Assets and Liabilities in Life

Priverno, in the Latium countryside near Latina. It is the country place where Dario Bernazza was born. Fair use

We talked about Country Philosopher before (in two earlier posts at least, 1 and 2). We said how he is free from doubt and how his argumentations, often categorical and at times naïve, are however not deprived of interest and of this ancient fascination so hard to explain.

In the following passage, freely summarized and which will hopefully better clarify this point to our readers, Dario Bernazza – his real name – tells us how there is like a balance in our life.

When liabilities exceed the assets, our life is a failure. When the contrary occurs, our life is successful and happy. Simple. Categorical. This is Bernazza.

Let us try to understand.

[Dario Bernazza, Vivere alla massima espressione, Editrice Partenone - Luciano Bernazza & C - Roma 1989, pp. 12-22]

Life Liabilities

Life is such that we cannot avoid its offensive – bitterness and sufferings of all kinds. These are life’s liabilities.

Which are these liabilities?

Since our childhood we are exposed to numerous internal and external enemies.

“Among the internal enemies: ignorance, dishonesty, little respect for truth, selfishness, conceit, inclination to excess, worship of money, lechery, anger, sloth, unproductive envy, hate, lack of authentic affections, ennui, loneliness, excessive shyness, superficiality, lack of ambition, incorrect reasoning, intolerance, wrong pastimes, disregard for other people’s rights, wrong solutions, tendency to join the herd, undue submission, acquiescence towards the avoidable, pessimism, optimism … .”

“External enemies: to be born in a foolish family, lack of (or wrong) education, inadequate school teaching, bad company, incapability or dishonesty of politicians ruling us, difficulties of any kind, job-related worries and fatigue, lack of money, unfavorable unexpected events, diseases, all flaws and errors by others, wrong clichés, perverse temptations, evildoers of any kind … .”

This is only a partial list of our dreadful, obstinate, sometimes alluring, enemies – argues Dario Bernazza. They are responsible for our sufferings, namely our life liabilities.

Life assets

In order to make our life advantageous it is necessary to oppose some adequate assets to those liabilities. It is obvious, says Bernazza.

But which can these assets be?

“They consists, naturally, in the sum of every pleasant moment, of every satisfaction and success that we are capable of attaining during our whole existence. If such sum is greater than that determined by our life offenses, or liabilities, it is ok. If it is instead lower, then it would be preferable not to have come into this world.

We must in fact be brave enough to honour truth – says Bernazza. Who can in fact say it is preferable to start a firm whose liabilities exceed the assets, instead of not starting it altogether? Only a fool can say that.”

[From which we infer that Bernazza is a non believer]

We must also consider – CP argues – that while these liabilities are spontaneously inflicted on us by life without any mercy, the assets are not given us as a gift, but we must earn them day by day, bit by bit.

And the only way to earn them is that of giving the best solution to the major problems of our life. If we can do this, we divert or soften life liabilities, or sometimes we can even eliminate some of them.

Bernazza then identifies 20 major problems we must necessarily solve in the best possible way in order to minimize life liabilities and live a fruitful life (or advantageous, as he says).

We will talk about that in a future post.

Italian version

Country Philosopher

Country Philosopher has been mentioned often in our blog so it is time to introduce him to our readers. His name is Dario Bernazza and what amazed us the day we read one of his books is the fact that he makes use of reason in the way the Ancients did, as if later thought almost didn’t exist.

Free from doubt, he has total faith in the absolute power of rationality and his philosophical manner is natural and naïve. He applies his ancient-like method to both big issues – the existence of God or how we can reach happiness – (see Vivere alla massima espressione) – and everyday problems, in an effort to provide answers to our contemporary void by making use of techniques similar to those utilized by Epicurean and Stoic thinkers 2000 years ago (see his image below, the best I could find so far.)

Therefore, with all due respect to professional philosophers like Fernando Savater (who will probably be invited to our Symposium,) Bernazza will be present as well though with caution, having a few flaws in our opinion, last but not least the tendency to morally subjugate the reader.

The Jap Soldier in the Jungle

Bizarre example of philosophical genuineness – and cultural isolation as well, which kind of preserved him – Country Philosopher is the Japanese soldier who keeps on fighting in the jungle since thousands of years, having no other weapon than his argumentation and being almost unaware that the world of Socrates, Plato or Zeno of Citium has disappeared. He is like a survivor of the classical world.

That all this could happen is both romantic & tragic. And perhaps in no place other than in the countryside around Rome, (Priverno, Latina) – or in South Italy – a person like him could have been raised.

Living Fossils of Antiquity

How many are the Italian country intellectuals? Sparse over the territory they publish their works with their own money by using small local publishing houses and having no great entourage of devoted readers (the Web didn’t exist at the time of our CP.)

This phenomenon is not exclusively Italian, even though here 1) historical layers are extremely rich and 2) an important part of the classical world originated here thus allowing us to legitimately speak of living fossils of Antiquity. In some way, in the central and especially South regions of this country, many of us are more or less fossils, with all the inadequacies towards modernity that this can imply (corrupt patronage systems, amoral familism, clientelism etc.). We retain good qualities as well, which are not dried up yet, I do hope.

The better part of our tradition should be revalued. In the present crisis of the West, due to a great uncertainty regarding our fundamental values, cultural elements of the classical world – such as philosophy replacing religion to provide full meanings in life etc. – should be re-examined and updated.

We need to achieve – at a high culture level – what has already been done with peasants’ cultures or folklore (for example in Latium and Campania, whose ancient folk dances and tunes, recently rediscovered and re-performed, reveal fascinating residues of the rites of Dionysus, among the rest. See this Tammurriata dance from the South of Italy, of Greek descent probably.)

A type of research which is actually on the way. The Festival of philosophy in Modena for example (see picture below) has been a great success with 120 thousand presences in only 3 days last year and a seventh successful 3-days edition which ended this last 16th September 2007. This formula, thanks to contributions of the European Community, has been exported to both France and the Czech Republic.

As a conclusion, the great philosophers of all times can certainly guide us towards a more meaningful life, beyond any doubt. Nonetheless, these living fossils surving in niches of a forgotten sea – of lesser value and possibly deteriorated like prehistoric sequences of DNA – they are survivals of a past that keeps on talking to us.

They preserve the fascination of our knotty olive wood, of our scented myrtle, or of the yellow, so bright, of our ginestras.

And they mean something to us which, in spite of all, we cannot but be proud of.

Ψ

Note. More on CP in Ethical Confusion & Ancient Teachings, Assets and Liabilities in Life, Living to Our Fullest Potential and Health and Serenity of Soul.

Italian version