What will we say
9 December 2020
In her passionate and admirable discourse today on the commitment to protect oneself from contagion, Angela Merkel used at some point an ancient rhetorical formulation to which we are no longer accustomed. It is interesting, because the problem with solemn rhetorical formulas is that over time they lose meaning and become empty, even not tolerable. Instead, this is so out of our way of thinking, that it now sounds with an extraordinary and very concrete meaning, as if it had resurfaced from a distant memory.
What will we say when we look back?
It’s a wonderful, moving question. It sounds familiar, a rhetorical expression often heard, and yet we realize that we no longer hear it: we have often heard it in certain documentaries, perhaps, or in certain biographical films. In some history books, who knows. But no political leader or speaker says it anymore.
Because no one thinks about looking forward anymore, when you look back.
No one judges any more the nonsense, the volatility, the laziness, the whims, the sterility of each of our days, with the ability to detach and look at them from a distance. As we said yesterday, imagine judging the energies and the commitment and the stress spent this year, last year, in the last five years, six years ago, in the things we spent them on. Imagine someone coming from that time and asking us "was it worth it? was it really important? what did we get, then?". And who remembers, with all the Facebook posts we have to be indignant about every day.
Of course, good things happen and each of us has his own, private or public: and some may even be proud of it. But how are the days going by - the weeks, the months, the years - our politics, our public debate, our commitment, the history of this country that we have been accustomed to think of as progress so far? What are we building, what have we built? How long will it remain, what will it have grown? Does it concern us?
What will we say when we look back?
Nice sentence. Mark it, speechwriters.
