Critical Thinking in Action

This panel takes its title from the first volume in English of Eugenio Colorni’s writings and correspondence. Born in 1909, Colorni was a political philosopher and a teacher who entered the ranks of the anti-fascist movement. His analysis of the convergence of capitalistic interests, nationalism, and state violence, and his federalist ideas led to his incarceration at Ventotene and, in 1944, to his murder by Pietro Koch’s Fascist militia. Besides the renowned Manifesto di Ventotene, his writings have been, for the most part, published posthumously and translated into English by the Colorni-Hirschman International Institute (https://colornihirschman.org/). Luca Meldolesi, Nicoletta Stame, Ernest Ialongo (Hostos, CUNY), Stanislao Pugliese (Hofstra University).

“Actually, if we were to accept the basic foundation of Mussolini’s foreign policy and evaluate its results on the generally accepted scale of diplomacy, it would be unjust and sectarian to seek to deny it a certain degree of skill and success. The contradictions it struggles with, the absurdities it faces and the abyss it will fall into are not the result of diplomatic mistakes or a lack of political clairvoyance. They are intrinsic to any policy that exploits national feeling (vibrant, essential, irrepressible and never to be ignored, but requiring other outlets and forms of expression) as an incentive for increasing the territorial and military power of one nation to the detriment of others.” Eugenio Colorni