Contrary to what happens elsewhere, the
Italians have difficulty in identifying with their nation state.
Many historical reasons contribute to explain this feature. As far as this discussion is
concerned, one element should be stressed: the Italian identity arose as a bridge between the
productive centres of the north and the shores of Africa. With over 8,000 kilometres of coastline,
stretched out in the middle of the Mediterranean, Italy is an open country, a crossroads between
worlds and cultures. Moreover, it has a rich internal diversification which renders impossible any
easy homologation. In fact, as a borderline country between Europe and Africa, throughout its
history Italy has been characterised by its penetrability. Its borders have been violated on such a
continuous basis that the Italians have had to get used to basing their identity on something other
than the institutional order. I would underline here that this penetrability made the difference
between other processes of national identity-building typical of the modern age: the laying down
of borders and the consolidation of a sense of belonging. These are essential elements for the
construction of that separate and homogeneous space which was the foundation for societal
modernity, but they were achieved only partly in the history of our country. The weakness of
political power, its fragmentation and unreliability, have led to a fundamentally sceptical and
detached attitude towards the institutions which are considered incapable of solving the day-to-
day problems of the individual. A mistrustful attitude which can be summed up in the proverb ‘o
Francia o Spagna, basta che si mangia,’ ‘Whether we’re ruled by France or Spain, its enough that
one eats.’
An understanding of this fact is essential too in order to explain the weaknesses of the nation
state which, arising late, has always been characterised by extreme fragility. The nation’s elites –
while making a decisive contribution to the modernisation of the country – hardly dispelled the
mistrust of Italians towards the institutional dimension which, throughout the 20th century
constantly undermined Italian public life.
From this Italian case at least three lessons may be learned. The first is that the dimensions
of the nation and the state need not necessarily coincide. Over the past few centuries there has been
considerable emphasis on this combination to the point where, to a certain extent, they have been
made to appear inseparable. Today however, we are attempting to make the tie between these two
terms less binding.2 The Italian case would appear to suggest that the state and nation are relatively
independent of one another.
The second lesson comes from a realisation of the fact that in Italy this congenital weakness
has not translated into the institutional anarchy to be found in many late comers. Probably, this
difference can be traced to the fact that for many centuries – that is up to the creation of the united
state – the Italian institutional framework was based on a complex, plural model, without a single
centre or a single hierarchy, but within a common cultural framework. In reality, the weakness of
Italian political institutions was able to perpetuate itself throughout the centuries without causing
disasters in the social body. For it could count on a society with an extraordinary capacity for local
self-organisation and guidance of individual behaviour based on tradition and social control. In the
Italian experience, the multiplicity of political institutions has always been recomposed in terms
of values and institutions by the great integrating force that was the Catholic Church; this had the
power to lay down the boundaries within which social processes took place. Due to the presence
of the Church, there has always been a clear distinction in the Italian experience between crime
and sin, the jurisdiction of the church and that of the political institutions. In this dialectic we can
understand the history of the evolution of Italy. The relationship between the social norm – which
has its origin in the concrete nature of social relations – and the ethical evaluation of these relations
generated an extraordinary capacity for intervention and transformation of society. In order to
avoid institutional weakness sliding into anarchy, it is extremely important to work towards the
construction of a shared social morality, which makes it possible to support the intended
institutional apparatus.
The third lesson is that, lacking such an ethical-value framework, it is pointless to aim solely
for institutional structures of a merely regulatory nature. This risks starting a vicious circle of one-
dimensional norms, namely placing excessive expectations attributed socially to positive law,
which they must regulate every sphere of social life – even down to the tinest details – without any
moral support of a social nature: “The omnipresence and pervasiveness of positive law in every
aspect of daily life results in the suicide of the law. In any case, there is an increasing lack of
flexibility of every aspect of daily life as legislative and judicial regulation day by day spreads to
areas which traditionally belonged to morality and judgement of sin. Here, justice watches over us
and punishes us for our sexual customs, closes in on us with new prohibitions, makes ever more
rigid family relationships, economic activity and work, health and school, and follows us every
day from birth to death” (Prodi 2000:480-1). In the Italian situation, over the past decades this
spiral has ended up producing the kind of statalismo which has contributed to draining the state
institutions of any strength or content. As a result, they are unable to govern an overwhelming
social situation, thereby contributing to the crisis of civil conviventia. The connection with what
Z. Bauman said about the process of adiaphorization of contemporary society is clear: the more
society – as we have understood it during the twentieth century – breaks down, the more difficult
it becomes to control individual behaviour without recourse to formal criteria. But this is the start
of a vicious circle: on the one hand, we have difficulty expressing new forms of social self-
regulation – because the fragmentation of social reality cancels this out – and this forces us to turn
to the judicial or legislative system to set limits for individual behaviour. But neither parliaments
nor law courts can keep up with social change, and anyway there are no organisational and
institutional resources for implementing such a form of regulation. This ends up in an
overproduction of norms with the inevitable juridification of social life (Teubner 1999). The sole
consequence is the alienation of the citizen from the institutions. From this viewpoint, it does
indeed seem that we are living in another world, detached from the tradition which characterised
the last millennium. With the advent of the one-dimensional norm, in fact, “there is no longer the
normative ‘breath’ (in/out) between the internal but collective world (not private) of the moral
norm and the external world of positive law. This characterised our lives and made liberal and
democratic growth possible over all these centuries. It is the only way in which our collective
identity can survive” (Prodi 2000:484). This is one of the typical problems of globalisation of
which we can see signs in the Italian experience.

The Place of the Local

In the Italian situation, the weakness of national institutions has always gone hand in hand
with the central role of the local dimension. The localism of the Italians was long seen as a sign of
backwardness. As far back as the beginning of the 18th century, in his “Discourse on the Present
State of the Customs of the Italians,” Giacomo Leopardi made a sarcastic list of a series of defects
of the Italian people, some of which may strike us as equally valid today: from the ‘little or no
national love which exists among us’ to the ‘intimate and closed society whose members become
almost a family’ (:12); from the ‘peculiarity of our opinions’ to the ‘lack of a centre which is also
a lack of a society’: ‘each Italian city, but not only, each Italian, acts in accordance with their own
precepts’! (:21). Other comments, too, seem extraordinarily pertinent and up to date, such as the
lack of planning and the focus exclusively on the present, the tendency towards cynicism and
ridicule of oneself and others, where low self-esteem, in the final analysis, means lack of morality
(:37).
As far as national identity is concerned, Leopardi saw a proliferation of habits rather than
recognisable customs: “Italians have usages and habits rather than customs. Few usages and habits
can be described as national, but of these few and the many more which can only be described as
provincial or municipal, it can only be said that they are followed for simple satisfaction rather
than any kind of either provincial or national spirit” (:48).
This very localism was long considered a sign of the incapacity of Italian society to open up,
remaining as a result slave to the worst particularist dynamics, within which clientelism and
familism dominated to the detriment of any universal recognition (La Palombara, 1969). As
already mentioned, Italian and international studies of the 60s focused particularly on this point,
highlighting the weakness of Italian modernity. To mention just one, there is the amoral
familism as coined by E. Banfield (1958), an element able to spoil Italian civil life. Namely, instead
of bringing up its members to go out and take part in public life, the family offers them reassurance
and protection, even at the price of overturning the rules of collective life.
Yet, the situation today seems even more complex. In fact, starting in the 70s when the crisis
of the societal equilibrium created in the post-war period first became evident, the Italian
experience helped demonstrate that the local dimension does not necessarily mean backwardness.
Under certain conditions, it may prove to be an incubator of resources capable of boosting
economic development and social involvement. In those years it became increasingly clear that
Italy was unable to reproduce the dominant model of modernisation on a political, economic and
social level. Yet the rediscovery of the local dimension constituted one of the central elements for
a rethinking of the model of national development.
The development of the industrial districts, the Third Italy (Bagnasco, 1977), the model of
flexible specialisation (Quadrio Curzio, Fortis, 2002), made possible a widespread capitalism
deeply rooted in the local dimension. Within this the social capital based on an intense relational
network and a shared identity constituted the central resource.
Within this school of thought, it is worth mentioning the work of Putnam (1993) who
emphasised that the high institutional performance of certain Italian regions was the winning card
of a development model based on a high level of social integration. Its economic system was
founded on small and medium-sized businesses organised on the basis of the model of flexible
specialisation. The central notion in Putnam's work is “social capital” defined as "features of social
organization such as trust, norms and networks that can improve the efficiency of society by
facilitating coordinated actions" (:167). Putnam says that in local contexts characterized by dense
networks of social exchange and moral inclusion people could trust each other and information
can be reliable.3 In such contexts, the social ability to collaborate for shared interests is the central
resource to integrate social life and sustain growth. Thus aspects which seemed irrelevant in
societal modernity have come once again to constitute an important point of reference.
In the Italian tradition, localism has kept its strength and has managed to mobilise
considerable economic and social forces. In the face of the weakness of the nation state in playing
a role to integrate civic values, local society has played and continues to play a surrogate role,
creating the foundations for a widespread sense of involvement and shared responsibility5.
More recently, there has been renewed study of amoral familism. As everybody knows, the
family is a strong feature of Italian society. In all the studies carried out over the past years, the
family appears as that in which Italians most trust. After the drop in ratings during the 70s, the
institution of the family shows an enviable tenacity: for Italians, the family generally remains the
most important value. As noted in recent studies, the Italian family exhibits an extraordinary
plasticity and capacity for transformation and it remains pivotal in the social life without any
significant difference among different areas of the country, professions, social groups or age
groups.
In this context, there has been mention, in a less negative light, of vital familism which
“develops a culture of indulgence of a particularly feminine kind, an indication of the pervasive
presence of the mother in Italian culture. This tends to personalise all relations and leads to an
excessive indulgence for the guilty, particularism, familism, but also to a concreteness which
makes discipline difficult” (Cassano, 1998:19). According to Cassano "familism is not closing off
the outside world but an attitude of indulgence, compassion, flexibility which has no place in the
society of law, an attention to a different concreteness, the feeling that there is a common origin
that can be translated into a rejection of any boundary to the community". According to this way
of seeing things, the central position of personal relations (to go beyond its well known negative
aspects) seems capable of generating symbolic and material resources. Under certain conditions,
these can in an original way recompose the relationship between the individual and the surrounding
context, according to a logic different to that of the societal model. The local dimension - basically
founded on what is called personal trust - may constitute a resource which can even compensate
for the deficit of institutional trust which has always been an important aspect of the Italian case.
In this regard two aspects which deserve to be underlined.
The first is that the sense of national identity is not in counterpoint to, but rather is
strengthened by the sense of belonging on a local level. Apart from the recent separatist tendencies
which emerged in the 90s, in actual fact, Italian history is composed of a plurality of belongings
which then come together in the common Italian matrix. Being Italian can remain somewhat of an
abstraction, but Italianness is mediated by the local dimension, which is able to translate the
abstract into the concrete. Therefore, even if the weakness of national identification emerges from
its inability to connect with any moral dimension, that is to play the role of integrator for a set of
civil values (Sciolla, 1997:87), it is also true that in this atavistic temptation, Italy possesses a
surprising ability to anticipate current trends connected with globalisation. For the local dimension
constitutes the place where the global becomes concrete and relates, there is an area of interaction
in society which facilitates the diffusion rather than concentration of power. This is capable of
creating horizontal solidarity instead of boundaries of vertical subordination, and of encouraging
debate and autonomy instead of obedience and conformity.
The second aspect concerns the fact that Italian localism, rather than being the seed of closing
off, contains traits which underline concrete involvement and the recognition of the other which
meld in a local cosmopolitanism. In this regard research carried out in recent years demonstrates
that Italian civic society does not so much express that sense of civicness – typical of Anglosaxon
cultures – as that which M. Buber called "social principle" in contrast to political principle.4 These
studies highlight how, on the one hand, the infinite web of human relations, social ties and
obligations is never reproduced in institutional life; on the other, associated life has an incessant
relational production which is a durable source of social transformation. In this sense, it is direct
experience, doing things in person, and measuring up to real problems that provides the drive
towards adhesion, and the contribution to solving particular problems of concrete collective
interest. These are the characteristic elements of Italian civic society. Within this situation,
the dense network of social subjects expresses above all the importance of dealing with other
concrete issues and takes real direct responsibility for the more fragile sectors of society. Together,
these elements give rise to a widespread, if often hidden, situation which has considerable self-
entrepreneurial qualities. These are not only of an acquisitive, but also of a solidaritarian nature,
they have exceptional ability to move in the gaps and spaces left empty by administrative and
economic apparata.
The crux of the matter is that within these realities, a powerful localistic orientation coexists
with an equally clear universalistic orientation. It is among those who are most committed to the
local level that we find the greatest openness to the other and the least preoccupation with
defending their own identity.

A Vocation for Universal Codes

A third consideration deals with the relationship between Italianness and globality. The
weakness of the Italian state identity not only has to do with the local dimension, but also with the
universalist vocation of Italicity. This has two different aspects.
The first is that, since the time of the Renaissance, Italian culture has distinguished itself –
both in its most illustrious relations and in the organisation of daily life on an individual and
collective level – by the centrality of the expressive dimension. If, following C. Taylor (1993), we
wished to distinguish the two roots of modern individualism, then we could say that Italian culture
is distinguished by the centrality attributed to the expressive dimensions rather than to scientific
and technological rationality.
There is no need here to underline the fact that – above and beyond the issue of its political
strength – Italy has constantly produced artists of the highest order. More recently, much of the
economic reconversion which characterised the country involved sectors in which the added
cultural value made the difference (the reference is, naturally, first and foremost to fashion). Made
in Italy, more than a simple economic reference to quality, is an expression of an aesthetic sense
which is capable of raising itself to the level of a universal language. Above and beyond its political
inconsistency, Italian culture never ceased to project itself outside. It was never content to stay
safe within the limited confines of its national boundaries, but was always trying to take part in the
search for universal codes.5
Despite its political controversies, Italy has always been one of the most lively cultures in the
world, capable above all of expressing a quality of life that is envied in many places. It is this
different form of individualism that makes Italy so attractive today in an age when the forced
rationalism of the 20th century has revealed its limitations.
The second aspect deals with some features of the Italian diaspora. Two observations seem of
interest.
The first is the sense of national pride of the many millions of Italians who live all over the
world. Italianness has for many constituted an important motive for pride, exceeding any
identification with the state and its actions. Perceiving themselves as a people of “saints and
heroes,” Italians tend to identify themselves with the deeds of famous Italians, above all sports
champions, who through their actions legitimise that sense of belonging which is at the root of
feeling Italian. Our compatriots who achieve success in some field or other express and reinforce
this perception which continues to be widespread the world over. The Italian is proud of that
creative way of doing and being which constitutes the most distinctive feature of being Italian and
constitutes something absolutely distinctive.
The second aspect consists of building an identity which is not antagonistic to other loyalties
of a political, religious or associative nature. As we have seen, the sense of commonness which
characterises Italicity is not directly connected with nationalistic issues or problems regarding the
demands of the nation state. Rather, above all, it is a vision of life – what journalists like to call:
the Italian way of life. At the same time that these characteristics imply a sort of intrinsic weakness
of this identity, they constitute its strong point and its most interesting aspect. In fact, Italicity can
be considered a good example of an identitary network which is able to exist and function without
conflicting with other identitary dimensions connected to territory and more generally, to politics.
Accordingly, Italianness has been and continues to be a resource utilised mainly in order to find a
balance between individualistic behaviour and the need for a continued sense of identity and
belonging. This is decisive and the most interesting aspect of Italicity.
In conclusion, we can say that the Italian experience is of interest in so far as it recomposes in
an original manner the dimensions of the national, the local and global, both on an institutional
and cultural level. It is this which makes Italianness so intriguing in the age of globalization. In
Italy, a cosmopolitan identification takes on non-conformist and anti-institutional connotations.
Italianness would appear rather to be an essentially anthropological and cultural phenomenon
which expresses itself mainly at the local level. This may explain why a national identity is
maintained well beyond the state infrastructure, which is important, but not so essential.6 Still
Italiannes is able to give identity, as has been demonstrated by its role throughout the 20th century
among the various Italian communities all over the world.

Spaces of a Multidimensional Politics

This brief analysis of the Italian experience brings us back, to the general themes connected
to globalisation.
According to J. Habermas, the 20th century drew to a close marked by a second great
transformation, reproducing the same dynamic that occurred between the 18th and 19th centuries,
with a deregulation of world trade as a prelude to a new regulation: "From the viewpoint of K.
Polanyi, the question arises of how it is possible to politically close – without any regression – a
world society that is globally interconnected and highly interdependent" (Habermas, 1999:65).
The objective of J. Habermas is doubtless laudable, but how realistic is it? How can one possibly
think of such a goal nowadays, looking at the state in which we find the political institutions at our
disposal?
 In actual fact, what we do know today is that not only can politics no longer take for granted
the spatial-institutional framework within which to place itself, but it is also strained by the
complexification of social life. If in the past, the nation state with its boundaries and rites, managed
to serve as the container within which this function of politics was able to express itself, today this
is no longer the case. If globalisation – in the sense of a double disconnection – rearticulates social
life over a plurality of spaces and times, then the political sphere must also be thought of on a
multiplicity of planes. But what are these planes and what holds them together?
Above and beyond the particular solutions which can be proposed for this problem, we
believe that it is possible to identify three levels which make up the field within which the new
politics must attempt to position itself.
Only 30 years ago and 500 years after the discovery of America, for the very first time
millions of television viewers saw the planet Earth as a sphere hanging in the space of the universe.
The Earth appeared physically isolated, tiny, limited; the boundaries of our existence became
evident and R. Robertson’s (1999) position on awareness of globality becomes true. Only a few
decades ago Western public opinion has learned of the existence of the Third World and that the
majority of human beings live in poverty. At the beginning of the 70s there was the first oil crisis
and great controversy over the Report of the Rome Club. Two so-called world wars belong to
recent memory. The unexpected formation of a global telematic network created the conditions for
communications without frontiers, except for those of the planet itself. All this enables us to
recognise and participate in problems and issues which cannot be reduced to national dimensions.
A. Melucci grasped the essence of this process when he wrote that "there is no longer a space
outside of society . . . society coincides with the planet and the planet socialises as a whole"
(1998:328). Slowly and with great difficulty, contemporary humanity is also beginning to come to
terms with the awareness not only of interdependence, but also of limits. M. Albrow (1996) rightly
claims that here the global takes the place of the modern, and globality that of modernity. What
we are looking at here is a crucial shift which profoundly changes the logic of social life: this starts
with the fact that whereas modernity had an essential temporal perspective whose point of
reference was progress, globality introduces a spatial framework which indicates the presence of
a limit.
If we think of the age we are living in as the start of a global age, a more balanced reading of
our times becomes possible. In the previous pages, it was claimed that the term globalisation is
misleading. To speak instead of globality allows us to recognise the plurality of the social actors
and the complexity of social dynamics. Within this field, the idea that each person should stay in
his or her own place, according to a rigid concept of physical separation, no longer holds up. In
such a situation, it becomes increasingly difficult to avoid stepping on the toes of others. On the
contrary, the question of relations between different cultures and interests on a world scale appears
daily on the national political agenda, often upsetting and disorienting it. We need to learn to
control this situation in order not to be swept away by the conflicts which inevitably it can trigger.
On this note we can speak of globalism which arises “when human beings undertake obligations
towards the world as a whole, when they accept values which consider the globe as their point of
reference" (Albrow 1996:83). The discovery of the limits and risks which surround us, just as the
acknowledgement of issues concerning the dignity of human being, are at the basis of a new kind
of universalism. This is different from that which we knew in the age of nation states. Only such
universalism can form the basis for a coexistence which will not fall prey to the explosion of
destructive local claims to identity.
 It is crucial to underline the profound significance of this process. In fact we agree with R.
Panikkar when he states that "when there is an absence of a transcending sphere recognising the
governed and governors, democracy is endangered. . . . That is in the realisation that the
recognition of a superior power cannot be imposed, but must be identified and accepted"
(2000:16). In the age of globalisation, the very idea of globality may be the path to this result,
based on the conviction that there is a “we” composed of the entire human race (Held, Archibugi,
Kohler, 1999). This idea then connects with the two great themes of human rights and protection
of the environment, which are regarded by some as the foundation for a cosmopolitan democracy.
They are necessary references for the construction of a new form of universalism within which all
other political formation must take place. Rejecting the concept of a world state as an aberrant
prospect from many points of view, this viewpoint suggests a new political level which would go
towards defining the framework within which the institutions (on a national and non-national level)
should be positioned. Only a politics capable of anchoring itself to this superior can take root in
the age of globalisation.
The second constraint within which modern day politics can be defined requires an
acknowledgement of the local dimension. In order better to explain this point, we can refer to the
principle of subsidiarity, where the institution only intervenes when there is an absence or failure
of autonomous action on the part of social subjects. This constraint must be recognised not only
because the reticular organisation of society and the process of individualisation make it
impossible to do otherwise, but also because politics can manage to avoid the mistakes of the past
only if it is able to recognise, respect and optimise the vast resources of a human, social and cultural
relational and civil nature built up thanks to developments over the past few centuries. Respect for
the local and the particular is not only the condition for a globalised world capable of tolerating
and appreciating diversity; it is also the prerequisite for a new recomposition as far as lifeworlds
are concerned. As we have tried to demonstrate, it is in fact above all on this level that there can
be a constructive recomposition of identity in the present age.
From this point of view, the local level acquires a new significance, which has yet to be
understood and appreciated. Namely, it is capable of decentralised decision-making models for
facing and resolving the concrete problems which affect the day-to-day life of people. This does
not mean drawing up new boundaries or setting up little states which on a smaller scale reproduce
the model of the nation state. If anything, the aim is to establish a different relationship between
citizens and institutions where participation and co-responsibility can introduce new values and
practices which make it possible to re-root the democratic bond and sense of political belonging.
As U. Beck remarked somewhat controversially: “the sons of freedom hate the formalism of
organisations and their model of commitment built on the imperative of the sacrifice of the
individuality of each” (2000:7). One of the greatest difficulties of the traditional political structures
centred around the idea of the bureaucratic-state institution derives from their incapacity to accept
spaces of freedom, creativity and innovation for each individual actor or basic community. This
goes some way towards explaining how in social contexts where the double disconnection
produces its effects it is not uncommon to note extra-institutional processes of social recomposition
which have their foundation in the active social subjects in local contexts. Social movements,
voluntary organisations and the entire network of associations make a continuous contribution to
the regeneration of a sense of common belonging and collective responsibility. In order for a
rebirth of politics on new foundations to be possible, we must stop harping on the disappearance
of values and believe rather in the potential which exists in social life. In actual fact, as Beck writes,
we are not faced with a crisis of solidarity but rather its transformation: “Spontaneity, self-
organisation, a rejection of formalism and hierarchies, rebellion, improvisation, determination to
commit only where it is possible to remain subjects of one’s actions, these are the new values
which are being affirmed” (Beck,2000:11). The problem is how to create conditions whereby these
values will no longer be marginal, but a constituent part of social life.
In any case, if we wish to avoid a degeneration of localism to the point of harming the social
fabric, we must be able to firmly anchor the local to the higher levels, thus avoiding a slide towards
the increasing trend of Balkanisation. For its part, globalisation always runs the risk of being too
abstract, if not actually a vehicle of intolerance and unilaterality (Habermas, 1999:94).
The local or global level on its own cannot restructure and balance itself; it is vain to hope
that it is possible to operate on the basis of the local-global pair alone9. There is need for
intermediate levels as a bridge between the local and global dimensions. In the oscillation between
universalism and particularism there is a risk that we will take the worst of both worlds. This is
the reason why there remains crucial the state dimension, where the forms of modern democracy
can continue to exist even though their survival today depends on the two levels mentioned above,
the local and the global.
Clarification is essential on this point: although historically, the state dimension has been
closely connected with national identity, it does not strictly depend on it. As G. Sartori said, “a
state need not be national in order to be a State: all it needs is a sovereign potestative structure
backed up by adequate coercive forces . . . the fate of equal citizen does not depend on whether
the state is national or otherwise, but rather on its being liberal-constitutional” (Sartori, 2000:88).
Along the same lines J. Habermas maintains that democratic order is not linked to mental
rootedness in a nation in the sense of a prepolitical community of destiny.

The strength of the democratic state is in its ability to fill the void of social integration
starting from the political participation of the citizens. As long as it is within a liberal
political culture, the democratic process can, in fact, play the role of a general guarantee in
order to uphold a society which is differentiated on a social level. . . . In complex societies,
it is the deliberative formation of opinions and civil will – based on the principles of popular
sovereignty and the rights of man – which ultimately make up the adequate medium for a
form of solidarity that is abstract, juridical, regenerated by political participation
(Habermas, 1999:54).

It is clear, therefore, that the state sphere is at a crossroads: on the one hand, it could go down
the road already travelled in an attempt to ensure the survival of the essential features of the
national society and to protect its identity from the changes which are taking place. To a certain
extent this means working to reconstruct a closed self-regulated universe. On the other hand, it
could accept the complexity of social life on a subjective and systemic level, on an infrastate and
superstate level, and consequently rethink the very basis of the legitimacy of power. This latter
viewpoint attributes a task as essential as it is innovative to the institutional dimension which we
are most familiar, namely, the state. In any case, it is the only one firmly anchored to the notion of
democracy.
As a necessary (but now no longer sufficient) seat of democratic policy, the state dimension
must undertake a dual role:

1. To contribute in such a way that the local and global dimensions can develop without
falling prey to degenerative processes. The institution of the state acts as a valve which is essential
for the other two levels. On the global level, states have a precise responsibility and task of
democratising their external surroundings and creating the optimum conditions for resolving the
conflicts and tensions which inevitably arise in such a context (Kohler 1999: 243): Defence of the
environment and human rights requires institutional structures with the power to translate these
principles into reality. These must be able to carry out the indispensable function of linkup with
public opinion. On the local level, only the state sphere can constitute the framework of a civil
society which does not yield to closedness and localism.
2. To provide those collective goods which guarantee the conditions of social, cultural and
economic life, taking into account the fact that “many of the infrastructures of public and private
life would collapse were they left to the regulatory forces of the market alone” (Habermas,
1999:55). This objective must be pursued on multiple levels of action: from the reproduction of
the material and infrastructural conditions of individual action to the corrections of excessive
gaps of inequality; from the creation of an arena where coexistence is possible to the mutual
confrontation of different cultures as an ultimate guarantee of the resolution of conflicts.
As once upon a time newly formed nation states fought one another to set physical boundaries
which defined them and to build a common memory and identity, in the same way today – in a
totally new way – politics has the task of recreating orientation maps which are not merely
individuals or an expression of isolated, closed groups. In this way, politics must work towards the
respatialisation and retemporalisation of social life, trying to reconnect the reorganisation of
systemic structures and the subjective experience of life.
An appreciation of the local level means combating the subjective disconnectedness which
weakens the very foundations of civil life, exposing it to dangerous involutions. Only through the
assumption of personal responsibility which this involves does it become possible for the global
citizen to take possession once again of a history and a space, recreating the foundations for new
rehumanising social bonds. On the other hand, the global level is inseparable: only now is
humanity beginning to come to terms with this commonness of destiny. In this new space, a new
history must be begun with new subjects, new values, new conflicts. For its part, the space of the
state cannot remain a prisoner of the past. The move beyond the traditional idea of national identity
does not wipe out identities, but works so that the history of each may become compatible with
that of the others. This requires awareness that in a world like ours there is no such thing as a
closed space in which to safeguard the single identity. In practice, this means a politics capable of
finding the new motives and modes of citizenship.
These three constraints must be made to operate conjointly since they complement one
another. Only globality is able to offer a universalistic framework; only locality can guarantee that
rootedness which enables the translation of these references into practice in a constructive manner;
only the state can offer a strong enough institutional foundation to gather the best of these two
levels. In any case, this is the condition for an attempt to rethink the idea of the state which in the
present age seems to have been stripped of its main content, that is its universalistic value. Keeping
these three constraints together is the prerequisite for the creation of a new politics capable of
taking seriously the consequences of the double disconnection (structural and subjective). The
risks which will have to be run are considerable: the abandonment of the classical concept of the
sovereign state and national democracy in order to tread a path composed of a multitude of
authorities at different levels of aggregation, territorial or functional, with ambiguous and partially
overlapping competencies (Schmitter, 1990) means gambling all our history. As R. Williams wrote
at the beginning of the ’80s, “we must explore new forms of variable society in which, alongside
the whole set of social aims, different dimensions of society are defined for different types of
questions and decisions” (Williams, 1983:198-99).
We are a long way from doing this. But in any case, it is a risk which we cannot avoid taking:
the double disconnection lays out a completely new field of action within which we have yet to
find the equilibrium and structures on both an individual and collective level. If only we attempted
to cross the complex field of the resources which are on the move today and the forms of collective
action which are possible, it would become evident not only how ingenuous are the simplified
representations at our disposal, but also what potential is opening up before humanity.

Notes
1. The theoretical part of this paper is largely based on C. Giaccardi, M. Magatti, La
globalizzazione non è un destino. Mutamenti strutturali e esperienza soggettiva nell'età
contemporanea, Laterza, Bari, 2001
2. Note that Habermas’ latest contribution goes exactly in this direction, and that the European
organization is trying to develop this idea.
3. Putnam notes: "Reciprocity/trust efficency and dependence/exploitation can each hold
society together, though at quite different levels of efficiency and institutional performance":178)
4. While in the final analysis, this is based on power, “it is the condition of mutual union or
the decision to unite” that is the constituting element (Buber, 1996:30).
5. The role of the Catholic Church is surely crucial in explaining this attitude
6. C. Geertz seems to share this outlook, distingushing between, on the one hand,
"country which coincides with a delimited space constituted up to a point in an arbitrary manner,
a common stage for public disagreements and debate , and (on the other hand) nation - as
awareness of one’s origin, affinity of thought and external appearance, language and food,
religious faith and ways of beings which link individuals to one another and consequently for the
bond of belonging irrespective of what may happen" (Geertz, 1999:41).

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 Chapter XI
Civic Identity without National Identity?
Political Identity in a New and Changing Global Context
Vittorio Emanuele Parsi

Without a homeland, you have no name, no distinguishing mark, no vote, no rights, no

christening of brothers between peoples. You are humanity's bastards. Soldiers without a
flag, the Israelites of nations, you will obtain neither faith nor protection: you will not have
guarantors. Do not deceive yourselves that you will be emancipated from unjust social
conditions, if you do not first obtain a homeland; where there is no homeland, there is no
common pact that binds you and to which you can refer: the egoism of private interests
reigns supreme, and he who has predominance maintains it, as there is no common
protection to protect oneself. --Giuseppe Mazzini1

Decomposing National Identity

National identity is made by many things; it is a rich mix composed by many different
elements, varying from place to place, but also in terms of success. First, some definitions of these
composnents.
Epos. The common tradition, based on either history or legend, traces the first perimeter of
the national identity.
Ethnos. A people thought essentially as a common culture, and its living heritage.
Topos. The place in which we live, whence we came, where we hope to return. A physical
place, or one that is imagined or even just dreamed.
Ethos. The shared, common values and beliefs; our imagine of the world and of the place our
people occupy in it.
Nomos. A corpus of laws and rules that differs us from any other people, and of which we are
proud.
Oikos. A web of wealth and interdependence, richness and poverty, that holds our attention
and underlines the material meaning of our common destiny.
Demos. As a result of these different elements, the shared and deep feeling of belonging to
one common, sole people.
All these things contribute to form our national identity. But in modern democracies this
identity has been gradually stuffed with civic elements, political meanings passed through the filter
and reinforced by public institutions. In different places and times some of these support or
substitute for civic identity, while others can undermining it, or constitutes objective obstacles to
its full realization. In determining which public institutions play a critical role for they are the
trustees of common and shared political values. Being shielded by public institutions, those values
are removed from the political arena, from the battlefield of day by day political conflicts, and
become the pillars of the temple of the community.

A Nation of Citizens

What is a Nation?
 This may seem an old, even rhetorical, question, but it is important as it was central in the
words of Renan before World War I. It leads us to the other related question, raised by the Abbot
Seyes at the beginning of the institutionalisation of democracy in the 1789: “What is the Third
State? It is the Nation; the Nation is the Third State.”
Nowadays, at the beginning of the postmodernist era, at the dawn of the global age, we wonder
once more who we are as a nation. Once again the answer is hidden somewhere inside a territory
where blood and history, past and future, relations of production and kinship play a new game.
State and nation have been building up their special relationship for more than two centuries, each
reinforcing and supporting the other. They have been linked so tightly, that now it could be
impossible to think of them politically as two separated realities.
Public institutions have linked State and Nation, and gave political meaning to national
identity. That has been true both where public institutions have moderated the political will, and
where they added political fury. The most successful form of the match between nation and State
has been the “Civic Nation”, either in its Jacobin form (“every one who acted for the welfare of
the Republic is French” as said by the French Jacobin Constitution) or in the Republican model,
including that conceived by the American Founding Fathers.
It is not surprising that America represents the paramount model, the most successful case
history of a Civic Nation. Following the ideal of “a State considered as a City”, America realized
the dream of a democratic community based on a plurality of original belongings bound together,
to build a new civic-national identity. “A pluribus Unum”: never have these words rung so true as
in the dark days after September 11th. Throughout that entire period, American society has shown
the world how a democracy, based on a strong civic identity and confident in its own institutions,
could suffer almost any injury and come out strengthened.
To speak of civic identity and political identity in the face of globalization means being
conscious that globalization touches the significance and relevance of ethos and oikos, of topos
and nomos. This means that understanding “Who we are” should be “the” question, that defining
the new Demos is the challenge for every people facing these difficult, interesting, amazing days.
In the Italian experience, we find that the weakness of the political dimension of Italian
national identity is mirrored in the weakness of its political institutions. The fragile process of
Nation-building finds is rooted in the fragility of its process of State-building. As the American
experience shows, there is a link between building both a common political arena (the State
institutions in the modern European experience) and a common – but non universalistic –
brotherhood (the Nation, in the modern European experience). This does not mean that all politics
must be forcibly channelled back within the sphere of the State. But it is precisely the public
institutions themselves that have proved to be the most effective tool in taming politics, reining it
in and regulating it. As this has been the Western experience (particularly in Europe), it could be
dangerous to imagine politics free from the surveillance of State institutions. Without its
institutionalisation, politics is everywhere and everything becomes politics, with enormous risks
for democracy and liberty.
The cases of Italy and the United States would seem custom-made to demonstrate two perfect
opposites in terms of the question of political identity and affiliation. The United States today still
represents, despite all the limitations, an extraordinary success in building political identity
through public institutions. Civic identity and national identity blend together almost as one, in the
sense that the former built the latter. As we will see, there are sub-identities and sub-affiliations
that can be defined in terms of ethnicity, race, member States of the Union, and even class, interest
or gender. Yet none of these sub-identities seems to have tarnished the political identity, made up
of loyalty to the Constitution and to the values to which the Founding Fathers' aspired in its writing.
This does not mean that the sub-identities are not politicized, at times even radically. From
the race riots that explode in large American cities with a certain cyclical regularity, to the rise of
extremist leaders in diverse ethnic groups (from Malcom X to Farrakhan), to the highly compact
voting by the Jewish or black segments of the population in presidential elections, to the true and
proper "outing" of the conflict between interest groups and their representation, of which lobbying
is only the most visible example: all the possible cleavages appear politicized within the multi-
level circuit of American politics. Yet, precisely because of this explicit politicization of the
multiple rifts within a composite society that is continually redefining itself, the political identity
of the American Nation seems to be continuously preserved.
Overseeing all this are, on one side, a solid framework of institutions and, on the other, a
strong society fully aware of its own strength. These are institutions that for over two hundred
years have shown themselves able to fulfil their role, adapting to change without ever having to
undergo even a formal transformation in their physiognomy. Unbroken history and unchanging
morphology of the U.S. institutions closely resemble those of ancient Rome, which underwent few
explicit formal changes between the republican and principality stages. The American institutions,
too, have accompanied, without patent discontinuity, the country's transition from its authentically
"republican" to its "imperial", "Great Nation" stage.
Of course, the nation's growth and transition have not been painless for either institutions or
society, as both were severely put to the test by the Civil War. Yet since the end of that war, any
questioning of the national identity has been put to rest. With the Union victory, the federation
commenced the transformation that would lead the country and its institutions to make itself first
into a Republic (and no longer a Union of Republics; see Hastings, 1997: 79) and then into a new
"Western empire" (Brzezinski, 1997; Johnson, 2000; Ital. trans. 2001).

The (Weak) Italian Path to Citizenry

In the case of Italy, we can speak in terms of absences and unfinished processes – or processes
that, for the most part, have been reshuffled or reworked. That is, the weakness of the Italian
Nation is mirrored in the weakness of the Italian Institution (and on the "ancient importance" of
the "lack of substance and foundation of the State in Italian history", see Galasso, 1997: 14). Our
intent here is not to question the existence of an "Italianity" (or perhaps an "Italicity"*). In terms
of behavior, customs, language and ethnic group, Italians do exist, at least as much as the majority
of other Western European peoples. And they exist even as a common heritage of trade and
relations between the different parts of the peninsula (Galli della Loggia, 1998). But what is
lacking is the Nation-building process, a lack that is inevitable, if we consider its fragile State-
building process. What we advance then is the idea that the American process of building a
political identity is only the "extreme" form in which this nexus or necessary link between the
building process of the political arena (the State) and the creation of a common (non-universalistic)
fraternity is underscored. (From "Italic", referring to the populations residing on the Italian
peninsula from the Bronze Age onwards, especially up to and including the Roman Empire.)
Must all politics, then, be channeled back within the sphere of the State? Clearly not. But it
cannot be denied that politics without its institutionalization is nothing; or worse, it is everything.
Nor can it be denied that for a long period of time, the State has represented (and still represents)
the most refined and efficient form of institutionalization that politics has ever known in its long
history. Put another way, it is the path that has proved best (and, as totalitarianism has shown,
riskiest) at harnessing and taming political force or "absolute" politics. We mentioned the
totalitarian risk: yet it must not be forgotten that, in its purest essence, totalitarianism yields to the
(temporary) necessity of using the State, which, however, totalitarians are quick to empty of its
genuinely institutional meaning. It is not by chance that, in carrying out its designs, and especially
in order to gain "access" to the State/institution, totalitarianism must resort to inventing that strange
figure of the (revolutionary) single party.
What must be kept in mind is that totalitarianism and the totalitarian State are the expression
of politics as absolute and the total negation of the State. That is, the totalitarian State is in no way
the outcome of the nationalization process, but rather its betrayal. Indeed, the single party uses its
own structures to dominate State institutions, which over time are reduced to empty window
dressing. Today, in a world where the State's role and political territoriality are changing and taking
on evolutionary/progressive (or involutionary/regressive) forms, which are not especially clear at
the moment, we must ask ourselves: what organizational figure will replace the revolutionary
single party, and storm which "Winter Palace"?
But let us return to our Italian analysis. The Italian case shows precisely how, when the
institutionalization process is weak and uncertain, the result is to overburden our expectations vis-
a-vis politics and thus vis-a-vis the State. Thus, the State risks being the sole institution people
"bet on" in the end, and this, in turn, serves only to maximize the gulf between what the State
should represent and the current reality. For this reason, whereas in reference to the United States
we can speak of a State that is "weak" in its relationship with society, yet "solid" in structure
(Evangelista, 2001), in the Italian case we can undoubtedly speak of a State "weak" in structure,
yet almost "arrogant" in its relationship with society. The lack of a tradition or "culture" of
institutions has been accompanied by an excess of ideology, in an atmosphere of little (or no) State
and all politics. Even Italy's particular path to modernity has been marked, as the contemporary
Italian identity has been profoundly shaped by the tormented, contradictory relationship between
modernity, politics and the State.

Indeed, modernity with a lot of politics and little State has necessarily been largely
subordinated to society, forced to accept and, in some way, incorporate all the stickiness,
delays, fears and contradictions in the social sphere . . . with the result that Italian modernity
has become, with the utmost ease, corporatism, familism, tax evasion, mass unlawfulness,
and so on. Thus modernity, devoid of State, paradoxically leads to the growth of so many
singular aspects that, seen from outside, it would appear to be a living contradiction" (Galli
della Loggia, 1998: 148).

Italian society, often portrayed as strong, in reality is as weak or weaker than the State in
which it is mirrored (and the same weakness is to be found in the building of the market: see Petri,
1997). A society that, in the end, "does not really exist" as a coherent national entity, but is rather
the result of several societies (Ornaghi and Parsi, 2001). It matters little that all national societies
also are made up of local ones. What is lacking in the Italian society (unlike American society) is
an upper level (in terms of structure) that effectively brings into being an authentically national
society. This lack of a national and public dimension could, in some way, be remedied if it were
not associated with the failure of another important dimension: the "civil" dimension. Its
development was long hindered in part, though not only (and above all, not directly), by the age-
old presence of the Catholic Church and its institutions. For the most part, though, it was hindered
by the amoral familism that relegated to a minority position any spirit of civil altruism that went
beyond the family or did not set the universe as its horizon. In the end, then, relations between
State and society proved to be an (arrogant) clash between two weak bodies, in which political
ideology replaced a sense of State and amoral familism replaced a sincere community spirit.
The lack of a national conscience can reasonably be blamed on the late date at which national
territory was unified under sole political sovereignty. As has been said (Cerroni, 2000: 19), the
"combined problem of the lack of a unified national State and the lack of religious reform" had,
among others, extremely significant consequences for Italian customs:

a weak, incoherent political conscience and, as a result, the highly private nature of the
relationships in their lives, which were and continued to be centered around the primary
group and focused on family-based, individualistic horizons in life. The result of this was
to delay forms of modern association, and to strongly root corporative institutions and
relationships, which were more closely tied to family and work relationships than to the
public interest.

Italian political identity, therefore, was not conveyed towards that national/State dimension
which in the rest of Europe was seen as the key not only to the future democratic growth of its
public institutions, but also to the modernization of society.
Italian political identity and affiliation, on the other hand, quickly wound up being held
hostage by the factions, political parties and their subculture. This had the enthusiastic complicity
of social elites who were not up to the task of helping the country and its culture to make the great
leap. They were victims in the end of a certain easy opulence, which raised the stakes for anyone
who might think of risking any more difficult, yet also more noble, path (Ornaghi and Parsi, 1994;
Galli della Loggia, 1998; Cerroni 2000; Rosati, 2000; Ornaghi and Parsi, 2001). On the other hand,
divisiveness, splitting into factions, is ingrained in that peculiar form of amoral familism which,
as theorized by Putnam in the 1970s, derives from a precise "hierarchy of values", identified as far
back as 1443, when Leon Battista Alberti wrote his Libri della familigia (The Books of the
Family), published by Leon Battista Alberti in 1443. In commenting on these values, Carlo Tullio-
Altan said: "at the summit, the family, as the absolute point of reference, followed by the company,
and then by friends/customers. The city and politics are taken into consideration solely in that they
can be of use to this hierarchically ordered group of values" (Tullio-Altan, 1999: 157). The honour
and social usefulness of public office is roundly mocked by Alberti himself (who was an extremely
refined and penetrating Italian Renaissance thinker, one of the most renowned cultural figures of
this, period when Italy was master of civilization throughout Europe): "Do you see any difference
between those who exert themselves in the State offices and public servants? Here you are sitting
in your office. What do you have that's of any use, besides this: the power to steal and to compel
with a certain licence?" (Alberti, 1974: 220). As a somewhat disheartened Tullio-Altan (1999:
158) once again concludes:

The only reason, then, to take part in running the community is to be able to reach, through
fraud or violence, a position that benefits you in running your family/company, the
substitute for society. . . . The institution in which every value is concentrated, then,
according to such a view of the world, is the extended family, with the purely instrumental
– as opposed to affection-based – appendage of useful friendships. In this world view,
society and the civic duties it infers are essentially "disqualified". All this helps to create a
 series of cultural behavioral models that are incompatible with any society that is not a
society of factions, and makes any sense of shared social responsibility impossible.

This was the situation at Alberti's time and the two curators of his work, Alberto Tenenti and
Ruggiero Romeno, note that one finds, "absolutely never, in the entire body of Leon Battista's
work, a 'cluster' of families that come together and manage to form a civitas, a society. . . . The
Albertian family is a sphere closed upon itself; it itself is a society, though one that is closed,
isolated, impermeable" (Alberti, 1974: XX). Even one of the elements typically part of any
reconstruction of the Italian epos - the free Cities in central and northern Italy, and the splendor of
the Renaissance - are actually rather far from, if not opposite to, that coveted oasis in which the
"republican virtues" were supposed to have blossomed.
Rather, we see those virtues being invoked and described so forcefully by men like
Machiavelli precisely because they were lacking in Italy. They had to emigrate (first across the
Channel and then the ocean) and forge themselves in the Reformation. Only then were they finally
able to establish shared instruments and principles of living together and governing the common
weal. In terms of a national ethos, the Italian identity was still marked by the presence of two
"negative values": a lack of sensitivity and awareness regarding the imperatives demanded by any
rational management of the State in the interests of the community, or a sense of State; a lack of
respect for the whole system of laws and standards that embody the citizen's natural freedoms, or
the rights of citizenship. All of which benefited a view of society clearly skewed in favor of
individual, private, family and group interests (Altan, 1999: 217). Not surprisingly, in the absence
of any real sense of public service, any sense of community and public institutions, the political
culture was heavily influenced by the joint action of two opposing extremes: traditionalism, at its
most suffocating and immobilizing, and the irresponsible utopianism of Jacobean or anarchist and
revolutionary avant-gardes. The inability of many families to "cluster" endures to this day in the
difficulty of many Italian societies to create one. This is similar to a weak State being unable to
act against a society that is strong in its "social", though not precisely "public", principles. Thus,
it is always ready to try new alliances with political factions that, one after another and always
only temporarily, occupy the institutions.

Globalization as a Post-Modern Political Phenomenon

Until now, national identity and political identity appear to be tightly intertwined as much in
stories of success as in stories of failure. Indeed:

National identity was that which, by bringing together ethnos (the people in its cultural
definition) and demos (the people as subject of State life and holder of the summa
potestas), made it possible – even amidst the suffering and the social struggles under early
capitalism (Disraeli's "two nations") – for more and more men, and later women, to
recognize themselves as members of the political society. In this way, it gave meaning to
the institution of popular sovereignty and to its promises to share power, and it allowed the
inclusion of regional, religious and different cultural groups within the national group
(Cerutti, 2000: 25).

At the heart of the interweaving between national identity and political identity, there is the
relationship between society and politics that institutions have the task of mediating (Anderson
1991; Ital. transl. 2000; Thiesse 1999; Ital. transl. 2001). And the institution that until now has
held the position of maximum importance is the State. Today, its legitimacy seems threatened
where advancing globalization relativizes territorial sovereignty or heavily modifies it, by
redesigning its functions and procedures. Especially the continental European State, which is the
closest to the Weberian ideal type, today appears tired and in many ways "confused". For the most
part, its abilities in terms of management and economic/financial control have been weak. This is
a consequence of both technological progress, which makes even monitoring wealth flows
difficult, and the success of an ultra-liberal concepts, which seem to have broken the dynamic
balance between economy and politics, between State and market, that had been the keystone to
Western modernity (Strange, 1986; Ital. transl. 1988 and 1996; Ital. transl. 1998). In this sense –
even while it paradoxically realizes the liberal economic dream of a single market where a
potentially infinite number of business people compete against each other - globalization can truly
be defined as a "post-modern" phenomenon, with all the ambiguity that term carries. In fact,
globalization is the final outcome of the process of co-building between State and market - whose
origins we can trace back to the XIV century (Hintze, 1931; Gilpin, 1981; Ornaghi, 2001).
Moreover, globalization, precisely in order to question the State's absolute sovereignty, makes
a fiction of the division/opposition between domestic and foreign on which the modern State has
built much of its legitimacy. It would be rather ambitious here to try to answer the question of
whether it was the States that started the war, or whether the need to protect the borderlines around
peaceful/pacified areas and communities made it necessary to "build" States. What is certain,
though, is that the link between warring violence and territorial delimitation goes much farther
back in time than the "invention" of the State. To be precise, it goes back to the very ancient stage
when, with humanity having shifted from hunting and nomadic sheep-farming to agriculture and
resident farming (that is, after it had created a territorial, resident economy), politics, too, had to
become territorialized. Obviously we are speaking of a period that goes back thousands of years
before Christ. In essence then, globalization is a new "nomadization of wealth", set against the
lasting "territorial permanence of laws and rights" (Parsi, 1998). This risks even the possibility of
legally regulating the new global economic space because the "nomoi of the earth, though deeper
and indigenous, are unable to embrace the unlimited spaces of the tecno-economy." One result is
the apparent paradox of the need to turn to the "virtue of artificiality", which is as common to
technology as to law; "pure normativism is the only instrument available if one wants to regulate"
(Irti, 2001: 67).
The so-called deterritorialization to which globalization leads (in reality, and more precisely,
territorial and spatial redefinition: see Galli 2001) cannot then be seen as a specific point of attack
on the modern State. Rather it is a phenomenon that has implications for the entire political sphere.
Typical of the modern State, if anything, is its progressive construction of an exclusive sovereignty
over a territory, as well as a non-duplicable relationship of political loyalty between State and
subjects (first), and between State and citizens (later). In this sense, and because these two unique
relationships were concretely created through specific institutions, we must look at the impact on
the institution in order to identify the specific crisis areas for the State (and its connected political
forms) created by globalization. In continental Europe (the qualification is necessary, and not
inconsequential to our discussion), these institutions were represented by their monopoly on
legitimate violence (for purposes of defense, both externally and internally), their monopoly on
the production of laws and regulations, and their monopoly on the issuance of currency.
These are typical functions of the modern State in its continental European version (and, as
such, very near to the Weberian ideal type); these functions become layered over time. Precisely
for this reason, much more than a crisis for all States, that we ought to be speaking today of a crisis
for that particular form of State that derives almost linearly from the archetype of the modern State.
This was created on the continent by progressively centralizing and assuming the aforementioned
functions. In other words, we are speaking of a crisis for the social and market democracies which,
taking different paths, spread from France to Germany, from the Northern States to Italy. Over the
course of the 20th century, in fact, these countries lost first their effective politico-military
sovereignty (between 1919 and 1945), then their monetary sovereignty (both through the dollar
taking a central position in the entire global economy, and with Europe's attempt to react to this
monetary domination through the creation of the Euro), and finally their law-making sovereignty
(through the progressive Americanization of international private law; see Dezalay, 1992; Ital.
transl. 1997; Ferrarese, 2000).
All this creates tension in a territory that is no longer able to "recompose" its political and
economic dimensions. Thus, while the identity of the people (the demos) and of the territory
(topos) weaken, especially in terms of the value of its economic utility (oikos), the law (nomos)
that governs territories and the exchanges and relations between individuals also seems
increasingly to avoid or evade the monopoly of the public institutions.
This last point is the crucial one, because the possible spread of new political identities that
transcend the national/State dimension seems to pass, in large part, through the refutation of laws
that protect the property planning and the transnational efficacy and force of trade.
In looking at the relationship between politics, economics and law, a key role is obviously
played by laws protecting property. Indeed, in more than one sense, the body of these laws sets the
tone for the entire system that public institutions are called upon to protect. A second dimension
that is important because it can provide for multiple sources of law and parties involved in the
process of law-making and law enforcement concerns those who, in a more or less exclusive
manner, hold the right to make the laws. Indeed, it is clear that the end of the law-making monopoly
can be a traumatically, significant event only for political systems where the monopoly exists: that
is, in systems of civil law. Common law systems have an advantage in facing multiple sources
competing amongst themselves. Operators coming from those systems find themselves with
unrivalled knowledge, skills and experience for implementing law and standardizing private law
in the transnational (or global) market.
This is important also for the purposes of our discussion because if (as is objectively
happening) one legal tradition prevails over others (Wiener, 1991), it is obvious that one version
of property rights, and one specific interpretation of the proper relationship between the economy
and the rest of society, will also prevail. The almost sacred position property holds in American
law is especially evident if we compare said position to the tendentially relative position property
is given in many European legal systems. The reason for this difference is found in the fact that
for Anglo-Saxon culture, and for the legal and political philosophy of systems based on common
law, property rights are the foundation for all other rights and all other freedoms. It is the very
continuity between Middle Ages and Modern World, unbroken in the Anglo-Saxon world, which
ensures that the derivation/contiguity between property rights and civil and political freedoms is
maintained in all its conspicuousness. Things are different on the European continent. It is
precisely the building of the absolute State that marks a break with the Middle Ages (of which the
law's codification/systematization is the most evident aspect). This forces those who want to affirm
their civil and political rights to found them as original, as typifying the Modern World and as
opposed to Medieval traditionalism.
 The different protection given to property (and its different statute) can be traced to the same
roots that lead to a differentiation between continental and Anglo-Saxon legal traditions. This is
particularly well described by Maria Rosaria Ferrarese (2000: 185), when she observes, in
reference to the unusual relationship between orality, law and writing in the American and
European legal systems, how: "Europe, faced with the collapse of Medieval order, was forced to
build a political order able to withstand disorder and war, and found in Hobbes its answer to the
problem of social order. The European State, with its disciplinarian and authoritarian values, thus
required a toughening of power's communicative grammar and a vertical communicative code".
Vice-versa, the new world that "was born as an alternative to existing models of sovereignty" was
able to reject such a grammar and, putting its trust in a "new civil ethic", a "different institutional
organization, of a liberal type, the American nation immediately set out towards an opposite
political project, of a community type" (ibid.).
Political relations could thus become less oligarchic and less authoritarian. Political
organization "blended into social organization itself", allowing "less costly social and political
organization, which was entrusted to horizontal fiduciary ties." This, in turn, made it better able to
absorb the groups of new immigration and "to build a low-cost power model that, in part, utilized
the resources of civil society" (ibid.). If the world of the XXI century is, to some extent, the New
Middle Ages evoked by several different authors, a world marked by multiple, plural, cross-party
affiliations and loyalties in respect to the State (Badie, 1995; Ital. transl. 1996), it should come as
no surprise, then, that precisely those legal and institutional worlds whose modern origins are
marked by continuity with, not a break from, the Medieval order, are today best equipped (from a
conceptual point of view) to confront it. This is the second condition - alongside the neo-imperial
aspects of American power - that explains the United States' role within the process of
globalization.

The Path of Virtue and the Path of Institutions

A world in which property rights knows (almost) no limits (at least when compared to the
European experience), is not necessarily a world that does not respect civil rights and freedoms.
Indeed, precisely by virtue of the continuity of its institutional history (a continuity, it should be
remembered, made possible also by the radical breaking of its ties with the mother country), the
protection of those rights is set as the inalienable foundation of all other rights. The framework is
essentially Lockian, which not coincidentally was never completely accepted in Europe, where
liberty and democracy are implemented through the Jacobean model and its national, Romantic
reaction. If anything, it is where liberty and rights come through a struggle against the State and its
conquest by (first) liberal and (then) democratic forces, that the failure of the State monolith risks
leaving rights and freedoms unprotected.
Let us return now to the words that opened our discussion, Mazzini's epigraph from some 150
years ago: "where there is no homeland, there is no common pact that binds you and to which you
can refer: the egoism of private interests reigns supreme, and he who has predominance maintains
it, as there is no common protection to protect oneself". In Europe, where the impact of relativizing
the State's authority has been strongest, to get out of the impasse into which the republican thinker
has banished us today, two types of response to the problem identified by Mazzini have been
worked out: neo-republicanism (the path of virtue), and constitutional patriotism (the path of
institutions).
 In the first case, we must ask ourselves if "patriotism without homeland" is possible; that is,
how can the egoism of personal interests be defeated today, even given the absence or weakness
of national/State institutions. The republican version of patriotism was "intended as synonymous
with civic virtue, love of law and the freedom for everyone that the law guarantees" (Rosati, 2000:
8; but see also Viroli, 1995). Can it truly be so strong as to allow us "to conceptually detach
patriotism from its implied obligatory loyalty towards the nation State", thanks to the "link between
patriotism and self-government in the republican political tradition" (idem: 12)? Let us say first
off that such a possibility, a political identity both "warm" and yet detached from a territorially
defined political affiliation, makes even “hard-core” cosmopolitanism seem reasonable.
Arguments like those of Ronald Inglehart (1990) distinguish materialist and post-materialist
political cultures and see in the latter the traditional forms of political representation and mediation
(such as parties and unions) being replaced by single-issue movements (from environmentalism to
pacifism, from anti-globalization to the anti-nuclear). This raises at least two types of problems.
The first, despite what the author himself says, is the ultra-elitist character of the position, which
in no way respects the "hard law of numbers" and which conflicts even with an elitist concept of
democracy. The second is the total lack of sensitivity to the problem of institutions that – precisely
in terms of representation – stands out as one of the most difficult to tackle and solve in the shift
from post-modernity to globalization. It is so difficult that many simply, though pleasantly, pretend
not to see the problem: they evade it so as not to be intellectually routed by it. But we shall return
later to the danger for society and political participation as pure movement inasmuch as it is hard
to understand how we can indefinitely prolong a "nascent State."
On the one hand, there is the "patriotism of the democrats". This is intended as "the love that
virtuous citizens nourish for a community that preserves the equality of citizenship status between
its members, and protects their freedom from depending on someone's power, thanks to the rule of
law that is, in turn, the expression of self-government by the citizens themselves" (Rosati, 2000:
16). This frighteningly resembles that "perfect totalitarianism" (in the end freed from the "weight
of the State") of which we spoke earlier.
On the other hand, the second well-known position, formulated primarily by Jürgen Habermas
and said to be more balanced. This is the "patriotism of the Constitution", or a form of loyalty to
the principles of freedom and democracy, which we consider universal, and which are embodied
in the Western world's constitutions. Two points must be noted immediately in the Habermasian
formulation. First of all, the State is not absolutely superseded in favor of some other form of non-
territorially defined political organization or one with universal claims. Habermas develops his
argument against the backdrop not only of the specific historical problem of whatever it is possible
to be a patriot in Germany "after Auschwitz, but also of the problem of building a European
identity and patriotism in which all the different national patriotisms should melded. Habermas'
horizon is the concrete context of the European Union which, if not a State for all intents and
purposes, closely resembles one. Even more certain is the likelihood that increasingly it will take
on the features of a State should the individual member States gradually accept further reductions
in their sovereignty. This points to the second important point in Habermas' analysis: loyalty to the
principles we consider universal is concretely manifested in regards to very specific territorially-
defined institutions: the constitutions of the democratic States for now, and the European
constitution sooner or later (on the link between "constitution and European identity, see Parsi,
ed., 2001). There is no room for any type of more or less vague or complacently elitist universalism
in Habermas' constitutional patriotism. The back-and-forth between universality of principles and
their constitutionally guaranteed (and territorially defined) protection is in fact what we might call
the "classic" logic of modern liberal-democratic constitutions, beginning with how much we can
find in the Preamble to the Declaration of Independence and in the Declaration of the Rights of
the Citizen.
Thus we always return to the sore point in our search for political space and possible identities
in times of globalization: institutions and representation. Is it beyond the State; yes, maybe, but
where? Saskia Sassen (1996; Ital. transl. 1998: 53) has written a number of reflections on the fact
that while citizenship is the "key for government and political responsibility towards its subjects
for the modern national State can also have a role in governing the global economy." She observes:
"The social changes in the role of the nation-State, the globalization of political issues, the
relationship between dominant and subordinate groups have decisive implications also in regards
to personal identity and to individuals' sense of belonging. I wonder: is the concept of conventional
citizenship useful in studying the problems that deal with belonging and identity in the modern
world?" (Sassen, 1996; Ital. transl. 1998: 56).
Apparently, it could be said that in order to proceed with our analysis we should choose
between Habermas and Sassen: that is, between one who considers citizenship (which is what
connotes an affiliation and constitutional loyalty) an inalienable criterion, and one who questions
its modernity. In reality, the two are not opposed, but rather take different paths to discuss the same
question. A classically "cosmopolitan" solution is offered by Luigi Bonanate (2001), who reminds
us that on the one hand, in the name of the principles of equality that are foundational the concept
of people in a democratic State cannot be limited solely to the citizens of that State, but must
include "all those who obey the same laws (replacing the principle of identity with the principle of
legality)." This is the "formal heart of the contemporary democratic State, which is made up not
only of citizens, but also of emigrants andimmigrants, which the State cannot forget".
Bonanate argues his theory through two key points. The first "detaches" the logic of voting
and representation from the concept of citizenship (and thus of affiliation): "If it appears fair for
emigrants (who no longer share anything with their people of origin, least of all the legal system)
to retain the right to vote they once had, in that they were born and lived in a territory, why not
also give the vote to those who, unlike emigrants, live permanently in a territory they were not
born in, yet whose laws they obey?" (Bonanate, 2001).
Secondly, Bonanate (2001) sees the process of building (and politicizing) the European Union
as a way in which the "national sense of affiliation will have lost another little bit of its strength,
and the destiny of the European populations will be to blend together and form multi-ethnic
societies increasingly similar to American society (to give the example of a successful precedent)".
As we can see, this is another case of cosmopolitanism applied to the principles and rights that
embody citizenship, the protection of which, though, remains solidly anchored to a body of
institutions from that nation-State. It is a cosmopolitanism that "emanates", so to speak, from an
institutional core that has to be so both strong and balanced in its relationship with
the nascent governing society being formed where fundamental organizational elements are
already operating to enable the system to function. This strength and balance must be sufficient
that it manifests the effects of its influence even beyond its borders. It matters little whether they
are the physical borders of the union or the "portable" borders of a people that is no longer limited
solely to citizens.
The really crucial point of Bonanate's argument is that first we all are holders of rights and
subjects of duties, and only then citizens of this or that part of the world. This highly cosmopolitan
vision, which in more than one aspect is obviously excessive, is based upon a condition that is now
accepted throughout the world, at least in theory. This is the fact that, before anything else, even
before it concerns territorial roots, citizenship consists of the recognition of those Marshallian
rights (civil, political, social) which practically translate the content of our fundamental rights.
Expressed differently, the moment Marshallian rights were recognised as universal and
universalistic, they began to "deterritorialize". This is so even though exercising them entails an
"institutional refuge" that concretely protects them and which enables development of a civil
society (like European and American society) that adopts them as its ends (see also Hedl 2000).
This is the neo-Kantian federalist strategy which, while it assumes continuously evolving and
spreading democratic institutions, firmly maintains them as the only way to prevent any drift
towards totalitarian politics.

Three Reactions to Globalizations

Most of our discussion here has been carried out within Western political experience. In
particular, the object of our reflections has been the consequences of a slackening in the "natural"
unifying force of State institutions on political identity. This is not merely a form of ethnocentrism,
but rather an awareness of our lack of knowledge of other cultures. The choice, though, was made
with the deep conviction that globalization is not only a Western-born phenomenon (obviously).
Rather its appearance has disrupted the very way the West has been building and creating its self-
concept and organization from the XVIII century onwards. As we will see in concluding,
globalization's truly devastating impact is that it rewrites the grammar and syntax of our being
Western. It challenges the force of such concepts which are absolutely "ours" as those of
institution, representation, civil liberties, and policies based on the essential equality of human
beings. We will come back later to the question of how political identity is changing in times of
globalization within which effectively had made globalization possible.
But at this point we must take a quick look at what is happening "outside" in a world which
appears increasingly foreign, when not outright hostile, precisely at a time when we would like to
bring it nearer to us. Essentially three distinct phenomena are emerging. They must be seen
separately for our analysis, but interweave through these regions and for a variety of reasons.
The first of the three phenomena goes by the name of Islamic integralism. The second is an
"ethnic revival", the title of a successful work by Anthony Smith. The third, finally, is made up of
the anti-globalization reaction in the world's outskirts, where even the "old capitalism" had never
managed to take root or be completely legitimized (to become hegemonic, in Gramsci's words):
this we can define as a sort of "anti-imperialist revival".
Islamic integralism must not be seen as a fragmentation that is defensive towards
Westernizing globalization. That is, it does not seek to mark out a "space/time" line in the sand to
oppose and contrast globalization. Islamic integralism represents a form of alternative
globalization, founded on values that are different and in many aspects opposite those of Western
globalization (Barber, 1995; Ital. transl. 1998). If it contemplates some limit (temporary and to
overcome in the long term) this must be seen within the rather gloomy picture by Samuel
Huntington in his Clash of Civilizations (1996; Ital. transl. 1997). In opposing a type of
globalization one detests, because one believes it impoverishes the human dimensions of mercy,
brotherhood and tradition, Islam invokes another universal aspect. It can do so in much more
radical forms than can (for instance) the Catholic Church, both because Christianity is as much a
part of the common Western heritage as is globalization, and because Islam can consider the "lay"
values of liberty and the market as foreign to its culture – something that Christianity obviously
cannot and would not do.
 Extremist, violent Islamic integralism is only the epiphenomenon. It is the most easily
execrable, but not the most dangerous, phenomenon of this other globalization, whose penetration
is now spreading rapidly, from the westernmost part of the Arab world (Maghreb) to the
easternmost part of Indonesia, from the northern steppes of ex-Soviet Central Asia to the southern
offshoots of Muslim Africa.
The ethnic revival, on the other hand, can be defined as a true and proper reaction to
globalization. It is the defense of a "particular" mythical claim, of a nature so precious as to demand
any sacrifice to defend it. At its base there is a distorted, absolutist vision of what Anthony Smith
has called the mythomoteur (1986; Ital. transl. 1992). This is the mythical activator of an identity,
its unifying and motivating core of symbolic values. One can identify the makeup of a certain
"symbolic unifying principle, born out of the symbolic transfiguration, into values, of certain
constituent realities of its historical-social formation" (Tullio-Altan, 1999: 12). These elements are
the epos (historical memory), ethos (rules for living together), logos (common language),
genos (family relations and lineage) and topos or oikos (territory/usable familiarity) (Tullio-Altan,
1999: 12-13). All national identities are made up of these elements, varying only in how
successfully they are mixed. What distinguishes identity ethnicism is that it distorts the internal
dynamics of these elements to the point that individual contributions do not stop at creating the
essence, the uniqueness of a people, but go on to legitimize their primacy, obtained by whatever
means. The "other" is one who comes from outside, and who brings with him or her something
that can destroy what we are, or better, what we have always been. What is lacking in this
perception of "we" is any diachronic ability and the ability to change and to "become". What is
sacred is solely that which we have always been. Betrayal is accepting the idea that, through
outside contamination, the "we" could also be the fruit of what we will become. It is the head-on
clash between the “we that we have always been” and the “we that we could become”.
The third type of reaction, the anti-imperialist revival, stems from more typically socio-
economic issues. Geographically, it is found in peripheral and semi-peripheral regions at
globalization's western epicenter (Mittelman, 1996). These are areas where the effective
framework of a capitalist, competitive market has probably been recently implemented, such as
part of East Asia. They may also be situations in which the break-up of oligarchies or guaranteed
monopolies – which perhaps coexisted with forms of collective small farm ownership – works to
the detriment of a long-standing capitalist ownership framework, and constitutes a break or split,
such as different parts of Latin America. To these regions, globalization means full admission into
a particular form of capitalist market economy. And we have seen how these two concepts have
been shaped through North American economic and legal tradition. Better still: it implies and
imposes the shift to a mode of capitalism that has been defined as "turbo-capitalism", bypassing
the intermediate stages of development that the center of the system, with several internal
variations, has experienced.
With the significant exception of the first, due perhaps to Islamic culture's minority condition
in the West, the other two phenomena of ethnic revival and anti-imperialist revival have two
uniting features. The first is that they are often used as "flags" for anti-globalization movements
within the West. They can be rolled into a rough, though media-effective, vision able to mobilize
the many who are "discontent" with the globalization process. This happened, for instance, in
Chiapas where "Sub-commander Marcos" rose up as mythicized leader of both the battle against
"North American economic imperialism (and its accomplices in Mexico City)" and the struggle to
protect the Indian culture (in reality, largely mestizo) of the Selva Lagadunia peoples. The image
of the hooded leader and the red star, made popular by the media and the skilful use of Internet by
Zapatista supporters, has by now become a gadget for young Western "revolutionaries", similar to
the posters of the face of Che Guevara's face.
The second common aspect is that the two phenomena also appear in certain zones within the
central area represented by the West, or at least in immediately outlying or border zones such as
the ex-Yugoslavia.

A Clash inside the Western Civilization?

This leads us back within the West whose culture – we like or not – has contributed more than
any other to drawing the blueprint of global political space through the dual movements of the
process of colonization and decolonization. It has also provided the categories with which politics
was imaginable "anywhere" at least, from the end of the 1800s onwards. We need only think of
how such categories as State, nation, territorial sovereignty, political party, or division of power –
and we could continue through a long series of institutions – have spread widely, globally. Now
that "post-modernity" seems to be shaking these concepts and the very idea of politics as it has
evolved through more than 2000-years, we must go back to the source in order to evaluate the
consequences to the future of political identity. If the institutions to which we have assigned the
immense task of "reining in" the fury of politics appear to be in trouble today, what should we
expect from the future marching towards us if not a return to absolute politics?
Looking at the situation, especially at the anti-globalization movements that we could even
say make up the first visible manifestation of a transnational political aggregation (and perhaps an
identity), the aforementioned scenario may not be all that far-fetched. If there is one thing that
immediately strikes the political scientist, it is to see how, in the name of a "new" or "other"
politics, in reality they become the bearers of a typically Schmittian concept of politics. The
amicus-hostis contraposition is especially evident in their language, in their actions and, first and
foremost, in their vision of the world. Here, there lurks an absolute ethical enemy (globalist,
imperialist capitalism) that must be fought, even at the cost of resorting to violence. There is no
trace of any "political amity" from which we might draw truly revolutionary categories in this
political thinking.
With the growth of the no-global movements, we can now say that we have gone from
the Clash of civilizations to the Clash inside civilizations. The anti-globalization movement is in
fact essentially within the West. Not only is its make-up largely "domestic" in terms of Western
countries, but the very presence of anti-imperialist themes and themes supporting minority
identities is essentially "didactic and flag-waving." In other words, it is aimed at connoting the
adversary, at describing the struggle's objectives in a simplified manner. It provides the icon of the
struggle's global dimension, around which to rally its followers. Always in deference to Schmittian
political categories, it seems that as the main political arena is gradually expanded and widened,
the harshness of the clash is intensified. This is a fundamental (and worrying) implication of
movement-based politics on a global scale, namely, that if the world is the stage for the political
struggle, then we can have only friends or enemies, not competitors. The struggle will
be us against them, where "us" and "them" are two separate, absolutely air-tight categories.
"Militant anti-globalization", then, can be said to constitute an initial form of transnational
political identity, which sees the political arena not as being delineated by the borders of a State
or a federation of States. Rather, one explanation for its refusal (perhaps because impossible) to
take on an institutionalized form can be found in its desire to delegitimize the concept of political
institution that until now had found its most refined manifestation in the State. Alongside and
within this weakness, in terms of capacity to institutionalize such a political identity, there is
considerable ambiguity in regards to the issue of representation. Though fully aware that we have
always had (and probably will always have) non-territorial forms of representation, it must be said
that political power control mechanisms (which rest upon its division) all provide for territorially-
defined representation. Hence, any time a political entity calls for representation outside this
framework, we should question and debate the (effective and verifiable) democratic methods and
procedures of that entity in terms of responsiveness, accountability and representation.
As a movement in its nascent stage, it certainly is not institutions that it needs. But their failure
and inability to at least create a "light" institutional structure for themselves does not seem to leave
these types of movements a very rosy future. In the end, even the 1968 movement had to be shunted
along two paths, so as to maintain its social productivity. The first was to institutionalize: to begin
with, its leaders moved into the party structures they originally opposed, though they also moved
into spontaneous collective bodies that had sprung up with the movement. The second was to
influence society, beginning with sectors outside militant politics, such as culture, economics and
volunteer work. On the other hand, those who tried to hypostasize, to perpetuate the movements'
dynamics, wound up involved in absurd experiences, at times closely linked to (if not actually
midwife to) terrorism, as Italy's experience in the Seventies and Eighties clearly attests.
The new social movements that are springing up in the West in opposition to globalization
can be classified in part within the anti-imperialist revival, in part within integralism. Some are
pure and simple opponents to the market economy and globalization; others would essentially like
to make it more aware of human beings and their intrinsic value. The latter may be open to the
idea of a neo-Kantian federalism which, given the seriousness of the problems that society and
institutions face today, responds by "raising the stakes" with a bet even higher than the one which
lead to the progressive construction of the Welfare State over the course of the 20th century.
From those who seize upon (and perhaps emphasize) the partial supersession of a nation-State
perspective on political identity, we tend to get, within the West, two types of responses. The first
is neo-Kantian federalism; the second is politics reduced to social movements (perhaps one-issue
movements). Which of the two seems more utopian or more dangerous can, in part, be a question
of viewpoint. But it is clear that only neo-Kantian federalism, in proposing to supersede the State,
takes as its starting point the West's uninterrupted institutional history, which represents better than
many others its mastery and uniqueness. Compared to the transnational movements, then, even
neo-Kantian federalism seems a reasonable, reassuring hypothesis. By this concept, I refer not so
much to the "theory of the federal State", as to a "method" and a "social and political doctrine" that
"appears successfully to square the circle: to supersede borders and, at the same time, to protect
diversity" (Carnevali, 2001: 15). One can look at the world as an anarchic arena, an accumulation
of different political bodies, all born equally sovereign and now needing to find some form of
union to respond to the today's global challenges. Or, one can see it as a hierarchic system, where
the power of the world's leader, orhegemon, sets the direction in which the entire planet moves.
Whatever way one sees the world, though, federalist thinking and method can be of help, in that:

Federalism, among other things, is able to perform the two antithetical movements of
assembling and disassembling. The former when it brings together in a single body (though
which eschews the principle of indivisibility of sovereignty) a heterogeneous group of
political entities. The latter when it transforms a monolithic body into a new, much more
articulated body that is (once again) not subject to a sole sovereignty, and which is
 structurally able to ensure pluralism and to protect every specific peculiarity (Carnevali,
2001: 19).

Which prevailing form will political identity assume in the coming years: that exemplified by neo-
Kantian federalism, or that expressed by the anti-globalization movements? What room will there
effectively be for multi-level political identity affiliations (local, national, supranational: as has
already occurred, in part, with the different "security communities", like NATO; see Hampton,
1999)? Will the future international order feature the return to a "new Middle Ages", or will we
have a partially territorialized re-edition of an "imperial" form? (Hardt and Negri, 2000)? In
leaving the answers to these questions open, I would say that old and new public institutions (some
of which, undoubtedly, are still to be invented) will play a vital role. Because even in the most
plausible outlook regarding multiple affiliations, the form and manner that they might assume will
depend essentially on the institutional setting in which they are created: supranational federal
forms, new Middle Ages, or empire (Galli, 2001).

The Quest for a Normative Democracy

A way to think of the possible, desirable future of political identities is to do so against the
background of our worries about safeguarding democracy whose protection continues to be
fundamental even in times of (partial and emerging) globalization and transnationality. As has
been observed:

The greater the pluralism and individualism on which society insists, the more essential
becomes not only the role of the State in providing protection and reassurance, but also the
idea of democracy, as both a creed and an organising principle. And democracy requires
the rule of law which, in turn, assumes the existence and preservation of a legitimate law-
giving entity. It is these operating principles which make possible not just civil cohesion
but capitalism and the production of wealth and welfare (Gelber, 1997: 229).

Compared to what neo-Kantian federalism set forth, to imagine political identity as a hunting
ground reserved almost exclusively for single-issue movements, appears both dangerous and
defeatist. It is dangerous because it leaves politics in a wild, uncontrolled State (without the checks
provided by institutions), with the risk of returning to forms of politics far too similar to those at
the time of the 16th century religious wars. It was to end these that in 1576 Jean Bodin and the
"Politiqes" (Gherardi, 2001: 219-221) invented the sovereignty of the State.
Recognizing that the State remains a key factor for the democratic politics of the future does
not mean setting this in opposition to the groups of global civil society that are emerging. Indeed,
the State itself can be a meeting ground between globalization-from-above and globalization-from-
below. Already now, in many specific settings, coalitions between States and social movements
are emergent, as is evident in relation to many questions of environment, development and human
rights" (Falk, 2000: 176). What must be done, then, is to contribute to ensuring that the concept of
normative democracy (based on: consent of citizenry, rule of law, human rights, participation,
accountability, public goods, transparency and non-violence) increasingly becomes the common
property of State institutions, social movements and even major transnational economic players.
This will be so as long as the latter adopt a longer-term view of their own interests. This will mean
altering the policy content of globalization-from-above to soften the contrast with the preferences
of globalization-from-below (ibid.). Precisely by converging on the concept of "normative
democracy" it will be possible to achieve a triple objective:

a) to bring the institutions of representative democracy up-to-date, so as to ready them for the
challenges facing us;
b) to bring social movements inside the Western tradition of rule of law and accountability,
for if they remain outside it they run the risk of becoming tools of a new totalitarianism; and
c) to obtain greater "democratization" in capitalist economic relations, so as to re-attempt, on
a global scale, something analogous to the extraordinary invention of the social and market
economy.

To succeed, though, we must first solve a problem that is both "conceptual and normative".
We must recognize that even in a federalist concept, it is impossible to detach the protection of
citizenship from the persistence of solid, legitimate State institutions (indeed, they
are guaranteed by this very persistence). Yet we must learn to think that identity and affiliation
can pass through multiple and varied political forms (different from the State) which at times even
overlap. The question then becomes: "are we prepared to think of a world in which the procedural
virtues of the modern legal bureaucratic State and the moral and cultural needs of human groups
for all sorts of attachments, including what I have called full attachment, are not played out in
isomorphic, mutually exclusive, spatial-political envelopes?" (Appadurai, 2000: 141).

Back to Security

As have been probably noted, almost the whole of my reflections have been centred
inside Western arena and cultures, starting from the belief that the advent of the global age has
been stressing the differences between it Western and non Western Worlds. In conclusion I want
to call attention to just three critical issues:

1) As even the recent events suggest, from New York City to the West Bank, the security issue
remains in the hands of the State, and returns (maybe it has never ceased to be) as a crucial political
issue. Its survival reminds us that the link “State-security-politics” is typical and constitutive of
the same idea of politics. It is related to the monopoly of force or monopoly of legitimate violence,
but it is related to the loyalty-obedience link, on the one hand, and to protection-command on the
other. The progressive expulsion of war from the inner western political international community,
which has become a reality as a consequence of World War II, paid the dangerous price of
identifying war as an “option” typical of the relationship outside the Western Community or
between the West and the Rest.
2) We have not found the working rule and corner stone for the political system born after
1989, with the fall of Soviet Empire. Since 1648 dynamic balancing and flexible and reversible
alliances had been the working rules of a multipolar International Political System. Its basic
principle was the sovereignty of States. Breaks in order and peace were normally caused by
insufficient performances in these two items. Since 1945 to 1989 rigid balancing and tight alliances
were the working rules of a bipolar International Political System, based on ideological
confrontation and blocked by nuclear weapons. What are, today, the working rules and the corner
stone of a unipolar international political system, in which the imperial power seems tired and
uncertain about recognizing plural sovereignties as an effective role?
 3) In these passages is hidden the real nature of the problem that globalization moves to
political identity. There is a break, a cleavage between:

- the global dimension of the economic system (which anyway shows many pockets of
resistance and of different profitability); and
- the growing segmentation of the political system, increasingly divided between the Western
and non Western worlds.

This cleavage or new phase displacement between political values, rules and belongings, on
one hand, and economic behaviors and beliefs, on other, explains most of the return of violence
on the World stage of the new century.
In the real global scene, globalist and antiglobalist thought share a common limit. The first is
based on the prejudice of the natural harmony of (economic) interests; the second is founded on
the belief of a sort of natural harmony of (universal) rights. Both seem cooperate to hide the reality
that the novelty of globalization is rather in the intensification of free market economic rules and
principles inside the West, than in the extension of these rules and principles to the Rest.

Note

1. Giuseppe Mazzini, "The Human Duties", Political Writings, Turin, Utet, 1972, p.885

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 Chapter XII
Globalization, Religion and Culture:
Beyond Conflict, Beyond Sovereignty
Maryann Cusimano Love

If states cannot solve pressing global problems alone, who can? Can Italian and Italian-
American institutions, such as the Roman Catholic church in the United States, play a constructive
role in helping to address global problems? Greater attention to the role and resources of adaptive
religious and cultural institutions may help to create effective public-private partnerships for
managing global problems. In ad hoc attempts to manage global problems and bridge
globalization’s gaps, however, alternative ideas of authority and identity may evolve which over
time challenge and change Westphalian sovereign norms. The state is not going away, but it is
increasingly contracting out. As states downsize and decentralize in response to the pressures of
globalization, and as states innovate in response to global problems, nonstate actors such as
religious and cultural organizations perform functions previously performed by states and promote
ideas with unintended consequences for sovereignty. Italian culture, as an ancient global culture,
and the Italian-American experience, as an adaptive immigrant population reconciling old world
and new world values, bring important contributions to bridging the gaps in globalization.

“Globalization Demands a New Culture, New Rules, and New Institutions at the World Level.”
Pope John Paul II, May 1, 2000.

In Italy, the Roman Catholic bishops of Sicily and a movement of civil society took a
courageous stand against corruption and the activities of international organized crime, with great
effect. They are intent on curbing crime and corruption and creating a “Culture of Lawfulness,” in
Italy and beyond.1 “In recent decades, the movement has mobilized all levels of society
simultaneously and has attempted to reeducate citizens at the local level on the need for alternatives
to the mafia. The primary objective of nearly all the antimafia associations is to educate children
to know and respect the law and to prevent them from acquiring a 'mafia mentality' of distrust and
antagonism towards public institutions which may lead to a life of crime."2 Such programs were
introduced in the early 1980s by the first anti-mafia groups but obtained additional impetus in the
early 1990s in response to the Anti-Mafia Commission and the pressures of the mass anti-mafia
organizations of civil society. Libera, the umbrella of 800 nation-wide anti-mafia organizations
works with urban communities, the school and the church to implement anti-mafia curriculum.”3
The Sicilian bishops travel regularly, advising religious and civil society leaders in Georgia,
Mexico, and elsewhere in ways that religious organizations and civil society can mobilize to create
a “Culture of Lawfulness” to curb international organized crime and corruption.4
In the United States, the Roman Catholic church mobilized with civil society organizations in
the Jubilee Justice/ Drop the Debt campaign for international debt relief. Their efforts were pivotal
in changing the U.S. government and international financial institutions’ policies toward debt relief
for the world’s poorest. The U.S. government gave $434 million to the international financial
institutions for debt relief toward highly indebted poor countries (HIPC), and credited Jubilee
USA/ Drop the Debt for the policy switch. The IFIs initially forgave $34 billion in debt to 22
countries, and have pledged to raise that to $70 billion over time.5
 When cultural and religious organizations are considered at all in the study of International
Relations, they are generally viewed as a source of conflict, parties to ethnic and nationalist
conflict, violent partisans of tradition and local particularity, opposed to globalization, change and
modernity (Jihad vs. McWorld, the Clash of Civlizations).6 While theologians have considered
the intersection of religion and globalization,7 too few political scientists have examined the
nexus. Samuel Huntington predicts an inevitable clash of civilizations, of the West vs. the rest.
This view has gained greater credibility since September 11th. But this view does not explain the
previous examples, in which Italian and Italian-American religious and cultural institutions play
constructive roles in managing global problems.
Why are religious and cultural organizations imagined to play only a reactionary role? Some
religious and cultural groups feel threatened by globalization, and thus retrench to a more reactive,
and sometimes violent fundamentalism as a way to preserve their culture, which they perceive as
under siege.8 Other religious and cultural groups are able to adapt to globalization and modernity,
and may play constructive roles in taming globalization, addressing global problems, and bridging
globalization’s institutional gaps.
If states cannot solve pressing global problems alone, who can? Can Italian and Italian-
American institutions, such as the Roman Catholic church in the United States, play a constructive
role in helping to address global problems? Greater attention to the role and resources of adaptive
religious and cultural institutions may help to create effective public-private partnerships for
managing global problems. In ad hoc attempts to manage global problems and bridge
globalization’s gaps, however, alternative ideas of authority and identity may evolve which over
time challenge and change Westphalian sovereign norms.

Why States Cannot Solve Pressing Global Problems Alone

Globalization is the fast, interdependent spread of open society, open economy, and open
technology infrastructures.9 From the first movements of migratory peoples across the continents,
to colonization and the establishment of global trade routes, globalization is not new. But the speed,
reach, intensity,10 cost, and impact of the current period of globalization are new. Colonization
and evangelization took decades during earlier periods of globalization. Today people and products
cross borders in hours; ideas and capital move around the globe at the touch of a keystroke.
From terrorism to human smuggling to international crime to environmental degradation,
globalization creates or exacerbates a host of problems which cross state borders, and which even
the most powerful states cannot solve unilaterally. There are a number of reasons for this.
First, by design, state power has not grown as rapidly as private sector power in the modern
period of globalization. Open economies, open societies, and open technologies have increased the
power, reach, and resources of the private sector (both licit and illicit), while constraining the size
and reach of the public sector. Market liberalization, the spread of capitalism, and economic
privatization has expanded the resources and autonomy of the private sector, while state control
over markets has receded (as evidenced by the Asian economic flu, for example). For the first time
in history a majority of states are democracies. As democratization spreads globally, the power of
civil society and the private sector grow, while state power is placed under democratic constraints.
The spread of cheap and readily available information technologies also facilitate the growth of
the private sector (both licit and illicit). Public sector organizations often lag behind the private
sector in adoption and effective use of information technologies. Also, the governments of a host
of failed or failing, weak or quasi states do not have the ability to maintain law and order, to project
public sector control over their legally delimited sovereign territories. These weak states are
sovereign by international law, de jure, but in practice lack capacity to effectively govern their
territories. Failing states or states in transition from authoritarian to liberal forms experience
declining state capacity. But even in strong states, the size of the public sector has been trimmed
in recent decades, or has not grown as much as the private sector.
Second, globalization creates a host of institutional gaps, as global problems move faster than
the state’s or multilateral institutions’ abilities to manage these problems. Global economic and
technological change is fast, while government, legal, and intergovernmental responses are slow.
This creates institutional gaps between the problems of globalization and attempts to manage these
problems. The problems move faster than institutional responses, so governments cannot manage
these problems alone. For example, terrorists and tourists alike use the same global infrastructure.
While the terrorist attacks of September 11th took an hour to conduct and news of the attacks spread
instantly, even the strongest state in the world, the U.S. government, cannot combat the problem
of global terrorism alone or instantly. Prior to September 11 U.S. governmental institutions were
poorly equipped to respond to the problems of global terrorism.11 Even the strongest state in the
system faces institutional gaps. There are several types of institutional gaps: capacity gaps,
jurisdiction gaps, participation gaps, legitimacy gaps, and ethical gaps.
Third, nonstate actors are on the rise. The number, resources, reach, personnel, functions, and
networks of multinational corporations and nongovernmental organizations are increasing
exponentially. MNCs and NGOs have increasing standing, representation, and functions in
international law and organizations, and increasingly perform functions once done by states. Not
coincidentally, illicit organizations such as terrorist groups, drug trafficking organizations,
international criminal cartels, and human smuggling networks are simultaneously on the rise. Illicit
networks benefit from the same open economy, open society, and open technology dynamics
which facilitate the growth of the legal private sector.

Institutional Gaps12

The speed, reach, intensity, and interconnectedness of the current period of globalization
create institutional crises, as existing institutions struggle to catch up with changing circumstances.
Institutions range from “formal organizations, which have explicit rules and forms of
administration and enforcement, to any stabilized pattern of human relationships and actions.”13
Existing states and international regimes are having difficulties coping with the challenges
globalization brings, because globalization creates and exacerbates institutional gaps. These
institutional gaps fall into several categories: capacity gaps; jurisdictional gaps; participation gaps;
legitimacy gaps; and ethical values gaps. Capacity gaps are shortfalls either in organizations or
organizational strength, resources, personnel, competence, or standard operating procedures,
which hinder the ability effectively to respond to problems of globalization. Jurisdiction gaps are
when the writ of the problem extends farther than the authority of the institutions charged with
responding to the problems. Participation gaps are when people affected by globalization are
excluded from partaking in the decision processes of managing or guiding globalization.
Legitimacy gaps are when the institutions which manage or regulate globalization are not
perceived by society as rightfully representing them. Ethical or values gaps are when globalization
is perceived to have either no ethical base or to promulgate values at odds with societal values or
the common good.
 Comparatively speaking, developed democracies are best placed to adapt to the challenges of
globalization, because they have adaptive and resourced political and economic institutions
capable of responding to the dislocations, disruptions, and unintended consequences which
globalization brings. States with adequate educational and public health systems, and access to
technology and stable governance allow people access, an on-ramp to the globalization highway.
But for newly democratizing states, and for many developing states, rule of law, political and
economic institutions are weak and lack the capacity and resources to respond to globalization’s
challenges. Weak and strong states both have capacity gaps; these are more severe for developing
states, collapsing states or states undergoing transitions.
Yet even strong states cannot manage global problems alone since the issues cross
jurisdictional and territorial boundaries. The terrorists who perpetrated the September 11 attacks
hailed from many different countries. Bringing the conspirators to justice is complicated by these
jurisdictional gaps. Additionally, the private sector often has better information and technology for
containing global problems, while public sector capabilities lag behind, even in the strongest states.
For example, the transportation and financial infrastructures that the September 11 terrorists
exploited were all privately owned and operated, further complicating government’s jurisdictional
reach. Many of globalization’s problems, such as drug trafficking or other illicit activities, take
place in the economic and social spheres, where the arm of liberal, capitalist states reaches the
least. As democratization and “the Washington Consensus” spread liberal political and economic
systems globally, more states find themselves constitutionally limited in what interventions they
may undertake in the private sphere. For example, regardless of U.S. power, terrorism crosses
international and public/private jurisdictions, making the U.S. government’s response to these
problems necessary but insufficient to successful management of these problems. While
intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) are also increasing in number, resources, functions, and
power, IGOs and states alone cannot solve globalization problems, since many of the factors that
constrain individual states also constrain collections of states. This again creates gaps, between
what institutions can do and what they are needed to do.
Institutional gaps also exist between rich and poor. Generally, the wealthy have institutions
capable of acting on their behalf, while the poor often do not. States without adequate educational,
public health, and governance institutions (developing countries) are least able to access the
globalization highway. The rural poor have less opportunity to access globalization’s benefits.
Poor countries and peoples face institutional gaps which fuel the increasing backlash against
globalization. Lacking resources, the institutions of poor countries are disadvantaged when
bargaining with more powerful countries’ institutions over the rules and regimes that govern
globalization. For example, while most of the planet’s populations are poor people living in
developing countries, a minority of rich countries led by the United States have prevailed in
creating institutions (TRIPS and TRIMS) that protect the intellectual property rights and profits of
pharmaceutical companies at the expense of the poor who cannot afford the cure. Western
pharmaceutical companies use the populations of developing countries for human testing of
potential medicines in the research and development phases, but these poor people and countries
often do not share in the benefits of these medicines once approved.
Globalization creates a world of paradox. Global transportation, communication, and
economic interdependence make possible the vision of a closer human family, as a million people
cross an international border every day. However, terrorists, tourists, and dangerous microbes use
the same global infrastructure. While capital flows of 2 trillion dollars crosses borders each day,
most poor people and poor countries see little of that. Building global infrastructure of open
economies, technologies, and societies creates great benefits, but globalization also carries
significant costs that are often not equitably dispersed.14 Some argue15 globalization is a means
to bring peoples and cultures together, to route tyrannical governments, to easily and cheaply
spread information, ideas, capital and commerce, and to transfer more power than ever before to
civil society and networked individuals.16 Others see globalization as merely neo-imperialism
wearing Bill Gates’ face and Mickey Mouse ears, extending the web of global capitalism’s
exploitation of women, minorities, the poor, and developing regions, fouling ecosystems,
displacing local cultures and traditions, mandating worship at the altar of rampant consumer
capitalism, and deepening the “digital divide” between global haves and have nots.17
The costs and benefits of globalization are not shared equally, but are asymmetrically
distributed. Capitalism is criticized for disparities between rich and poor in terms of income,
political power and participation, and opportunities. In parallel, the worldwide spread and
intensification of capitalism that globalization represents is criticized for exacerbating the excesses
of capitalism, and exporting these problems worldwide. For example, before the latest phase of
globalization, the disparity between the richest and poorest quintiles of the earth’s population was
30 to 1. In 1997, at the height of globalization, the richest 20% were 74 times richer than the
world’s poorest. The wealth of the world’s three richest individuals surpasses the combined GDP
of all the world’s underdeveloped countries (with their 600 million inhabitants).18 While certainly
global population growth plays a part, 100 million more people now live in poverty than 10 years
ago.19 Of the now 6 billion people on the planet, 3 billion live on less than $2 a day and 1.3 billion
live on less than $1 per day.20 60 countries are poorer than they were 20 years ago, and 80
countries are poorer than they were 10 years ago.21
Wealth is only one indicator of globalization’s asymmetries. Decisions concerning
globalization are made in corporate boardrooms and state capitals located generally in Western
and economically developed states. Environmental degradation from global production facilities
fall disproportionately on the world’s poorest communities, as some corporations exploit regions
where environmental legislation or enforcement is weakest. Yet most foreign direct investment
and collaborative corporate alliances go to developed states. “Controlling for the opening of both
China and the former Soviet bloc, which attracted almost no investment before 1985, the share of
foreign direct investment going to the developing world actually dropped” from 1985-95.22
Globalization’s costs and benefits are unequally distributed, with poor people and poor countries
too often not participating in the full benefits globalization may bring. Generally, the benefits of
globalization accrue disproportionately to the world’s rich, while the challenges of globalization
(environmental damage, labor abuses, etc.) have a greater impact on the poor. Maximizing the
benefits of globalization while minimizing or managing the challenges is difficult, because the
institution we generally task with managing global problems, the sovereign state, cannot do the
job alone. Poor peoples and countries do not have adequate participation in the decision making
processes which channel globalization, from corporate board rooms to the Davos economic
summits to the G8 meetings. The participation gaps, capacity gaps, and the asymmetric distribution
of costs and benefits intensifies dissatisfaction and backlash against globalization,23 from the
violence and death in the protests at the WTO meetings in Genoa last summer, to the September
11 attacks. Institutions which do not adequately protect developing countries, or which exclude
them from participating in decision making processes, are increasingly seen as illegitimate. These
various institutional gaps are reinforcing. Institutions must be perceived as legitimate to be
effective; participation gaps exacerbate legitimacy gaps, which intensify capacity gaps.
 The participation and legitimacy gaps also further the ethical and values gap. Many observers
believe that corporations rule the world, and that globalization is thus driven by market values that
put profits ahead of people. While powerful multinational corporations seek profits, states seek
wealth and development in globalization. Many decry the degree to which rich states, particularly
the United States, drive globalization, also putting the values of profits ahead of people (especially
since many of the citizens exploited by globalization are not citizens in developed states, thus rich
states have no jurisdictional or perceived ethical obligations to the world’s dispossessed). Thus
whether driven by powerful companies or powerful states, many observers decry the ethical basis
of globalization, believing globalization is driven by an ethic of crass materialism and
consumption, or western (especially U.S.) cultural imperialism.24 To the extent that these ethos
pervade globalization, many suggest that violence and backlash against globalization will mount,
producing a world in which the benefits of globalization reach too few people and countries,
making the dynamics of globalization politically unsustainable.25
The ethical gaps are large and growing. Today over half of the world’s population are not
receiving the benefits of globalization, either because they are not plugged into the global
economy, or because they do not have institutions which can advance or protect their interests as
participants in the global economy. Human life is lost, human development unfulfilled, and sacred
creation destroyed. This disparity between those benefiting from globalization and those left
behind or vulnerable to the challenges of globalization is increasing. The world’s poorest
populations are growing, while the populations of developed countries are stable or slightly
declining with the graying of the baby boomers. For example, world population is expected to
grow from its current 6 billion to 7.2 billion in the next 15 years; 95% of that population growth
will occur in developing countries and in already stressed urban areas (megacities)26–think Lagos
and Mexico City. So globalization’s moral and ethical problems will only get larger. The values
gap is exacerbated by the legitimacy, jurisdictional, and participation gaps. As Archbishop
Diarmuid Martin, Former Secretary of the Vatican’s Justice and Peace Council, put it, “What is
needed is a network of structures, institutions, principles and elements of law to help manage in
the best possible way the world’s common good, which cannot be protected only by individual
governments.”

Bridging the Gaps

Can religious institutions help to bridge these institutional gaps, helping to forge a more just
and more peaceful globalization which is not driven by market values alone? Too often religious
and cultural organizations are primarily seen as a source of conflict in international relations.
There are alternative views. Corporations and states are not the only engines of globalization,
or its only beneficiaries. Millennia before the current period of rapid, modern globalization (or late
globalization),27 religious organizations have long been globalizing forces, spreading ideas,
institutions, flows of people and capital across international borders. Today religious organizations
continue to play an active role in globalization, both as global actors themselves, and as mediating
institutions, responding to the challenges of globalization, and offering alternative ethical visions
of globalization (beyond market or consumer dynamics). Corporations see the world as market; in
this vision people are all consumers, wealth creators or wealth spenders. States see globalization
as a world to be governed; people are either governed or ungovernable, potential taxpayers or
soldiers or those beyond government posing problems for government (illegal immigrants,
refugees, terrorists, or criminals). Religious organizations, however, present alternative visions of
globalization, seeing a world in which we are all people of God. In such visions, people are not
merely soldiers or salesmen, but souls and spirits, evidence of and participants in the spirit of
creation. Rather than mere opposition to globalization, as the clash of civilizations, Jihad vs.
McWorld formulations suggest, religious organizations present more varied and constructive
reactions to globalization. They may represent one of the best ways forward, for globalization to
proceed “with a human face,”28 unleashing greater human potential than mere materialism, for
more of the planet than presently participate in the benefits of globalization.
While many believe the dynamics of globalization are antithetical to religion, or make
religious institutions obsolete, the opposite may be true. Some worry that with globalization people
will tune into BayWatch, MTV and other cultural messages and tune out traditional religious
institutions. But the information explosion brings information overload, which increases the need
for mediating institutions like the Catholic Church to help people find meaning and value amidst
the avalanche of data. How many Americans flocked to churches in the aftermath of 911, looking
not only for comfort and pastoral counseling, but also for a way to make sense out of trying and
bewildering circumstances.
Religious organizations, as non governmental organizations, may have some advantages in
responding to these institutional gaps, to help manage the problems of globalization. The academic
literature on globalization suggests that non governmental groups are increasingly important actors
in world politics. Globalization makes it easier for NGOs to form and operate. Globalization also
creates challenges which sovereign states cannot solve or manage alone, so NGOs increasingly
step into the breach to help manage global issues.29 Some NGOs also help represent poor peoples
and countries whose voices may otherwise be marginalized in international relations. In 1909 there
were 176 international NGOs. Today there are over 47, 098 international NGOs.”30 NGOs have
been growing as more states than ever before in history are transitioning to democracy, allowing
grass roots activism in parts of the world (such as the former Soviet states) where civil society
groups have never been able to effectively organize before. The advent of cheap information
technologies now makes it easy for NGOs to mobilize. For example, if the price of an automobile
had fallen in the last two decades as sharply as the price of a microchip, a car would cost us $5
dollars. NGOs are armed with information technologies which help them connect with members,
with world wide needs, with other civil society groups across borders, and with the international
media. With increased reach and effectiveness, NGOs are helping to manage global problems.
Certainly the meeting of world religious leaders simultaneous with the Davos economic summit is
one high profile means by which religious groups are trying to mediate the excesses of
globalization.
Religious organizations trade in the currency of ideas, especially ideas of good and evil, right
and wrong. The ideas compel, even when the organizations cannot. Religious organizations attract
support more than they can enforce compliance. These groups aspire to be transnational moral
entrepreneurs, agents who act as reformers or crusaders to change rules, out of an ethical concern
to curtail a great evil.31
While governments have legal authority, religious organizations rely on moral authority.
Generally, while states have greater military power, and MNCs have greater economic power,
religious organizations’ strength lies in their idea power. They seek to occupy the only high ground
available to them, the moral high ground. If they can succeed in redefining a problem as a moral
issue, they will have a greater chance of prevailing, because states and MNCs may not be able to
speak credibly as bastions or brokers of morality. The Roman Catholic Church has well-developed
ethics and rich institutions, resources which are useful to transnational advocacy networks.
Morally, religious organizations have legitimacy speaking on moral issues and a treasure chest of
well-developed ideas available for use by transnational advocacy networks. Tactically, religious
organizations can pool their power with other religious and civil society groups, and use their direct
pulpit access to citizens (who may be business or government decision makers) as well as their
ability to attract media. While secular NGOs may not command as extensive institutional networks
(schools, hospitals, etc.), they also develop and trade in moral ideas, as environmental transnational
advocacy networks construct and promote environmental ethics.32
Religious organizations and secular NGOs have information power. Especially when
networked transnationally, these groups have access to grassroots information about how
particular policies affect particular people, information that governments or IGOs overlook or do
not have. As people gain greater and cheaper access to information technologies, this can force
greater transparency. Transparency or sunshine politics are an important tool of NGOs. By
expanding the information base of the public or elite discussion especially around previously
closed matters, they often impose the “Dracula” test– will a particular policy or practice be able to
survive in the daylight? Transparency alone can do much to shrink both government and corporate
abuses. And discussions alone about opening the decision making process to greater transparency
help to reframe issues as moral issues, again moving the issue to where NGOs have some home
court advantage.
Some religious organizations and NGOs can use reputational power as a force multiplier to
enhance their values, ideas, and information power. Reputational power may derive from
important, well-known or respected figures who are members of the group. Or it may come from
the NGO’s own strong advocacy track record. Or, like MNCs, NGOs may build a “brand name”
around the quality and reliability of their organization’s information products.
NGOs use media and communications power as a force multiplier for their values, ideas, and
information power. While NGOs vary in their skill and access to the global media, they do have
some media advantages. Global media simplify issues to attract wider audiences, compete against
ever-shorter sound bites, in order to sell their products. If NGOs often emphasize how policies or
practices affect particular individuals or groups, or how global issues present clear moral choices,
they may be able to attract media attention. NGOs can use the media as a megaphone for their
message if they understand the care and feeding of the press, and deliver compelling stories with
good pictures, and clear good guys and bad guys, in arenas where government, IGO, or corporate
responses may either be slow or lack credibility. Since MNCs may have huge marketing
investments in their brand names, and do not want these brands to be sullied or their reputations
trashed, even the threat of negative media coverage can bring greater attention to NGO ideas. It is
more difficult to wield this media power against naked, anonymous commodities and unknown,
unbranded companies, however. Media and communications power are important to groups that
trade in ideas. NGOs, like others who can persuade but not compel,33 must be good salespeople
as well as good preachers in order to mobilize their ideas.

Institutional Inventory: Deficits

What institutional deficits and benefits, do U.S. Catholic institutions have in trying to bridge
the capacity, jurisdiction, participation, legitimacy, and ethical gaps which globalization presents?
There are some deficits in terms of capacity. The leadership of the U.S. Catholic Church is
relatively small, and often already overwhelmed. Vocations have been steadily declining since the
1960’s, leaving an older, smaller leadership cadre to deal with the emerging issues of globalization.
The leaders of the U.S. Catholic Church are the 289 U.S. Bishops and their canonical organization,
the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Additionally, the United States Catholic
Conference (USCC) is a civil organization which collaborates with the Bishops on matters of
concern to the Church, including education, outreach, and advocacy.34 The Bishops meet annually
as a whole, but also have standing committees on specific issues, including the International Policy
Committee (the outgoing chairman is Cardinal Law of Boston; the incoming chair is Bishop Ricard
of Florida), the Domestic Policy Committee (chaired by Cardinal Mahoney of Los Angeles), the
Committee on Migration (chaired by Bishop DiMarzio of Camden, NJ), etc. The USCC is located
in Washington, D.C. Its staff of 250 serve the Bishops as well as the ongoing USCC program
activities (Diocesan outreach, creating educational materials for Parishes and Dioceses, running
workshops for Diocesan and Parish ministers --both lay and clergy, communication of Catholic
activities, etc.). Within the USCC, the Department of Social Development and World Peace is the
national public policy agency of the U.S. Catholic Bishops. This department has two permanent
offices: The International Justice and Peace and the Domestic Social Development offices. These
staff members assemble research and background information for the Bishops’ use in developing
policy and advocacy positions. Staff also lobby Congress, the Administration, and
intergovernmental bodies at the Bishops’ request. Beyond advocacy, the (lay and clerical) staff of
the international and domestic offices also work with other Bishops’ conferences around the world,
coordinate outreach and education to Catholic Dioceses and parishes in the U.S., create and print
educational and advocacy materials, host workshops on Catholic Social Teaching and current
issues, maintain a website, serve as a resource to visiting Bishops from around the world, and help
to coordinate fact finding travels of U.S. Bishops abroad. Globalization is on the docket of both
the Bishops’ International Policy and the Domestic Policy Committees, who meet twice a year to
discuss advocacy positions, action items, etc. for the U.S. Bishops. Can U.S. Catholic Bishops and
their limited staff, already spread very thin, do much to help bridge the capacity gaps of
globalization?
Due in part to their size, the demands on their time, tradition, and the conservative nature of
the institutions, the USCCB can be very slow to act. For example, the USCCB issued a statement
on June 15, 2001,35 decrying global warming and calling for more responsible stewardship of
creation. The statement, while useful, had been in the works for several years, during which time
ozone depletion worsened. Similarly, the Vatican, the Bishops Conferences of South Africa and
Latin America have issued pastoral statements on globalization, issuing a call to solidarity with
the world’s poor to ensure that globalization does not proceed on the back’s of the world’s most
vulnerable. As Pope John Paul II put it, “The globalization of finances, the economy, trade and
work must never violate the centrality of the human person nor the freedom and democracy of
peoples. . . . Globalization is a reality present in every area of human life, but it is a reality which
must be managed wisely. Solidarity too must become globalized.”
The U.S. Catholic bishops, however, have as yet issued no formal statements directly on
globalization. They have been studying the issue. The Bishops’ International and Domestic Policy
Committees, in coordination with the International and Domestic Policy Committees of the USCC,
are currently studying the moral and ethical challenges of global economic integration, in the
Global Economies Project. While the Project has not adopted a specific definition of globalization,
attention has focused on moral and ethical dimensions of economic globalization. USCC staff from
the Domestic and International offices, as well as a working group of the Bishops’ International
and Domestic Policy Committees, undertook a series of “listening sessions” in 1999 and 2000, in
between the twice a year meetings of the International and Domestic Policy Committees. These
panel consultations with experts focused on the benefits and problems of economic globalization,
the moral and ethical dimensions of the global economy, and the relevance of Catholic social
teaching to these problems. At the joint sessions of the International and Domestic Policy
Committees, committee members heard additional speakers on the topic, and continued to discuss
and discern the issue. After some work on a preliminary draft statement on economic globalization,
the committees decided to suspend work on the statement for now, since any possible public
statement should flow from and after the listening process, rather than coming before the listening
process was complete.
The Bishops and USCC, in coordination with the Bishops of Latin America and the Canadian
Bishops Conference, held a conference on the moral dimensions of the global economy, January
28-30, 2002, at the Catholic University of America. The conference was envisioned as a follow-
on to the successful conference on debt relief for heavily indebted poor countries, held at Seton
Hall University in 1998 and also co-sponsored by the US, Latin American, and Canadian Bishops
Conferences. The two day conference was a relatively small meeting of about 75 bishops selected
from the three North American Bishops Conferences. The objectives were to provide an
opportunity for church leaders in the Americas and elsewhere to dialogue with each other, with
policy makers and leaders of governments and the multilateral organizations, with business and
labor leaders, with academics, theologians, and leaders of civil society, from both developed and
developing countries’ perspectives. After the conference, the U.S. Bishops will determine what
follow-on activities are called for (a formal statement, specific policy initiatives, etc.). The U.S.
Catholic Bishops are not built for speed. Thus they may not be well equipped to bridge the gaps
created by global problems moving more quickly than established institutions.
Additionally, the hierarchy of the U.S. Catholic Church is all male, predominantly Caucasian,
and currently under intense public scrutiny regarding its handling of sexual misconduct cases.
Women and minorities have few opportunities to participate in decision making processes, making
the U.S. Catholic Bishops Conference an unlikely candidate institutions to bridge the participation
and legitimacy gaps of globalization. The recent sexual scandals and the improper handling of
these cases of pedophilia and improper sexual behavior by priests has injured the Church’s
legitimacy and position as a moral leader. Reviewing and reforming policy, responding to legal
charges, making amends to victims, and dialoguing with the community to increase transparency
and accountability and decrease hostility has consumed the time and energy of the clergy.
Further, many in developing countries believe that globalization benefits the U.S. at their
expense. The history of the Catholic church in many regions (the Crusades, complicity with
colonialism) may undermine the Church’s legitimacy as a mediating institution. Further, the
Catholic Church benefits from globalization in many ways. Catholic theology, particularly the
gospel message to “Go and teach all nations,” and a theology of the universal church as the body
of Christ, has driven the Catholic Church as a global institution from its inception. However, cheap
and rapid global transportation, communication, and economic flows now make it easier to be a
universal church. In Held’s terms, relations among US Catholics and Catholics abroad are now
more extensive, intensive, have greater speed and impact than in earlier periods of
globalization.36 Bishops abroad more easily and frequently communicate their needs and concerns
to US Bishops, and US Catholics more easily and frequently travel to visit and stand in solidarity
with Catholics around the world. Sister parishes and lay mission exchanges have blossomed. While
there is a clergy shortage in the United States, the US Catholic Church is “contracting out,” relying
on the Religious Worker Visa Program to import priests and religious from abroad to minister to
US parishes.37 As perceived beneficiaries of globalization with a mixed history in many
developing countries, can U.S. bishops speak credibly regarding the needs of the dispossessed in
developing countries?

Institutional Inventory: Benefits

What benefits do Roman Catholic institutions bring toward bridging globlazation’s gaps? The
Roman Catholic Church has over 2000 years’ experience as a global institution. Unlike many
NGOs, the Church has a rich, coherent, unifying theology and principles of Catholic Social
Teaching that motivate and underlie its institutions. Globalization brings institutional gaps, but the
Roman Catholic Church has rich, extensive networks and institutions, from schools and hospitals
to parishes and social development agencies, which are not only service oriented but in it for the
long haul. Coordination and conflicting missions are obstacles to many NGOs, but the gospel
message and Catholic Social Teaching provide a unifying ethos that pervades Catholic institutions
the world over. While outside observers notice the Roman Catholic Church’s centralized,
hierarchical organizational system for matters of church doctrine, outsiders often fail to notice the
huge organizational pluralism in the Church as well. There are over 62 million American Catholics
in nearly 200 dioceses, over 19,000 parishes, 240 Catholic colleges and universities, over 7,000
elementary schools and over 1,300 high schools, over 600 Catholic hospitals and over 400 other
health care centers, and over 700 Missionary groups.38 Dioceses, parishes, schools, religious
orders, etc. have social justice committees, sister parishes abroad, etc. These rich networks of
institutions, unified by common norms, have capacity to help respond to the problems of
globalization. Since many of these institutions operate transnationally, they may be less
constrained by the jurisdiction gaps that limit state responses to global problems.
For example, Catholic Relief Services is active in over 85 countries. CRS has some 4,000
employees abroad and 300 employees in their Baltimore headquarters. Most of these employees
are laypersons, non-US citizens, and a large number of CRS employees abroad are non-Catholics.
CRS was founded by the US Catholic Bishops in 1943 to “assist the poor and disadvantaged
outside the country.”39 CRS still retains close ties with the bishops; 12 bishops serve on the CRS
Board of Directors. While the Bishops set overall policy directives, CRS is an operational arm
doing fieldwork abroad. CRS also brings issues to the attention of the Bishops as they arise in the
field.
While CRS is well known for its relief and development work, CRS is also increasingly active
on issues concerning globalization. After the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, CRS did a great deal
of organizational soul-searching. CRS had been active in relief and development work in Rwanda
for years, yet somehow had not anticipated the destruction and violence. CRS re-organized,
placing greater emphasis on strategic planning, interconnections and interdependencies between
issue areas, and reviewing all CRS activities through the “Justice Lens.” The idea is that relief
activities without adequate attention to structural injustices led to the problem of “the well fed
dead” in Rwanda. The Office of Policy and Strategic Issues was created at CRS’ Baltimore
headquarters, with staff tasked to specific issue areas, including Globalization, Corporate
Responsibility, Debt Relief, Foreign Aid, Refugees/Migration, Food Security, and Complex
Humanitarian Emergencies. CRS’ staff in the Office of Policy and Strategic Issues does advocacy
and lobbying work, as well as public outreach. They represent CRS at UN, World Bank, and other
international meetings on debt, WTO, TRIPS, reforming the international financial infrastructure,
etc.
 CRS has a number of interesting globalization projects. In India, CRS is working with other
NGOs and USAID to alleviate child labor and prostitution. In the Philippines, CRS is working on
a pilot project with the ILO on social re-insurance. Globalization allows capital and jobs to be
mobile, but government social safety nets for unemployment are often weak, under funded, or non-
existent as state revenues shrink relative to need. This pilot project looks to civil society to provide
unemployment insurance, similar to civil society banking and micro finance initiatives.
The Religious Working Group on the World Bank and IMF is a coalition of over 40
organizations pushing for reforms in the international financial architecture. While non-Catholic
groups are part of the coalition, most of the members are Catholic organizations, such as the
Maryknoll Office of Global Concerns, the Africa Faith and Justice Network, Bread for the World,
Franciscan Mission Service, Catholic Social Network, Pax Christi, the Center for Concern, U.S.
Jesuit Conference, etc. The coalition has been very active on debt relief, and on reforming the IMF,
World Bank, and emerging international economic organizations (such as the WTO) to put poverty
reduction and the needs of poor countries first in international financial regulations and
organizations.
While Catholic missionary groups, relief and development groups, labor groups, academics,
and the Catholic leadership have been actively working on globalization issues, one sector stands
out in their absence: Catholic business organizations. While Catholic businessmen have been part
of the Catholic Bishops’ listening sessions, Catholic business organizations have been notably low
profile on Catholic efforts on debt reduction, environment, and reform of the international financial
architecture. Catholic business organizations have come together in the past on health care issues,
for example, writing an ethical code for Catholic health care. A similar effort is needed now.
The U.S. Catholic Church has some special capacities relative to the world wide Catholic
Church on globalization issues. The U.S. government and U.S. corporations are primary drivers of
globalization. Most of the primary multilateral institutions, the UN, IMF, World Bank, etc., are all
headquartered in the United States. Thus the U.S. Catholic Church has proximity and access to
important engines and agents of globalization. The jobs of lobbying, advocacy, consciousness
raising, coalition building, and reform of these institutions may fall disproportionately to U.S.
Catholic institutions that have better access and proximity to these levers of power. This creates
another irony of globalization for the U.S. Catholic Church. Catholics abroad see more of the
challenges of globalization, while Catholics in the U.S. see more of globalization’s benefits
(relative to their cohorts abroad). Yet it is US Catholics who have greater capacity and clearer
jurisdiction to speak to the U.S. government, U.S. corporations, U.S. consumers, and multilateral
organizations located in the U.S. regarding global problems and the needs of the worldwide church.
The Catholic Church abroad frequently asks the U.S. Catholic Church for help in accessing and
making their case to these agents of power regarding globalization. While the impacts of
globalization are widely dispersed, many of the important agents of globalization are
geographically concentrated in the United States, putting a special onus on the U.S. Catholic
institutions.
For example, the U.S. Catholic Bishops, in concert with many other Catholic groups and other
NGOs, intensively lobbied the U.S. government and multilateral organizations throughout 1998,
1999 and 2000 to forgive the debts of heavily indebted poor countries. Legislators and government
officials predicted the effort dead-on-arrival at first. They did not expect legislative priorities to
change despite the efforts of the Bishops, Jubilee 2000, the Catholic Campaign on Debt, and other
organizations. Intense lobbying included visits and letters from the Bishops personally as well as
from staff of the Catholic Conference, editorials in major newspapers (including a Washington
Post editorial by Cardinal Law),40 public marches and a well-attended rally on the Mall, letter
writing campaigns, etc. On November 29, 2000, President Clinton signed legislation that forgave
most bilateral debt to the United States, contributed $435 million dollars in funding for debt relief,
and authorized the IMF to spend $800 million in gold investment earnings for debt relief. Treasury
Secretary Summers wrote a letter to Cardinal Law of the Bishops’ International Policy Committee,
thanking him for the efforts of the Catholic Conference, which he characterized as “instrumental”
in winning Congressional support.
The Bishops’ program on Environmental Justice dates back to 1993. While many of the
program’s efforts are domestic, focusing on Brownfields clean up and children’s health issues
stemming from environmental harm, the Environmental Justice Program has also devoted
considerable time and energy to global environmental issues. In 1994 the Bishops released a
pastoral statement “Renewing the Earth,” on Catholic social teaching regarding responsible
environmental stewardship. They stated, “In moving toward an environmentally sustainable
economy, we are obligated to work of a just economic system which equitably shares the bounty
of the earth and of human enterprise with all peoples.” The statement also noted that many of the
gravest environmental problems are global, and these problems are disproportionately borne by
the poor.41 The Bishops issued “Global Climate Change: A Plea for Dialogue, Prudence, and the
Common Good,” on June 15, 2001, which continued in that vein to urge for greater attention to
global climate change, to the common good and to the needs of the poor. These statements are
used by the USCC staff in their advocacy efforts with government and multilateral officials, and
in the public outreach and education functions for dioceses and parishes. The Project maintains a
database of 4,000 Catholic leaders and organizations involved in environmental justice activities.
Nearly 30,000 environmental justice resource kits have been distributed to educators, Catholic
parishes, and social action directors. The program also produces books and videos for educational
outreach.
Additionally, the USCCB and USCC respond to requests for help from other Bishops
conferences around the world, on a host of international issues including the Chad-Cameroon
pipeline, trafficking in persons, migration (including migration and VISA status for religious
workers), and other topics related to globalization. For example, USCC lobbying intensified last
year as Congress passed legislation to ensure more effective prosecution of traffickers in humans,
supplemented by Bishop Di Marzio’s public statements on the issue.42
Outside of the USCCB and USCC, individual bishops have also taken the lead in speaking
out about the ethical problems presented by globalization. Cardinal George of the Chicago
Archdiocese gave a major address to the American Mission Congress on “Globalization:
Challenges to the Church’s Mission.” Others, such as Bishop Murphy of Long Island (formerly of
Boston), have published articles in Catholic newspapers on the pros and cons of globalization.
The previously discussed downsides of U.S. Catholic institutions in bridging global capacity
gaps included the shrinking size and slowness of the church hierarchy. However, the U.S. Bishops
can move more quickly on global issues when crises mount. During their November 12-15, 2001
meetings, the U.S. bishops released a statement on the September 11 attacks. For all the problems
associated with hierarchy, at least the Catholic Church has a leadership structure capable of
speaking on behalf of church members. Contrast that with the lack of any such leadership structure
in Islam. Who speaks for Islam? The silence of Muslim clerics in speaking out against the
September 11 attacks and bin Laden’s jihad is deafening. While the capacity of U.S. Catholic
institutions may be overtaxed and flawed, there is capacity that can help to bridge institutional
gaps.
 Catholic tradition provides many norms that help to bridge the ethical gaps of globalization.
Catholic Social Teaching provides a clear ethical framework for addressing global problems and
promise. The Catholic belief in the fundamental dignity of all human life, and the Church’s moral
obligation to speak truth to power, are key. The fundamental dignity of all human life encompasses
concern for human rights and labor.
The preferential option for the poor signals the Catholic Church’s obligation to the world’s
most vulnerable. The Catholic principle of solidarity reminds the Church that it must not be divided
into haves and have nots, but the Church must stand together as a united force. This is particularly
important for the U.S. Catholic Church, as the wealthiest population of the universal Catholic
Church, and as the population of the world church receiving most of globalization’s benefits. As
the parable of the talents instructs, more is expected from those to whom more is given.
Authentic human development means that the Catholic Church’s aim is not merely material
gain, but encompasses health, education, spiritual and environmental concerns. The Church has a
responsibility for responsible stewardship of all creation, including the environment. Working
toward the common good also unites these principles.
Catholic social teachings, as well as Catholic institutions, provide rich ethics and institutions
for addressing global problems. Other NGOs, corporations, and states attempt to construct
corporate and NGO codes of conduct, and governmental standards for ethical behavior in a global
era, from scratch. But the Catholic Church has ethical codes developed and tried over centuries,
which are applicable to these pressing moral concerns of our day. The church has cadres of well-
trained ethicists. Additionally, the Catholic Church has size and reach in both developed and
developing states. Thus Catholic ethics and institutions are well poised to serve as guides and
bridges across globalization’s gaps.
Regarding legitimacy and participation gaps, Catholic lay institutions represent one sector of
civil society. These groups vary in their records regarding participation in and transparency of
decision making processes. Thus Catholic institutions vary in their abilities to bridge
globalization’s legitimacy and participation gaps, although theoretically at least they all can help
to represent civil society and thus increase the legitimacy of global institutions. However, since
U.S. citizens are well represented in international regimes weighing responses to global issues,
some will receive the participation of even more U.S. institutions skeptically internationally.
Globalization needs mediating ethics and institutions to protect the world’s vulnerable, the
poor and future generations, so that the benefits of globalization may be shared more widely, and
the problems of globalization curtailed. In the February 2001 meeting of the U.S. bishops with the
Latin American and Canadian bishops on increased cooperation on migration issues, they noted
the centrality of economic globalization to many of the problems they were considering. They
endorsed the Pope’s call for a “globalization of solidarity,” “globalization without
marginalization,” to ensure that human rights and responsibilities remain at the center of concerns
for economic development and global economic integration.43 Other Catholic organizations are
also working together on issues ranging from debt relief to reforming the international financial
architecture to ensure that the needs of the poor and marginalized are represented. But since
organizations and individuals learn by doing, it will take time before the US Catholic Church fully
recognizes and acts upon the value added which Catholic ethics and institutions can provide, as
guides and bridges across globalization’s gaps. Catholic institutions have great resources they can
provide to bridging globalization’s ethical gaps; they have some resources for bridging capacity
and jurisdiction gaps. Participation and legitimacy gaps may be the most challenging, for the US
Catholic Church to speak for those who have no voice.
 Too often the debates over globalization are portrayed as a choice between a globalization
that puts profits over people, versus no globalization at all. Religious organizations, when they are
considered at all, are generally depicted as reactionary forces opposed to globalization. In reality
there are more choices than that. We do not have to choose between the present form of
globalization, with its mix of benefits along with its excesses and problems, or a return to a more
closed, isolated and less interdependent world. Even the harshest critics of globalization use the
tools of globalization to broadcast their messages and solicit support for their anti-globalization
causes. Instead of debating over false choices, we can build institutions which better represent
important values, better distribute the benefits of globalization and better mitigate the problems of
open economies, open societies, and open technologies, and better protect and promote the
common good. Religious organizations, including the institutions of the U.S. Catholic Church,
have valuable competencies they can bring to the task of taming globalization, of building global
infrastructure that advance more authentic human development.

Sovereignty Changing44

As states increasingly turn to the private sector for help in managing global problems, what
effect does this have on sovereignty over time?
It is instructive to remember Hendrik Spruyt’s story of how fundamental change came
ushering in the Westphalian sovereign state: the economy changed; new elites were created who
benefitted from the new economic system and needed a new form of political organization to better
accommodate them and their economic practices. Ideas changed, new organizational forms
emerged and competed, and after centuries of flux the sovereign state eventually won out.45
There are a number of parallels today. The economy has changed. The new economic system
is increasingly based on information, technology, and services, which is less dependent on the
control of territory. The means of production, capital, and labor are mobile, not fixed. Players who
make use of modern information, communication, transportation, and financial technologies reap
the benefits of increasingly open borders and economies. Political systems that make room for the
new economic system reap profits in foreign direct investment, and so regime types as distinct as
the Chinese communist system, the Australian parliamentary system, and the Iranian theocracy are
all simultaneously undertaking reforms to make themselves more attractive to investors’ capital
and technology flows.
New elites are emerging who profit from the new economic system. Typified by George
Soros, Bill Gates, and Ted Turner, these “new imperialists” increasingly follow no flag. They are
passionate about expanding technologies and markets, and they are frustrated by what they see as
anachronistic state barriers to investment and trade flows. The international business classes attend
the same schools, fly the same airlines, vacation at the same resorts, eat at the same restaurants,
and watch the same movies and television shows. Independent of national identities, these elites
mobilize to try to make states facilitate market dynamics. Some call it the “Davos culture,”46 after
the annual World Economic Summit that meets in that Swiss luxury resort. Sociologist Peter
Berger calls it the “yuppie internationale,” typified by the scene in a Buddhist temple in Hong
Kong of “a middle aged man wearing a dark business suit over stocking feet. He was burning
incense and at the same time talking on his cellular phone.” He believes these cultural ties have
made peace talks in South Africa and Northern Ireland go more smoothly. “It may be that
commonalities in taste make it easier to find common ground politically.” Can it be that leaders
who all shop at the Gap and Bennetton and eat at McDonald’s find political antagonisms quaint
and unnecessary? Thomas Friedman argues that no two countries with a McDonald’s have ever
gone to war with one another.47 Even though clearly there are many economically underprivileged
around the world who do not partake of this lifestyle, the values of this new elite percolate into the
rest of society as people mimic the behavior of the elites and as they strive to better their economic
situations one day to rise into the wealthier classes.
Ideas are changing (including ideas of authority, identity, and organization), facilitated by the
new information technologies and changes in the economy. Never before in human history have
we been able to spread ideas so quickly and widely. Modern communication technologies allow
an ever wider swath of the planet to be tuned in to the same advertisements, the same television
shows, and thereby, to some of the same ideas about consumerism and personal freedoms. Identity
is becoming less tied to territory. If identity and authority do not stem from geography, what is our
new church, our new religion? In the Middle Ages identity came from Christendom, the church,
while authority stemmed from spiritual connections. In the modern era identity was tied up with
the nation-state; authority corresponded with geography.
Now authority and identity are increasingly contested. Susan strange believes we now have
Pinocchio’s problem: the strings of state control, authority, and identity have been cut, but no new
strings have been fastened. States no longer are the supreme recipient of individual loyalties,
especially as states no longer fulfil basic services and functions, and other actors step into the gap.
Firms, professions, families, religions, social movements have all significantly challenged the
state’s territorial and security-based claim to individual loyalty. We are left to choose among
competing sources of allegiance, authority and identity, with no strings to bind us like puppets to
one source of authority, and with more freedom to let our conscience be our guide.48
Certainly the new economy would like identity to be formed around consumer productsCyou
are what you wear, what you consume. Advertisers spend billions to imprint brand loyalty at an
early age, and all the advertising of Planet Reebok, I’d-like-to-buy-the-world-a-Coke, and
Microsoft’s One World Internet Explorer icon share a common theme, that identity stems not from
national borders but from consumer products. Identity is therefore just as mobile as the economy;
you are not born with it. You can buy it. Alternatively, some see identity as increasingly flowing
from professions and firms Cyou are what you do, and your commitment is to your profession
rather than to a specific nation-state.
As Richard Rosecrance describes it, “Today and for the foreseeable future, the only
international civilization worthy of the name is the governing economic culture of the world
market.”49 Benjamin Barber refers to this popular, consumer market culture as “McWorld.”50 As
market values permeate various cultures, certain ideas emerge as prized: the value of change,
mobility, flexibility, adaptability, speed, and information. As capitalism becomes our creed, with
technology as our guide, distinct national and religious cultures are becoming permeated with
common market values.
There are alternatives to market values, however. Religious organizations and some NGOs
promulgate alternative ethics to materialism, a globalization in which we are not merely consumers
or a governance problem, but human beings each with irreducible sacred dignity. This vision of
globalization prescribes putting people before profits, ethical values before market values.
Religious organizations are increasingly using the tools of globalization to promote their views.
The Internet has been a popular tool for organizing and proselytizing by many faith groups.
Ideas of organization are also changing and are based on models from the marketplace and
technology: the computer, the Internet, and the market are diffuse, decentralized, loosely
connected networks with a few central organizing parameters but strong ties to the activities of
individual entrepreneurs. Foreign policy organizations are in some instances going beyond
bureaucracy, creating flexible, innovative, coordinating networks.
Creative public-private partnerships are the wave of the future in solving global problems.
Rather than trying to become draconian, “big brother” states (which would conflict with open
society, open economy, open technology goals) it makes sense for governments to look toward
civil society for help in managing global problems. But states must be aware of the costs of
contracting out. In privatizing, not only do governments lose some control over policy, but
additionally, private entities may present obstacles to the government’s agenda as profit or other
motives conflict with important public policy goals. Although privatization and moving beyond
bureaucracy are popular buzzwords in today’s budget-conscious political climate, changes in state
architecture have consequences for how we think about political authority, identity, and
organization.
Perhaps, as in Spruyt’s analysis of the late Middle Ages, ideas drawn from the new economic
system are helping to shape new ideas of political organization. A resurgence of IGOs
simultaneous with increased attention to local governance may not seem at all strange to a
civilization used to surfing the Net, using a system that is simultaneously globally connected but
only as good as your local link.
James Rosenau believes that as individuals become more analytically skillful, the nature of
authority shifts. People no longer uncritically accept traditional criteria of state authority based on
historical, legal, or customary claims of legitimacy. Instead, authority and legitimacy are
increasingly based upon how well government authorities perform.51 While scholars disagree
about the sources of identity and authority in the emerging era, they agree that these ideas are
changing.
Finally, Spruyt acknowledges that new forms of political organization are beginning to
emerge, as evidenced by the European Union and the increasing roles and profile of IGOs. Thus,
even if, as Spruyt maintains, the sovereign state is still supreme, three out of four of his indicators
of fundamental change are already here: change in economy, elites, and ideas are in evidence, and
while no new form of political organization has unseated the sovereign state, new forms are
beginning to emerge around the sovereign state that are chipping away at functions previously
performed by the state and changing the role of the state. In attempting to solve global problems,
states partner with a variety of nonstate actors, including religious organizations such as the Roman
Catholic Church. Over time, these public-private partnerships may have unintended consequences
for Westphalian sovereign norms, changing the way that people think about and relate to
sovereignty. As nonstate actors bridge globalization’s gaps, people may identify more with
nonsovereign institutions that work beyond geographic borders. Keck and Sikkink note, “If
sovereignty is a shared set of understandings and expectations about state authority that is
reinforced by practices, then changes in these practices and understandings should in turn
transform sovereignty.”52
The state is not going away. Rather the state is increasingly contracting out. As states
downsize and decentralize in response to the pressures of globalization, and as states innovate in
response to global problems, nonstate actors such as religious and cultural organizations perform
functions previously performed by states and promote ideas, with unintended consequences for
sovereignty.53 Italian culture, as an ancient global culture, and the Italian-American experience,
as an adaptive immigrant population reconciling old world and new world values, bring important
contributions to bridging globalization’s gaps.
Notes

1. Louise Shelley, John Picarelli, and Chris Corpora, “Global Crime, Inc.,” in Maryann
Cusimano Love, Beyond Sovereignty: Issues for a Global Agenda. Second Edition (New York:
Wadsworth, forthcoming July 2002); Umberto Santino, Storia del Movimento Antimafia (Rome:
Editori Riuniti), 2000.
2. Alison Jamieson, The Antimafia: Italy's Fight Against Organized Crime (London:
Macmillan), 2000, 148.
3. Louise Shelley, John Picarelli, and Chris Corpora, “Global Crime, Inc.,” in Maryann
Cusimano Love, Beyond Sovereignty: Issues for a Global Agenda. Second Edition (New York:
Wadsworth, forthcoming July 2002); Rita Borsellino, “In Spite of Everything, The Popular Anti-
Mafia Commitment in Sicily,” Trends in Organized Crime (5, no. 3, Spring 2000), pp. 58-63.
4. Special Issue: Furthering a Culture of Lawfulness. Trends in Organized Crime. Spring
2000. Volume 5, Number 3.
5. Maryann Cusimano Love, “NGOs: Politics Beyond Sovereignty,” in Maryann Cusimano
Love, Beyond Sovereignty: Issues for a Global Agenda. Second Edition (New York: Wadsworth,
forthcoming July 2002).
6. Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New
York: Simon & Schuster, 1996); Benjamin R. Barber, Jihad vs. McWorld (New York: Ballantine
Books, 1996).
7. Max L. Stackhouse (Ed.). God and Globalization, Volumes 1, 2, and 3 (Harrisburg, PA:
Trinity Press International, 2001); Peter Beyer. Religion and Globalization (London: Sage
Publications, 1994); Jeff Haynes (ed.) Religion, Globalization and Political Culture in the Third
World (London: Macmillan Press LTD, 1999); “Religion and International Relations,”
Millennium: Journal of International Studies (London School of Economics, 2000), (Vol. 29, No.
3).
8. Karen Armstrong, The Battle for God (Toronto: Ballantine Books, 2001); Karen
Armstrong, “Was It Inevitable? Islam Through History,” in How Did This Happen? Terrorism and
the New War (New York: Public Affairs, 2001), 53-71.
9. Maryann K. Cusimano. Beyond Sovereignty: Issues for A Global Agenda (New York: St.
Martin’s Press, 2000), 4.
10. David Held, Anthony McGrew, David Goldblatt, and Jonathan Perraton. Global
Transformations: Politics, Economics, and Culture (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press,
1999).
11. Maryann Cusimano Love, Unplugging the Cold War Machine: US Foreign Policy and
Globalization. Forthcoming, Sage, 2002.
12. An earlier version of the next four sections appeared in a conference paper, Maryann
Cusimano Love, “Bridging the Gap: Globalization and Religion, and the Institutions of the U.S.
Catholic Church,” Panel on Contributions from the Social Sciences to the Study of Religion:
Globalization and Religion, American Academy of Religions Conference, Denver, Colorado,
November 20, 2001.
13. Jack Knight, Institutions and Social Conflict (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1996), 2.
14. Maryann K. Cusimano, Beyond Sovereignty: Issues for A Global Agenda (New York: St.
Martin’s Press, 2000).
 15. The following remarks are taken from Maryann Cusimano Love, “Globalization: A Virtue
or a Vice,” Chapter Five in Globalization: A Virtue or A Vice? Siamack Shojai, Ed. (New York:
Praeger Publishers, Forthcoming 2001).
16. The White House, “The Engagement and Enlargement Strategy,” Washington, DC: May
1995.
17. Dani Rodrik, Has Globalization Gone Too Far? (Washington, DC: Institute for
International Economics, 1997); Benjamin R. Barber, Jihad vs. McWorld: How Globalism and
Tribalism Are Reshaping the World (New York: Ballantine Books, 1995); Hans-Henrik Holm and
Georg Sorensen Whose World Order? (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995).
18. United Nations Development Program Report. Globalization with A Human Face (United
Nations, 1999).
19 James Wolfensohn, President of the World Bank, “Coalitions for Change: Address to the
Board of Governors,” Washington, DC: September 28, 1999, 3.
20 James Wolfensohn, President of the World Bank, “Coalitions for Change: Address to the
Board of Governors,” Washington, DC: September 28, 1999, 6.
21 Mark Malloch Brown, “Forward,” United Nations Development Program Human
Development Report 1999.
22 Wolfgang Reinicke, “Global Public Policy,” Foreign Affairs, November/December 1997,
128.
23 National Intelligence Council, “Global Trends 2015: A Dialogue about the Future with
Nongovernment Experts.” December 2000.
24 Benjamin R. Barber, Jihad vs. McWorld: How Globalism and Tribalism Are Reshaping
the World (New York: Ballantine Books, 1995); Samuel Huntington, Clash of Civilizations, 1993;
James Mittelman, The Globalization Syndrome: Transformation and Resistance (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 2000); Mark Juergensmeyer. “The Worldwide Rise of Religious
Nationalism,” in Journal of International Affairs, 1996, (Vol. 50, No. 1,).
25 James Mittelman, The Globalization Syndrome: Transformation and Resistance
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), Wolfgang Reinicke, “A Global Public Policy,”
Foreign Affairs, November/December 1997, 128.
26 National Intelligence Council, “A Global Trends 2015: A Dialogue about the Future with
Nongovernment Experts,” December 2000.
27 David Held, Anthony McGrew, David Goldblatt, and Jonathan Perraton, Global
Transformations: Politics, Economics, and Culture. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press,
1999; Max L. Stackhouse, ed., God and Globalization, volume 1 and 2. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity
Press International, 2001. Peter Beyer, Religion and Globalization, London: Sage Publications,
1994; Jeff Haynes, ed., Religion, Globalization and Political Culture in the Third World, London:
Macmillan Press LTD, 1999; “A Religion and International Relations,” Millennium: Journal of
International Studies, London: London School of Economics, 2000, vol. 29, no. 3.
28 United Nations Development Program Report. Globalization with A Human Face (United
Nations, 1999).
29 Maryann K. Cusimano, Beyond Sovereignty: Issues for A Global Agenda (New York: St.
Martin’s Press, 2000).
30. Union of International Associations, ed., Yearbook of International Organizations
2000/2001 (Brussels, Belgium: K.G. Saur Verlag, Munchen, 2000), 1762-1763.
 31. Howard S. Becker, Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance (New York: The Free
Press, 1963), 148; Ethan A. Nadelmann, "Global Prohibition Regimes: the Rvolution of Norms in
International Society," International Organization 44, 4, Autumn 1990, 482.
32. Paul Wapner, Environmental Activism and World Civil Politics (Albany: State University
of New York Press, 1996); Paul Wapner, "Politics Beyond the State: Environmental Activism and
World Civic Politics," in Debating the Earth: The Environmental Politics Reader. John S. Dryzek
and David Schlosberg, eds. (Oxford Univesity Press, 1999), 518-519.
33. Richard E. Neustadt, Presidential Power and the Modern Presidents: The Politics of
Leadership from Roosevelt to Reagan (New York: Free Press, 1990).
34. Information from the USCC and NCCB websites, as well as interviews.
35. U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, “Global Climate Change:A Plea for Dialogue,
Prudence,and the Common Good, A Statement of the U.S. Catholic Bishops,” June 15, 2001.
http://www.nccbuscc.org/sdwp/international/globalclimate.htm
36. David Held, Anthony McGrew, David Goldblatt, and Jonathan Perraton, Global
Transformations: Politics, Economics, and Culture (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press,
1999).
37. National Conference of Catholic Bishops, “Bishop Urges Quick Action on Extension of
Religious Worker Visa Legislation.” Washington, DC: June 29, 2000.
Http://www.nccbuscc.org/comm/archives/2000/00-172.htm
38. Statistics from the Official Catholic Directory (New York: P.J. Kennedy & Sons, 1999).
39. Catholic Relief Services. “Mission Statement” (Washington, DC: 2001).
Http://www.catholicrelief.org/who/mission.cfm
40. Cardinal Law, “Statement on Insufficient Funding for Debt Relief.” September 2000.
http://www.nccbuscc.org/comm/archives/2000/00-185a.htm
41. United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Renewing the Earth: An Invitation to
Reflection and Action in Light of Catholic Social Teaching (Washington, DC: 1991).
http://www.nccbuscc.org/sdwp/ejp/bishopsstatement.htm
42. Bishop Nicholas DeMarzo, “Statement on Trafficking in Persons.” May 16, 2000.
http://www.nccbuscc.org/comm/archives/00-124.htm
43. National Conference of Catholic Bishops, “Bishops of America Call for Increased
Cooperation Addressing Migration Issue in Western Hemisphere,” Washington, DC: Feb. 14,
2001. http://www.nccbuscc.org/comm/archives/2001/01-022.htm
44. This section is drawn from Maryann Cusimano Love, “Chapter 14, Sovereignty’s Future:
Changes Among Us,” in Beyond Sovereignty: Issues for a Global Agenda. Second Edition (New
York: Wadsworth, forthcoming July 2002).
45. Hendrik Spruyt, The Sovereign State and Its Competitors (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
University Press, 1994).
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50. Benjamin R. Barber, Jihad vs. McWorld (New York: Ballantine Books, 1996).
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53. Maryann Cusimano Love, “NGOs: Politics Beyond Sovereignty,” in Maryann Cusimano
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