Article The Man Who Explains Italy, New Yorker

[Pauline]

Cheryl sent me the link to this interesting article in the New Yorker.

The Man Who Explains Italy​

In the lead-up to a historic election, Francesco Costa has become a new-media phenomenon, cutting through the insularity of the big papers to deliver funny, incisive commentary.
By Gideon Lewis-Kraus, September 22, 2022

The Man Who Explains Italy

In the lead-up to a historic election, Francesco Costa has become a new-media phenomenon, cutting through the insularity of the big papers to deliver funny, incisive commentary.

www.newyorker.com

You should be able to read the article for free but I had trouble because I had the New Yorker app on my iPad but my subscription had expired and it would not let me see the article. I removed the app and then I could see it.

 

[joe]

A good read! Sounds like Mr. Costa will be a candidate for the mayor of Milan in five years....

I liked this passage :

Tourists admire the idea that Italians still buy their bread at the bakery and their cheese at the cheesemonger and their fruit at the fruit stand. But they miss the fact that, to function, Italians need not only a cheesemonger and a fruit guy but an array of personal fixers to accomplish basic tasks. Everyone is accustomed to their own improvisation, and there is no natural constituency for transparency. “There’s no way to evaluate teachers or public workers. The only way to get a raise in the public sector is through seniority—you can’t pay more to talented or hardworking people, so you incentivize people to do the bare minimum. When you get a new job, your co-workers tell you not to do too much, not to surprise the boss, because otherwise they’ll be asked to do the same,” Costa said. That pervasive lack of accountability is one of the reasons that Italian politics offers little hope to Italian citizens, who see politics as just another arena in which the winners are those who deposited their beach chairs the night before.

 

[italian excursion]

I sent this article to Pauline because it seemed so "spot on" about the way in which my Italian friends view politics in their country. They know that things will change quickly, jerks voted in and out through a revolving political door so they just get on with their lives. Too bad the media, in every country, use this field to stoke fear in citizens.