Used and abused words.
Sustainability, innovation and resilience

2th July 2024 - A conversation with Stefano Bartezzaghi

Professor Stefano Bartezzaghi, a semiologist, a puzzle maker and an essayist, was the guest of honour at Palazzo Invernizzi Conference Centre. He has written several books, the latest of which was published by Bompiani and titled “Chi vince non sa cosa si perde” (Those who win do not know what they miss), which analyses agonism and competition, starting from sport, not only in traditionally sporting contexts, but also and especially in those of everyday life.

The professor caught the audience’s attention with some word games, anecdotes and remarks on the etymology of words and the search for their intrinsic meaning, dwelling on some terms that are specific to the scientific language and are linked to the three disciplines in which the Foundation operates: Economics, Agri-Food Sciences and Medicine.

Starting from the word “abuse” mentioned in the title, a first remark was made on the comprehensive meaning of words: that is, when words are used to name and identify something else, often in relation to something that did not exist previously. In some cases, this can lead to substituting the meaning of the word itself, which cancels or replaces its original one. As the Professor pointed out, this should not be perceived as something negative - and therefore speaking of abuse, which has a moralising connotation, is not correct – in that it is part of a much more complex and broader picture in which words, like human beings, move, shift and change as society changes and vice versa.

The first word addressed by the Professor was Sustainability, from sustainable, which can be sustained. Starting from this, he invited the audience to wonder about a crucial issue: “in the human-environment pair understood as ecosystem, who supports whom?”. He clarified that human beings should be more concerned with sustaining the ecosystem in which they live, grow and change when taking what they need to survive.

Innovation is undoubtedly a widely-used word in several sectors and has also become the ambition of more and more people, companies and entities. But what does “innovate” mean? Starting from a linguistic point of view, innovating forces us to rename the past - as Bartezzaghi explains - and to give things a new name. The Professor mentioned a number of examples ranging from “handmade pasta” to “landline telephone” to clarify this concept. Innovating is about something new, where new can have different traits, as it may be something “revolutionary” or a mere reproduction of things, through reconfiguration and repetition. Progress looks forward, while innovation looks backwards because it renames or modifies things that already existed.

The soirée ended with the most abused word of all, especially in the last few years, which is Resilience.

The word originated with a scientific meaning, that is the ability of a material to absorb energy when subjected to elastic deformation. This word was first taken from psychology, and the concept was extended from the ability of a material to that of a human being to “resist”, i.e., to adjust to adversity, and then entered common use and was used, often inappropriately, in sentences and cases that were increasingly distant from its original meaning, up to the well-known PNRR – the Italian National Recovery and Resilience Plan.

On the latter, he pointed out that it would have probably been more appropriate to mention resilience before recovery! During his speech, the Professor joked on the fact that words are important, but only up to a certain degree. It is perhaps the best way to end a soirée about words, which are only one of the aspects that often undergo (or generate?) more complex changes and evolutions in society.

This initiative is part of the Foundation’s planned cultural activities, which started with the opening of Palazzo Invernizzi Conference Centre. The Foundation is committed to organising and promoting cultural and dissemination activities for students, collaborators and friends.