Good morning everyone. Today I wanted to address the topic of sexual and affective education in schools. I would first like to make a brief introduction. The school, as it is now, I do not like; I would completely reshape it because it has become a cold structure, made up of evaluations, measurements, grades, where teachers no longer even have the time to devote to human relationships because they have to run after the curriculum. In short, I don’t like it. And precisely for this reason, I believe that introducing at least this one hour in which these topics are addressed is the bare minimum. With this premise made, I am absolutely in favor.
What I really do not like, however, is the use of the word “education,” because it gives the idea of sexuality and affectivity—assuming that these two terms should in my opinion be considered fused together—as if they were things that must be taught, that must be controlled, because otherwise they naturally overflow and slip into a violent dimension. And this, in my view, is not acceptable at all; it is not true, and it is not what will allow us to have a serious discussion about these issues.
To explain myself better, I will tell you about a long-distance exchange that recently appeared in La Repubblica between the journalist Concita De Gregorio and the psychoanalyst Recalcati. A rather interesting exchange, where De Gregorio said things that were definitely shareable, only to then say that it would have been a luxury to study Freud in school, if only there had been the chance! And this point about Freud is also picked up by Recalcati, and I keep hearing it over and over.
So, guys, let’s stop for a moment on these issues, because I believe that very often people fill their mouths with these references—Freud, Freud, Freud—yet perhaps few really know what Freud actually said and what his idea of sexuality, affectivity, and, more generally, human nature is. It is not just a theoretical matter, because a lot follows from it. If we start from the idea of a natural development of the child, of the human being, the important thing is not to damage him and, if anything, provide valid responses and cultivate a valid relationship so that he increasingly develops his inner dimension. It is another matter entirely to say that the human being begins with internal dimensions that are violent, sick, perverse, and therefore society must control these internal urges, these internal realities, because otherwise society falls apart. And therefore we must control, repress, punish, and so on. So you can see that from here a fundamental fork opens regarding the idea of the society we want to move toward.
Now, beyond what my own personal view may be regarding Freud and Freudian theory, I think it might be useful to bring you some passages, so you can get an idea yourselves of what the Freudian thought that is continually repeated actually says.
So, Freud tells us these things:
“The sexuality of most men turns out to be mixed with a certain aggressiveness, with an inclination toward domination.”
“That cruelty and the sexual drive are intimately connected is taught to us without any doubt by the history of human civilization.”
“In my opinion—in Freud’s opinion—it is absolutely necessary to keep in mind that within all men there are destructive tendencies, and therefore antisocial tendencies, hostile to civilization.”
“We observe with surprise and concern that most men obey the prohibitions of civilization only under the pressure of external coercion—that is, only when such coercion can be enforced and as long as it is feared.”
“Man is not a meek creature, in need of love, capable at most of defending himself when attacked. Instead, it is true that one must attribute to his instinctual makeup a good dose of aggressiveness. As a result, he sees in his fellow human being not only a possible helper and sexual object, but also an object on which he might unleash his own aggressiveness, exploit his labor force without compensating him, sexually abuse him without his consent, take possession of his goods, humiliate him, make him suffer, torture him, and kill him. Homo homini lupus. Who has the courage to challenge this statement after all the experiences of life and history?”
“Aggressiveness manifests itself spontaneously as well and reveals in man a wild beast to which respect for his own species is foreign.”
It sounds like he is talking about a severely mentally ill person, someone to be hospitalized! No—according to Freud, this is human nature; this is naturally what human reality is. And it is precisely for this reason that a coercive structure is needed: civilization, society, the Super-Ego, which must control these impulses that would otherwise discharge freely.
And there was another detail too that I now remember I skipped:
– Such instinctual desires include incest, cannibalism, and the urge to kill.
Now, we care only so much about Freud—not to say that in some respects we couldn’t care less—because this seems to me a completely outdated view. But since this kind of idea keeps being brought up, it only reinforces the belief that society must repress and punish. And this is exactly what is being proposed by the “God the Father family figure” attitude and by Valditara, who says: “If a student gets a five in conduct, then we have to fail him.” But if we share the same thinking, we can be a bit kinder and instead of failing him, we send him to retake the exam in September! But nothing actually changes.
So, shall we try to consider that this is a crucial turning point? Because, instead, if I begin thinking in terms of a healthy development of the human being, rejecting Freudian thinking, everything changes! Of course, a human being can become mentally ill and become violent, but to say that this is human nature seems absurd to me. If instead I see and think of the human being in a different way, then I completely change my idea of society, which should not punish and repress—quite the opposite. It should support, and not obstruct, a naturally healthy development of the individual. The world changes—and I don’t see any serious reflection on this.
This is why the term “sexual-affective education” does not appeal to me: because behind it lies the Freudian view. And even then, Freud did not actually invent much here, because the idea of a wild beast inside man is as old as time.
In this exchange between Concita De Gregorio and Recalcati, Recalcati too says things that are fairly reasonable at the beginning—I won’t repeat them now. He also cites Freud—because if you don’t cite Freud, you are worthless—and at a certain point he speaks of the mystery of desire, the mystery of falling in love. And one could even let it slide, in the sense that in falling in love unconscious dimensions do indeed come into play. (I don’t feel like going into this now.) I wouldn’t call it a mystery, but more or less one could understand what he means. Then he explains what he means by this mystery: how is it possible that a person goes with another person, falls in love with another person who makes them feel bad, makes them suffer, and keeps staying there? And this would be the mystery? No—this is called mental illness. Just read a little psychiatry or psychopathology manual to understand it. One could refer to the schizoid–depressive couple dynamic, where there truly are pathological dimensions that are perfectly known. There is nothing mysterious about it, you just need to study a bit. If anything, the “mystery” exists in mental health, because the healthy human being has a fantasy life that is, in certain ways, unpredictable, while unfortunately the mentally ill person has a compulsion to repeat, and thus always does the same things. There is nothing mysterious about that.
Anyway, there is one very last thing I wanted to say. I would skip over our dear minister’s proposal to introduce so-called sexual and affective education in schools only with the approval of parents. Honestly, let’s spare ourselves any comment on this, because these seem to me like foolish ideas unworthy of attention. What interests me instead is that he speaks of sexuality and affectivity as sensitive topics, and that part is fine. But he does not seem to realize that literature, history, art all deal with themes that are absolutely sensitive if studied in a certain way. Reading a poem by Leopardi can shake your life, open your eyes, put you in crisis—and these are sensitive topics. There are plenty of sensitive topics! But this makes us think of his way of understanding teaching and learning, where it becomes important to know when Leopardi was born, what he wrote—things learned parrot-fashion. And so if you know when he was born, what he wrote, and can recite a poem by heart, you get a 10.
In my opinion, this is completely wrong.
Marco Michelini
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