I limiti del nostro mondo. E le prigioni che ci costruiamo da soli

 

I limiti del nostro mondo.

E le prigioni che ci costruiamo da soli

The Limits Of Our World.

And the prisons we make for ourselves.

AURELIEN

AGO 05, 2026

https://substack.com/home/post/p-209793873

Dubito che Ludwig Wittgenstein stesse pensando alla politica internazionale quando, nella celebre Proposizione 5,6 del Tractatus, affermò che "I limiti del mio linguaggio segnano i limiti del mio mondo". Da allora, gli specialisti dibattono sul significato preciso di tale affermazione, e non intendo addentrarmi in un terreno così insidioso. Credo, tuttavia, che la sua Proposizione offra un utile punto di partenza per discutere la relazione tra il linguaggio a disposizione dei leader politici odierni, solitamente ereditato o addirittura imposto, e i conseguenti limiti al loro pensiero e , di conseguenza, alle loro azioni. Come per molte questioni altrettanto importanti nella politica internazionale pratica, ho l'impressione che la sua esistenza sia stata a malapena riconosciuta, figuriamoci studiata. I professionisti non ci pensano; i linguisti e i filosofi analitici non sembrano interessati. Proviamoci dunque, precisando che non tratterò il relativismo linguistico né l'ipotesi Sapir-Whorf, sebbene, nella sua forma più debole, possa sembrare ovvia a chiunque abbia vissuto e lavorato in almeno due sistemi linguistici, soprattutto extraeuropei.

Ho iniziato a riflettere su questo argomento scorrendo (confesso di non leggere quasi mai nel dettaglio) i tweet di Donald Trump, con il loro linguaggio volgare e semi-analfabeta, e chiedendomi dove avessi già sentito questo genere di sciocchezze. Alcuni hanno fatto riferimento al passato di Trump nella speculazione immobiliare a New York, e forse qualche speculatore immobiliare tra i miei lettori vorrebbe commentare a riguardo. Altri hanno paragonato la sua presidenza al regno di una famiglia mafiosa, il che forse ci dà un indizio, ma tradizionalmente, tali famiglie erano guidate da figure grigie e discrete che, nella tradizione italiana, erano spesso patriarchi severi e assidui frequentatori di chiesa. No, il linguaggio di Trump, con la sua vanagloria, la sua volgarità, la sua oscenità e la sua ossessione per se stesso, assomiglia molto di più ai "testi" di un genere come il gangsta rap, che a sua volta riflette i valori (se così si possono chiamare) della società che produce e idolatra questi gangster. Questi valori includono l'autocelebrazione e l'autopromozione, l'ostentazione di potere e denaro, e la banalizzazione e glorificazione della violenza. Non si limitano ovviamente ai rapper gangster, dato che probabilmente sono antichi quanto la storia stessa, ma questo esempio può essere emblematico per molti altri.

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Questi saggi saranno sempre gratuiti, ma potete continuare a sostenere il mio lavoro mettendo "mi piace", commentando e, soprattutto, condividendoli con altri e con altri siti che frequentate. Se desiderate sottoscrivere un abbonamento a pagamento, non vi ostacolerò (anzi, ne sarei molto onorato), ma non posso promettervi nulla in cambio, se non una piacevole sensazione di merito. Un ringraziamento speciale a coloro che hanno recentemente sottoscritto un abbonamento a pagamento. Ho anche creato una pagina "Offrimi un caffè", che potete trovare qui . ☕️ Grazie a tutti coloro che hanno contribuito di recente e un ringraziamento speciale per le tante gentili parole di supporto che ho ricevuto da chi ha inviato denaro. Significano moltissimo per me.

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Ma non si tratta solo di una questione accademica di coincidenza linguistica (dato che si presume non ci sia un nesso causale). Implica anche che un individuo e un gruppo abituati a parlare in questo modo al mondo esterno (chissà come si esprimono in privato) siano limitati nelle opzioni che possono considerare, o quantomeno limitati nei modi in cui possono metterle in pratica. Immaginate il signor Trump che dice spontaneamente: "I recenti colloqui con gli iraniani sono stati utili e produttivi e se entrambe le parti saranno in grado di mostrare un po' di flessibilità, dovrebbero essere possibili dei progressi". Impossibile. Le parole in sé non sono particolarmente difficili o in mandarino, ma il signor Trump è incapace di esprimersi in quei termini, il che esclude, di fatto, qualsiasi sviluppo pratico che non sia l'escalation, la violenza e la capitolazione dell'altra parte. Sì, questo è ovviamente in parte legato alla sua personalità, sì, ha a che fare con le sue origini e la sua carriera, ma riguarda soprattutto i limiti del suo mondo, che a loro volta sono determinati dai limiti del suo linguaggio. (Forse potremmo tradurre Sprache qui con "modo di parlare" o "discorso".)

All of us absorb ways of speaking from our society, our environment and our experience, and this discourse both reflects and reinforces our understanding of the world, and how to react to it. To some extent, Mr Trump’s vulgar blustering is just the ultimate caricature of recent American political speech generally, especially as it involves other nations. This speech implicitly divides the world into friends and enemies: friends to be told what to do, enemies to be destroyed. In neither cases do any adverse consequences flow from this way of thinking and speaking: until now, anyway. In effect, US politicians have inherited an entire discourse which excludes all subtlety and nuance, and which is almost entirely domestic, in the sense that it is overwhelmingly intended to impress other players in Washington with how tough and extreme you are. The practical effect on countries you may be threatening or giving instructions to is not considered relevant: until now, anyway. The question of which is the cart and which is the horse has become largely theoretical: after several generations, it has become impossible to speak, and therefore to act, in Washington, except in this discourse of violence and intimidation. Moreover, if part of the only discourse you have available is that the US military is the most wonderfulest in history, and can easily defeat any opponent, then that helps to determine the limits of your world, and the limits of what you think is possible. Which is a problem when things start to go badly wrong, and you encounter events for which your discourse has no words.

Of course, here we are talking about the wider political class, which generally has little direct investment in the realities it talks about, and rarely suffers consequences when things go wrong. Other parts of the system, often with a more direct investment in reality, have inherited different discourses, and therefore different and more extensive possibilities for acting. The State Department—as professional as any foreign service in the world in my experience—largely adopts the traditional discourse of diplomacy, and if you read its recent output, it can make even Mr Trump’s outbursts sound reasonable. But this is what the traditional discourse of diplomacy actually is actually for: it is a tool to enable reasonable people, representing reasonable governments, to arrive at reasonable solutions. Where these solutions are not possible, it allows the parties to each present their points of view in a reasonable fashion, and so preserve the possibility of a resolution later. The Iranians are, by and large, sticking to this traditional discourse of diplomacy in their dealings with the US. Partly, no doubt, this is for wider international political reasons, but partly also it both contributes to and also reflects their preference for certain types of overt, public behaviour, rather than others. Here, it’s interesting to see the contrast with the public rhetoric used by the IRGC, which has generally been the arm of the state involved in deniable activities such as assassinations and assistance to foreign terrorist groups. The IRGC has traditionally kept a low international profile, and its current inflammatory public rhetoric, and the higher-profile role it is now playing, are good indications of how actual Iranian behaviour is likely to develop over the next few months, since generally discourse comes before deeds.

One reason why Mr Trump’s own discourse shocks so many people is that it conflicts directly with the traditional norms of diplomatic speech, and consequently undermines norms of diplomatic behaviour. Now it could be argued, I suppose, that there is nothing sacred about such norms: they reflect the world-view and education of eighteenth-century aristocrats, belonging to an international caste, speaking several languages, knowing each other’s countries, and having more in common with each other than with the workers on their various estates. Nor, of course, did these norms of discourse stop nations behaving violently, whether in formal wars or otherwise. But they did provide a coherent set of rules, which went beyond surface politeness to the creation of conventions for restraint in discourse and action that ultimately benefited everyone, and indeed have parallels in other cultures, from the civilisations of the late Bronze Age in the Eastern Mediterranean, to the states of pre-colonial West Africa. It’s not obvious that a model of discourse, and thus action, which recalls threats and violence by rival gangs linked to football teams is necessarily superior.

The language of diplomacy as a discourse has never really been properly studied, which is a shame. Yet its major characteristic is that it emphasises agreement and downgrades conflict. It makes appeal to precedents, to legal frameworks and to statements by others, and generally tries to appear reasonable and rational at all times. It also tends to be very precise when that is helpful (“building on the provisions of paragraph 5(a) of the agreement reached by the G34 in New York on 25 February”) and very vague when it is not (“we will seek to continue bilateral exchanges with the aim of resolving outstanding points of difficulty.”) Because so much of the actual work of international politics revolves round the preparation of agreed documents, its dynamic pretty much obliges people to work together, and look for areas of agreement.

Which is not to say that diplomatic discourse is unproblematic, and I’ve drawn attention to its limitations many times. In particular, the search for consensus may mean blurring or disguising disagreements, or under certain circumstances just leaving problematic issues out altogether: a classic example is the absence of any direct reference to Israel in Lebanon or to nuclear issues in the recent US/Iran MoU, because the problems were simply too difficult, and there was no chance of finding an acceptable compromise form of words. This can give the impression that a problem has been solved when in fact it has just been put to one side. And in many cases, because diplomats notoriously tend to regard any agreement as better than none, fundamental differences can be disguised by carefully-drafted but meaningless language, covering them with the equivalent of a thick coat of snow. So it’s not uncommon for states to interpret agreed texts in sharply different ways when decisions actually have to be taken.

Nonetheless, diplomacy, as I’ve suggested, has effectively its own language, and the sum total of that language is, in theory at least, the sum total of possible interactions between states in peacetime. (You may remember that Wittgenstein declared, at the very start of the Tractatus that “the world is a totality of facts, not of things,” and that these “facts in logical space are the world.” A fact is a proposition in logical space that is true, and the totality of such facts is also a complete description of the world. I’ll come back to this point later.)

There are even dictionaries that interpret diplomatic speech into everyday language. Much of that diplomatic language has its origin in French (the language of diplomacy until 1919) and in some cases French terms are still used. A démarche, for example, is a formal process by which a representative of one government calls on another with a specific request to do or not do something. It often involves leaving an accompanying written document of some kind. Contrariwise, a bout de papier is an entirely informal document without heading or attribution, handed over as an indication without commitment of what a government thinks or would like to say. In certain cases, states may also hand over “non-papers,” which are unofficial documents, often written out of personal initiative, intended to test the water and evoke reaction to certain points of view or possibilities. There are even, if you can believe it, “non-maps,” which are informal ideas for territorial boundaries, for example, designed to test reactions. (I sometimes think that much of the media, and especially the alt-media, would benefit from an afternoon leafing through the kind of dictionary I have linked to. It would certainly help them to make fools of themselves less frequently.)

Now perhaps this all sounds a bit precious and old-fashioned, and redolent of country houses and elite universities. Maybe it does, but its total effect is the creation of a rational discourse for managing international problems and trying to resolve them as peacefully as possible. It has to be better, surely, than a discourse derived from business negotiations, involving bullying phone calls and inflammatory and often mendacious public statements. (The word “deal” has come from nowhere in the last few years to be the default term for an agreement of any kind. “Dealing” of course, is what drug vendors do. There’s a thought.) It’s not an accident that the increasing violence and arrogance of western security policy since the end of the Cold War has been preceded at each stage by a vulgarisation of language and discourse, which has made previously dubious behaviour seem progressively more acceptable, to the point where western leaders can now threaten foreign countries in the discourse of mafia bosses.

Separate, but closely related, is the influence of dominant academic discourses, notably that of Realist and Neo-realist schools of international relations. This is particularly a feature of the US, whose commentators and influencers overwhelmingly have this intellectual background. To give just one example, it’s common to describe the relationship between the US and China as one of “competition” or even “rivalry.” Indeed, it’s become so common, in the West at least, that governments act as though this is actually the case. Following this way of thinking, competition and rivalry are automatically assumed to become progressively more serious, and lead ultimately to the threat of open warfare, although there is actually no reason for the two countries to fight each other. This is largely a feature of the discourse employed, not the underlying realities of the situation, and as far as I know, the Chinese express themselves differently.

This discourse of competition and conflict both reflects and reinforces the way the US political system works, with its endless power-struggles and its insistence on winning at any cost. Again, it’s hard to say which is the cart and which is the horse. But importantly, this world-view is essentially a zero-sum phenomenon. For every winner there is necessarily a loser, and the loser has to do what the winner wants. The idea that a situation or an agreement can suit both sides in different ways is only found in real life.

Likewise, the exclusive focus of such theories on the discourse of power and domination means that it is impossible to envisage a relationship of equals or near-equals, still less the kinds of complex and multi-faceted relationships that exist in the world as it actually is. This has reached caricatural form in attempts to describe the relationship between the United States and Israel. Since only the vocabulary of dominance and submission is available, it requires one side to argue that Israel completely dominates the US, and the other side to argue that Israel is no more than a puppet of Washington. This is intellectually crude and silly (the world is not like that) and it simply ignores the enormous complexity of the relationship, and its historical development. (Saudi Arabia seems to be shuffled from one category to another and back again, by journalistic agreement, in the same news cycle.) Likewise, traditional and alt-media compete with each other to find the most sneering and dismissive terms possible to characterise those countries who cooperate with the US to any degree. It clearly does not cross their minds that Saudi Arabia, for example, or most European states, could see their objective security interests as at least partly aligned with those of the US, and indeed may even have originated the policies the US is pursuing. The result is confusion and ignorance, and a world that stubbornly refuses to behave according to the limits that language has imposed on it, and so to obey the arid assumptions of purely materialist and realist concepts of international politics.

Now of course competition itself is a feature of the international system. Countries compete for influence internationally and within organisations, they try to put their nationals in high-profile positions, they try to get themselves elected to various UN bodies, notably the Security Council, and to host important negotiations and play important roles. But this is a game, not a set of preparations for war. There are also genuine attempts to overthrow existing relationships, such as the recent Russian effort to evict France from its traditional influential role in Africa, and of course the Iranian attempt to establish themselves as the dominant power in the Gulf. But these are relatively special, and nothing is more misleading than the widely-shared assumption that international politics consists of endless conflicts, attempted coups, “colour revolutions”, proxy wars and what have you. As I’ve pointed out many times, there’s a large measure of pragmatic cooperation in international relations, and if there were not the system would fall apart. Of course, nations will nonetheless quietly support opposition parties or discreetly fund dissident movements if they think they can thereby increase their influence in a region. (The somewhat obscure relationship between Algeria and the Tuareg separatists in Northern Mali is an example. Here, it may be that the Algerians are simply trying to keep other states from having influence there themselves.)

The reality is that trying to increase your influence regionally and globally is something that rising powers do, and always have done, and China’s increasing influence in Latin America, the Gulf and Africa is in fact just what one would expect of the behaviour of perhaps the single greatest economic power in the world, going through a period of growth and expansion. This increasing influence is not always managed with tact and delicacy, and in any event the Chinese system is just too big and too complex to be controlled by any master-plan. But looking at translations, at least, of Chinese statements and speeches, it is clear that the discourse that controls their view of the world and their consequent behaviour is essentially a multilateral one. It is clear that they resent their historic weaknesses, but equally clear that their language, and so their world, doesn’t include the kind of dominant-submissive demands now common in the West. As is often the case in Asia and with Asian languages, much is not said, much can be interpreted in different ways, and much is for the weaker or disadvantaged power to work out for itself. This has historically created obvious problems for Asian countries with the United States, where a punch in the face is regarded as an example of subtlety. But it remains true that there is no reason for a conflict between China and the US unless the latter actually sets out to provoke one.

So far, I have spoken, if you like, of the form of international relations, of the way things are done, as determined by the language in which dealings between states are conceptualised, and of the world that results. But of course such dealings are not free of content: they involve specific issues, and these issues, in turn, tend to be handled according to assumptions derived from languages or discourses of their own. Sometimes this is highly formalised and historians can study the results from published documents : the catastrophic errors made by Stalin in understanding Hitler’s Germany were the result of a ritualised system of thinking and speaking where only certain ideas could be entertained and expressed, and these formed the totality of the acknowledged world in Moscow. We can see the same problems more recently in the documents published about the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, for example.

The problem was less severe in the West historically, because whilst certain discourses (anti-Communism, for example, or anti-Americanism) were powerful in specific contexts, and determined to some extent how people behaved, there was no one discourse that was hegemonic. This changed with the rise of the foreign policy wing of the Professional and Managerial Caste (PMC) which we have to be careful to distinguish from those who are actually involved professionally in managing foreign policy issues of different kinds. Here, I include rather politicians, journalists, pundits, NGO workers, “community leaders” and the like. Let me take three examples, in each of which the PMC manoeuvres with great difficulty in the very limited reality which its vocabulary and discourse enable it to inhabit. And here, I have in mind primarily the PMC in its international, and especially European, manifestation. The creation of this international, intellectually monolithic class, strong on ideology but weak on practical experience, has been a feature of the last generation or so, and it has increasingly taken control of the elite discourse on all international issues, and thus helped to imprison this elite in a little world of its own creation.

For example, international PMC elites have a very simple view of immigration, limited to three propositions, which constitute their entire world. (1) Immigration is a good thing. (2) If you don’t believe that you must hate immigrants. (3) If you hate immigrants you are a fascist. That’s it. Now if you recall, Wittgenstein said that a world consisting only of facts was made up of propositions that had been tested against reality, and he assumed that reality meant, well, reality. Thus “the totality of true thoughts is a picture of the world.”(3,01). So, “rain falls from the sky onto the ground” is a valid proposition and a true thought because it can be tested against reality. But “rain falls from the ground onto the sky” is not a valid proposition, though it has the external form of one. Which is fine so long as your definition of reality is limited to those things that can be empirically proved.

But that’s no longer the case. For most of the PMC, and for reasons which I’ve gone into a number of times, reality is now essentially normative, not pragmatic. Facts, as Althusser said, are concepts of an ideological nature, and, though few of the PMC have fought their way through his turgid prose, the idea that normative theory comes before banal reality is widely, if mostly unconsciously, accepted today. Thus, international PMC thinking on a subject like immigration consists of a set of normative ethical propositions within which it is necessary to remain to find an answer to any question, because the three propositions above represent the limits of their world. (“You’re a fascist” is often regarded as a satisfactory answer, for this value of “answer.”) You can compare their situation to that of a composer obliged to write a new piece of music every week, using only the same three randomly chosen notes from the chromatic scale. Even Bach might have found that a challenge. It follows that any real-life problems linked to immigration—housing, crime, education—cannot be taken account of, because they exceed the limits of PMC language and thus the limits of their world. In a very real sense, they do not exist. This is why conventional politicians are caught like deer in the headlights of an oncoming car when practical immigration issues arise. Whilst it’s fine to use their impoverished language to condemn others, it’s more difficult when a problem arises that cannot simply be wished away and requires a real answer, as has been the case in the last few days with Spain and Morocco.

Una situazione simile si riscontra nel discorso di "Impero" ed "egemonia", che ha acquisito sempre maggiore influenza negli ultimi anni, mentre, ironicamente, il potere effettivo degli Stati Uniti si è rivelato sempre meno imponente. Il termine "Impero" sembra aver avuto origine nella cultura popolare con l'aereo/astronave Jefferson nel 1970, ed è stato ripreso in una forma piuttosto diversa da Philip K. Dick nel suo romanzo VALIS, pubblicato nel 1981. Come appropriato dalla nascente comunità militare privata dell'epoca, può essere ricondotto a tre proposizioni: (1) gli Stati Uniti sono un egemone onnipotente; (2) gli Stati Uniti hanno sempre ragione; (3) qualsiasi nazione che metta in discussione una di queste proposizioni può e deve essere distrutta. Queste affermazioni rappresentano i limiti del mondo della comunità militare privata, e ogni questione internazionale, per quanto complessa, deve in qualche modo essere inquadrata al loro interno. Vale la pena sottolineare che i media alternativi operano in un mondo altrettanto circoscritto, costituito da tre proposizioni leggermente diverse: (1) gli Stati Uniti sono un'egemonia onnipotente; (2) gli Stati Uniti hanno sempre torto; (3) qualsiasi nazione che sfidi gli Stati Uniti verrà distrutta. In entrambi i casi, la non adesione a queste proposizioni comporterà la fine della tua carriera, anche se contraddette dalla realtà osservabile.

Certo, nonostante tutte le censure e le manipolazioni del pensiero, nessuna delle due serie di proposizioni può descrivere il mondo in modo accurato, e negli ultimi anni (diciamo dall'Afghanistan del 2021) questa differenza è diventata troppo evidente per essere ignorata. Ma sia i sostenitori che i critici di Trump sono comunque vincolati dai limiti del loro linguaggio a versioni sempre più contorte e distorte di queste proposizioni, semplicemente perché esse costituiscono i limiti del loro mondo. Così, i critici di Trump hanno affermato che il memorandum d'intesa tra Stati Uniti e Iran serviva solo a guadagnare tempo per preparare un attacco schiacciante per distruggere l'Iran, mentre Trump stesso sembra aver dato per scontato che un attacco schiacciante per distruggere l'Iran fosse effettivamente possibile. Ma ovviamente non ci sarebbe mai stato un attacco schiacciante, perché i mezzi per condurlo non esistevano. Anzi – un pensiero terrificante – non sono mai esistiti al di fuori dei film di Hollywood. Tu ed io lo sappiamo, ma coloro il cui mondo è delimitato dal tipo di proposizioni sopra esposte sono incapaci di comprenderlo. Pertanto, forse il più grande ostacolo alla risoluzione della crisi iraniana è che sia la Compagnia militare privata che i suoi critici devono prima liberarsi dalle loro prigioni mentali, senza subire danni psichici insopportabili nel processo.

L'ultimo esempio che voglio citare è quello dell'Ucraina, di cui ho già scritto ampiamente. Fin dall'inizio della crisi, ho sottolineato l'impossibilità di spiegare il comportamento occidentale, e in particolare quello europeo, attraverso interpretazioni materialiste e realiste convenzionali. E col passare del tempo, ho l'impressione che anche coloro che non dispongono di alternative intellettuali a cui ricorrere, abbiano in gran parte rinunciato a farlo. Ma cosa sta succedendo? Ebbene, alcuni si aggrappano, per nostalgia e disperazione, all'interpretazione del mondo di cui ho appena parlato: l'egemonia statunitense implica che gli Stati Uniti debbano automaticamente controllare lo sviluppo della crisi ucraina, che precipita di male in peggio, anche se ciò non ha alcun senso nella realtà.

Ma fin dall'inizio ho sottolineato la natura ideologica del conflitto, l'idea della Russia come anti-Europa o quantomeno anti-Bruxelles, che volta ostentatamente le spalle all'ideologia delle compagnie militari private e si aggrappa ostinatamente alla cultura, alla storia, alla società, al patriottismo e persino alla religione. Col passare del tempo, questo è diventato sempre più evidente: l'Europa (e in una certa misura gli Stati Uniti) si vede impegnata in una guerra santa che deve concludersi con la distruzione di una delle due parti, a qualunque costo. E poiché si tratta di una guerra santa, come ho suggerito la settimana scorsa , non può durare all'infinito, e la Russia perderà, ripristinando così l'ordine morale fondamentale del mondo. Questo tipo di ragionamento, ovviamente, è inevitabile se il proprio mondo è essenzialmente limitato a tre proposizioni ideologiche normative: (1) L'ideologia di Bruxelles è giusta (2) tutti gli stati devono essere indotti ad accettarla (3) uno stato che si rifiuta di accettarla è un nemico che possiamo e dobbiamo distruggere. Come sempre accade con argomentazioni di questo tipo, la realtà, intesa come forza economica e militare, non viene presa in considerazione. E finché l'Europa (e in una certa misura gli Stati Uniti) sarà condannata a muoversi all'interno di questi tre schemi ideologici che ne costituiscono il mondo, per definizione sarà impossibile risolvere il conflitto. Di conseguenza, chiunque suggerisca che la soluzione possa trovarsi al di fuori di questo rigido spazio logico deve essere per forza un agente russo.

Penso che questi esempi siano sufficienti a dimostrare il mio punto di vista. Vorrei solo aggiungere, in conclusione, che questo tipo di pensiero non si limita agli stati e alle istituzioni. Molti di noi, se siamo onesti, si renderebbero conto di essere intrappolati in mondi personali simili, costruiti a partire da presupposti diversi che troviamo emotivamente congeniali, anche se non riusciamo necessariamente a farli combaciare alla perfezione. Come spiegare altrimenti, ad esempio, il rifiuto di indossare mascherine durante la pandemia di Covid per evitare di contagiare familiari, amici e colleghi? Esistono senza dubbio sociopatici per i quali il comfort e la convenienza personali vengono prima della vita degli altri, ma si spera che non siano poi così tanti. In realtà, la maggior parte sembrava essere prigioniera di un mondo privato che incorporava elementi di paura e sfiducia nei confronti del governo, una propensione ad abbracciare avvincenti teorie del complotto e un'eccessiva feticizzazione della "mia libertà" in ogni contesto e al di sopra di ogni altra cosa. Pertanto, per me va bene respirare germi sopra altre persone, perché qualsiasi cosa contraria a ciò non può essere resa coerente con le proposizioni autoimposte che costituiscono il mio mondo. Per completezza, dovremmo anche menzionare esempi dell'illusione opposta, come quella secondo cui una qualche onnipotente cospirazione internazionale volesse uccidere la maggior parte possibile della popolazione mondiale, per far durare più a lungo le proprie risorse, e quindi avrebbe sia originato la malattia sia finanziato e promosso i movimenti anti-mascherina. In entrambi i casi, non c'è niente di peggio che essere prigionieri di proposizioni astratte e normative.

Wittgenstein, naturalmente, pensava di purificare la filosofia, smantellandone gran parte perché non tanto falsa quanto "insensata". Ma d'altronde era un mistico che credeva che la conoscenza di cose veramente importanti non potesse essere trasmessa attraverso le parole. È un esercizio interessante, seppur deprimente, sottoporre il discorso e la scrittura politica allo stesso tipo di processo analitico: gran parte di essi semplicemente svanisce all'esame, come la schiuma di un Chai Tea Ginseng Soy Skinny Latte. Ma purtroppo, frasi vuote, pensieri confusi, non sequitur, semplici errori e vere e proprie menzogne ​​continuano a dominare la nostra cultura politica. Ne prendiamo diverse idee e proposizioni che troviamo emotivamente appaganti, e poi cerchiamo di fonderle insieme, con il risultato che, a tutti i livelli, dallo Stato al singolo individuo, rischiamo di ritrovarci in prigioni ideologiche di nostra stessa costruzione.

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Questo è tutto per questa settimana. Come sempre, grazie a coloro che instancabilmente forniscono traduzioni nelle loro lingue. Maria José Tormo pubblica traduzioni in spagnolo sul suo sito qui , Marco Zeloni pubblica traduzioni in italiano su un sito qui e Italia e il Mondo le pubblica qui . Sono lieto di aggiungere che le versioni di questi saggi in ceco appariranno ora regolarmente in traduzione sul sito czstrat.cz . Sono sempre grato a coloro che pubblicano occasionalmente traduzioni e riassunti in altre lingue, purché citino l'originale e me lo facciano sapere.