Iniuria Accepta. Genealogia critica della memoria

Daniele Giglioli's essay is an attempt to read the dialectic between History and Memory in the light of the contemporary reduction of Subjectivity, which at the beginning of the modern age had in all fields, from science to politics to art, supplanted Substance as the Foundation, to a victimized, traumatized Identity, characterized not by its impact on the world but by the fact that it has been wounded by it. A position that, while weakening the Subject, also endows it with a kind of special status, a jurisprudence all its own, a right to exemption from judgment and responsibility as well as change, which is an undoubted advantage in terms of legitimacy. Those who have been offended are always on the side of reason. They enjoy a datable and certifiable origin, not nebulous, “invented,” by definition elusive as all origins are. Their only burden is to remain eternally what they are, even if they are the one who causes offense, which is made logically and ontologically impossible by the fact that even the violent reaction of the traumatized victim is legitimate and unquestionable a priori. This pattern of thinking, which nowadays unites individualities, ethnic groups, and state structures from the most disparate entities up to great empires, is subjected to criticism in the essay, which, after reconstructing its genealogy, suggests its extreme danger.