The Center That Isn't There: Politics, Needs and the Challenge of a New Recognizability
“Today, talking about politics means, first of all, asking where the meaning, listening and ability to build common places – in the highest sense of the term – where citizens can recognize themselves have gone.” Politics is not, or at least should not be, a simple technique for administering power. It is not limited to party codes or electoral arithmetic. It is, in its truest root, a form of collective participation, of representation of the needs and deepest feelings of a community.
In this time crossed by polarizations, by narrative simplifications, by a heated ideological clash that moves more by affiliations than by visions, a place is missing: a space in which to recompose oneself. Not a party, not a nostalgia, but a cultural horizon, a gaze that restores depth to the public debate and that manages to hold together fragments that are now dispersed.
“It is not a question of regretting what has been, but of understanding what is missing. The center is not an ideology to be exhumed, it is a cultural space that is struggling to emerge today, but which is strongly needed.” This space – which we might not even call “ center ”, if the term risks being misunderstood – is not a geometric position, but a point of balance. It is a possible place of recognizability, where those who do not feel represented today could find themselves. A space that escapes the rigidity of alignments, but that does not give up a clear vision of society.
The theme is first and foremost about values. The history of the values that have supported the Italian social fabric – from solidarity to the dignity of work , from personal responsibility to the sense of community – is a deep, layered history. But these values today risk remaining immobile, faded symbols of a time that no longer speaks to the present. This is why a cultural operation is needed: not of rewriting, but of renewing intensity. “Values are not enough in themselves if they cannot be transformed into contemporary language . Today more than ever, we need to reconnect the roots with the horizon.”
Social evolution has radically changed the structure of needs and belongings. Interclassism – which once allowed the meeting of different social instances under a common vision – is no longer reproducible in the same forms today. But the need for recomposition, for cultural bridges capable of speaking to multiple worlds, remains strong. In a time in which social categories have shattered and the languages of politics often seem to resonate empty, the challenge is precisely that of creating a space that does not simplify, but embraces complexity.
“Being central does not mean being lukewarm. It means avoiding extremism, yes, but also taking on the responsibility of creating bonds, common visions, shared languages.” The increasingly widespread impression is that many of today’s political families are no longer able to truly interpret the intimate feelings of citizens. Too often politics speaks above, rather than inside. Too often the ability to generate listening, trust, recognition is lacking. This is why a crisis is emerging that is even before being political, profoundly pre-political: it concerns the emotional and cultural bond between people and those who claim to represent them.
“Citizens are not simply asking for solutions. They are asking to feel recognized. And if many are staying away from voting, it is not only out of distrust, but because there are no places where they can feel seen.” The growing abstentionism is not just a gesture of refusal: it is the symptom of a lack of an ideal proposal. People are not looking for a container, but for content: an idea of the future in which they can believe, a language that understands them, a vision that includes them. We do not need new labels, but new meanings.
This is why the next political challenges cannot be limited to being programmatic or administrative. Talking about urban planning , environment , ecological transition , school , also means rethinking collective living, the care of bonds, the quality of time and relationships. Concrete choices must return to being meaningful choices. “It is no longer time to think that redeveloping an urban space is enough to mend a community. Cities, regions, need policies that can read feelings and not just plans".
The politics of the future must be a politics of sensitivity, capable of speaking without shouting, of proposing without imposing, of uniting without canceling differences. This missing space has no name, but it is real. It is made of expectations, of unheard voices, of people who no longer find themselves on the right or on the left, but who do not want to give up participating. Perhaps precisely in that still uncultivated land, without slogans and without labels, a new political thought can germinate, rooted in values but capable of innovating them, attentive to the present but open to the future.
“Perhaps the future will be played out right there: in that still uninhabited space, which has no labels or nostalgia, but which can become a fertile place for the construction of a sensitive thought, not ideological, not shouted, but profoundly necessary.”
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