Ideas, Reforms, and the Alternative

Editoriale inglese (tradotto da Silvia Benso)

Abstract

Are alternatives planned or do they simply happen? Are they a one-way street or do they provide a really significant space (and which one?) for freedom of thought and for different spiritual and ideal orientations? Is an alternative really such or is it simply a development? What is the relation between the concepts of “alternative” and “novelty”? What is or what would be a real novelty? What is, above all, the role of ideas, political-religious conceptions, worldviews, and cultural “identities” in designing/producing an alternative? Or is there simply no alternative on the horizon (perhaps because novelty has already happened, and it does not depend/has not depended on our freedom)? Have “ideas” become a simple ornament, a bow that embellishes the dress of capitalist society, an ornament to which people attribute great importance (to the point of war or intolerance) but that in reality counts for nothing? In short: Which is the alternative, if any?