IRIS-3 Foundation Presentation – Rome, Saturday, March 25, 2023
EXCERPT FROM THE TALK BY PROF. ANTONELLO BLASI
Dear Hearers,
Happy to be with you appreciating this noble initiative that has the merit, for me absolutely primary, of being interdisciplinary, and thus seeing man in his being a Human Person endowed with body, soul and spirit. I take my incipit from the Book of Wisdom: ” Now God grant I speak suitably…For he is the guide…and the director of the wise.” (7:15). And so it is: I do not know the Foundation which I get to know only today, but I’ve known for years Fr. Stefano Tardani, an indefatigable priest in Rome who gives his heart to everything he does.
As the Scripture reads, ” A strong and heavy wind was rending the mountains and crushing rocks before the LORD – but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake – but the LORD was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake there was fire – but the LORD was not in the fire. After the fire there was a tiny whispering sound. When he heard this, Elijah hid his face in his cloak and went and stood at the entrance of the cave” (I Kings 19:11-13). It was God passing by.
The spirit then enters the two limits that forge the history of all of us, that of time and that of space-nature-physicality (composed of earth-matter, water, and air) boundaries within which everything, and thus also law, moves its steps seeking justice, its only tension given by the true, the just, the charity qui nihil est aliud quam Deus.
A right that does not need to seek excesses such as speed, rank, competition and excellence, nor slowness, disengagement, renunciation and mediocrity.
Law is rule, it wants to regulate, and if it regulates it orders and if it orders it naturally does first not by obligation but by consequence. The adherence of the individual in the collectivity of a legal system is the basis of compliance with the rule so that it becomes regular to observe it, producing the effects hoped for, desired, conquered with the inevitable contingencies for human defectiveness and the imponderableness of natural randomness.
But the Right causes and produces normality: the rule makes us normal, the one who respects the rule becomes regular and his behavior becomes normal. The normal follows, pursues and then executes the rule, because he spontaneously adheres to his rule: thus he normally respects others, goes alongside them to live together, overcomes them to pull them through difficulties, but only out of necessity or an urgency which are normal because they are included in the lawful rules, without calling them exceptions which would imply a “condoned unlawfulness.” Instead, no: the rule invites us to be normal.
Law, I reiterate, produces the rules to be regular and orients a society to be regular. Also each of us if we are regular should be appreciated because we respect the rule. Reward those who stop at red lights more than just penalize those who do not. How? With the ruler-servant who washes the feet of citizens and who lives, transparently honest, in the service of each.
For this reason then, human beings to survive do not rely only on strength and intelligence but also have consciousness that combines intellect (I understand/know, I am aware that I know, Pascal) with will (I want/I don’t want, Kant) independent of the surrounding necessity (God?) that only proposes (the tree) but leaves each free to choose, and also that the one proposes its own choice made (eaten apple), leaving the other to choose (yes or no).
Why must human civilization necessarily walk within fundamental rights? To be able to sleep or rather, to wake up the next day, not to kill each other in our sleep by not trusting each other to sleep first. Not killing oneself then becomes an imperative if one is to continue hunting together, the next day stronger and with greater goals. Not killing is thus a fundamental duty matched by the right to life. Believe it or not, it is like the physical law of gravity, it simply exists: if you want a civilization and humanity it is mandatory to simply follow the fundamental rights.
It is Human and enhances Civilization to sleep without being killed and to defend the weakest (=everyone is weak in circumstance, the little one climbs but runs poorly, the tall one can run but is weak at climbing) without leaving him behind, prey to hyenas who always follow all kinds of herds.
Thus is born the Right to Life or yoh yos (health/salvation of life) the IUS articulated in many languages. If Law re-gives way to the “law” of the strongest, i.e., laws for its own use and consumption, it is not Law but Arbitrariness disguised as laws, the opposite of the objective-end to which it is appointed, the IUS-IUSTITIA (= formed from iustus and the suffix –itia expressing “the condition of being”): iustitia means “the quality of being iustus.” Justice thus means “the condition of being endowed with ius.”
The traditional Western iconography of Justice is a blindfolded woman with scales and a sword. Her blindness is artificial (the blindfold) and the use of the measuring instrument related to balance (aequus “equal” and libra “weight, scale”) and measurement suggest a pondered and disinterested=impartial and therefore non-discriminating connotation.
If we help the normal, the normal help the world to be regular and are the ones who help those who are in trouble, avoiding that only the derogators are exalted, (often even those who err and set a bad example are constantly put in the spotlight transfiguring them into heroes, even without waiting for their true or instrumental repentance) or that, only those who repent are forgiven and set as an example, or that, those with a thousand talents are used to stimulate impossible emulation by those who had by nature only one talent.
Reward the regulars and you will be regular, help the regulars and we will be regular. This is the effort to be true heroes and true saints, but, I would add, to also be recognized appreciated and rewarded by those who, at that moment and in whatever capacity are the “superiors” who see you but do not look at you, who hear you but do not listen to you, because you are not one who “proposes,” because to them you are a “regular.”
And this also applies to the highest degree of responsibility of res-publica i.e. Politics for the common good of the many and globally of all. To religious rulers and leaders: the normal norm is religious freedom: the right to choose/not choose/change choice. Always. Everywhere. If this freedom is granted to the individual’s belief and conscience, then other laws will follow respecting everyone’s freedom within a natural mutual respect not imposed but given by daily and spontaneous adherence.
Antonello Blasi
For any of your thoughts, ideas, considerations, suggestions, and anything else you can write to me at: antbls28@gmail.com grazie
