The word that makes one free. Notes on the actuality of don Lorenzo Milani

This essay consists of a personal testimony by the author and a related sociological reflection on the reasons for the enduring relevance of the extraordinary figure of don Lorenzo Milani for our newborn community of earthly destiny. The personal testimony underlines the notable relevance of this fi...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Sergio Manghi
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: University of Bologna 2025-04-01
Series:Encyclopaideia
Subjects:
Online Access:https://encp.unibo.it/article/view/21353
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:This essay consists of a personal testimony by the author and a related sociological reflection on the reasons for the enduring relevance of the extraordinary figure of don Lorenzo Milani for our newborn community of earthly destiny. The personal testimony underlines the notable relevance of this figure in the youthful formation of the author, who was coming from an atheist-communist family and cultural background, and, more broadly, in the taking shape of that “wind of freedom” that characterised the 1960s, even before their effervescent ending. The reflection aims at highlighting how the poverty of word, the word that makes one free, at the centre of the “inverted paideia”, on the side of the last, realised by don Milani in Barbiana, characterises our vertiginous present no less than that distant post-war period, albeit in profoundly different forms, due to the radical techno-economic, socio-cultural and ecological-political transformations that have taken place since then.
ISSN:1590-492X
1825-8670