Nuccio Ordine 2023 Princess of Asturias Award for Communication and Humanities

Your Majesties,
Your Highnesses:

First of all, I would like to congratulate the distinguished recipients and express my sincere gratitude to the members of the jury for their generosity in bestowing this prestigious award upon me. Receiving this honor brings me particular joy for a deeply personal reason: in the category of Communication and Humanities, the award has previously been granted to three eminent figures of European culture who were also dear friends of mine and played a vital role in my life and intellectual development namely, Umberto Eco, Emilio Lledó, and George Steiner. These three illustrious scholars were, above all, great teachers, cherished by their students, students whom they captivated not only through their vast knowledge, but also through their encyclopedic *curiositas* and their genuine passion for learning and the transmission of knowledge.

At a time when the teaching profession no longer commands the economic and social standing it once held, I immediately thought to dedicate the Princess of Asturias Award to those teachers who quietly and far from the media spotlight, especially in the world’s poorest nations change the lives of their students. Indeed, every single day whether in a remote African hut, an impoverished Ibero-American community, or a school on the outskirts of a town in Calabria, a small miracle unfolds: thanks to their teachers, millions of children are granted the invaluable opportunity to receive an education, to learn, and to acquire the tools necessary to become free men and women, enabling a cultural and social leap forward that makes our society more humane, more compassionate, and more egalitarian.

In April, having been invited to the Bogotá Book Fair, I had the opportunity to visit the legendary sites from Gabriel García Márquez’s childhood. In Aracataca, Cartagena de Indias, Barranquilla, and the banana plantations of Prado Sevilla, I rediscovered many pieces that helped assemble the puzzle of the magical Macondo, the setting brought to life by Gabo in his extraordinary novels. There, I had an unforgettable human and intellectual experience: with the help of colleagues from the University of Magdalena in Santa Marta, I visited a small stilt-house village on the Ciénaga lagoon. Located two hours by boat from the mainland, Buenavista is home to many fishing families. Among the colorful houses suspended over the water, one finds the local public school. Meeting the children in those austere, sun-drenched classrooms, which were nonetheless brimming with life was deeply moving. In the glint of their eyes and their joyful smiles, I saw the hopes and fears, the dreams and the hardships of those preparing to embark on the adventure of life. It brought to mind my own early years in primary school; in my hometown, as no school building had yet been constructed, teachers had converted rooms in their own homes into makeshift classrooms. From 1964 to 1967, the public school consisted of a single room in the home of my teacher, Ofelia Brancati. Those few square meters contained almost my entire world: my teacher, my books, my desk mate, and my classmates. It was there that I first experienced the joy of learning, the passion of my early crushes, and the mystery and essential nature of friendship. It was there that I began to cultivate my dreams to plan my first journeys, both physical and imagined, and to envision a life beyond the narrow confines of my birthplace. Having been born in a town with no bookstores or libraries, in a home without books, to parents who never had the opportunity to pursue a secondary education and without the benefit of public schools, a public university, or my teachers, I surely would not have become who I am today. The founding of the University of Calabria in the 1970s, in one of Italy’s poorest regions, enabled thousands of local young people to access a higher education they otherwise would never have been able to obtain.

For this reason after decades of neoliberalism, during which continuous cuts to the funding of schools and universities have gravely jeopardized the role and future of public education, I have dedicated much of my human and intellectual energy to defending the essential function of education for the future of humanity. There can be neither merit nor justice in a society that fails to provide everyone with an education worthy of the name of Don Milani who, having devoted a large part of his life to the education of impoverished children, wrote that “there is nothing more unjust than to treat unequals equally.”

In a society where our young people are told that they must study to learn a trade and earn money a society where contempt for knowledge is fueled by the dangerous belief that only money guarantees human dignity, the role of authentic education becomes even more essential. For over twenty years, I have read to my students the famous letter in which Albert Camus, just days after being awarded the Nobel Prize expresses his gratitude to his teacher from the municipal school in Algiers, Louis Germain. Without him, without the hand that this teacher extended toward a poor child, Camus would never have become the writer we love and admire.

Dear Mr. Germain:
I waited for the noise that has surrounded me these past few days to die down a little before speaking to you from the bottom of my heart. I have received an honor far too great—one I neither sought nor requested. Yet, upon hearing the news, my thoughts turned first to my mother, and then to you. Without you—without the affectionate hand you extended to the poor boy I once was, and without your teaching and your example—none of this would have come to pass. It is not that I attach undue importance to an honor of this kind; rather, it offers me an opportunity to tell you what you have been, and continue to be, to me. It allows me to assure you that your efforts, your hard work, and the generous heart you poured into them remain very much alive in one of your former young pupils—who, despite the passing years, has never ceased to be your grateful student.

A hug with all my might.
Albert Camus

Doctors and teachers do not merely practice a profession; rather, they pursue a vocation of extraordinary civic and social value, as their intellectual endeavor profoundly impacts the two fundamental pillars upon which human dignity rests: the right to health and the right to knowledge.

But there is more. Neoliberal policies, pursued over decades, have fostered disastrous reforms that have helped transform schools, universities, and hospitals worldwide into corporations—increasingly subordinating scientific research and education to the demands of profit. By now, it comes as no surprise that in hospitals and educational institutions, patients and students are viewed—and even unashamedly referred to—as "clients."

Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi, one of the most illustrious mathematicians of the 19th century—renowned for the brilliance of his discoveries—reiterated in a letter sent on July 2, 1830, to the French mathematician Adrien-Marie Legendre that science can only possess a noble purpose if it remains free from all commercial or utilitarian pressures:

M Fourier avait l’opinion que le but principal des mathématiques était l’utilité publique et l’explication des phénomènes naturels: mais un philosophe comme lui aurait dû savoir que le but unique de la science, c’est l’honneur de l’esprit humain.

(“It is true that Fourier believed the primary purpose of mathematics was public utility and the explanation of natural phenomena; but a philosopher such as him ought to have known that the sole objective of science is the honor of the human spirit.”)

In this beautiful expression—«the honor of the human spirit»—one might encapsulate the challenging task that falls today upon those of us who teach in schools and universities: to help our students understand that one does not study to earn money, that one does not conduct research for the sake of profit, and that the adventure of knowledge only attains its noblest purpose when it is placed—freely and selflessly—exclusively at the service of «the honor of the human spirit.»

This is undoubtedly a difficult task in a society where every gesture, every action, and every word is deemed sensible only if it yields a profit. In a society that increasingly views time as something to be harnessed for production and gain, reading a poem by Rilke, listening to a Mozart concert, or admiring a painting by Caravaggio is considered a "waste of time." In other words, engaging in "unproductive" activities is seen as squandering one’s days on the cultivation of "useless" knowledge and pleasures. This is a perverse logic that finds its ultimate expression in voracious neoliberalism—an ideology of extreme productivism, driven solely by the pursuit of profit. It is a trend that threatens the future of the humanities (literature, music, philosophy, art, and basic science) as well as the institutions—such as schools, universities, basic research centers, museums, and archaeological sites—that were established, first and foremost, to uphold the intrinsic value of knowledge and culture, independent of any commercial or profit-driven logic.

Applying business models to the realms of education, artistic heritage, scientific research, and culture in general carries an increasingly evident risk: that of turning into a business those activities whose noblest vocation—by their very nature—lies in the pursuit of what is free and disinterested; that is, what utilitarians unfairly label as "useless."

Over the course of a decade, some journalists and many readers have asked me how one could possibly defend such "counter-current" values ​​in a society that is moving at breakneck speed in the opposite direction—a polite way of pointing out my naivety and my anachronistic role as a defender of lost causes. I would like to respond with the same words that Joyce, in his *Ulysses*, puts into the mouth of Professor MacHugh: "We were always loyal to lost causes. Success for us is the death of the intellect and the imagination." It is impossible to envision a future if "the pinnacle of one’s mindset is summed up by the phrase 'time is money'." Defending lost causes means upholding a noble, ideal vision of the world that is deemed unattainable. Without those who champion lost causes, humanity would never have achieved the significant milestones that have made it more humane. The political projects of Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King could never have become reality had they not nurtured their dreams—at the risk of their own lives and freedom. That is how two dreamers managed to make the impossible possible. In a society poisoned by racism, the pursuit of human and civil rights for African Americans might well have appeared, to many, as nothing more than an illusory ambition.

Just as it is today, the struggle against inequality—in a world where a mere 1% of the population controls 82% of the wealth—can seem like a pipe dream. Many classic works offer us striking examples of characters labeled as "idiots" or "madmen" simply because they championed ideals and values ​​deemed unattainable. The "glorious defeats" of Don Quixote, in particular, teach us that a passionate commitment to one’s ideals can lend a noble purpose to one’s life. In a similar vein, Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky created one of the most poignant figures in world literature: the "idiot"—the titular character of his famous novel—who, through his human simplicity, embodies values ​​that stand in stark contrast to the Russian society of his time, a society where the bourgeoisie remained deeply imbued with feudal remnants. Prince Myshkin aspires to save the world through beauty ("Beauty will save the world"—a phrase attributed to him by Rogozhin), through his "compassion," and through an ethic rooted in a powerful utopian vision. Humiliations and defeats do not discourage him; on the contrary, they render his detachment from prevailing values ​​increasingly "subversive." Regardless of his actual capacity to effect concrete change in the world, this only lends him an even nobler, more profoundly human aura in the eyes of the few—the very few—who are capable of truly appreciating him. "Goodbye, Prince! For the first time, I have seen a real human being," exclaims Nastasya Filippovna.

Thus, when we use the word "idiot," we might be referring—as is the case in almost any context—to a fool, or, conversely, to a "special being" capable of demonstrating, through subversive words and actions that run against the grain, the limitations of a society rooted in selfishness. In other words: it is only when we "live for others"—when we take on the pain and suffering of humanity, sacrificing our own selves for the sake of our fellow human beings—that we truly live for ourselves. These are the very sentiments evoked by another famous character, Pierre Bezukhov from Tolstoy’s *War and Peace*, whose idealism and generosity led him to be dismissed as an inept idiot within the aristocratic salons of the era.

That is why, in our schools and universities, we need "salmon-like" teachers—educators who swim against the current, transforming classrooms into laboratories where the false, dominant values ​​of our society can be critically examined. Schools and universities were not established to mold little soldiers to serve the machinery of production and consumerism; rather, they were created, above all, to challenge monolithic, conformist thinking and to foster critical thought. Educational institutions should cultivate "heretical" citizens—individuals capable of thinking for themselves and rebelling against rampant selfishness, racism, and antisemitism, as well as against a voracious capitalism that enriches the wealthy while impoverishing the poor and the middle class—a system that, in the pursuit of profit, is also destroying our planet.

Following this afternoon’s beautiful ceremony—and bolstered by the prestigious Princess of Asturias Award—I am confident that the ranks of those who champion lost causes will grow among readers in Spain and Ibero-America (thanks, in part, to the efforts of the publishing house Acantilado, Sandra Ollo, and my dear friend and translator Jordi Bayod). I also hope to find new adherents among the distinguished guests gathered here in this theater. Oscar Wilde was right when he wrote that “a map of the world that does not include the country of Utopia is not even worth a glance.”