In Matteo Salvini’s Italy, Good Is Bad and ‘Do-Gooders’ Are the Worst

"Unwort" literally means "unword", not, as Mr Horowitz erroneously claims, "worst word". It is cognate to "unperson" used by James Watson to describe what happened to him after he expressed opinions contrary to the prevailing PC. So, OK, Mr Horowitz claims no expertise in German. Or in Chinese - which has come up with the wonderful term "baizuo", meaning "Gutmensch", or "buonista". But I question how well he even knows Italian, since I've seen him complaining about the apparent inability of Italians, specifically Vatican officials, to pronounce his last name. It never seems to occur to him that these - invariably multilingual - people might be ironic? Ghetto is an Italian word.

Oh, the unfortunate Trump effect spreads. The world gets turned on its head and loses its moral compass. Are we headed for a new Nazi/Fascisti era? This is more a sign of the decline of the West than a rise of the "people". Moderate zone nations should get used to immigration and begin to plan for it because, as climate change progresses and equatorial zones become uninhabitable, there will be no guns or bombs that will be able to stop the inexorable wave of climate refugees north. For Salvini and la Liga, this may also include those refugees from the south of Italy where whole towns are already becoming depleted or population. Perhaps they will then be exposed for what they are.

This article completely misses the point. Salvini doesn’t actually think the so-called “do gooders” are doing good for his country. THEY think of themselves as doing good, but Salvini believes they are turning his country into a cesspool of crime and poor quality of life. He is being utterly sarcastic applying the label to them. Unfortunately, the so-called “do-gooders” — and perhaps also the authors of this piece —lack the self-awareness to realize they are being mocked for creating something BAD.

"Italian logic"? "The proliferation of the unlikely slur has become a profound marker of the topsy-turvy state of politics in Italy, where being too good is bad, expertise is disqualifying and hard economic data is subject to Dadaist analysis." Looks like Trumpian logic to me.

it is dangerous, a threat to civil society, to turn the best of Christian values into a pejorative.

If the Partido Democratico, the center left predecessor of the current Italian governing coalition, had been even half awake at the wheel while more than half a million illegal migrants poured into Italy from 2014 until last year, Salvini wouldn't be in power now. But like a lot of center left (and also center right) European parties, they thought everything was just fine . . . until they realized too late that it wasn't.

Italy has had over 40 governments since WWII - my fav was the one who had relations with a teen age prostitute. Northern Italy has the Northern League which would like to separate from the south. The south is another world. The north has the western world's best western world food and they taught the French how to cook their fantastic foods/sauces. Pope Borgia dispatched his daughter to the French Court to find a husband - the Pope was broke and needed the money. When Lucrezia for to got ti to the French Court, she could not eat the food because the chicken were hacked up and covered with spinach. She immediately sent for her chefs and the French really enjoyed their fantastic dishes.

Do-Gooders are no good. Cynicism never die. Matteo Salvini's "Italy First" is the mirror image of Donald Trump "America First". Racism drips off the Alt-Right slogans. Matteo Salvini characterize any Chinese investment in Italy as colonization. He was noticeably absent during Chinese President Xi's Italy visit in March to sign the Belt Road Initiative agreement. Xenophobic sentiment is rising all over the globe. Professor Kishore Mahbubani called out recent bipartisan anti-China sentiment in Washington DC as the reemergence of "Yellow Phobia" racism, which nobody wish to mention. But it is obvious in American & Canadian reports on China these days. There is always something negative about China to write about. Fanning the flame of hatred is easy.

Not so different from the American "bleeding-heart" - a description that refers to empathy turned into a slur by right-wing pundits. When fear of the OTHER is being weaponized, anyone with empathy for the OTHER becomes an enemy.

This article appears to be aimed at American liberals who are not familiar with Italy's current coalition government. Despite the article's focus on Mr. Salvini, Italy's government is headed by the far left Five Star Movement. Their leadership makes the decisions on immigration, with only consultation from the Northern League, not the other way around!

The problem is not a real do-gooder who is willing to self-sacrifice for the common good. The problem is created by all the hypocritical people who want the good to be done at other people's expense, never their own. These hypocrites have besmirched the good name of do-gooders. If real do-gooders want to continue to do good, they have no choice but to expose these false do-gooder hypocrites and tear them down. Example: people who fly in private jets but want to impose a carbon tax on the poor while exempting aviation fuel from carbon taxes. (yes, Aviation fuel is exempt from carbon taxes in all places that have carbon tax). Flying should be a rarity for someone propounding carbon taxes. Flying in private jets should never occur by someone who is eager to impose carbon taxes. Having a huge entourage when travelling is another no-no as is living in a huge climate controlled mansion.

This just shows the eternal perversity of the far-right - attempting to brainwash the population that doing good is evil. And like most propagandists - brainwashing people that good is bad and bad is good.

In Trumplandia nobody is virtuous; people are merely "virtue signaling". "Black Lives Matter" is considered racist because, (don't you know?) "All Lives Matter". "Estate taxes" are "Death taxes". "Right to life" only extends to the moment of birth. After that everyone is on their own. Helping the rich people and corporations through tax policies are "incentives" ; helping poor people is "socialism" or "welfare".

Dear Mr Salvini, fighting, stealing, raping and dealing drugs is not a behavior exclusive to immigrants. In fact, when analyzed in context, examples of such pale in comparison to those committed among other populations in Italy. Another demagogue attempting to capitalize on prejudices and fears to the detriment of greater, long term good.

Western democratic political culture is being reduced to that of the middle school playground.

Deplorable people always find ways rhetorically to diminish others while justifying their own selfish preoccupations. In no way do I describe all Trump voters this way. Many have legitimate grievances. But many others exploit these people's fears and worries, and they are a pox on the earth. It seems the case everywhere you look.

Famous do gooders throughout history: 1) The Inquisition; saving sinners from themselves. 2) Robespierre; liberte, egalite, fraternite. 3) Lenin, Stalin et al; saving mankind from its own stupidity. 4) Adolph Hitler; brought socialism (NaZi=national socialist) to Germany's oppressed working class. 5) Mao; loved China but killed more than Stalin and Hitler combined. 6) Osama bin laden; just because you're the "bad guy" don't underestimate his earnest intentions.

If Italy and eventually all of Europe is divide among differing Cultural Groups - how will any country and the EU be governed ? The West needs to do more to stabilise the countries where the refugees are coming from.

The original “bleeding heart” was Jesus of Nazareth.

The last big, multi-national rise of fascism can be linked to the post-WWI era. Those soldiers/veterans felt left out and left behind as others who made money during the war or who had family with means found a firm footing again. They saw themselves as victims. In Germany this victimhood was fed by the "stab in the back" myth, and Hitler emerged from that crowd of undereducated malcontents, finding an easy bad guy to blame, promising easy solutions, Making Germany Great Again, etc. After a while, businessmen began to see how they might profit by his rhetoric, and they joined in. It's clear that the economic downturn of 2008/09 is still driving social decisions among many middle and lower-income people across the globe.

Perhaps if the problem of overpopulation, or more people than can be sustained by economies, had been addressed decades ago, precipitating problems ranging mass migration to climate change would not be approaching crisis stage and the most vile political opportunists would have been left without a popular issue.

Now imagine trying to convince the pitchforks that they need even more bureaucracy in terms of the mother of all social Programs: Climate Control. They've already had it up to the gills with global elites living high on the hog (like Orwell's swine Napoleon and Snoball), while Yellow Vests are told to "cut back." Like it or not, but this is the Western Spring. The Program is unravelling.

Italians are not obligated to vote or believe what American liberals want them to. It is THEIR country, not yours. Mr. Salvini is correct in pointing out that do-gooders' good intentions can lead to legislation that brings a LOT of negative consequences, but those consequences are usually imposed on others, never on the do-gooders themselves. This has happened in the US, as well as in Europe.

Being called a "do-gooder" has always been a slur in the U.S. as well. Just ask teachers, aid workers or anyone who dedicates their life's work to a values-based pursuit vs. naked capitalism and you will find they have been refered to with derision as a "do gooder," as if they had not yet grown up and become a real American who devotes their life to the accumulation of wealth. A subtext of that accusation if you work to help those most in need in foreign countries, or to assist them when they arrive in the U.S. as refugees or asylees, is that you are not only not gown up but misguided and not patriotic--there being plenty of Americans needing help. Trump's election has weaponized the term against such individuals. "Do gooder" in many instances now implies a traitor or fifth columnist trying to destroy the country by deliberately poisoning it with foreign intruders/criminals. It's been my experience when called this that the accuser does not have a very good grasp of American history, they have never travelled to a situation where they have actually met a refugee in a camp, or someone who has been internally displaced in their home country, and they have had little, if any, meaningful contact with such people in the U.S.

Does anyone think this man would be in power had it not been for the onslaught of immigrants flooding Italy's borders? Something they were forced to do as a member of the EU? Does anyone think Trump would be president if they Dems hadn't taken the same stand under Obama.

Italy has had how many governments since 1945?

Do gooder has been a slur in the US for at least a decade. And now old ladies of both sexes are clutching their pearls about it? With people like this as teammates you lose.

And here in the USA, conservatives have turned the term “social justice” into a slur.

As despicable and dangerous in Italy as it is in America. How long will it take America --and the world--to recover from Trump?

Really no rejoinder to this, just another disheartening demonstration of the devil having the world by the tail. But you might not give it too much space, to much coverage and credence ... in the same spirit as the Prime Minister of New Zealand refusing to say the name of the Muslims' murderer out loud. Don't stoke the fire. Let it wear itself out. Also, not quite sure that Italy was built on anger...truly?

Good and bad are made-up categories to sort the thinking steering us. They're a movable feast traveling the twisted roads we travel. Not that long ago when America was still, ahem... great, eating meat on Friday was deemed a sin sending you irredeemably to limbo inasfar as good Catholics were concerned. Somehow we managed to move on from there. The belief systems guiding our upbringing are an indigestible mess tangling us up in various degrees of serious trouble, most of which we're in denial about. The more messed up we got, the more likely we identify as a bad boy or girl in our years of coming of age already. When Shakira sings about all the things she deserves for being such a good girl, she betrays she had a youth 'relatively' uncomplicated by parental or other 'Biden-close' psychopathy stalking her. (In the end we all say we went through fire and "the worst." None of us are gonna say ours was the easy path.) Many of us weren't that lucky and are deeply conflicted and at the same time deeply unaware how badly compromised by primitive thought overhang our ideas of good and normal really are. Machiavelli Salvini and his fellow unravelers seem to be winning today, but the consciousness revolution knows it's only looking at the laggards bloating themselves up to compensate for fear of all the territory they're losing underneath their imperial clothes. Salvini frantically tries to salvage his own short-sighted behind amidst the burning Rome his own psycho kin set ablaze.