A-Infos (en) Italy, FAI, Umanita Nova #20-26 - Trains Running Late. Reflections on Voluntary Servitude (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

A month or so ago, a small political scandal erupted that many have 
probably already forgotten. Yet it deserves attention, because it so 
clearly captures the climate of our time. --- It all stemmed from an 
Italia Viva advertising campaign that appeared in major Italian train 
stations, particularly Rome Termini and Milan Central Station. The 
posters used graphics deliberately inspired by posters from the 
twenty-year Fascist period and played on the famous nostalgic slogan 
"When He Was There." Except here, the target was Giorgia Meloni.
One of the posters read: "When she was there, trains were late."
Another: "When she was there, Italy was less safe."
The tone was clearly provocative, ironic, designed to attract attention 
and controversy. A questionable operation? Probably. But absolutely 
within the normal propaganda conflict of a political campaign.
The story takes an interesting turn, however, when it emerges that 
Grandi Stazioni Retail-the company that manages advertising space in the 
main train stations-had requested changes to the campaign to authorize 
its renewal. Italia Viva immediately calls it censorship and even 
invokes Articles 21 and 68 of the Constitution.
Naturally, within hours, denials, clarifications, behind-the-scenes 
stories, "close sources" arrive, ministries denying pressure, companies 
claiming autonomy, parties crying scandal, and newspapers chasing each 
other in reconstructing the facts.
So far, we're within the usual theater of Italian politics.
But the truly interesting part is another.
Because this story suddenly brings us back to a sixteenth-century text: 
Étienne de La Boétie's Discourse on Voluntary Servitude. The question La 
Boétie posed was simple and terrible: how can power hold so firmly, even 
when hated?
His answer was that governments do not live by force or repression 
alone. They survive primarily thanks to the spontaneous collaboration of 
a multitude of people who, out of convenience, habit, fear, or simple 
conformity, end up serving those in power without even needing explicit 
orders.
And this is exactly the mechanism we seem to glimpse today.
There's no hierarch who phones and orders the posters to be torn down. 
There's no prefect who sends the police. There's no ministry of 
propaganda. There's something much more modern. There are prudent 
managers, apparatuses that "interpret the climate," joint stock 
companies that want to avoid inconvenience, communications offices that 
prefer to prevent problems, officials who become, as they say, "more 
royalist than the queen."
And this is where the story becomes almost comical. Because the posters 
were intended to insinuate the idea of an authoritarian drift. And the 
system, in trying to manage the situation, ends up reacting precisely in 
the way that confirms that narrative. If it were a movie script, some 
would say it's too didactic to be credible. Of course, you don't have to 
sympathize with Renzi or Italia Viva to grasp the problem. The issue 
isn't the quality of the advertising campaign. The issue is the speed 
with which, within public or semi-public structures, the reflex of 
preventive normalization is activated.
This is the modern aspect of voluntary servitude.
Contemporary power often doesn't even need to openly censor. It just 
needs to be perceived. It just needs to suggest an atmosphere. It just 
needs to hint at the limit of tolerable annoyance. The rest is done by 
officials, managers, intermediaries, administrators, marketing managers, 
and professionals of prudence.
La Boétie understood this five centuries ago: the most effective 
servitude is that which doesn't need to be imposed.
So perhaps the final moral of this little railway story is simple. 
Trains may continue to arrive late. But voluntary servitude, that kind, 
in Italy still manages to be perfectly punctual.

Totò Caggese

https://umanitanova.org/treni-in-ritardo-riflessioni-sulla-servitu-volontaria/
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