Who’s afraid to listen?

This article is published in number 7 of Vanity Fair on newsstands until February 14, 2023

Nothing more can be said. How many times have you heard or thought this sentence? And how many times have you associated it with politically correctto the politically correct, exchanging the ongoing revolution (also at a linguistic level) with the censorship of what you think or say?

In this issue of Vanity Fair let’s try to turn the table of what we think we know about politically correct. And we do it with interviews, stories and opinions that don’t talk about political correctness but about the fear of listening.

Last week, in an interview with Vanity, the volleyball player and presenter of Sanremo Paola Egonu it has sparked signatures, articles on the front pages of newspapers and interventions on television: many have criticized her for her harsh attack on the racism present in Italy, a sentiment gained on her skin, with her experiences, with her life. But instead of listening to her pain, her stories, her wounds, many lashed out against her for pessimism or even questioning what she herself experienced firsthand.

The lack of listening it’s not just an issue related to racism. It’s a more general topic of understanding. We live in an extraordinary time, an era never seen before where everyone can speak and make judgments but where few listen. Social media has helped us communicate, make judgments, participate in debates. And that was in some ways great. For others, however, social media has closed us in fences of solitude, silence and lack of listening.

However, listening does not mean opening up to those who are like us. Listening is above all putting yourself to understand those who don’t know or don’t understand. Without prejudice and without immediately issuing a judgment.

Paola Egonu’s wounds are hers alone, they must be listened to, understood, because only in this way will it be possible to have a better picture of what happened to her and above all of what must never happen again. Pretending that she is a heroine or even that she becomes the champion of the battles that we were the first to lose is a mistake not to be made.

We had the chance to listen to all the songs of the in advance San Remo Festival and to talk to many of its protagonists. About that, I can tell you that this is a Festival not to be missed, full of interesting voices, outside the box or perfectly inside the box. I suggest you watch it by listening. Of course, choose who you like best and which song or artist excites you the most. But listen. The great work done by Amadeus was precisely this: presenting a schedule of many diversities, some equal to us, others completely different.

Don’t trust anyone who is afraid to listen to them. Those who are afraid to listen want you locked up in fences of loneliness, hatred, ignorance. Those who are afraid to listen don’t just lose today’s life. The future is lost.

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