Draft for a Shared Revolution: The necessary Utopia

By Nino Cortesi

This book has the ambition of being a contribution towards finding a way out of the dangerous conditions under which we are all living today.
As the title suggests, this amounts to a Necessary Utopia, but one less utopian than we’ll find by hoping for salvation by staying within the present system. It is a draft which we would wish to see taken on board by those numerous individuals who, whilst sharing a vision of the critical nature of the situation, have failed to act, seeing how so much knowledge, the fruit of so many years of study, research and observation, has been lost in apparent oblivion.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alkemia Books
• Release date: Jan 2, 2017
• ISBN: 9788898191543

Book preview

Nino Cortesi

DRAFT

FOR A SHARED

REVOLUTION

The Necessary Utopia

DRAFT FOR A SHARED REVOLUTION

The Necessary Utopia

© Nino Cortesi, 2019

www.alkemiabooks.com

ISBN: 9788898191543

Cover image: graphic representation of tempera work on wood, work of the author

2nd edition, December 2019

Indice

Premise

PART ONE

POWER

PART TWO

EPILOGUE

NINO CORTESI

Premise

This book has the ambition of being a contribution towards finding a way out of the dangerous conditions under which we are all living today.

As the title suggests, this amounts to a Necessary Utopia, but one less utopian than we’ll find by hoping for salvation by staying within the present system. It is a draft which we would wish to see taken on board by those numerous individuals who, whilst sharing a vision of the critical nature of the situation, have failed to act, seeing how so much knowledge, the fruit of so many years of study, research and observation, has been lost in apparent oblivion.

We are endeavouring to build up a network that will permit those concerned in this project to contribute to its definition and diffusion. All profits from the sale of this book and its predecessor (‘Fable of a died-outrace’) will be invested in the realisation of this network.

Success to you all in your tasks!

Nino Cortesi

SCATTERED THOUGHTS

The Earth is big enough to feed all but not big enough to satisfy the greed of the few (Gandhi).

If you don’t watch out, the Media will make you hate the oppressed and love the oppressors (Malcolm X).

Migrants: We’ll stop coming to your home and go back when you decide to get out of ours.

A parsimonious use of the Earth’s wealth and resources implies the absence of material privileges among human beings.

If we are indeed in the same boat, then it’s time for everyone to get rowing.

The laws that govern the banks and financial institutions are illegitimate in that they were not decided by the people. It is only right that each national government should demand of them compensation for financial damages. It is right, even if it leads to their failing.

Advertising is the very soul of deception and consumerism.

Consumerism is the fruit of seduction and one poisoned by capitalism. It has succeeded in destroying, in a few decades, a large part of the materials that are not renewable, and has upset the complex balance that makes possible life on Earth. Consumerism is a crime against humanity, today and for the future.

There can be no notion of freedom between people with different levels of power.

Raw materials can’t be owned by anyone.

To be born poor is indeed a shame, but the shame is on the rich.

What is thrown away by the rich world would be enough to feed the poor world; this is enough in itself to breed hatred and rancour.

Waste is a crime committed against the present and future generations.

Life continues on Earth merely because, still rooted in the souls of almost everyone, is an element of ethics that resists the assault of capitalist culture.

If you are rich it’s because Allah has been generous to you and he has enlightened you; you, then, must be generous in turn with your brothers who have not met with the same good fortune. Thus spoke Mahomet. Jesus Christ (in another monotheistic religion) maintained that "it is easier for a ‘camel’ (a thick rope of the time), to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven." In the Buddhist religion, wealth is considered as a form of moral baseness pursued by men of little ethical or intellectual worth.

Our society, which is often depicted as being cultivated and rich in values, substantially, is founded on robbery of a more (eg. Libya) or less (eg. Greece) armed character, on corruption and lies.

• "The value of a man, for the community in which he lives, depends above all on the extent to which his feelings, his thoughts and his actions contribute to the development of the existence of other individuals" (Albert Einstein).

On closer inspection, in life, there is more pleasure and consolation in Being than in Having, because Being has no time, while Having has no measure.

A transparent society is a safe society.

Every form of crime requires hiding.

To survive to itself, the human species must take an evolutionary step: from homo demens to homo ludens.

Each of us has the right to have normal seasons of the year and has the duty to bequeath them to children, grandchildren and those who will come later. This is the wealth to be reconquered and passed on.

Privacy must only concern the affairs of