Can art contribute ... ?

No, I didn't know that Arturo Benetti Michelangeli was a fan of Mickey Mouse: that truly makes me very happy!

Piccinesco's intervention - whom I thank - allows me to clarify to those reading but, above all to myself truth be told, what I think regarding this matter.

I am perfectly aware that in itself, cultivating art, culture, and music is no guarantee of "good" behaviors and thoughts and, conversely, that the opposite may bring about "bad" behaviors and thoughts.

I can already hear Claudio reminding me that Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini were not at all refractory to all this and that countless people of the "common folk," completely ignorant of all this, carry very noble values and lifestyles.

I fully subscribe to this statement and I realize perfectly well that, in the face of this fact as supported by me, it could apparently collapse like a sandcastle.

But, in reality, the Culture, Art, and Music - and let's even include sport - that I am talking about is what my father used to define as: basic culture.

One can listen to and know by heart whatever you want, - or as De André used to say, "eat the Treccani" [encyclopedia] - knowing how to argue it well too, but lacking basic culture, it is essentially empty.

This is the point that, in my opinion, makes the difference!

However, I am absolutely convinced that an averagely educated humanity: where by culture I consider everything that involves inclusion and not exclusion, makes a difference and creates the prerequisites for a far better world.

I agree and I am asking you simply, by basic culture do you mean lifestyle, upbringing, from the early years?

What is transmitted to us - or not transmitted - from the earliest years of life is fundamental. This does not mean, however, that there is no remedy afterwards: what's done is done, in short!

If we were to entrench ourselves in this position, it would be an attempt to absolve ourselves of responsibility and, instead, each of us is responsible for who they are and what they do, as a bearer of an independent thinking mind, or one that should always be so.

To become aware of one's own limits, to never place limits on being with-or-without is a duty, a right of all of us and, above all, to face the other without prejudices; these are the pillars of basic culture, and only this can make us truly better. And as a TV program from many years ago used to say: ...it's never too late!

Exactly. Personally, I think that in recent years—something I have no problem "revealing"—I have "worsened" and at the same time improved; neither "side" prevails, but it is a hard struggle. Improved because I have partly understood certain dynamics at the level of perception; worsened because the condition of difficulty that persists and which is difficult to counteract (at least for me it is currently so, "currently" has a weight that should not be underestimated), makes one prone to prejudice, very often without the benefit of the doubt. In this regard, music certainly helps me, but not as much (precisely) as one might think (and hope), because as you rightly say, the process is constant and lasts a lifetime. Perhaps music "alone" would have no future if those "tasked" with listening to it (and understanding it) were devoid of that faculty needed to absorb it, understand it, internalize it, and disseminate it. I feel that I lack a certain percentage of understanding and internalization; for this reason, the whole thing is experienced as a constant antithesis.

That of duality is a human constant from which no one - and I mean truly no one - is immune. One could say it is an integral part of the human soul.

As for me...!!!! It's no coincidence that I particularly love Beethoven's music, at the center of which there is surely, also, duality!

The word "sacred" comes to mind, which has nothing to do with religion or the meaning typically given to it, but identifies something that stands in the middle and is composed of opposites, in this case being, understood in a general sense.