From the blog: diary of a country lawyer
When the mire of the comments in the network begin to emerge entries of "normal" people, but because of hate seem to have lost all touch with reality, then the case is starting to worry.
That 's what has occurred in recent days, after the failed attempt to Maurizio Belpietro, and the rest was going on continuously for a long time, even if the glaring lack of episodes of political violence led to the most not to notice.
It is said that the years of lead can never return, because the ideology that held together the terrorists of the '70s no longer enjoys any credit, and no one believes possible the advent of the revolution. As if the "fall of the tyrant" could not be a common ideological enough, and the visceral hatred towards Berlusconi, seen as the personification of evil, and attraction of all that is ugly in society, could not be regarded as an ideology in itself.
Because of this, maybe we should abandon the simplistic explanations and interested, and begin to study the phenomenon dell'antiberlusconismo from the standpoint of social psychology, and that is the science that studies the mental mechanisms by which the individual interacts with society.
As is well known to scholars, psychology proceeds mainly by way of heuristics, ie general rules to simplify them, which explain in consistent, and easy to understand the way in which individuals determine their thinking, and thus relate to each other. In this context it is vital to the so-called anchoring heuristic, whereby individuals tend to interpret reality based on comparisons with the fixed points of which are inspired, often ignoring the factors of dissonance that - logically - they are supposed to think to different explanations.
the same time and it is a decisive criterion for interpretation of the psychology of communication, there is also the so-called availability heuristic, according to which the public tends to believe what he supports him on an emotional level, rather than what appears more likely in practice.
On this basis, Leon Festinger, the father of social psychology in 1957 developed the theory of cognitive dissonance, according to which men have the need to achieve a structural explanation of the world as much as possible consistent with what we already think , as well as what they want to believe for emotional reasons. For this reason, they tend to preferentially accept the explanations more consonant with their basic ideas and emotions with the background, and tend to minimize, if not to ignore the information that contradict them.
According to Festinger, when the data contradict the reality in a radical way the consistency of certain ideas and emotions of individuals and social groups, it produces just a dissonance, which can also lead to real cognitive problems, for which the individuals come sincerely to believe the facts do not exist or absurd explanations, but to restore harmony with their basic ideas, and avoid unpleasant emotions. The
antiberlusconismo, which now occupies so much of Italian political debate, seems to rest largely on these phenomena of social psychology. The media have played and still play a decisive role in determining, so that it is rightly said that in Italy they are no longer the political parties to guide reviews of newspapers, but rather the contrary.
dell'antiberlusconismo The underlying theory rests therefore on a very basic media narrative: Italian politics for more than fifteen years would be in an emergency situation and the deteriorating morale, because of the exceptional nature of the "drop-down field" a brilliant and shrewd businessman, who nevertheless would be motivated solely by self-interest, and basically immoral purposes and / or illegal.
In this, Mr Berlusconi would be able to coagulate around the political action is a ruling elite that basically agrees with its goals, is a large constituency that has been seduced by such open-mindedness. If the voter has so far allocated maggoranza several times to get the government of Berlusconi, was not done because they share ideas and policy proposals, as in any normal democratic system.
On the contrary, the power of the satrap of Arcore is based on a similar deficit of morality and sense of social justice, a characteristic of people that give you confidence, and at the same time (but this explanation is a recession now, given its lack of appeal election) on limited intellectual capacity of the latter, which led them to be seduced by promises of media skillfully managed by the "tyrant."
Under this background narrative, the classic cut-off friend / enemy, on the basis of which the political confrontation is born - as taught by Carl Schmitt - in Italy has expressed strong ethical connotations.
Today, in our country, the ideological hatred is no longer based on a general theory relating to the company and its needs (the coming revolution, social justice, to reform the economic system, etc.).. Rather, we present a theory of ethical, on a single individual and his cronies. Dell'antiberlusconismo view, society should urgently be freed from a situation of oppression is moral before it is political, and this would be the absolute pre-condition to return to assert forms of civil society morally acceptable.
So clearly, such a situation has already occurred several times in history, compared to the advent of despotic regimes. The theory of tyrannicide has ancient roots, dating back to the ancient world, and were met in the medieval common law. In the last century this view was repeated in an almost obvious, in the face of Nazi and fascist totalitarianism, which were indeed characterized by a strong personalization of political power.
However, the relative newness dell'antiberlusconismo is that it is impossible to build on the experience of reality in the idea that Italy would be in the presence of a despotic regime.
Firstly because, in fact, parties of Berlusconi and his allies in the last sixteen years have won and lost many times the general election, which showed that in Italy so far has continued to exist within a democratic framework, and the possibility of a change of government. Indeed, a political science point of view, we could easily see that this possibility of change was determined precisely when the "drop-down field" Berlusconi has created the bipolarity and the second republic.
But above all, it is undeniable that in Italy the constitutional guarantees, freedom of the press and even a high degree of fragmentation of political power have always been hard facts, at least as long as you continue to reason on the basis of reality.
For this reason, antiberlusconismo understood as a moral revolt could succeed only through a massive media campaigns, which affects the full social psychology and its heuristics.
In Italy, in fact, contrary to what continues to happen in other western democracies, political debate is not based on the comparison hardly - or the clash - of different interpretations of reality. The most influential media, on the contrary, they try to steer public opinion based on real stories fantastic, that support background dell'antiberlusconismo grand narrative, and for this purpose can quite apart from the experience of real.
such phenomena have also already encountered many times in other political systems, and also in Italy. So far, however, was always treated with specific cases of distortion of reality by media, which could be as frequent and routine - just think about the transmission of Michele Santoro - were always related to events and situations bounded.
We can cite for example what happened at the time of the G8 summit in Genoa, with the killing of Carlo Giuliani. There was a picture so vivid that it represented what had actually happened, and that is a situation of urban warfare in which an insurgent, his face distorted with a weapon and was killed while he was taking part in a deliberate attack on a Carabinieri jeep. Yet, not only in Italy, the narrative of that fact that prevailed in the media across the world has completely reversed the phenomenal reality, transforming the assault on a helpless victim, and the military arm of a brutal and oppressive regime.
But this, precisely, is only a single example, on a specific situation. Rather, we must now ask ourselves today as the exceptional Italian has developed to the point that the heuristic antiberlusconiana has become the basic criterion by which the mainstream press has all the national policy. This fact is told apart by now completely from reality and taking into account only the narrative reference.
A prime example of this approach, and its methods, can be found in so-called "inverted commas of the Republic" is often an occurrence, indeed a classic Italian political journalism, the newspapers tell the newness of life bringing a national policy after the other statements of actors and supporting actors, and even reproduce entire dialogues in the form of direct speech. It 's a way to make information that is the basis of what Berlusconi himself has repeatedly called the "theater of politics," and that statements of that ballet and counter-declaration which would leave time for themselves they find, but the long end to condition the whole debate.
However, in so-called "inverted commas" the newspaper Repubblica, these dialogues between political figures are completely made up, and above all - what is most important from the standpoint of social psychology - would also be easily recognizable as such, from any person with minimal critical faculties.
No one can seriously think, in fact, that a journalist may have witnessed personally in private conversations between Mr Berlusconi and his family members, or between him and the ministers of his government, and even that may have picked up rumors reliable in this regard.
However, these dialogues are often reported in the Rome daily quotes and a wealth of detail of fantasy that serves to make them more plausible. All this on the unconventional premise that any denial of those concerned could only give a further echo what was published.
This approach is made possible by Heuristics above, as the journalist can count on an audience that does not expect to hear news, how to feel tell those stories that correspond to the general theory dell'antiberlusconismo, the can reassure his injury.
E 'with this policy, for example, months ago, it was possible to hold long-nailed to the national political life on the suspicion that Berlusconi could be a pedophile (the famous "Ten Questions" of the Republic), although the factual references on which to build such a story were completely non-existent. So much so, in fact - to want to watch only the bare facts - the Prime Minister had merely to attend a birthday party.
With similar procedure, has recently appeared - always on the Republic - a guide full of pathos on an alleged dramatic nighttime conversation between Gianfranco Fini, his girlfriend and her brother, as to the ownership of the famous Monte Carlo. Even here, direct speech in quotation marks and details of color abounded.
But of course, as in the first case there was no anchor to facts that could really believe that Berlusconi was the seducer of the young Naomi, in the second case it was impossible that it was the report of an interview actually took place, but believe that Republic of journalists routinely keep under control and environmental telephone private residences of the President of the Chamber. Moreover, in fact it was nothing short of amazing that he could have sought clarification on the house of the brother-in Monte Carlo only during the evening before as the story began more than two months before.
From a view of social psychology, therefore, the purpose of these narratives was only to present the reader with a decadent and immoral Berlusconi, Gianfranco Fini, which is a surprise in its good faith, and a victim of the operations of the press "bad". All this is completely apart from reality, thanks to the use of unconventional heuristics, according to which the reader is emotionally inclined to think not so much in what appears to be plausible, as to what is in consonance with its usual criteria for interpretation of the policy, and thus with the antiberlusconismo.
Based on this method, some time it has also checked the publishing phenomenon of the Fact Daily, e cioè di un giornale che – a dispetto del suo nome – sta ottenendo un notevole successo di vendite proprio in quanto ha deciso di rinunciare completamente a riportare notizie, e di puntare tutto su narrazioni antiberlusconiane, ripetute ossessivamente tutti i giorni e lungo tutte le pagine.
In questo quotidiano, il noto criterio anglosassone dei “fatti separati dalle opinioni” è stato originalmente reinterpretato, nel senso che si prescinde completamente dai fatti, e si costruiscono le notizie a tavolino sulla base della consonanza emotiva che esse riescono a ingenerare nei lettori, sfruttando il loro pregiudizio antiberlusconiano.
A ben vedere, non si tratta soltanto di un pubblico abitualmente ideologizzato, come for example, may be to readers of the Manifesto, nor limited to people on a cultural level, as is usual frequenters of the British tabloid scandal.
Among the over 70 000 players which led to the successful circulation of the newspaper Done, although there is certainly a niche of highly educated citizens, which is the target audience for other newspapers, however, are mostly members of what a to be called middle class: people fairly well integrated in society, which normally would never have known intellectually available to the fanaticism and extremism.
For this reason it is important to analyze the situation from a psychological point of view. The method antiberlusconiano was so strong that, if it is really impossible to hide from public opinion news is not consistent with its heuristic, there may be players in reference to these daily real cognitive disorder.
Examples are the comments of many visitors to the network, compared to the attacks that have recently concerned that Berlusconi is the same journalist Maurizio Belpietro. In both cases, several bloggers and commentators immediately suggested that it could deal with frames, artfully arranged with fake attacks Berlusconi's entourage, if not diverted from the usual Secret Service, which is not by chance have been invoked also dai finiani per stornare l'attenzione dalla campagna giornalistica avviata contro il loro leader per la casa di Montecarlo.
Ovviamente, in entrambi questi ultimi casi non c'è nessun motivo logico per ritenere che i fatti possano essere diversi da come appaiono, e anzi la fredda osservazione della realtà porterebbe facilmente a conclusioni opposte.
Anche qui, tuttavia, è entrata in gioco l'euristica dell'antiberlusconismo, e si è prodotto sui lettori dei predetti quotidiani il tipico effetto della dissonanza cognitiva di Festinger: poiché si tratta di soggetti che hanno effettuato un forte investimento emotivo sul proprio pregiudizio morale, secondo cui la demarcazione che intercorre tra il campo dei berlusconiani e quello of antiberlusconiani is simply between good and evil, they tend to accept - and even create out of nothing - any explanation which could eliminate the dissonance in relation to this scheme.
In reality the facts, if accepted in their raw materiality, could induce these people to admit that there are people in the field of antiberlusconiani obtuse, violent and socially unpresentable. So to avoid this undesirable result, they have raised the theory of a plot from scratch, which, though devoid of factual basis was likely to re-establish perfect harmony between their beliefs and emotional background.
The process of cognitive dissonance has its effects in the opposite direction, that is negatively impacted the credibility of the press close to the center-right, to return to a topical example of this, it can be pointed out that - contrary to what had happened with other "investigations" that go beyond completely by the facts, such as those relating to underage fans of Silvio Berlusconi - the journalistic investigation on the house of Monte Carlo that was purchased by the brother-in price of Gianfranco Fini, from a factual point of view has never missed a shot.
However, the emotional needs of the public have made it possible for the first inquiry was made by the choir of the media as a courageous statement of the moral squalor of the premier, and the second one has been branded as a stunt orchestrated by the "servants" of the same to discredit the former ally.
cognitive dissonance phenomena, moreover, had already produced at the time of the attack on the Twin Towers in New York, with the growth in the network of various conspiracy theories. The same had happened in Italy in the early '70s, when the press started to present the emerging Red Brigades as agents of the CIA, hired as fascist or otherwise, so as not to admit that the left-wing ideologies were emerging social behaviors fundamentally unacceptable.
hard to say whether the recurrence of these dynamics in the world of information and Italian politics, will really lead to a return to the years of lead.
However, what we cared about was to highlight the psychological dynamics dell'antiberlusconismo, and cognitive problems that it causes even with apparently "normal" and socially included.
Hence it is necessary to start for a political analysis of the situation, as the liberal use that newspapers are making the above-party dynamics, is likely to influence Italian politics for many years.
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