My husband and I have visited Italy many times because I teach college there each fall term. I cannot count the number of graduate students over the past 8 years who have told me that they fear they will have to leave Italy to find work. They want to marry and start families, but cannot because they live at home with their parents, often into their 30s. It is very sad, but more importantly it is a waste of human resources and energy.
7
An interesting read about Italy is Tobias Jones book, "The Dark Heart of Italy". Jones is a British journalist who lived for four years in Italy early in this century. Don't miss understand, he loves the place, but he finds and sees a lot of warts.
One takeaway for me was the belief that the only way to get a new house or other construction going is to simply build it, rather than wait for the proper authorization. If you wait, the permits will never come. Build, then pay the fine. Obviously, many people, including corrupt bureaucrats, must be profiting from the controlled chaos that sort of system implies.
The United States has been a nation significantly longer than Italy. Just a bit more than 150 yrs. ago, Italy was a collection of regions, tribes and fiefdoms, not a nation. Some think it has never managed the full transition to nationhood, but clings to the divisions, ways and attitudes of the past. There wasn't even a common language at the time nationhood began, so they had to pick one.
For those in our country who imagine our own internal differences are beyond reasoned solution, consider the results of Italy. With the glaring exception of our Civil War, we have managed to get along as a nation for more than 230 yrs. Refusing to compromise and see the needs of others has great consequences and they could be grave ones for us. It is my own sense that we are heading for some sort of effort to split the U.S., if not soon then in the coming decades.
Doug Terry
One takeaway for me was the belief that the only way to get a new house or other construction going is to simply build it, rather than wait for the proper authorization. If you wait, the permits will never come. Build, then pay the fine. Obviously, many people, including corrupt bureaucrats, must be profiting from the controlled chaos that sort of system implies.
The United States has been a nation significantly longer than Italy. Just a bit more than 150 yrs. ago, Italy was a collection of regions, tribes and fiefdoms, not a nation. Some think it has never managed the full transition to nationhood, but clings to the divisions, ways and attitudes of the past. There wasn't even a common language at the time nationhood began, so they had to pick one.
For those in our country who imagine our own internal differences are beyond reasoned solution, consider the results of Italy. With the glaring exception of our Civil War, we have managed to get along as a nation for more than 230 yrs. Refusing to compromise and see the needs of others has great consequences and they could be grave ones for us. It is my own sense that we are heading for some sort of effort to split the U.S., if not soon then in the coming decades.
Doug Terry
7
Thank you for another beautiful essay. In the rural midwest, where I live, there are plenty of frustrating things to deal with, including the poisonous political environment. However, every day I see natural beauty around me, and drive past people who wave from their pickup truck. Things don't move too fast, and I don't run into much ruthless ambition. I have neighbors who help me when I need it, and I can strike up friendly conversations everywhere I go.
Find the place you love, and live there.
Find the place you love, and live there.
11
Italy is a mess, sometimes a wonderful mess. It seems they like it that way and don't care that much about changing it.
Young adults fleeing by the thousands surely is a sign of a dying country, one that has an insufficient opportunity base (jobs) and one that discourages innovation. Many manage to land here in the States, including the DC area, where they are finding good employment while our own college grads sit around complaining about not being able to find appropriate work.
A country observed by a visitor, even a long term one, is never the same as it is for those who live their whole lives there. We can pick and choose what we like and don't like and then leave the rest for the Italians to worry about. In this country, we have rejected some aspects of life with extended family as too confining, creating too many limits on individuality. Residing in the same area all or most of one's life is not done here.
As my high school reunion approaches, I find that classmates from my school in Pennsylvania have been scattered all over the U.S., even though their roots were in a socially conservative place like Pa., one of the least outward mobile states in America. Five or six times move in a life time are now common.
We embrace change and throw away just about everything that does not contribute to commerce. Corporations tell us where we need to be and we go. In the process, yes, we have lost some very important aspects of community and human contact.
Doug Terry
Young adults fleeing by the thousands surely is a sign of a dying country, one that has an insufficient opportunity base (jobs) and one that discourages innovation. Many manage to land here in the States, including the DC area, where they are finding good employment while our own college grads sit around complaining about not being able to find appropriate work.
A country observed by a visitor, even a long term one, is never the same as it is for those who live their whole lives there. We can pick and choose what we like and don't like and then leave the rest for the Italians to worry about. In this country, we have rejected some aspects of life with extended family as too confining, creating too many limits on individuality. Residing in the same area all or most of one's life is not done here.
As my high school reunion approaches, I find that classmates from my school in Pennsylvania have been scattered all over the U.S., even though their roots were in a socially conservative place like Pa., one of the least outward mobile states in America. Five or six times move in a life time are now common.
We embrace change and throw away just about everything that does not contribute to commerce. Corporations tell us where we need to be and we go. In the process, yes, we have lost some very important aspects of community and human contact.
Doug Terry
8
I love Santa. If you missed a swim at Paraggi, then you should go back and take a snorkel and mask. The focaccia at Pinamonti is the best and I loved the national health. I lived there for years and raised my children there and I'm so grateful that they were able to grow up in all that beauty and become Italians. I'm grateful that they are half American and could make the choice to pursue opportunities here in the US because things are as difficult as the pharmacist in the Farmacia Centrale described, especially for the young. I will definitely return some day to Santa - at least to catch up with dear friends. But my children don't have to return to see old friends because so many now live in London, NYC or Paris looking for their own opportunities just as Italians did several generations ago.
4
The life expectancy of Italy is between Iceland and Sweden.
The life expectancy of the USA is between Costa Rica and Cuba.
Life expectancy encompasses all the variables and characteristics of a country (both good and bad).
The life expectancy of the USA is between Costa Rica and Cuba.
Life expectancy encompasses all the variables and characteristics of a country (both good and bad).
16
I've been to Italy twice within the last 8 years and never encountered anything I would call inefficiency or inconvenience. The trains were wonderful! I chalked up anomalies simply to my being unaccustomed to the fact that I didn't speak Italian and was not familiar with the culture. I didn't expect Italy to conform to American habits. I even got lost a couple of times. No big deal.
8
As a Brit living in Italy for over twenty years i've seen how the curvy approach has bought this country low. But I wouldn't want to see it go the USA way, either.
The fact is, both countries have lost their way and each could learn something from the other - and both from the Dutch, who are currently my favourite nation, with a near-perfect blend of humanity and discipline.
The fact is, both countries have lost their way and each could learn something from the other - and both from the Dutch, who are currently my favourite nation, with a near-perfect blend of humanity and discipline.
12
well, i suppose the dutch have their strong points, but still prefer italy...and england for that matter...
Now, if the Dutch could only import Italy's beautiful landscape, sunny weather, delicious food, and warm people! (The Dutch are lovely people, too, just not in the same way. No disrespect.)
What is it about cloudy weather and taciturn people that breeds efficiency, while sunny weather and warm people breeds the reverse?
What is it about cloudy weather and taciturn people that breeds efficiency, while sunny weather and warm people breeds the reverse?
2
I live in Sicily and, unfortunately, the world here is still in the hands of useless politicians whose votes are paid by the organized crime. The nice and romantic view of the couple living in the coast of Liguria reminds me that what foreigners love about Italy is far from the reality lived in its Southern parts ...
13
Donatella I am an American born Sicilian who is considering retiring in Sicily. Any suggestions?
1
Adapt and adjust: words to live by. Attention to food and the smell of lemon trees goes a long way toward the daily approach to a life worth living. The French, too, seem to have this approach to what is essential. We lack it in this country and strangely in some ways have elevated the simple pleasures of good food to either restaurants or some sort of special, more reverential takes on eating. We rush far too much, move too often, and are moving in the opposite direction: charter schools, gated communities, and privatization of much. I remember a small family restaurant in Venice where the trees produced some of the wine, the family admired our sons, and the dog slept on.
7
One of the great advantages to living in France is that it is close to, but not in, Italy.
4
you know, i could say the same thing about france xD
11
Well said Mr Cohen, Italy marches to it's own beat and cherry picking what it likes from the world as it's own. Sure Italy is a country of all curves and is very frustrating at times to navigate but this is all part and parcel of being Italien. Their daily lives can be so simple but luxurious in so many small inexpensive ways that we as Americans lose sight of. It's not the $3000 handbags that make Italy special but rather the care and meticulousness such as their food, architecture and eye for beauty and creativity that is the real luxury - a simple high quality of living.
8
Ever since the Middle Ages there has been this very much chronicled history of "Amoral Familism" expounded by Machiavelli which in other words is at the center of how business is run - then and now - at top levels in Italy that includes among other things: total disregard of current laws and regulations; being prepared to unspeakable compromises; nepotism as the only way of succeeding in life; cronyism as a basis for post-doctorate in education, for example; threats, violence and homicide as the last resort in dealing with very large sums of money not honored (a business-like addendum). Add to all that a decade-long debate about how the police force should be dealing with social unrest rallies caused by these problem, implementing identifying codes on their riot gear as a deterrent to behave (the government will be dragging its feet on that forever), and you get a reality check zoom-bang in your face. And the so called "Black bloc" are part of the government's answer to create more confusion to its convenience: disguised as "hooded anti-capitalist thugs" unfaithful Secret Service exponents were showing off their skills of how to stage urban guerrilla warfare to endless purposeless TV debates afterwards to TV watcher's delight.
1
I think it was Marcello Mastroianni who said that Italy was a country full of actors, of whom the least successful were the professionals such as himself.
In fact it seems that Italians have succeeded in fooling most foreigners, including Cohen and many of his readers.
In fact it seems that Italians have succeeded in fooling most foreigners, including Cohen and many of his readers.
8
Italian curves? I clicked on this at lunch expecting Cohen wordsmithing on the wonders of Sophia Loren or Monica Bellucci or... but I wasn't (too) disappointed. He continues to paint delicious scenes; I can smell those lemons. The Italy he describes reminds me of Zambia. We have plenty of lemons here, including the bureaucracy, and the pace of life is agreeable. But please send homemade pasta and rabbit.
6
Interesting statistic:
Net Median wealth per adult:
Italy: $138,653
United States: $44,911
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_per_adult
Median wealth means the level of wealth at which 50% of the population is poorer than you and 50% is wealthier.
In the US there is far greater inequality, so the billionaires have most of the wealth, and there are high levels of poverty.
In Italy inequality is far less, so ordinary people are wealthier than ordinary people in US. Three times wealthier.
Net Median wealth per adult:
Italy: $138,653
United States: $44,911
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_per_adult
Median wealth means the level of wealth at which 50% of the population is poorer than you and 50% is wealthier.
In the US there is far greater inequality, so the billionaires have most of the wealth, and there are high levels of poverty.
In Italy inequality is far less, so ordinary people are wealthier than ordinary people in US. Three times wealthier.
21
Good point.
It is intelligent statistical analysis and similar that Mr. Cohen should do, then possibly draw some insightful conclusions, if he wants to add some minimal value in his columns. There is much that can be observed and analyzed in Italy, both good and bad, as alternatives to say USA or UK society and culture, during Mr. Cohen's stay using the Expo 2015 and CityLife developments as a starting point for possible change, again good or bad, in Italian society and government.
It is intelligent statistical analysis and similar that Mr. Cohen should do, then possibly draw some insightful conclusions, if he wants to add some minimal value in his columns. There is much that can be observed and analyzed in Italy, both good and bad, as alternatives to say USA or UK society and culture, during Mr. Cohen's stay using the Expo 2015 and CityLife developments as a starting point for possible change, again good or bad, in Italian society and government.
3
Another interesting statistic:
Debt per Adult:
Italy: $25,348
United States: $56,811
Debt per Adult:
Italy: $25,348
United States: $56,811
6
Of all the countries that I had the privilege to have visited Italy is the best place ever. Semi chaos but wonderful people, great food, beautiful landscape and above all great history. when you are in Italy you see why all the fun that you could have in life. We Americans like order, the Italians like semi chaos. Go visit Italy, you have to be in any region to appreciate the lifestyle.
10
160 years ago George Sand lamented the decline of the South [meaning Latin Europe] to Flaubert. And now we see that the bourgeois Anglo world needs to keep places like Italy open, just as the Communists joked that they would need one "free" country to rip off its technology, music and fashion. Because we live in our hyper-conformity of cookie-cutter developments with their vinyl siding and stunted lil trees, wear the identical North Face garments as a uniform [at least here in Chicagoland, arguably the most hyperconformist city on earth], adopt such "innovations" as British tan shoes, a now-ubiquitous men's accessory that were in vogue way back in the late 80s in the UK, and generally spew cant according to our chosen pundits on Fox and other quasi-fascist media outlets. So yes, we're enthralled by this exotic stuff from Italy. But one may argue that exposure to it, even if it's one's own ethnic heritage, does not mean we live in any way similarly, but rather that we continue our own unsustainable American way of life, exploiting energy like it'll never run out, and looking over our shoulders to ensure no one is disparaging any difference in our appearance or demeanor.
12
Bravissimo, well said! Our conformity will be the death of us here. And if the oligarch's have their way with things in Europe, Italy will be preserved as a quaint theme park for the moneyed rich.
7
Good to read in the early morning.Have been used to enjoy your political writing but this one is relaxing.Well done.
6
My suggestion to Mr Cohen is to avoid to fly to Linate airport and to choose Milano Malpensa which is a much better alternative, and you have plenty of directs flights from NY
4
I don't agree, Linate is a much better choice than Malpensa, because it closer to the center. You can take a cab in Linate and get to the Center with less than 15 bucks. If you take a taxi in Malpensa you will be peeled off. The x73 bus line from Linate to San Babila is a blessing, with a regular bus ticket (2 bucks) you get straight to the center.
2
there are no direct flights from the US to Linate, you save 15 minutes in Milan but you waste at least 1 hour of connection time in a European hub. As for the money, every 15 minutes you have a train from Malpensa to Milan that costs much less than any taxi from Linate.
2
In Italy, there is a separation of government and people, instead of church and state. The government doesn't interfere with the people, and the people don't interfere with the corrupt government. Life carries on.
11
what is this 'unctuous sauce' roger has prepared for us this time?
i live in italy and there is a whole other side: the daughter working abroad, for example. everyone i know who has children of working age is 'missing' them--they have to take jobs in other countries--or has them underfoot since they're home and unemployed. a friend was just laid off this past week. two neighbors who work at the same foreign-owned olive oil plant are waiting for the announced layoffs to begin, hoping to survive. pensions, which used to sacrosanct (didn't one work one's life for them?) are being cut, even cut off. yes, italians eat better than most anyone else, but this is because they grow their own produce, their uncles may make the salami, etc etc.
i live in italy and there is a whole other side: the daughter working abroad, for example. everyone i know who has children of working age is 'missing' them--they have to take jobs in other countries--or has them underfoot since they're home and unemployed. a friend was just laid off this past week. two neighbors who work at the same foreign-owned olive oil plant are waiting for the announced layoffs to begin, hoping to survive. pensions, which used to sacrosanct (didn't one work one's life for them?) are being cut, even cut off. yes, italians eat better than most anyone else, but this is because they grow their own produce, their uncles may make the salami, etc etc.
15
"There are still innocent smiles in Italy, something you can only call humility. They don’t teach you that at marketing school. They don’t tell you how monotonous self-promotion can become, how tiresome, and finally inhuman. People return to Italy for its beauty, of course, but also for a refuge from relentlessness."
This is an absurdly romantic view. I've lived in Italy for three of the past six years, and in my experience, the talk, in Italy, is relentlessly about Italy—primarily, its food and its landscapes. A self-reflexive "Che bello, che bello, che bello" resounds. It's as if there are no other places on earth and certainly none that surpass Italy—and its food and its landscapes. Self-promotion sure is monotonous.
One day, we'll rip away the veneer of these rustic obsessions and look at the place for what it is. Still a very attractive place. But also just another country, a provincial and decidedly proud one ("humility"!), where you can find great landscapes and great produce, great food products. Just as elsewhere. But not so much great technical culinary skills, in my experience.
In addition, a place where people of color have no chance of self-determination. You say "community," I say exclusionary. You say curvy, I say square.
This is an absurdly romantic view. I've lived in Italy for three of the past six years, and in my experience, the talk, in Italy, is relentlessly about Italy—primarily, its food and its landscapes. A self-reflexive "Che bello, che bello, che bello" resounds. It's as if there are no other places on earth and certainly none that surpass Italy—and its food and its landscapes. Self-promotion sure is monotonous.
One day, we'll rip away the veneer of these rustic obsessions and look at the place for what it is. Still a very attractive place. But also just another country, a provincial and decidedly proud one ("humility"!), where you can find great landscapes and great produce, great food products. Just as elsewhere. But not so much great technical culinary skills, in my experience.
In addition, a place where people of color have no chance of self-determination. You say "community," I say exclusionary. You say curvy, I say square.
14
So, if Italy os so bad, what are you still doing there? Don't bite the hand that feeds you.
8
wow, texans are always going on and on about how great texas is, with much less basis in fact....and really, there aren't many places that surpass Italy, that is why everyone tries to go there....perhaps you should try to move to one of the places that 'surpass Italy' since you are so disenchanted...
6
@SM New York - wow, the bile in your post nearly choked me. what great technical culinary skills do Italians lack that would make the food taste better?
2
Italy is a great place to be a tourist or to be on a long break from your regular life. Key is not having to hold down a regular job, deal with the bureaucratic issues, rely on public transportation to get you places in a timely fashion. The country is beautiful, the food is wonderful, the whole thing is like a dream. But if you are an Italian, or live here as an Italian resident with a job and a life, there is so much to be done to make life less difficult and so little getting done and so much getting worse in the current economic crisis.
23
Italy is a bureaucratic disaster: true.
Italy has sky-high unemployment: true.
Italy has made of corruption an art form: true.
Italy features very low work ethics: true.
YET:
Italy has very few homeless.
Italy has a rather healthy population. People walk.
Italy has the family at the center of its own society.
Italy retains its sense of community.
Certainly there is less money in Italy than other industrialized countries. There is a sense of togetherness, however, that is simply priceless even in the poorest communities in the South. Something to ponder...
Italy has sky-high unemployment: true.
Italy has made of corruption an art form: true.
Italy features very low work ethics: true.
YET:
Italy has very few homeless.
Italy has a rather healthy population. People walk.
Italy has the family at the center of its own society.
Italy retains its sense of community.
Certainly there is less money in Italy than other industrialized countries. There is a sense of togetherness, however, that is simply priceless even in the poorest communities in the South. Something to ponder...
17
Italy is a racist society: true
Italy is a sexist society: true
Italy is a sexist society: true
6
And.........? Your statements beguile further detailed explanation
3
Actually, Italy has great wealth, especially Rome and northwards.
Nice article indeed! I live half the year in Italy and the other half in America. One of the main differences I notice is that in America people have to prove their worth constantly so the focus is always on getting ahead in life, it's as if you have to earn love. In Italy this is not the case, you are loved because you exist not because you achieve success and status. Italy is not a rat race, the dedication is to family and community and ultimately it values human interaction as the writer points out.
11
Wanting to do the same as you. Are you an American citizen and if so, does Italy have restrictions for how long you stay.
It's strange how foreign people understand Italy and italians, unfortunately the truth is that we have what we deserve.
Malcostume (bad behavior) in politics and every days life is part of our lives.
The challenge is to change our background but the time is running out.
But in darkest time we know how to succeed....
Malcostume (bad behavior) in politics and every days life is part of our lives.
The challenge is to change our background but the time is running out.
But in darkest time we know how to succeed....
4
We truly enjoy Italy. Last Fall we moved here thinking we would stay - had a lawyer, would start a business, etc. We feel comfortable here and speak Italian. We have now decided to make a return to the U.S. For us, Italy is best for visiting. Living here would have proven terribly difficult and overly expensive. The bureaucracy is appaling in its complexity and delays. Well educated young people can find no work here and the talk is all about moving abroad. A youth unemployment rate topping 20% spells long term trouble for Italy.
14
All, unfortunately, very true.
4
Yes, Italy is "il bel paese", but this superficial look at Italy's problems would make the chamber of commerce blush. Young educated people are leaving Italy in droves (70,000 last year alone) as there is no work, no dignity, low wages when there is work, no opportunity). Their parents and grandparents are desperate. The heavy hand of the government bureaucracy is everywhere stifling every enterprise except those favored by the politicians whom those favored have installed. Renzi has just passed an electoral law which weakens further the democracy in Italy, essentially giving him and other party secretaries control over who can run for office, thus too much power. The corruption level is higher than any country in Europe. The Mafia and other organized criminal organizations is still not subject to control by the state and is like another government with many Mafiosi actually part of the Italian government. Frankly reporting like this makes me distrust every other piece of reporting that this man writes.
9
Unfortunately this is a good picture of Italy today, but Italians are possibly the most generous people in the world, and that is very important.
5
Anyone who's ever owned an Italian car will understand all they need to know about Italy.
7
I loved my Lancia Beta Coupe years ago. It was small, fast and could take a curve like it invented them. Not terribly reliable, but then American cars in the late 1970s were no dreams, either. I sold the Lancia before it got too many miles on it, but it served me well (too well at times, with the temptation to go fast). Lancia is back as a nameplate of Fiat and, if nothing else, Lancia models out these days are very attractive to the eye. Like Italy.
Managing "the curves" involves a waste of effort that might better be put to use in other pursuits. But Italy's problems go far beyond that.
Speaking as an Italian-American (on both sides) I'm convinced that Italy has failed since the 17th century to realize its potential as has no other similarly favored nation.
Italy's modern dilemma can be traced at least to Machiavelli's day. He wrote in his "Discourses on Livy" that the disunion of Italy with its attendant civil strife could be attributed to "our Religion" which:
"...has glorified more humble and contemplative men rather than men of action.... And, if our Religion requires that there be strength in you, it desires that you be more adept at suffering than in achieving great deeds.
"This mode of living appears to me, therefore, to have rendered the world weak and a prey to wicked men...."
Its centuries-long vendettas bordering on total disorder - linked with the stultifying influence of the Italy's "Religion" - may explain why Italy never assimilated culturally the secularizing effects of the Protestant Reformation and the Enlightenment.
Luigi Barzini's 1964 book "The Italians" still stands as a classic in 2015. It remains the best catalog of the self-defeating quirks endemic to Italian culture - and Italians.
A Neapolitan saying holds that "Life is what happens between eating and (vulgar word for defecation)." Such an apothegm could never have been coined in any but a fundamentally pessimistic nation.
Speaking as an Italian-American (on both sides) I'm convinced that Italy has failed since the 17th century to realize its potential as has no other similarly favored nation.
Italy's modern dilemma can be traced at least to Machiavelli's day. He wrote in his "Discourses on Livy" that the disunion of Italy with its attendant civil strife could be attributed to "our Religion" which:
"...has glorified more humble and contemplative men rather than men of action.... And, if our Religion requires that there be strength in you, it desires that you be more adept at suffering than in achieving great deeds.
"This mode of living appears to me, therefore, to have rendered the world weak and a prey to wicked men...."
Its centuries-long vendettas bordering on total disorder - linked with the stultifying influence of the Italy's "Religion" - may explain why Italy never assimilated culturally the secularizing effects of the Protestant Reformation and the Enlightenment.
Luigi Barzini's 1964 book "The Italians" still stands as a classic in 2015. It remains the best catalog of the self-defeating quirks endemic to Italian culture - and Italians.
A Neapolitan saying holds that "Life is what happens between eating and (vulgar word for defecation)." Such an apothegm could never have been coined in any but a fundamentally pessimistic nation.
6
I do business in Italy on a regular base. I love my business trips out there - Florence, Bologna, Rome, Milan, Venice, Padua... They are astonishingly well connected by Italy's greatest infrastructure success story - a fabulous high speed rail system that allows you to do business in Rome, Florence and Milan in the same day, travelling in the utmost comfort at 190 miles per hour.
Italians can achieve greatness when they commit to something, also in the private sector. Just look at world icons such as Prada, Armani or Ferrari and Maserati. These companies export 90% of what they produce and make huge profits. In the case of Ferrari, the workers (all of them) have just been rewarded with an average of $5,000 in productivity bonuses and most of them added thousands of dollars of paid overtime to that.
Italy can still achieve greatness. It just needs the right people at the top - ridding itself of the old, corrupt, unproductive political and business elites - parasites who sucked the country dry while systematically destroying value wherever they went. Renzi might just be the right person to achieve that.
Italians can achieve greatness when they commit to something, also in the private sector. Just look at world icons such as Prada, Armani or Ferrari and Maserati. These companies export 90% of what they produce and make huge profits. In the case of Ferrari, the workers (all of them) have just been rewarded with an average of $5,000 in productivity bonuses and most of them added thousands of dollars of paid overtime to that.
Italy can still achieve greatness. It just needs the right people at the top - ridding itself of the old, corrupt, unproductive political and business elites - parasites who sucked the country dry while systematically destroying value wherever they went. Renzi might just be the right person to achieve that.
21
Let us never forget the vast amount of American, and British, blood and treasure that was lost freeing Italy from the jackboots of the fascists, and nazis.
Free citizens of the West could not enjoy Italy the way so many of us do without that great sacrifice.
Free citizens of the West could not enjoy Italy the way so many of us do without that great sacrifice.
7
Let's not forget the French and their sacrifice of blood and treasure free the colonists from the british. What's your point
4
Tim - Trying to figure out the relevance to this opinion piece, but I can't. Help me.
1
Too bad about Italy being inundated by the overpopulation of other continents. We'll miss Italy when it's gone.
5
Whenever I was leaving Italy I would say: "What a great country, too bad they left it to the Italians." :)
5
Italy is another victim of its banking Oligarchy, who privatize the gains and socially the losses (and austerity). The rape of Lucretia is happening as we speak, and soon the Romans will rise again.
The Times has two opinion poets. (My term.)
Frank Bruni is the other.
"Has time to linger in the fragrant air of the dusk,"
Frank Bruni is the other.
"Has time to linger in the fragrant air of the dusk,"
1
I've been to Italy over twenty times since 1995 and have always noticed how Italians in general see their governing officials as clowns, with Berlusconi being the chief clown extraordinaire. Last Fall, I noticed a new attitude, especially amongst the younger intelligentsia and merchant class, who expressed a new hope for their country lead by Renzi and a government that might finally listen to its people and be devoid of complete corruption.
3
What else can one except when Italy has the two faced Roman Catholic State of the Vatican, state within a state, that pays no taxes, has its own status quo laws. Enjoys all the diplomatic privileges, accepts none of the responsibilities, has a banking system that launders money. Had fascist goons like Bonito Mussolini, Gigolo like Silvio Berlusconi. Corrupt to the hilt filthy rich, mega billionaire with friends like Muammar Gaddafi of Libya , a tyrant dictator terrorist.
Notwithstanding the same country that has close to 40% of all Olive oil that is either fake and or adulterated with cheap foreign non olive oil and some 70% of total production labeled product of Italy, but it from the stuff is from North Africa ( Morocco, Libya, Tunisia, etc ). Then there is the Mafia influence .
Sure enough it is still a good place to visit where they have high speed rail system, excellent food, culture, beautiful women , clothes , style fashion, wines etc. Not to mention white truffles and top notch extra virgin olive infused.
The worst is all the millions of undocumented black African and other refugee /immigrants that try crossing the Mediterranean is flimsy home made boats from across North Africa and some 40,000 plus drown each year.
Notwithstanding the same country that has close to 40% of all Olive oil that is either fake and or adulterated with cheap foreign non olive oil and some 70% of total production labeled product of Italy, but it from the stuff is from North Africa ( Morocco, Libya, Tunisia, etc ). Then there is the Mafia influence .
Sure enough it is still a good place to visit where they have high speed rail system, excellent food, culture, beautiful women , clothes , style fashion, wines etc. Not to mention white truffles and top notch extra virgin olive infused.
The worst is all the millions of undocumented black African and other refugee /immigrants that try crossing the Mediterranean is flimsy home made boats from across North Africa and some 40,000 plus drown each year.
5
"Rabbit is underrated, a culinary victim of prejudice or misplaced affection, but not by Italians, who consume it often and with gusto."
Roger Cohen, try thinking with your heart instead of your stomach. Then, you may come to understand, that affection is never misplaced when inspired by animals, who are truly victims of ignorance, indifference and great cruelty.
Roger Cohen, try thinking with your heart instead of your stomach. Then, you may come to understand, that affection is never misplaced when inspired by animals, who are truly victims of ignorance, indifference and great cruelty.
7
I love Lombardy, Passo San Marco, Passo Gavia, Passo Vivione, and others. Cycling in Italy is a dream. Food is great too. I wish I could afford a place in Bozen :(
2
What Italy did with Amanda Knox changed my view of the country. I no longer wish to visit.
5
Robert, the United states criminal justice system has wrongfully executed innocent men. And it still does. Knox was finally exonerated.
1
I can't respect a country where so many people smoke, so few wear seatbelts, and where there is so much garbage. Oh yes, and all those gazillions of unfinished building projects.
P.S. I personally witnessed the above on my dozen or so visits.
P.P.S. Yes, the food is the best ever.
P.S. I personally witnessed the above on my dozen or so visits.
P.P.S. Yes, the food is the best ever.
2
There's nothing like using a weekend stay with a single family to draw a conclusion about an entire society. As Pirandello said: Cosi e se vi pare. (It is so if you believe it.)
5
I often silently disagree with Mr. Cohen. but he "colpito il chiodo sulla testa" (hit the nail on the head) this time.. A wonderful piece that captured a particular flavor (so to speak) of Italy in just a few words..or maybe I'm just nostalgic because, I flew out of Milano after five months in Italy a few days after the so-called "Black Bloc" made their mis-directed and counter-productive "statement" of destruction...and two days after the people of Milan exhibited their true character by turning out voluntarily and eliminating almost every trace of the vandalism.
The love of rabbit meat and curves on the roads aside, the following quote struck me: "The state is still weak in Italy."
Would Mr. Cohen have preferred another Il Duce, who reportedly made the trains run on time and no strikes?
Would Mr. Cohen have preferred another Il Duce, who reportedly made the trains run on time and no strikes?
1
I loved the food, loved the atmosphere, but...(since I am not white) the amount of naked racism was overwhelming. Maybe it is better that way - naked rather than hidden.
8
I agree with Cohen to a great extent. Italy may be the most photogenic country in the world and Italians may be the most photogenic people. Their culture is exquisite and the thousands of years of history layered on one another in a city like Rome are dizzying and powerful.
In the 1980s I lived and worked in Italy as a Fulbright lecturer. What an opportunity! I lived in Rome for a year, and in Naples (rough place) for a year, and traveled for work to places in the central and southern part of the country not typically visited by tourists. There could be tension between the American expectations of how I would represent my country (e.g., what some Americans call our "work ethic" but which I prefer to call our "look busy ethic") and the Italians' expectations of the way I would enjoy and appreciate their approach to life and work. I chose the Italian way every chance I got (and enjoyed driving a few Americans crazy in the process.)
In the 1980s I lived and worked in Italy as a Fulbright lecturer. What an opportunity! I lived in Rome for a year, and in Naples (rough place) for a year, and traveled for work to places in the central and southern part of the country not typically visited by tourists. There could be tension between the American expectations of how I would represent my country (e.g., what some Americans call our "work ethic" but which I prefer to call our "look busy ethic") and the Italians' expectations of the way I would enjoy and appreciate their approach to life and work. I chose the Italian way every chance I got (and enjoyed driving a few Americans crazy in the process.)
4
I'd live anywhere in Europe even in Italy with their economic problems, if I were able, just because of their humane view of healthcare. Our economy isn't exactly so great either.
8
Visiting Italy is wonderful, no doubt. Living there, however, I felt a sort of melancholy air. So much of the country is sustained by tourism. For example, my Italian teacher had an advanced degree in Biology yet she was teaching Americans "Come si chiama?" day in and out. It was a little sad to see to see the waste of talent.
There is hope though. Italian design, craftsmanship (and less well known:engineering talent) are unique assets. More to the point, in the global economy, it's really all they got.
Per government or capitalist efficiency, I don't think it's a zero sum game in every case. Cities like Munich (or for that matter, Bologna) have great quality of life but are well run and prosperous. Sure, you never get something for nothing but it's a little more complicated than some half-spun metaphor about lemon groves vs straight roads.
There is hope though. Italian design, craftsmanship (and less well known:engineering talent) are unique assets. More to the point, in the global economy, it's really all they got.
Per government or capitalist efficiency, I don't think it's a zero sum game in every case. Cities like Munich (or for that matter, Bologna) have great quality of life but are well run and prosperous. Sure, you never get something for nothing but it's a little more complicated than some half-spun metaphor about lemon groves vs straight roads.
7
If I didn't know any better i'd swear Roger Cohen was enjoying his own "Eat, Pray, Love" adventure in Milan. Best of all, the Times is footing the bill for this puff piece. Sweet!!!
4
Mr. Cohen is touching on the push and pull of the global, American-style capitalism and its unwanted effects on places like Italy (and France) where they still believe that the quality of life is something lived, not bought. I had the good fortune of living in Italy twice for two years each time (during the 80's and the 00's) and one thing in particular stood out: most people did not care what you did for a living. Taxi drivers and doctors were good friends with waiters and geologists and school teachers. They were interested in your conversation and your sense of humor. Their politics is crazy but they don't act like obsessive-compulsive crazy people when they engage the subject. We sometimes went to restaurants but mostly we made dinner at each other's apartments, yes, small apartments. Nobody cared. And some actually brought musical instruments to play. I could go on. I hope global capitalism succeeds but only partly. I hope we find a happy middle of the road approach to all the supposed prosperity it is bringing. Maybe we should - distribute - the excess to the billion poor and live better balanced lives in the First World. And, by the way, there is a straight road for miles and miles in Italy on the Autostrada south of Bologna. I got the car up to 240 kilometers per hour on it. Rabbit is delicious, a white meat you can slow-cook and still it remains moist. In the 80s, the first thing the Italian children asked about when I said I was American was NASA.
5
My experience with Italy is that it has the best food and the best art in Europe. But it has the most obnoxious men and standoffish women. I go back for the art.
3
The Italian journalist Luigi Barzini wrote that, back in the USSR they used to say, "Come the revolution, and the whole world is communist, we will leave Italy the way it is so we can go somewhere on vacation and relax!"
5
The rabbit "beaten"? Or did you mean that the rabbit wouldn't easily be beat?
Struck, or excelled?
Struck, or excelled?
2
On a deeper philosophical-intellectual contemplative level the metaphor of Curves employed to capture the ethos of Italian life appears quite appropriate, so is perhaps the Italian choice of cherry-picked modernity; for, neither the human life, nor human evolutionary trajectory seems to have followed the linear pattern, rather life has always been a complex phenomenon like a zig-zag puzzle. As for the state directed efforts at forcing political stability through official-legal diktats, it goes against the very spirit of liberal democracy that treats popular consent as the prime consideration in governance.
I love Italy, I love the Italians I know, but Italy is in terrible economic straits no matter the superficial romance. Italy has lost 16 years worth of per capita growth since 2007.
10
I fondly remember the FDS strike bulletins listed in the papers years ago. The "Settebello" between Roma and Milano would stop for 15 minutes while the
engine crew walked off. The fact that I was having a wonderful lunch in the
restaurant car made the 15 minute stop inconsequential. I've never forgotten
it and nor should we.
In an ear of misplaced priorities, intolerance and too shrill politics, I stand
with you Italy, the last bastion of civilization.
engine crew walked off. The fact that I was having a wonderful lunch in the
restaurant car made the 15 minute stop inconsequential. I've never forgotten
it and nor should we.
In an ear of misplaced priorities, intolerance and too shrill politics, I stand
with you Italy, the last bastion of civilization.
14
We tried to return a rental car mid-week, mid-day at Linate and the only gas station near the airport was closed for two hours for lunch. Other than that, everything was great!
6
And we tried to return a rental car in Messina, Sicily, and it too was closed for, I believe, three hours for lunch. But I too love Italy. People have only been kind and have gone out of their way for us.
My memories of Italy and curves involve driving the Amalfi Coast in a Fiat, at speed with a stick. There wasn't anything about the reduction of human interaction to the transactional minimum. At the time, there were no guardrails, and it was a 1.5-lane road serving both directions (up the mountain and down). If you made a mistake, you got to enjoy the spectacular view as your car fell hundreds of feet down to the rocks and water.
It was a competitive drive. You’d be heading for the next switchback and around it would come some Italian in an expensive sports car gathering speed out of his own turn, daring you to get past him going the other way. I’d smile (even then I’d been a New York City driver for decades), our opposing side-mirrors would demolish one another and all I’d hear as I motored away was entertaining, screeched invective – because mine was a rented car with accident insurance and he had to pay for his own repairs.
Everyone talks about Italian drivers. I suspect that Italians talk about New York drivers.
My wife, a Jewish girl, spent the whole ride praying to the Virgin that we’d get to Positano in one piece.
It may have been my best vacation. There’s a lot about Italy to love.
It was a competitive drive. You’d be heading for the next switchback and around it would come some Italian in an expensive sports car gathering speed out of his own turn, daring you to get past him going the other way. I’d smile (even then I’d been a New York City driver for decades), our opposing side-mirrors would demolish one another and all I’d hear as I motored away was entertaining, screeched invective – because mine was a rented car with accident insurance and he had to pay for his own repairs.
Everyone talks about Italian drivers. I suspect that Italians talk about New York drivers.
My wife, a Jewish girl, spent the whole ride praying to the Virgin that we’d get to Positano in one piece.
It may have been my best vacation. There’s a lot about Italy to love.
30
O how true, how true! That Amalfi Coast guardrail-less road! I did it on a Lambretta scooter in 1958 and my friend, riding on the seat behind me, scraped his shoe on the upper cliffside constantly as I tried to keep from careering off the road whenever an unexpected car came around the curve. Worth all the frights, though; spectacular.
1
I visit Northern Italy often, and highly recommend two delightful books to help make sense of the bizarre contradictions that make up Italy.
"Italian Neighbors"
"Italian Ways: On and Off the Rails from Milan to Palermo."
"Italian Neighbors"
"Italian Ways: On and Off the Rails from Milan to Palermo."
3
I love Tim Parks' books too. Have you read the one about soccer?
Great tales of a great land. In 1973, I walked (hitch-hiked but few rides) from Palermo, Sicily, to Naples to Bari to Brindisi, then boat to Greece. Spent about $1. per day for food, ate like a king for 10 days. No rabbit in Italy but ate plenty upstate NY. Second only to squirrel for great taste!
2
In Italy every year for the last 50, I enjoy the food and other things that work--like the high speed trains where the Italians have managed to take out the curves. I get along with what doesn't work.
But why is this writer and the NYTimes more generally obsessed with food? Because its basic audience is limousine liberals who should care more about the 47% who can neither afford to go to Italy or eat rabbit which is priced like a luxury good in the US.
BTW, It is I-5 not 101 that has no curves.
This piece is totally superficial journalism.
But why is this writer and the NYTimes more generally obsessed with food? Because its basic audience is limousine liberals who should care more about the 47% who can neither afford to go to Italy or eat rabbit which is priced like a luxury good in the US.
BTW, It is I-5 not 101 that has no curves.
This piece is totally superficial journalism.
11
Thank goodness that we have your profound thoughts and impeccable writing to straighten us out.
1
Instead of going to Italy every year you should consider a philanthropic donation.
1
Thal, you must be really fun to travel with.
1
More articles about Italy please. Focus on Italian food first, then work your way down.
16
The story reminds me of my own years in Italy in the late 70's and early 80's. Time was something we never worried about, but people were always important. I have never felt more alive than sitting at the cafe in Piazza Nettuno in Bologna and reading the Corriere della Sera on Sunday morning with an espresso and "una pasta". We could learn a lot from Italy and I never hesitate to head back when I have the chance. Buona Fortuna!
27
We spent a couple of days in Italy last summer as we were vacationing in Switzerland. Wow, what a difference! We took the train from Zurich to Tirano, Sondrio and then Chiavenna. Some place in between the train stopped in an apple orchard and we sat there for about an hour, when the conductor finally showed up, we asked him what was going on and he said "accident". We wanted to know more about it and he just shrug his shoulders. We asked him when we were taking off again, he shrug his shoulders. I warned my bro-in law that we possibly could see the apples ripen. But an hour and one half later the train took off. Back in Switzerland again, man you ran from train to train, because when they say the train departs at 18:21, they meant 18:21. I myself had no problem with the delay in Italy and not knowing , as I know Italians, but my MN daughter she told me that she will never return to Italy again.... dirty, untimely and no toilet papers. What a difference though between the neighboring countries.
8
I would much prefer a delay in an apple orchard (they would not let you off the train to pick/steal some apples?) than have no toliet paper!!! And also have everything else Italy has to offer..
The occasional comparison with Germany brings to mind a quip I read in die Zeit or somewhere, well before the advent of the Euro:
The Germans love the Italians, but they don't respect them.
The Italians respect the Germans, but they don't love them.
The Germans love the Italians, but they don't respect them.
The Italians respect the Germans, but they don't love them.
18
Also this: In Germany everything is forbidden, even that which is permitted. In Italy everything is permitted, and especially that which is forbidden.
2
Roger, I understand what you were intending to say about the sauce by calling it "unctuous" but that word definitely insults the lovely sauce. Neither the meaning of the word as it relates to human behaviors ("artificial, counterfeit, double-dealing, fake, feigned, pretended, etc etc") nor the meaning of the word as it applies to physical properties ( "fatty, oily, smooth and greasy in texture or appearance") would seem to compliment what sounds utterly delicious.
19
And the prosciutto was razor thin -- not wafer thin.
I think he meant to say velvety, as in veloute. You are so right about the ugly word unctuous. No satin doll there.
He meant sumptious! Giv'em a break!
Although my affection for France will not allow me to agree that "the French are really Italians in a bad mood", it is certainly the place I would most want to live if I had to leave "Douce France." Both countries share a love of beauty for beauty's sake, appreciation of fine food and wine, lively conversation, music, family, and all the other things that make the inefficiencies quite bearable. I could sit in an Italian cafe with an Aperol spritz and watch and listen to Italians young and old madly talking and gesticulating and never be bored. I don't know about London, but when you're tired of Italy you are definitely tired of life.
12
Another romantic/touristic view by a journalist that is not speaking to real Italy. Yes the country does not change and it si not funny. As Renzi that si the 2.0 version of the old system: fake change to avoir any real change. It si an old .
6
Last night I watched a cute movie called "Italy: love it or leave it" (free on Hulu) about a young gay couple from Rome grappling with the idea of leaving for Berlin. So they decide to take a 6 month tour of Italy in a Fiat 500 to debate the question. Filmed during the heyday of Berlusconi's bunga-bunga, it focuses a bit obsessively on the well known maladies - 29% youth unemployment, low wage jobs even in the north, immigrants from North Africa, piles of garbage in Campania (refuse Mr. Cohen, not waste), corruption and crime in Sicily. Anyway the couple decide not to leave, though it wasn't obvious why from the short shrift given to the benefits of Italian life. One pithy observation: Italy is a country where you find staggering beauty just 500 meters from appalling squalor. It's difficult for those who view Italy from the outside to understand this ambivalence. but its also reassuring (for expatriate like me) that it will never change.
5
Lemons ripening in one's garden... Evokes the lemon cake gelato and best peach I ever had, in the Amalfi coast. Thanks for that journey, Mr. Cohen.
9
America has plenty of wondrous curves! Social and cultural and intellectual nuances and wondrous gracious living galore.
Pastoral and elegant and dynamic living (take your pick). Rewarding and vitalizing and renumerative labor and children beaming with hope and potential.
Justice and comfort and security and gaiety coexist in a Democratic Paradise!
You want fresh Salmon and rabbit and fresh Lemons it's all at Whole Foods and much more.
The best healthcare in the world and the most and latest toys and entertainment-delivered overnight.
You just need a lot of money!
Pastoral and elegant and dynamic living (take your pick). Rewarding and vitalizing and renumerative labor and children beaming with hope and potential.
Justice and comfort and security and gaiety coexist in a Democratic Paradise!
You want fresh Salmon and rabbit and fresh Lemons it's all at Whole Foods and much more.
The best healthcare in the world and the most and latest toys and entertainment-delivered overnight.
You just need a lot of money!
4
But you need even more money in Italy to enjoy all that.
Italy is beautiful, particularly if you are a tourist and don't have to live there.
The food, well, it use to be good all over, now you are lucky to find a good, affordable restaurant, unless it's home cooked.
If you live there, and have to get something done, forget it!
Italy is beautiful, particularly if you are a tourist and don't have to live there.
The food, well, it use to be good all over, now you are lucky to find a good, affordable restaurant, unless it's home cooked.
If you live there, and have to get something done, forget it!
"The state is still weak in Italy. But community — family, friends, city, region — is often powerful." Is the US becoming Italy, as the Conservatives relentlessly try to weaken the US federal government? In Texas they are even trying to weaken city and community power (to regulate fracking locally), along with federal power, so that the only things left are family, friends and the state of Texas. Instead of becoming California-ized, we are becoming Italy-ized.
2
And what is wrong with family, friends and the State of Texas?
Ah, this is a sweet, sentimental view from Santa Margherita, an idyllic town just down the road from ritzy Porto Fino, but, in truth, there are many Italys, not just one, and therein lies the problem. There is the Italy of gotcha justice, where rapacious civil servants descend upon hapless small business owners unannounced, demanding to see the accounts, which, if they are not current and up to date, will warrant a stiff fine. There is the Italy of the shadowy Commora, causing vast environmental damage with clandestine toxic waste dumps in the farm land around Naples. There is the Italy of restricted traffic zones, where automatic cameras will catch the unsuspecting motorist in the wrong place or at the wrong time of day, resulting in a totally unexpected letter demanding payment of hundreds of Euros in fines, which are exploited as municipal revenue sources in many urban areas. Finally, there is the Italy of superb designers artists and craft workers, and yet few job prospects for young Italians, who face a daunting future in a stagnant economy.
30
How "nice" to know the U.S. is not the only country that fills its municipal coffers by imposing exorbitant fines for minor parking or driving infractions.
1
It's CAMORRA, not "commorra".....
1
Yes, that is true. But I still love my Italia, despite its problems.
1
This article capture the essence of what is good about Italy and why I love my country - unfortunately the Amanda Knox story that Anne points out here, is the other side of the game, the opaque, corrupt, incompetent - but of this you find plenty everywhere else as well
1
Sad truth is that Italians live better than we do here in the states. Italians have learned how to enjoy life. Italians don't worry about getting old and paying health costs. Italians children don't pay for college. Italians live better than us any day of the week.
16
Until they need to get a job. Then they have to leave Italy.
There are tons of young Italians here, not because they want to be here necessarily, but because they need to be somewhere that has available work. I don't mind, I enjoy Italian food!
There are tons of young Italians here, not because they want to be here necessarily, but because they need to be somewhere that has available work. I don't mind, I enjoy Italian food!
I loved your essay, Roger. Like you, I lived in Italy (Milan) for 10 years in the 70s, returning at the end of '79. It doesn't sound like much has changed in terms of the efficiency and the need to adapt on a continuous basis.
But of all your descriptions, these lines resonated most for me: "People return to Italy for its beauty, of course, but also for a refuge from relentlessness. Conversations veer here and there in the elasticity of Italian time, loosened from the constraints of time as a metric of productivity."
No other country quite compares in the citizens' ability to make time elastic even in the center of chaos. The word "leisurely" doesn't quite cut it when describing the pace or the attitude. I think other words are far more effective: carefree, insouciant, or maybe just relaxed. Because Italians really do know how defuse the tension out of just about any situation they encounter. Maybe it's because survival by wits is such a part of their demographic DNA.
My other thought is your use of "refuge from relentlessness." I spent time in Paris 2 years ago, and I would be hard pressed to call French city life anything but relentless. Likewise NYC and even Boston.
If anyone doubts the truth of which Roger speaks, I urge you to read a wonderful novel about Italy written in the late 60s: "The Secret of Santa Vittoria." It will open your eyes to an Italy that on the surface is humorous but deep down, is as enduring as their monuments.
But of all your descriptions, these lines resonated most for me: "People return to Italy for its beauty, of course, but also for a refuge from relentlessness. Conversations veer here and there in the elasticity of Italian time, loosened from the constraints of time as a metric of productivity."
No other country quite compares in the citizens' ability to make time elastic even in the center of chaos. The word "leisurely" doesn't quite cut it when describing the pace or the attitude. I think other words are far more effective: carefree, insouciant, or maybe just relaxed. Because Italians really do know how defuse the tension out of just about any situation they encounter. Maybe it's because survival by wits is such a part of their demographic DNA.
My other thought is your use of "refuge from relentlessness." I spent time in Paris 2 years ago, and I would be hard pressed to call French city life anything but relentless. Likewise NYC and even Boston.
If anyone doubts the truth of which Roger speaks, I urge you to read a wonderful novel about Italy written in the late 60s: "The Secret of Santa Vittoria." It will open your eyes to an Italy that on the surface is humorous but deep down, is as enduring as their monuments.
11
My experience in Italy is yes, the people there can be so generous as to bring tears of joy and gratitude to this tourist's eyes. And the beauty! But then "menefreghismo," or "don't give a damn" will bedevil the visitor (and the Italian) again and again. Examples from the medical system: A private doctor will pay a house call and charge virtually nothing. Wow! He will refer you to an x-ray clinic at the local hospital and assures you they will give you an x-ray immediately as you are leaving town that day. At the hospital the clinician gruffly informs you that the clinic is open only on Tuesdays. He tells you this while sitting down drinking coffee and smoking in the x-ray room with several of his colleagues in the middle of the afternoon. That same hospital is sometimes unable to tell you where your doctor is, the doctor with whom you had an appointment you just drove 20 miles to meet. My wife had emergency surgery in Florence. The surgeons were great; the nurses could care less. One nurse once gave my wife the finger for reasons known only to the Italian.
One comment described Italy as "a very elegant third world country." That would seem to fit.
One comment described Italy as "a very elegant third world country." That would seem to fit.
15
Nonsense. Italy has one of the best healthcare systems in the world, much superior in total to that in the USA, which is by the way band by a long shot, is the worst performing in the world. Performance measured as results to cost. Results, as measured by key health statistics in the USA are mediocre and below all of the major wealthy industrialized countries. The cost of health care provision and financing makes the USA a significant outlier with respect to all countries in the world. Interestingly the USA's health statistics are about equal to those in Cuba where healthcare spending per capita is 1/20 of that in the USA.
The ignorance and arrogance implicit in the comment that Italy is a "very elegant third world country" boggles the mind. Italy is an advanced industrialized country with businesses of all sizes competitive with the best anywhere in the world.
How well does PJ speak Italian by the way? Does PJ know anything about Italian history, literature or music or how education is organized and conducted?
The Italian peninsula and islands have been occupied by various civilizations and ethnic groups since the appearance of Cro-Magnon humankind for 40,000 years or more. Italy is the location of the greatest society/government of the ancient world. the Roman Empire. Most of the positive features of the "modern world" scientifically, technologically, artistically, culturally have their origin in the Italian renaissance. One could go on and on.
The ignorance and arrogance implicit in the comment that Italy is a "very elegant third world country" boggles the mind. Italy is an advanced industrialized country with businesses of all sizes competitive with the best anywhere in the world.
How well does PJ speak Italian by the way? Does PJ know anything about Italian history, literature or music or how education is organized and conducted?
The Italian peninsula and islands have been occupied by various civilizations and ethnic groups since the appearance of Cro-Magnon humankind for 40,000 years or more. Italy is the location of the greatest society/government of the ancient world. the Roman Empire. Most of the positive features of the "modern world" scientifically, technologically, artistically, culturally have their origin in the Italian renaissance. One could go on and on.
2
Experiences vary. My wife and I have used the emergency room at Italian hospitals twice, and on each occasion we saw a specialist -- not an intern or a resident -- within half an hour. The cost in each case was about 40 euros, which our insurance covered. As to that nurse, she may have had her reasons.
1
Funny that I associate building roads that run dead-straight with the Romans.
13
You know too much for this crowd.
2
An "unctuous" sauce? Really?
1
Life in Brazil and Colombia, two places I know well, also resembles this Italian model of "Cherry Picked" modernity.
3
I am sure there are many Italians who would be impressed with the speed and convenience at which Americans do everything, they may even wish for it themselves, at times. At some point years ago, Americans decided that faster and bigger is better. However, take a step back. Think about this truth:
"Something in it recognizes the human need for community and what a couple of sentences to a stranger can do."
As a student in my 30's in Florence in 1997, it was the welcome I received from the produce vendor, the dry cleaner, the whole community that made me feel as if they had been just waiting for me to get there. My heart longs to be back on most days. Not because it's easy or convenient or efficient. But because all of those couple of sentences from strangers I received added up to a life-long understanding of what's really important - the time we spend together, the meals we share and the importance of quality over quantity.
"Something in it recognizes the human need for community and what a couple of sentences to a stranger can do."
As a student in my 30's in Florence in 1997, it was the welcome I received from the produce vendor, the dry cleaner, the whole community that made me feel as if they had been just waiting for me to get there. My heart longs to be back on most days. Not because it's easy or convenient or efficient. But because all of those couple of sentences from strangers I received added up to a life-long understanding of what's really important - the time we spend together, the meals we share and the importance of quality over quantity.
5
Having just returned from my 13th trip to Rome, I have to agree that Italy has much to teach us about community. This was my first solo trip, and I was treated kindly by everyone I met and had not one mishap until I arrived at Dulles International Airport on my return. Talk about difficult! The security line was needless and endless, as five international flights had arrived at the same time. The TSA workers sat around chatting with only three of six lines open while most of us missed our connections. I'll take Italy's disorganization, and its pasta, vegetables, cheeses and rabbit, any day.
4
A curve is worth a thousand straight lines. True, a lot is left to be desired. But they are not insurmountable. Hopefully, it won't be at the expense of their sense community and humanity. I have a simple advice to people visiting and griping. DON'T GO THERE! Stick to you own fluorescent, efficient, manic sterility. We have earned the title of the Ugly American. Instead of taking in the ambiance, beauty and uniqueness we complain. Why do we have to change their way of living? But that is us being us. We go out into the rest of the world to change their way of life instead of us changing to be like them for a few days. As they say, " When in Rome be like the Romans. " In this case that is literally!
1
Ah your commentary flows like poetry. Like my times in Italy, the route was unexpectedly beautiful. I am not Italian but I grew up in an Italian town in Pennsylvania. Speaking of hills and curves....and relentlessness. No straight lines in Pennsylvania....really, none. Perhaps when one is overcome with straight line relentlessness, one should return to the lovely curviness of one's childhood, or take a trip to Italy itself. But of course if you need order....
Lincoln
Lincoln
Sometimes with Cohen I feel like I am not getting any particularly valuable editorial but more postcards and diary entries of a superficial sort, corresponding to a weathy man's lifestyle of travel in comfort.
6
On Saturday my husband I got back from a vacation bicycling around Sicily, and this article totally resonated with our experience. We live in rural Iowa, and with the exception of our wonderful organic farming next-door neighbor, most of the farmers surrounding us own hundreds, if not thousands, of acres commercially farmed with huge tractors and lots of chemicals. In Sicily we rode our bikes past dozens of small organic farms, lovingly hand-tended by individual farmers - not for the purpose of mass producing, but for the purpose of producing something great. And it was great. So great. After several (almost exclusively wonderful and reasonably priced) interactions with food and hotel/B.B. vendors I said to my husband, "I hope these folks actually made some money off of us." He said, "Rachel, I don't think that's the point here." And he was totally right. La dolce vita, indeed.
12
Rachel: hear hear! thank you! my experiences totally and I have been living near Rome for 36 yrs...
I lived in Sicilia for a summer...a small home that was about an eight iron from the Mediterranean Sea.
A life of pure simplicity. We slept on the roof..coolest place in the summer. Awoke to the smell of fresh bread. The oldest brother Giovanni went out to shop...no "supermarkets" just small shops for meat, cheeses, pastry shops...lots of pastry shops. The second brother Paulo would hoist an outboard motor over his shoulder and head out at 0400 to go down to the brightly colored wooden boats and go fishing. I was chosen to go buy fish from these fishermen every morning. Giorno! Giorno Don Geveese!
I learned to speak the dialect or sometimes would just speak French to communicate.
Every day the same food--cold cuts (mortadelli, dry sausage etc) fresh bread, home made olive oil for lunch...fish with incredible sauces and pasta for dinner. They had groves of olive trees, lemon trees (yes they were HUGE), Cactus pears, grape vines. Everyone made their own wine. Olive oil? You need a big powerful press to crush the olives to yield oil...so there was one in the town square for everyone to use.
Nights everyone would come out in their best clothes and we strolled along the lungo mari. (Seaside wooden planks). The only "bar" was an ice cream bar in the center of the villa.
Each evening we would climb up the mountain near Mt Etna to irrigate the trees. Well "strolled" is a better term. Slow moving. The same every day. I've never felt such wonderful peace.
A life of pure simplicity. We slept on the roof..coolest place in the summer. Awoke to the smell of fresh bread. The oldest brother Giovanni went out to shop...no "supermarkets" just small shops for meat, cheeses, pastry shops...lots of pastry shops. The second brother Paulo would hoist an outboard motor over his shoulder and head out at 0400 to go down to the brightly colored wooden boats and go fishing. I was chosen to go buy fish from these fishermen every morning. Giorno! Giorno Don Geveese!
I learned to speak the dialect or sometimes would just speak French to communicate.
Every day the same food--cold cuts (mortadelli, dry sausage etc) fresh bread, home made olive oil for lunch...fish with incredible sauces and pasta for dinner. They had groves of olive trees, lemon trees (yes they were HUGE), Cactus pears, grape vines. Everyone made their own wine. Olive oil? You need a big powerful press to crush the olives to yield oil...so there was one in the town square for everyone to use.
Nights everyone would come out in their best clothes and we strolled along the lungo mari. (Seaside wooden planks). The only "bar" was an ice cream bar in the center of the villa.
Each evening we would climb up the mountain near Mt Etna to irrigate the trees. Well "strolled" is a better term. Slow moving. The same every day. I've never felt such wonderful peace.
12
Love this. My husband and I just got back from Sicily this weekend, and we had a similarly lovely experience. Glad you have such wonderful memories!
1
When I went to Macerata (my mother's birthplace) one summer, I found an art supply shop at the end of the main avenue there and the manager lady (who was probably a second cousin) had Missy Elliott on, singing "Ya gotta work it, cause you're worth, ya gotta ding, dong, dang it, and reverse it". She was dancing at the counter all by herself. So we danced together for the whole song, then I bought about 20 tubes of paint and went out and made some gorgeous landscapes.
Tu capisci? Italians are C-O-O-L!
Forza Italia. (Specialmente Le Marche. Ciao!)
Tu capisci? Italians are C-O-O-L!
Forza Italia. (Specialmente Le Marche. Ciao!)
6
I am sure you have driven cars on our roads. What about the speed, or how we tag you so closely in the back, or how on the curves we come like bats out of hell half way into your lane? Besides the Ferrari we love, an iconic movie that we all loved back in the early sixties was "Il sorpasso"' a sort of a on the road Italian style, but enough.
Saluti
Saluti
1
Italy has the problems with inefficiency mentioned in this article for one reason. Unions. 50 years of union strikes and threats of strikes have cumulatively created a paralyzing rope around Italy's neck. That's the reason banks can be closed for three hours at lunch. That's the reason Italian companies and industries have moved abroad or closed down. I know the nytimes readers won't like to hear it but I assume you also like to hear the truth and thats the truth.
5
You miss the point. The inefficiency is acknowledged. The more spacious lifestyle might be well worth it. (Would be for me.)
Banks do not close here for three hours at lunch!! My bank, Intesa San Paolo, is closed for one hour and forty five minutes...if you think about it, it is very efficient, the clients know when it is closed and everyone has lunch at the same time...
You think Italy is maddening! Try buying less than $12 worth of subway fares with a $20 bill (the most common paper denomination in America) at a machine in the NY subway. Will not give more than $8 change! I lived in NY for 27 years. Believe me, Italy is nothing compared to NY. It takes true endurance to live in the city. Italy is maddening to Americans mostly because they don't speak the language and don't understanding what's going on. Why is the museum closed today? The schedule says it should be open. How can the (you choose the profession) go on strike for just one day? And why today? Get used to it, folks. You're not in Kansas anymore!
3
Eat as you wish, I would never ever consider eating a rabbit and that is no prejudice just a fondness for rabbits.
7
I love chickens and lambs, too, but I eat them all the same. Bawk-bawk-bawk.
great article thank you for allowing us to mentally escape for a few moments this capitalistic prison we have built for ourselves - slaves to our work, slaves to our money - thank god there are countries more advanced than ours such as Italy that have been there before, hundreds of years ago and realize that maximum productivity is not the answer to a happy life.
55
Speak for yourself re: slavery. I recently retired from a wonderful career that was mentally fascinating, challenging and always changing. I live in a medium sized city surrounded by nature and nice people. I'm not enslaved to money. I have enough to live on and a bit left over to save. Try it sometime. Life is short.
I think I've had rabbit twice in my life, in France and in Florida after my father shot three bunnies that invaded his pole beans. The French lapin appeared as an array of medallions, artfully displayed on a large plate like the hours on a clock around a small pile of decorative greens. I fricasseed the Florida bunnies according to my mother's direction. Both were delicious.
6
Community, the life giving solvent to living, calmer, healthier and longer. Lots of good research on those attributes but also much by Putnam showing the lessening of commuity and the pulling apart of social ties that once lessened the social distance between top and bottom. Still if one reaches out, tries on the good morning, the how are you, the have a good day, life offers rewards to the listener as well as the speaker. make it a great day.
6
Why is affection for rabbits misplaced? I aver sir, that it is not.
10
Not misplaced, just childish.
Well "JimBob", given what a mess adults have made of the world, I consider "childish" a compliment.
My father-in-law lives in Italy.
Firstly, the "government" in Italy is quite powerful, at least not when it comes to what amounts to federal government, but to the lower levels. Cohen probably doesn't realize, but in Italy you can easily live in government-owned housing, work in government-regulated position, attend government-owned church and be buried in government-owned cemetery.
Secondly, a lot of the "difficult" part of Italy doesn't come as much from the federal government (this is why Renzi's attempts of reforms are a bit over-rated) as much as it does from lower levels. You need a permit on top of driver permit to drive a truck. You need a permit on top of permit on top of permit to own one. You need to record each and every transaction, because people can easily backtrack on a law or on an agreement. You need to really dig deep into laws - Italy, afterall, is a place where a 100 speed limit can be followed by 60 followed by 90 and you don't know what it means, but you may guess there's a camera nearby.
Finally, Italy has a nice rent-cutting lobby set in, which is widely tolerated, in part, because tourists, that are routinely seen as milking cow, suffer from it the most. People don't question restrictive regulations and zoning that eliminate competition because they don't see themselves on a receiving end of it.
Firstly, the "government" in Italy is quite powerful, at least not when it comes to what amounts to federal government, but to the lower levels. Cohen probably doesn't realize, but in Italy you can easily live in government-owned housing, work in government-regulated position, attend government-owned church and be buried in government-owned cemetery.
Secondly, a lot of the "difficult" part of Italy doesn't come as much from the federal government (this is why Renzi's attempts of reforms are a bit over-rated) as much as it does from lower levels. You need a permit on top of driver permit to drive a truck. You need a permit on top of permit on top of permit to own one. You need to record each and every transaction, because people can easily backtrack on a law or on an agreement. You need to really dig deep into laws - Italy, afterall, is a place where a 100 speed limit can be followed by 60 followed by 90 and you don't know what it means, but you may guess there's a camera nearby.
Finally, Italy has a nice rent-cutting lobby set in, which is widely tolerated, in part, because tourists, that are routinely seen as milking cow, suffer from it the most. People don't question restrictive regulations and zoning that eliminate competition because they don't see themselves on a receiving end of it.
7
The central paragraph on Italy and modernity is one of the best I've read in these pages.
11
I remember feeling all of these emotions as well when I visited Italy. The simple pleasure of being able to sit in a restaurant or cafe for hours without the check being brought as soon you placed the last spoonful of food in your mouth, the friendly smiles and knowing nods from strangers, the freshness and amazing taste of the food, the abundant free flowing wine. Then there was also the 2 hours it took us to find our rental car in Rome, the inn owner who gave away our much in advance booked room to backpackers in the Amalfi Coast and offered us his "office" to sleep in, the hesitancy about our safety we felt at visiting Naples. Italy is definitely a package with sweet and bitter cookies, like all things in life.
57
"combating waste (Italy has much to do)". Really, compared to waste in the USA? A good idea of waste is the per/ca[ita energy consumption ....
Another interesting observation is the amount of paper or foam plates/cups/ et.c. used in all chains and cafeterias in the USA. I suspect that with all its waste, Italy produces but a small fraction/capita than the US does. Anybody care to way in?
Another interesting observation is the amount of paper or foam plates/cups/ et.c. used in all chains and cafeterias in the USA. I suspect that with all its waste, Italy produces but a small fraction/capita than the US does. Anybody care to way in?
33
Mark Yes, I will weigh in. You are probably right that Italians generate less waste per capita than we do. But their problem is that they have no place to dispose of what they do generate in their more densely populated country (519 per sq mi vs 85 per sq mi in the US), and many of their solid waste "disposal" companies have been taken over by corrupt mafia run operations. These stories were in the news a few years ago, so you can read up on it. We have wide open spaces were we can still build landfills more cheaply. Of course, this cost does not take in to the long term costs of all the environmental damage from the production of the material goods, and the potential damage to groundwater that may result even from modern, lined landfills. Italy has fewer options, and thus a much more difficult problem in getting rid of their lesser per capita volume of waste.
Mark, I will way in...those foam plates and cups have been prohibited in Italy for years, at least ten, supermarket bags are made from corn, so recyclable....some bottled waters come in easily biodegradable materials...in addition Round Up, the pesticide made by Monsanto is prohibited as are all GMO's....I live in a small town a little north of Rome and the garbage people come 6 days a week for the recycling, everyday something a bit different and without fail they will collect...
The problem is that Italy's beauty is inseparable from its inefficiency and the likelihood of electoral changes correcting things is slim indeed
19
The readers' comments section, as always, contains many thoughtful and worthwhile ideas. There are 72 posts at this point. Why is this concise bundle of negativism the only one of the 72 which the NY Times deems worthy of being a "pick"?
Is "beauty...inseparable from its inefficiency" worse than "ugliness...inseparable from inefficiency"? One can find plenty of the latter.
I disagree. A lot of the inefficiencies stem from Italians identifying so strongly with their own regions, and not as Italians. Certain municipalities function fairly well, while others flounder. This identification with a region exists in other Eutopean countries and even in the U.S. But Italy still operates as a loose arrangement of city states and trying to get these regions to compromise for the benefit of all Italians will not, I believe, rid Italians of their profound understanding of what makes us human.
Italians are honest, caring people. They love deep, work hard, and stand together. Italy will survive, I'm not so sure about us.
23
You can't be serious.
1
As you so eloquently point out, Italy has a rich culinary history, as well as a "can-do" spirit, determined to protect their cities and keep their culture and society intact.
All the more reason why Italy (and France) can not ,and should not, take on the burden of countless illegal immigrants arriving on their shores.
All the more reason why Italy (and France) can not ,and should not, take on the burden of countless illegal immigrants arriving on their shores.
26
There are 1.4 births per Italian woman. Italy will depopulate without immigrants ... and there will be few to produce all that food for the rapidly aging population.
Lola...your remarks are racist....Italy has been shouldering the burden of the rescue of thousands of immigrants taking off from Northern Africa who are just escaping war and poverty and just want a better life...
Sweet memories; having lived in NW Italy for six months, hosted four Italian exchange students and Italian friends/family four times, found family in southern Italy through the extreme generosity of a complete stranger, and returned five times, I can't wait to return again. But........most of the frustration expressed is genuine. I don't know if it's published in English, but Beppe Severgnini's "Un Italiano in America" about the comparative cultures and efficiencies is funny and classic
16
Severgnini is intelligent, prolific and often humorous, but he also has a specific personal perspective on matters, so much of what he writes, albeit generally good, has to be taken with a grain of salt.
Perhaps some of this seeming disarray can be traced to the fact that it is the seat of one of the most powerful religious organizations in the world which exerts powerful influence over all things. Look how slow change comes to that institution and one might see the model for confusion and lack of change. Any organization that has no place of power for over 5l% of the world's population is bound to be backward no matter how "nice" the current leader is.
2
The Vatican does not run Italy. Despite it's location within Italy, many Italians take their religion with a grain of salt, like most Europeans.
1
Yes, but that powerful religious organization at least recognizes that humans are changing the climate of their home planet, unlike some Senators from some states.
Pure bigotry. Get over it, and have a nice life.
Speaking of straight lines, I find Roger Cohen's spot one of the few in the Times where the topic usually contains curves which makes my reading more of an adventure.
6
Yes; I agree !! We visited Italy and remarked how wonderful it was that the nation valued 'leaving alone' certain things, like older buildings and streets, art work and galleries and not trying to convert everything into a profit making business.
13
I'm sure you're thinking of hiway 5 in California as 101 is only staight from Salinas to King city some 50 miles.
7
Or maybe US 99 - it is pretty straight in places, too.
Italy is a disaster of inefficiency.
In contrast, America has turned itself into an ultra-efficient, automated, soul-crushing chicken factory.
Life-expectancy in Italy is 83.1 years. Of the majors countries, only Japan is higher. America's is 79.8 years, between Costa Rica and Cuba.
Italy is a disaster of inefficiency.
In contrast, America has turned itself into an ultra-efficient, automated, soul-crushing chicken factory.
Life-expectancy in Italy is 83.1 years. Of the majors countries, only Japan is higher. America's is 79.8 years, between Costa Rica and Cuba.
Italy is a disaster of inefficiency.
46
If they do not have Fox News, then I could definitely live there!
18
I understand what Mr. Cohen means regarding human interaction. One's humanity is always recognized in even the most minor transactions. It is an ineffable cultural manifestation that one has to experience to understand. People relate to each other, even to tourists, with a warm intensity. Respond in kind and you will be loved. My German friend began snapping photos of me and a stranger I stopped to ask directions. Afterwards I asked why she thought it was worth recording. She said the human intensity with which the stranger looked into my face, and the spontaneous flow of changing expressions that ended in bright smiles and a an affectionate arm around my shoulders as I offered my "Grazie's." Inefficiency, yes--except for the marvelous fast trains, but perhaps living in a country rich in natural and man-made beauty lifts the soul. And, then there is the food.
39
Itallian life is not run by a series of mindless, heartless tweets, I hope that it always stays that way. There is nothing more graceful than a cure.
6
Italy is as it is because the Cosa Nostra still rules. Wonderful writing Mr Cohen.
6
Stereotypical, prejudicial, and inaccurate blanket statements like this are morally repugnant. Sir, you know not of what you speak. Better to remain silent than appear ignorant.
Not in Northern Italy. They're practically different countries, which makes sense if you realize that unification didn't happen until the 1860s. (We still tend to think North and South are practically different countries here in the US, too.)
As an Italian-American, it could be argued that I have a "natural" affinity for Italy, and while that's partly true, the affinity goes far beyond just genetics. The power of community described by Mr. Cohen and the relative freedom from time-pressure so evident in the US produces an atmosphere in Italian cities and towns that exudes warmth and welcoming. From personal experiences and those of friends, one witnesses the tendency of Italians to be helpful in stressful (such as medical-emergency) situations --- resident strangers taking a compassionate interest in the plight of visiting strangers. It's everything a democratic-socialist society should be, a model that's difficult to discover elsewhere. For Americans accustomed to a frenzied time-compressed capitalist culture, the mild shock followed by an instant sense of belonging becomes a balm of sorts that beckons revisits: it's not just the staggeringly wonderful frescoes and sculpture that draw us back.
58
As a self described world traveler, how is it that I have never been to Italy? Bahrain, Paraguay, Bhutan, yes. But not Italy. Maybe I am saving the best for last. Come to think of it, I've been to every state in the union but Louisiana. I guess I am also saving New Orleans for the right occasion.
4
Do it, Randy...Go now...but stay away from Expo...Go to Bologna and south...even to sicily..
As a kid I had trouble with the saying "it's a long road that has no turning." Around us, turnings were too common; it was a short road that had no turning.
It's a saying about change, of course, and about boredom too. Italy wasn't boring when I first visited. It had a coinage shortage and some of our small change in stores came in the form of candy. Hard to put candy in the coin slot at the rest room.
Still, the Pope is taking on the Vatican bank and the police are taking on the Mafia. That's good news. Will the Mafia allow stable government? Not if it threatens their status as major creditor to Italian business. Will the Bandiera Rossa triumph ever? Probably not, but it can enliven the dullness of stability. Will the Pope remain Catholic? Probably, but he won't remain pope forever.
It's a saying about change, of course, and about boredom too. Italy wasn't boring when I first visited. It had a coinage shortage and some of our small change in stores came in the form of candy. Hard to put candy in the coin slot at the rest room.
Still, the Pope is taking on the Vatican bank and the police are taking on the Mafia. That's good news. Will the Mafia allow stable government? Not if it threatens their status as major creditor to Italian business. Will the Bandiera Rossa triumph ever? Probably not, but it can enliven the dullness of stability. Will the Pope remain Catholic? Probably, but he won't remain pope forever.
1
I think you mean Interstate 5 in California, not the 101. The 5 runs down the Central Valley, perfect for long straightaways. The 101 runs along the coastal mountains, wonderfully curvy. There's still time to change the column before California wakes up!
1
For one used to the efficiencies of Northern Europe or the USA, living in Italy can be trying and infuriating: the rampant, overstaffed bureaucracy subject to random closings and capricious changes of rules, the failure of basic infrastructure (that ATM out of service!), the slower pace.
But the trade-off is wonderfully encapsulated here:
"Something in [Italy] has resisted the reduction of human interaction to the transactional minimum. Something in it has resisted the squeezing of the last cent of profit from every exchange. Something in it recognizes the human need for community and what a couple of sentences to a stranger can do. There are still innocent smiles in Italy, something you can only call humility. They don’t teach you that at marketing school."
It is a matter of priorities. For Italians, there is a lot more to life than grasping for every single buck one can reach for, regardless of the personal or societal cost; for Americans, money rules all. When I moved to North America I was stunned at the dreadful vacation arrangements I found prevalent: ten days of holiday in a YEAR. One person I knew, on getting a new job, had to work the first year without any vacation at all to "earn" her vacation days for the second year.
This, it seems to me, is outrageous. My European friends get 6 weeks holidays a year!
Surely a happy medium can be struck? Surely the choice isn't solely between ramshackle inefficiency and working ourselves into an early grave?
But the trade-off is wonderfully encapsulated here:
"Something in [Italy] has resisted the reduction of human interaction to the transactional minimum. Something in it has resisted the squeezing of the last cent of profit from every exchange. Something in it recognizes the human need for community and what a couple of sentences to a stranger can do. There are still innocent smiles in Italy, something you can only call humility. They don’t teach you that at marketing school."
It is a matter of priorities. For Italians, there is a lot more to life than grasping for every single buck one can reach for, regardless of the personal or societal cost; for Americans, money rules all. When I moved to North America I was stunned at the dreadful vacation arrangements I found prevalent: ten days of holiday in a YEAR. One person I knew, on getting a new job, had to work the first year without any vacation at all to "earn" her vacation days for the second year.
This, it seems to me, is outrageous. My European friends get 6 weeks holidays a year!
Surely a happy medium can be struck? Surely the choice isn't solely between ramshackle inefficiency and working ourselves into an early grave?
63
Another crisis that Italy must face is pollution caused by closed factories and inadequate water treatment plants
I was very surprised last year when visiting my birth city of L'Aquila (remember the earthquake of April 6,2009?) they told me that the river running through the beautiful valley was so polluted, water was not even fit for irrigation,mostly caused by a factory upstream,closed years ego.Talking to many friends and relatives they told me that this is very common now,especially in the south so you better watch where that rabbit came from.
I was very surprised last year when visiting my birth city of L'Aquila (remember the earthquake of April 6,2009?) they told me that the river running through the beautiful valley was so polluted, water was not even fit for irrigation,mostly caused by a factory upstream,closed years ego.Talking to many friends and relatives they told me that this is very common now,especially in the south so you better watch where that rabbit came from.
9
I travel to Italy once a year to be humanized by its zest for food and friendship, beauty and culture. But I remember the Italians most for their boisterous meals, wild gesticulating, and sexual antics. It's a symphony of high spirits. I visit Switzerland for scenery. I go to Italy for vitality.
14
Joseph Roccasalvo: as regards your comment..."...boisterous meals, wild gesticulating and sexual antics.." ....you get the prize in stereotypes...congratulations...
I love Italy. I have been there twice. Once on vacation and in 1988 about seven months in Genova as a Fulbright senior lecturer. That stint was one of the highlights of my career. I still remember a question asked me by a newsstand vendor. This guy had gotten to know me, as I always stopped at his stand to buy a newspaper on my way to my job at the local university. As best I remember his question was: "Quale sistema e meglio, l'italiano o l'americano?" Which system is better, the Italian or the American? The question caught me off guard and I said something like different strokes for different folks. As this article makes clear, I was wrong. The correct answer is the Italian. Italians are so full of life and they know how to enjoy it. They always have a dysfunctional government and, due to lack of opportunity and high housing costs, they often live with their parents well into their thirties. But they don't really seem to mind. I an now in a CCRC. But if I could afford to fly my kids over to often Italy is where I would be.
11
• I heard the following exchange:
“It’s the workers’ holiday and everyone is working!”
“Yes, I know, but of course they don’t work the rest of the time!”
“That’s true.”
I've always said we should all work on Labour Day and take off the rest of the year. Why celebrate "labour" by NOT working?
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." ~ OSCAR WILDE
“It’s the workers’ holiday and everyone is working!”
“Yes, I know, but of course they don’t work the rest of the time!”
“That’s true.”
I've always said we should all work on Labour Day and take off the rest of the year. Why celebrate "labour" by NOT working?
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." ~ OSCAR WILDE
3
"improving nutrition (I can’t see that rabbit being beaten)". It is rather eaten!
I was in Milan last month for the Salone del Mobile (furniture fair). One sentence in this article confirmed my own impression. Italy "has resisted the squeezing of the last cent of profit from every exchange." That's the big difference with the American way. They work to live and it's obvious.
15
I feel a yearning in this country for a life of more curves than straight lines --- but we all seemed to be caught in a linear world --- a race to the top to coin our national educational policy.
4
If only we, meaning both the US and Italy, could learn and implement some of the best parts of our cultures, rather than the worst, how much better would both Countries be!
What if Italians had imported reasonably fair justice systems, work ethics and discipline instead of graffiti, fast food joints, easy divorces and SUVs, just to mention a few things?
And what if the US could import better family values, a working health system and love for real beauty, instead of corruption, government bureaucratization and improbable gondolas and Venice bridges.
Is it truly impossible to reconcile efficiency and belle arti? discipline and joy of life? individualism and compassion? ambition and generosity? love of Country and tolerance? pride and compassion?
Could we not all get along better, per favore?
What if Italians had imported reasonably fair justice systems, work ethics and discipline instead of graffiti, fast food joints, easy divorces and SUVs, just to mention a few things?
And what if the US could import better family values, a working health system and love for real beauty, instead of corruption, government bureaucratization and improbable gondolas and Venice bridges.
Is it truly impossible to reconcile efficiency and belle arti? discipline and joy of life? individualism and compassion? ambition and generosity? love of Country and tolerance? pride and compassion?
Could we not all get along better, per favore?
27
I had the good fortune of living in Rome for 5-years in the 1990s . . . there is a beauty in the apparent chaos of Italy.
In reality, it is not chaos, but it does cause one to slow down a bit and appreciate our common humanity.
Thanks, Roger, for the reminder.
In reality, it is not chaos, but it does cause one to slow down a bit and appreciate our common humanity.
Thanks, Roger, for the reminder.
13
Presumably Mr. Cohen is in Milan to cover Expo 2015, if that is what it is called. I have never been to Linate, but I normally fly to Malpensa to the northwest of the city. I have never run across any problems there with regard to traveler needs. There is a cheap, fast comfortable train that goes to stazione Cadorna in Milan. The ticket dispensing machines have always worked when I have been there. I normally do not obtain cash from ATMs at airports, but I have never had a problem retrieving cash from ATM in any city where I have been in Italy.
Unfortunately this is a weak attempt at writing about something, although I am not sure what that is. If Mr. Cohen is covering Expo 2015, there are many interesting issues that Mr. Cohen could address, if he makes an effort. I hope that he does make that effort, rather than resort to the pathetic superficiality of this column.
Unfortunately this is a weak attempt at writing about something, although I am not sure what that is. If Mr. Cohen is covering Expo 2015, there are many interesting issues that Mr. Cohen could address, if he makes an effort. I hope that he does make that effort, rather than resort to the pathetic superficiality of this column.
10
What was so curvy and curative among the Caesars of Imperial Rome, the Vatican Popes, the Venetian Doge, the Florentine Borgias, Il Duce and the godfather's of Camorra, Ndrangheta and the Mafia?
Italy is too big to fail. But that is exactly what Italy is doing as it demographically unnaturally ages and shrinks along with it's economy. Ah but Italian food and wine is great along with terrific art and wonderful people in a nation whimsically shaped like a boot.
Italy is too big to fail. But that is exactly what Italy is doing as it demographically unnaturally ages and shrinks along with it's economy. Ah but Italian food and wine is great along with terrific art and wonderful people in a nation whimsically shaped like a boot.
2
If you're going to fail, do it in operatic form.
Correction to blackmamba-- the Borgias were Spaniards, not Florentines. Lucrezia married into Ferrarese nobility. The Doges were elected and were latgely good for the Republc of Venice and well being of its citizens.b
This problem with a column like this is that it reveals its out-of-touchness with the subject it purports to inform us about. Early in the Baltimore riots, I heard a tv pundit speaking as an expert about poverty there because, he told us, he'd actually witnessed it from the window of his train. Mr. Cohen, deeply informed in other areas, does something similar here. He has written before about his favorable impression of prime minister Renzi, then too using the loaded term "young", as though Renzi promises a fresh alternative to previous governments. Instead of that word, what if he had instead chosen to use the word "unelected", and judged Renzi's so-called "election reform" from that perspective? What if Mr. Cohen had discussed the failure, so far, of Renzi's (English-titled, to give it panache) "Jobs Act"? What if Cohen had looked into the details of Renzi's touted reform of the public education system, which will cut funding, increase class sizes, introduce privatization, and reduce the autonomy of teachers, rather than providing support to schools so short of resources that students have to bring their own toilet paper? What if, instead of buying the prime minister's facile rhetoric, he had considered whether Renzi and his "young" government were simply masking self-promoting opportunism in savvy media branding, using the term "meritocracy" as an all-purpose bludgeon?
19
Cohen was writing in the mood of his Italian visit. Your rant might come right out of an American's daily life twisted by too much analysis. .
Thank you--this is exactly what my politically progressive friends in Italy think of Renzi.
I think Mr. Cohen was referring to State Highway 1 in California not US Highway 101 when he referred to the popular road along the Pacific.
1
Thank you Roger, so true, so refreshing, so hopeful for what matters most. Viva Italia!
9
Always appreciate Mr. Cohen's broader perspective - but as a Californian, I thnk the arrow-straight road he had in mind was perhaps the I-5 in the Central Valley or perhaps even Highway 46 between the Central Valley and the Central Coast. With a few exceptions (mostly in urban areas), US 101 is actually quite curvy throughout its length.
6
Travel Notes:
1. The ticket window in Roma Termini train station often features one woman behind the glass. You'll miss your train because there are ten tourists in line ahead of you, including Asians, and the woman explains things slowly and precisely. On the other hand, once you get to the window, you see she's gorgeous, knowledgeable and pleasant, and you're in a good mood as you wait for the train following the one you missed.
2. The food court in Palermo's airport sells freshly made cannolis and paninis.
Viva Italia.
1. The ticket window in Roma Termini train station often features one woman behind the glass. You'll miss your train because there are ten tourists in line ahead of you, including Asians, and the woman explains things slowly and precisely. On the other hand, once you get to the window, you see she's gorgeous, knowledgeable and pleasant, and you're in a good mood as you wait for the train following the one you missed.
2. The food court in Palermo's airport sells freshly made cannolis and paninis.
Viva Italia.
33
You might have added that the trains are cheap, frequent and usually on time, and that if the line is long you can buy your ticket from a machine.
In the NYT, March 12, 2006, Randy Kennedy (The Way We Eat) extolled the culinary virtues of rabbit, and lamented that it is extremely hard to find fresh rabbit for sale.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F02E6DB1531F931A25750C0A...
Quote:
The short answer is that modern Americans - except maybe during World War II, when rabbit was sold cheaply because of food shortages - have never fully accepted Orcytolagus cuniculus as food. Perhaps as a result, Congress doesn't mandate inspection of rabbits. If they want a voluntary federal inspection, processors must pay, which pushes prices up. And since many stores won't carry non-U.S.D.A.-approved meat, rabbit is harder to find.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F02E6DB1531F931A25750C0A...
Quote:
The short answer is that modern Americans - except maybe during World War II, when rabbit was sold cheaply because of food shortages - have never fully accepted Orcytolagus cuniculus as food. Perhaps as a result, Congress doesn't mandate inspection of rabbits. If they want a voluntary federal inspection, processors must pay, which pushes prices up. And since many stores won't carry non-U.S.D.A.-approved meat, rabbit is harder to find.
2
Arun,
Don't waste your money.
Factory raised rabbits taste like chicken. In fact, anything factory raised tastes like chicken.
Don't waste your money.
Factory raised rabbits taste like chicken. In fact, anything factory raised tastes like chicken.
2
I enjoyed this.
I'd love to see Roger Cohen discuss Italian design, compared to say German and British. Cars, bridges, architecture, even that wonderful garden dominating the house, all are just different in their very idea. They are not even trying to be the same things.
Life is different there, and it shows in everything. I remember walking around a Japanese neighborhood, thinking the same thing. Even the garden hoses and fences were different in striking ways that reflected thinking.
I'd love to see Roger Cohen discuss Italian design, compared to say German and British. Cars, bridges, architecture, even that wonderful garden dominating the house, all are just different in their very idea. They are not even trying to be the same things.
Life is different there, and it shows in everything. I remember walking around a Japanese neighborhood, thinking the same thing. Even the garden hoses and fences were different in striking ways that reflected thinking.
91
Europe's goal was to have a continent that combined Italian food, English manners, French lovers with German organization. Instead we got English food, French manners, German lovers and Italian organization. We're still working on the project though we do understand that some things never change.
6
An American friend married a Roman...has been living in Rome for more than 25 years. She loves it. And we have visited often. We love it too. However, she has described Italy as a "a very elegant third-world country". Of course, I don't see it that way, but then again she lives there dealing with it's day-to-day curves making life both interesting and frustrating.
78
Mr. Cohen, I know that Italy can be a bit inefficient, even maddening at times. But are Italians so stupid that they would have one of their two dominant political parties as dreadful as is our Republican one? I ask this sincerely, because from my vantage in the U.S., I only see such a similar malignancy in non-democratic places.
99
Of course Italians would be at least that stupid. Does the name Silvio Berlusconi ring any bells?
2
Well, they DID elect Berlusconi a couple times.
3
I mean, they kept electing Berlusconi over and over again.
3
Great read! How sad that while the French are celebrated for their joie de vivre and the Italians for practicing la dolce vita, Americans are still furiously doing everything they possibly can to survive the Rat Race.
166
America is young. When it matures, who knows what greatness it may achieve. "Lear to labour and to wait."
Ever bother looking at the number of patents issued to Americans in America, and compare that number to that issued to Euros generally in Europe? However, they DO license a lot of ours, which shows that they have good taste.
Italy is entirely broken. Except for the food, art, history and scenery, it has nothing to offer and it is unfixable. Having lived 40 years overseas, including places like Pakistan, Germany, Malaysia, France, Malta, Korea and Japan, they all have so much more to offer in the present and future than irrepairable Italy.
Admire the vineyards, olive orchards and hill top villages, drink the fabulous wine and delight in the unbeatable food, but once one is no longer a tourist, the frustration becomes unbearable. Visits to the questura (police station) for a visa last for months,18 of the 20 booths to service people are typically unmanned, Banks are closed from noon to 3pm each day, post offices give candy as change....it's a beautiful disaster.
Admire the vineyards, olive orchards and hill top villages, drink the fabulous wine and delight in the unbeatable food, but once one is no longer a tourist, the frustration becomes unbearable. Visits to the questura (police station) for a visa last for months,18 of the 20 booths to service people are typically unmanned, Banks are closed from noon to 3pm each day, post offices give candy as change....it's a beautiful disaster.
78
Makes one wonder what ever happened to the great Roman civilization? And the Greek civilization for that matter. Perhaps none of the efficiency and logistical power remains.
Have you been to a US Social Security office recently? Roaches falling from the ceiling, easily 120 people waiting in a vastly overheated room, and most of the service windows vacant. On one recent trip -- there was a single person helping the room full of people, many of whom had been waiting hours.
11
Get on a flight to Milan and get your facts straight. While Italian bureaucracy can be maddening (just try getting a business contract signed... It's taking me an army of lawyers and six months), the cliches you mention cannot be generalized. My recent experience in Milan has been that of highly improved efficiency compared to the past.
Getting a Visa? Book an appointment online, get everything done in 1 hour.
Need to get some paperwork at the chamber of commerce for your business? About 20 booths available, highly professional people, turnaround time 30 minutes.
And now a lot of certificates and documents can be pre-ordered online, without the need to spend long hours queueing.
Italy is not perfect (and the South is still very broken) but not as bad as you portray it.
Getting a Visa? Book an appointment online, get everything done in 1 hour.
Need to get some paperwork at the chamber of commerce for your business? About 20 booths available, highly professional people, turnaround time 30 minutes.
And now a lot of certificates and documents can be pre-ordered online, without the need to spend long hours queueing.
Italy is not perfect (and the South is still very broken) but not as bad as you portray it.
1
The author's affection for Italy is not misplaced, but his comment that avoiding rabbit meat out of "misplaced affection" for the living creature is an example of prejudice. There are many stereotypes of Italy, positive and negative, but here's an interesting fact: Italy is second only to India in the proportion of its citizens who are vegetarian.
38
It's too soon to say if Renzi will become the leader Italy has needed for a long time, but the more distant the proud, wonderful nation gets from Berlusconi's days in power the better. He really held that country back in a lot of ways. The Italian people have long deserved better than their governments.
59
'Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.'
- George Bernard Shaw
- George Bernard Shaw
I may be wrong here, but I think it was a Berlusconi government that invented the winner's boost. It could have the effect of pushing Italy in the direction of an American-style, two party, personality-dominated politics. Renzi's adoption of a Berlusconi scheme is nothing to celebrate, in my view.
AMEN!
Buongiorno italia con i tuoi artisti,con troppo america sui manifesti,
con le canzoni con amore, con il cuore, con piu donne e sempre menu suore.
Toto Cotugno
con le canzoni con amore, con il cuore, con piu donne e sempre menu suore.
Toto Cotugno
19
from google, "Good morning Italy with your artists, with too america posters,
with the songs with love, with heart, with more and more women and nuns menu.
Toto Cotugn
and as is there custom, "wrong ?"
with the songs with love, with heart, with more and more women and nuns menu.
Toto Cotugn
and as is there custom, "wrong ?"
1
A weak state is not a hardship, it is a plus. Italians are smart people and smart people do best when they're free to run their own lives.
23
There are some things that a state can and should do for its people. Germany is an example, and its people benefit from that.
In the US, we have the worst of both the German and Italian methods. Our state is kept crippled in the name of freedom, but our sense of community is lost to that same demand for freedom defined as selfish "me, mine, get your own, I-deserve-it-and-you-don't."
In the US, we have the worst of both the German and Italian methods. Our state is kept crippled in the name of freedom, but our sense of community is lost to that same demand for freedom defined as selfish "me, mine, get your own, I-deserve-it-and-you-don't."
157
Of course! But always with regard and compassion for everyone else.
L&B&L
L&B&L
3
Ciao taopraxis. Would that it were so simple, but it's not. Italy is suffering an enormous brain drain because of the weak state. Fossilized institutions that limit employment opportunities, debilitating and incomprehensible taxes on business, no support or encouragement for entrepreneurs are the result of a calcified government. And don't get me started on the conditions of our roads or other public spaces.
On a day to day basis, everyone gets by. And the sense of community is enormously reassuring and comforting; but not an excuse for a do-nothing government.
On a day to day basis, everyone gets by. And the sense of community is enormously reassuring and comforting; but not an excuse for a do-nothing government.
16
A relief from this greed impelled land
Where billionaires have things in hand,
Where voting's suppressed
And Limbaugh knows best,
Compassion is short on demand.
Where billionaires have things in hand,
Where voting's suppressed
And Limbaugh knows best,
Compassion is short on demand.
154
In addition to Italian curves
There's Berlusconi and other pervs
Ndrangheta, bunga bunga and Tangentopoli
Provide free entertainment on TV
As one nibbles gourmet rotini
There's Berlusconi and other pervs
Ndrangheta, bunga bunga and Tangentopoli
Provide free entertainment on TV
As one nibbles gourmet rotini
1
The road appears over the horizon in front of you, and disappears over the horizon in your rear view mirror - identical images. The air is so clear, and the mountains so far away, that you have the illusion of being motionless, even at over 100 mph. You put the car in the middle of the road, and drive as fast as the car is capable of. And you just sit there - the road stripes are going by, the engine running hard, but the mountains just stay put.
If you have to relieve yourself - well, just stop in the middle of the road, get out, pee on the road, stretch a bit (recommendation), get back in, and keep going. You always have a few minutes from seeing traffic until they reach you...
When you do see a car - which may well seem like miles ahead - there is nothing to look at except that car. Likewise for its driver. You stare at each other until you finally meet, and by then anything less than lifted index finger "hi" is just plain rude.