01-05-2006, 11:40 PM
Quote:This is a very personal opinion I have about Italians and I do think that it goes back to roman times.Hi Goffredo I think and have thought for sometime that this is very true and your feelling the same way helps to confirm it Flavia
Today, as in roman times, a person invests much in "connections", on knowing someone that can be useful when the need arises. A weak man is willing to invest some of his dignity by knocking on the door of the powerful to get help to solve a problem or streamline some procuedure. But it works both ways. The powerful give attention and even favors to a client, not out of immediate necessity but knowing that the client may be called upon to pay-back in the future. Connections help wheather-out difficult moments and modern day italians, as ancient romans, make great use of them.
An abstract, cold and neutral State, or Bureaucracy, that works according to prescribed rules is not truely Italian. If you want a problem to be solved do not resort to the bureaucrat but to the person! This is positive because human relations are important and bureaucray may be alienating. But the negative side is that people that think this way do not develop a modern notion of society and State and think things can be solved by-passing laws, just by knowing the right person. When this mind-set degenerates then you have associations that work in a parallel universe, a parallel power to that of the State, secret associations, masonic-like, and even mafias.
