Honour your father

By Alberto Cavaglion*

There is something tragic or better noble, in Maria Laura Rodotà’s refusal: “My father was a southerner illuminist, and he would have super vaccinated. He listened politely to idiots but did not love them”. Apart from the epithet, meant for the organizers of the movement promoted by Mattei, Agamben, Freccero, and Cacciari (which opposes the Green Pass vaccine passport required in Italy to access public places, events, and to travel abroad, Ed.) in this gesture, in those precise words, the ancient commandment of honoring the father and mother, respecting them, and also defending them from posthumous exploitation strengthens. The dead have a bad habit of not knowing how to fend for themselves. Fortunately, there are the children, who patiently looked after them during their old age, staying close to them, keeping them company, not abandoning them, and with them thinking back to the highest and most important moments of life. A memorable lesson, even in the time of fluid and forgetful societies.

*Historian