Where are we going? Towards the nightmare of the new Black Man, An Interview with the psychoanalyst Danilo Moncada Zarbo di Monforte 26 March 2020

By Ornella Rota, Rome - Having escaped a plane crash and finished on an uninhabited island, a group of children trying to survive . Ralph invites them to organize themselves in view of the difficulties ahead, warning to even keep a fire lit to draw attention of any passing ships. Jack invites them rather to impose itself by force on other groups that may be present, to fight together against a mysterious, looming, threatening ( "The Beast"). With each passing day, the Ralph followers dwindle, those of Jack becoming more numerous; the trivial atavistic damned "fear of the black man" is always effective. 

Published in 1954 in the United States without much success (about 3 thousand copies sold), " Lord of the Flies "by William Golding , reissued five years later, it sold more than 14 million and earned the author the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1983.

Who is the Black Man?

"And 'the common defensive response to the many men and women to neutralize a fear indefinite multiforme, which always rises in the face of vague threats and infiltrates everyday life, affects the quality of life together, wake substantially ghosts of childhood - first of all abandonment, not knowing who you are, "says Danilo Moncada Zarbo Monforte , psychoanalyst, clinical psychologist, sex therapist, active between Rome and Barcelona. "Easy answer, convince / is the monster and the threat is out: in fact they are within each of us,for example, fear of foreigners to express our inner world does not (yet) known: a frequent mechanism especially in this historical phase in which everything has become more permeable, and apparently less manageable, well-understood boundaries. Today in fact we can stay at home and through the digitization process to find thousands of bodies inside the house, just a click and often not even that because people and events come without a filter in our daily life. Those who know the fears of others can certainly make a therapeutic use, but can also manipulate them for purposes of power , personal or group or political. Solution not uncommon, relying on a character that evokes the figure of the strong parent, authoritarian. "

The so-called Man Strong, who decides for you and relieve you from the trouble of thinking. But, as traders who continually say they strive to meet the needs of consumers, when in fact cultivate the emergence of new needs, so the Strong Man says he wants to fight insecurity, while his actions actually foment insecurity , distrust, feeling of encirclement.

"Significantly, in these last few years, the children are afraid of imaginary beings and unreal; adults rather fear ii thieves, even more of the poor. But you know that I have arrived in the study people who have nightmares populated by Man Black? It not happened in years "

How do you respond? 

"Urging them to understand. We understand that behind their insecurity there are obviously so many real problems but there is an even greater exploitation, who are living a nightmare suspending their judgment.

I am reminded of The Nightmare , 1781, under Henry Fuseli, exhibited in the Detroit Institute of Arts, in the United States.It represents a very pale woman who sleeps fairly decomposed (but might be dead, or unconscious) on the bed; abdomen, side, weighs a kind of mostricciattolo, gargoyle type (from the name of gutters or gargoyles in the form of dead beings, and are seen to Notre Dame). In the darkness around, by a red tick tent the head of a horse with his eyes wide open; according to some legends and German traditions, demons and witches could get to own those who slept alone - men received the visit of horses and witches, women believed to have a relationship with the devil. Among the various interpretations of the famous painting one stands out due to the sexual sphere: quell'umanoide horrible personifies the fear of desire or sexual fantasy; today,

(Second episode next Thursday)

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