THEedited, writes Concita De Gregorio in her latest book which bears this beautiful name, The cure (Einaudi), it is a form of control, therefore of power. We have been discussing this topic for years in this column. And we said to ourselves that care is a form of power both in the private sense, of the relationships between people, and in the public sense, of the relationships between citizens and society, the institutions, the planet itself.
No man has more power over another than the doctor over the patient. It is no coincidence, for example, that you fall in love with the doctor who treats a loved one. But care is a form of power even in politics, now that we have understood that the human species is fragile, and the Earth is too.
This is why I feel calmer when a woman makes the decisions, because women tend to look far ahead, to think about the well-being and survival of their children and grandchildren, in short of future generations. I have always been convinced that women have a particular talent for care.
Aldo Cazzullo (photo by Carlo Furgeri Gilbert).
My daughter disputes me on this pointessentially tells me: for centuries you have maintained that we were worse than you, and now you necessarily want us to be better; you must accept the fact that we are equal, not in the sense of identical to you, but human beings with the same rights, not one less, and the same duties, not one more. True, for goodness sake.
Treatment must certainly not be exclusive to women: fathers, for example, are much more present today than in the past; but there are moments and roles in which women are not replaceable. And care, we told ourselves, is also a form of power. Power that can also be exercised over people.
By dint of taking care of a loved one, for example, you can make them dependent and therefore fragileincapable of growing, of emancipating themselves, of making autonomous choices. At that point the cure is not love, but control.
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All articles by Aldo Cazzullo.