(Answer at the end).
CHANGE
By Charles Kocian
Giorgia Meloni won the Italian elections the 25th of September of 2022. This is a historic right-wing shift for a country that has been left-wing- like Sweden, that also made a right shift last week.
Meloni won with 26% of the vote. As first female prime minister she will govern with a solid majority in both houses of the Italian parliament. She will become a threat to the European Union.
“If we are called to govern this nation, we will do it for everyone, we will do it for all Italians and we will do it with the aim of uniting the people,” Meloni said. The situation in Italy and the EU is “particularly complex,” meaning that it’s “time for being responsible,” she added.
EU and Italian Flags.
The President of EU, Ursula von der Leyen, said days before that “…whatever democratic government is willing to work with us, we’re working together. If things go in a difficult direction, I’ve spoken about Hungary and Poland, we have tools,” she said referring to EU funding for Budapest and Warsaw being cut for violating the bloc’s rules.
Will Italy divorce from Brussels as UK did?
Sack of Rome in 1527.
Divorces happens always in history, including the Renaissance, and sometimes violently. The Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, divorced from Pope Clement VII on 6 May 1527. The Pope took refuge in Castel Sant’Angelo after the Swiss Guard was annihilated. This is known as The Sack of Rome, when the Imperial army conquered and looted the city.
Glorious Revolution in England, 1688.
But the Renaissance have produced mostly good things. It triggered the Reformation, the Counter Reformation and catapult the political ideas in the following centuries. It influenced European thinking, leading to the British Civil Wars, the Glorious Revolution in England and the American Revolution.
How did that happen?
Erasmus of Rotterdam.
The Renaissance thinkers were known as humanists who asked themselves of what it meant to be human and, with the invention of the printing press, many scholars were able to study ancient Greeks philosophers.
One of those humanists was Erasmus, also known as Erasmus of Rotterdam. He was a Dutch Catholic theologian and philosopher who believed that an irrational life focused on prayer and the afterlife is wrong. It is better, for the individual and society as a whole, to take individual responsibility to live a good life. This good life was called eudemonia in ancient Greece, a crucial Aristotelian concept to achieve ethics excellence.
Machiavelli.
Erasmus, perhaps influenced by Plato who thought that the ideal Republic should be ruled by virtuous philosophers, promoted the idea of a Christian king. In the other hand, Machiavelli promoted an amoral prince. This discussion still holds until today and look like prevails the ideas of the latter. Anyway, the ideas of the Renaissance gave birth to the republican-city-states of Italy.
Athens Revolutions.
Another political divorce in history is the Athenian Revolution of 508–507 BCE. The Athenians inhabitants overthrew the ruling aristocratic oligarchy and after they had one century of self-governance. It was a reaction against the tyrants of Greece.
Democratic regimes governed Athens until Sparta, in 404 BCE, placed it government in the hands of the Thirty Tyrants, who were pro-Spartan oligarchs. Short after, the Macedonian army of Phillip II, father of Alexander the Great conquered Athens.
Philip II of Macedonia in Skopje, North Macedonia.
CONCLUSION
Cultural change happens when the ruled learn new ideas and discover ruler’s injustice.
Now answer to question 18.
QUESTION N° 18
The Comfort Zone are neuronal highways derived from cultural habits.
a) True
b) False
The answer is: True.
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