In these days in which we are under the centrifuges of information shot at accelerated speed, we find ourselves thinking also about how many rights enshrined in our Constitution have been suspended by decrees with that initials so far unusual: DPCM.
Our Constitution actually does not provide for the declaration of the state of emergency, and simply refers to the Civil Protection Code, in fact this Code is referred to in the now infamous publication in the Official Journal of January 31.
Our constituent fathers did not consider appropriate to insert emergency clauses, considering that the eventual conferral of full powers to a specific body, or the legitimization of the limitation, or even the suspension of citizens’ rights, could have represented a danger in the event of possible risks of dictatorship.
Emergency is, by definition an unforeseen circumstance, a concept therefore that in fact refers to a critical moment, to a particular condition that requires immediate intervention.
Undoubtedly what we are experiencing is a series of completely incomparable events, and it would be appropriate to try to keep focused on the fixed points: that is, the certain data.
It costs just a few seconds to go and read from official sources.
What is real and correct, helps anyone to make their own reflections, in the shelter of the bass drum of some media that feed panic and consequent misplaced behaviors and, on the other hand, helps to answer the title question.
The boiling frog is Noam Chomsky’s infamous metaphorical principle that if
“Imagine a pot full of cold water in which a frog swims quietly.
The fire is lit under the pot, the water heats up slowly. Soon it becomes lukewarm. The frog finds it rather pleasant and continues to swim.
The temperature rises. Now the water is hot. A little more than the frog does not appreciate. It gets tired a little, but it does not get scared.
The frog finds it very unpleasant, but it is weakened, it does not have the strength to react. Then it endures and does nothing. Meanwhile, the temperature still rises, until the moment when the frog ends – simply – boiled dead.
If the same frog had been immersed directly in the water at 50° it would have given a strong paw and would have jumped out of the pot immediately.”
However, this pot has a further disturbing characteristic: its size. It involves the whole world.
But “Being boiled” also has a slang meaning, at least we can remedy that.