Why Italy's Florentines Are So So Stupid

Why Italy's Florentines Are So So Stupid This essay is dedicated to my beloved Sarah who has been an unfailing infuence in the creation of it...

Before beginning, my dear reader, I wish to defne my idea of what stupid is: anyone or anything that is ignorant more than three times, in turn, has to be considered stupid. The most stupid thing I have ever heard muttered by a human being was this utterance: “We Florentines invented everything. Everything ever invented after us has just been a copy of what we had already created.” This atrocious affrmation was verbalized to me by a 60-year-old Florentine woman, who never went to high school, who was a factory worker, who later became the mistress of the wealthy proprietor of the manufacturing plant where she labored, who later became his wife, who spent her marriage in bitter despair because her husband had still more “factory workers” to care for, and who had spent her days buying expensive Ferragamo shoes and Gucci handbags, traveling with her husband all over the world when he was available, and collecting used jewelry as a “hobby” to pass her time away. Her Lady Rolex once had belonged to her husband's friend's wife who had died prematurely—naturally, it fetched an incredibly good price! These piteous, barren women pathetically roam, like peacocks, within the confnes of Florence (Firenze), Italy. They are part of a fad of snotty snobs who permeate Florentine society, and who can be seen walking in the streets of Firenze with their noses high to the sky, and their lips drooping from plastic surgeries, dropping on down to their chins. Is this Dante's Hell? Is this what he had in mind? I once thought Dante Alighieri had in mind Via Baracca when he wrote the Inferno. (WARNING: Do not accept an invitation to dine with a Florentine family. They will dish out for you thawed, uncooked fsh sticks drenched in tartar sauce and served with Fanta in bohemian crystal wine goblets.) And what a hell the Florentines have created for themselves! What geniuses they are! These half-wits have not the slightest idea about how they might fnd their way to survival. They vaunt the splendor of the Renaissance, but are impotent in knowing how to regenerate themselves! They are drugged to the hilt with licit and illicit drugs, and spend half the day looking at themselves in their mirrors. But why are they so

thickheaded? Let me explain. Piero Rocchini, an Italian psychiatrist, has coined the phrase, “The Syndrome of the Mediterranean Woman.” His basic argument is that many Italian mothers produce castrated male children, who, later when grown up, lack any sense of responsibility. “The Mediterranean mother satisfes all the child's desires and takes away all responsibility with the goal of attaching her son, always, to her. The mother represents unconditional love, and unfortunately, in Italian society the father fgure is frequently missing. The father should represent reality, society, rules, and severity. The Italian mother says to the son: Nothing is too much for you. This creates persons with an infantile optimism, persons who feel like Superman, untouchable,” says Dr Rocchini. Therefore, it stands to reason that Italian boys and young men dream more of becoming famous football players or motorcycle drivers or Formula 1 racers than they wish to earn a degree from some Italian university. Most Italian males I know would prefer a sleek automobile rather than to study at the university level—if they even ever arrive there. 57% of the Italians hold a high school diploma. Fifty percent of the Italian students starting university studies, never fnish their courses. As far as the Florentines are concerned, why should they study when they are told all day long that they created everything, and all further inventions came from the geniuses of the Renaissance? Stupid? Yes, indeed! Very, very stupid! If only the Florentines were still creating these “stupid sons!” That would certainly be a vast improvement. They are not. But why? I can think of three good rational motives that explain the barrenness of Florentine mothers. The frst is economics. Children cost to have, to upkeep, and to be prepared to face the rigors of adult life. Yet the really wealthy Florentines, who can afford to have domestic assistance from individuals they hire from the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh, or wherever, must suffer the often psychological dilemmas caused their children by their parents' familial absences made by these well-to-do mothers and fathers gallivanting around the world in their private jets and yachts—luxury items they mostly rent because they are not rich enough to purchase them. Perhaps it is better that Florentines do not have children? (Still another WARNING: It is not only that Florentines do not have the funding to correct the structural abnormalities, the crumblings, in their museums, churches, and schools, they also do not have the fnancial resources to perform the necessary

inspections of these artifacts! So, bring along a hard hat if you come to Firenze to visit the provincial-minded city and dialogue with the medievalminded morons who live there.) The second explanation is more frontal, more insidious. Italy has one of the highest C-Section birth rates (Cesarean deliveries) in Europe. 38 percent of nativities are carried out through C-Section procedures. Only Cyprus and Third World countries register higher C-Section births. A pregnant woman in Italy goes to give birth with a tremendous fear hanging over her head. Heavily-sedated pregnant women about to give birth, have their natural birth contractions interrupted causing a recourse to the C-Section. Oh, Italian gynecologists (OB/GYN specialists) how many C-Sections do you have to perform to buy a Mercedes-Benz? Still more stupids? The third cause is that many Florentine women are not anatomically outftted with what would enable them to endure a natural childbirth without assistance from drugs and the dreaded C-Section delivery. My dear reader, have I given you the impression that Florentines are on the way out? That they are disappearing. That the so-called “Cradle of the Renaissance” is nothing but a stricken fraud? I personally hold that view. And just to give you another touché, I ask you please to get your hands on David Leavitt's Florence: A Delicate Case in which he makes reference to the hows and whys Firenze is a mecca for people—coming from all over the world—with the intention of committing suicide! Voilà! Thanks, David. Yes, Florence is a haven where you can kill yourself! It has the perfect atmosphere to do so—especially in November and December. Really, the Florentine mascot should be an eighty-fve-year-old woman, made-up with psychedelic lipstick, bright red cheek rouge, and a cigarette dangling out of her mouth. If only these Florentines were living in the Past—at least. Instead, they are prisoners of a Past that does not belong to them any longer. Poor things. I wish that all Florentines would be banned into the depths of an eternal Hell where they are all burnt to a crisp—for one and only one reason: They have substituted Beauty with Design selling out to the moguls of Wall Street and dog-eat-dog capitalism content, like little piglets, to wallow in the Pigsty of hedonism, greed, and corruption that ft them so well. The future of Florence will be in the hands of the Rumanians, Albanese,

Chinese, Kosovans, Filipinos, Sri Lankans, Bangladeshis, Peruvians, Moroccans, and Senegalese. These individuals are now, for the most part, uneducated and in a state of Florentine culture shock. Many of them left their countries because of religious or political oppression and/or fed to save their lives. They are immigrants, refugees, or those who have committed what racist Florentines consider the worst sin: they have come to Italy to seek a better life for themselves. I consider myself lucky because I live in Calenzano—about seven kilometers from Florence—so I do not have to hobnob, to suffer, day in and day out, with the pettiness and snobbery of the snooty people in Firenze. People in Calenzano are kind and friendly. Come and visit with us!

Authored by Anthony St. John 22 June MMXVIII Calenzano, Italy Twitter: @thewordwarrior

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