<\/a>Instead, Italians are very comfortable with the contraindications, and in fact might even prefer them.\u00a0 Perhaps it gives the individual a little wiggle room to debate and apply the religious\/moral principles as he\/she sees fit.\u00a0 \u00a0There seems to be an attitude of \u201cWell, it might not be true\u2026 but what\u2019s there to lose by playing along?\u201d\u00a0 Not ironically, it\u2019s exactly the same with superstition.\u00a0 \u201cOK, the malocchio<\/i> is probably nonsense, but what does it hurt to wear my cornicello<\/i>?\u201d<\/p>\nReligion or Superstition? Or both?<\/h2>\n
Nowhere in the world does religion and superstition coexist in such easy harmony as in Italy.\u00a0 In the U.S. or Britain, superstitions might be acknowledged and even practiced to some degree.\u00a0 But they are separate from religious beliefs.\u00a0 Not so in Italy, where the line becomes increasingly blurry the more you investigate the topic. \u00a0And the further you travel south.<\/p>\n
There are many superstitions in Italy which clearly demonstrate this relationship.\u00a0 For example, never throw away bread, and if you really must, you have to kiss it first (bread is the symbolic body of Christ, after all).\u00a0 Speaking of kissing, in Italy you should always greet someone with a kiss on BOTH cheeks, never<\/i> just one (your name isn\u2019t Judas, is it?).\u00a0 Never place 13 people at the dinner table (unless it\u2019s someone\u2019s \u201clast supper,\u201d so to speak).\u00a0 Avoid wearing the color purple (because Jesus was clothed in purple as a mockery of his royalty).\u00a0 These are only a few of the many examples.<\/p>\n
Over the centuries, religion and superstition have gradually merged into a single amalgam of supernatural beliefs, especially in southern Italy.\u00a0 Of course, the Vatican isn\u2019t too keen on this idea and has even sent missionaries down South to \u201cclean up\u201d this hybrid form of Catholicism.\u00a0 Unsuccessfully, it would appear.<\/p>\n
I Puritani<\/h2>\n
If, in Italy, religion is often merely a fa\u00e7ade of good manners or the avoidance of bad luck, then in the U.S., the Puritan influence creates a much more rigid societal state of mind.\u00a0 The accepted \u201cmorality\u201d must prevail at all costs.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t really matter if you\u2019re Catholic, Protestant, or Jewish; Puritan values still permeate almost every aspect of American society.\u00a0 In politics, for example.\u00a0 We\u2019ve become progressive enough for an African-American president, a female Secretary of State, and homosexual mayors.\u00a0 But an atheist in the White House?\u00a0 Unimaginable.\u00a0 Indeed, it would appear that the opposite extreme is more politically popular.\u00a0 (Who remembers when George Bush claimed \u201cGod told me to end the tyranny in Iraq\u201d?)<\/p>\n
Television provides another clear example.\u00a0 In the U.S., you’re allowed to show every disgusting mode of graphic violence on network T.V. that you want:\u00a0 Guns? \u00a0Beheadings? \u00a0Exploded corpses?\u00a0 No problem! \u00a0But if you flash a female breast for one second you\u2019re in deep shit with the censors.\u00a0 (Does anybody recall Janet Jackson\u2019s \u201caccident\u201d at the Super Bowl and the controversy it sparked?)\u00a0 This is clearly the Puritan influence at work\u2014a moral \u201changover\u201d from our forefathers antiquated beliefs.<\/p>\n
In Italy, by contrast, the era of the velina<\/i>\u2014those overtly sexual, scantily clad spokesmodels dancing for the camera\u2014was ushered in by none other than the Prime Minister himself.\u00a0 Yes, that billionaire entrepreneur, icon of low-brow entertainment, model of rude behavior, and sometime politician: Silvio Berlusconi.\u00a0 In his image of Italy, Italians prefer their scenes of violence to occur off-screen; but meanwhile the female anatomy takes center stage on prime-time television.\u00a0 Shows like Drive-In, Striscia La Notizia, etc. clearly demonstrate this national preference for sex over violence.\u00a0 (Gasp! \u00a0Americani<\/i>, cover your eyes and send your children off to bed!)<\/p>\n
What does all this say about the two cultures?\u00a0 Hell, I don\u2019t know, I\u2019m just a guy with a blog trying to make sense of life with two Italians in the house.\u00a0 My wife shares my views on gun control, while at the same time making a crusade out of the right of a couple to kiss on the metro.\u00a0 And my little daughter seems to prefer exhibitionism to modesty\u2026nothing makes her giggle so much as running around the house naked (this will obviously have to change before she starts asilo<\/i>).<\/p>\n
If living in another culture teaches you one thing it is this: open your mind, question your beliefs, and be willing accept that everything that you thought was an absolute was, in fact, only one way of seeing the world.\u00a0 The great American poet Walt Whitman said it even better, \u201cRe-examine all that you have been told at church or school or in any book, and dismiss whatever insults your soul.\u201d\u00a0 (We should probably add Google to this list.\u00a0 If they still think I\u2019m an expert on superstition and religion in Italy, then they obviously can\u2019t be trusted.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Since winning Italy Magazine\u2019s Blogger Award, the increase in traffic to my blog, Facebook Page, and Twitter account has been meteoric, to say the least.\u00a0 So it\u2019s with some trepidation that I tackle a provocative subject with all these new eyes on my posts.\u00a0 However, to this day, one of the biggest draws to my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5809,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[202,169,5,4,134],"tags":[93,175,77,70],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2590"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2590"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2590\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12134,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2590\/revisions\/12134"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}