The Special Relationship Between Doom and Creativity
My new book, Virgil’s Golden Egg and Other Neapolitan Miracles, investigates why Neapolitans are so creative, and have been for centuries. It’s a world’s record, I think. The Florentine Renaissance was amazing, too, but it was largely over after two and a half centuries. The Golden Age of Periclean Athens was less than one hundred years, as was the American “Truly Greatest Generation” of the War, the Constitution, and the consolidation of the state. What accounts for explosions of creativity? And what keeps it going?
I offer three suggestions for the Neapolitans’ extraordinary energy and creativity, and note that the personality type for which Naples is famous, is very much like ours. We call them Triple-A types, and the psychologists have fancier names for them (hypomanics, for example), and we all know several. You know, people just this side of manic-depression, people who aren’t likely to end up in a padded room, but you can’t tell for sure. Think Steve Jobs, or Walt Disney or…well, put in your own favorites. Naples is full of those people, and we can identify them scientifically; they have a unique DNA. It’s interesting that the countries with the greatest number of such people are all immigrant societies: America, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and Israel.
Naples has an added ingredient, as did New Orleans, as does Venice, as does Israel: the people “know” that they are doomed, either because a terrible natural catastrophe is looming and can’t be avoided, or because there are so many murderous enemies that, sooner or later, death will be visited upon the place. Doomed cities and doomed countries have a unique relationship with death, and (therefore, but you’ll have to read the book to get the particulars) are extraordinarily artistic, and imaginative. There’s fabulous Neapolitan literature, art and music about Mount Vesuvius, the great volcano whose next explosion is, according to the vulcanologists, overdue. When it comes, they say, it will totally destroy the city and a big area around it.
These remarks, which are considerably expanded in Virgil’s Golden Egg, came to mind today when a dear friend sent me this wonderful video from Tel Aviv, in which Italian opera is played and sung in a public market in Tel Aviv. I cannot watch it without thinking of the enormous creative energy unleashed by the Israeli people, despite, or indeed because of, their surrounding doom. No wonder they have such an amazing track record of scientific, literary, technological and scientific achievement.
History unfolds through paradox. War is sure hell, but the looming presence of doom has creative consequences.
Really can’t wait to read your new book…. Sounds CREATIVE and interesting to say the least.
Well I really like it…and of course I”m madly in love with Naples…
Naples is also the home of the Mafia which corrupts not just Italy but the whole of Europe and North Africa with drugs, sex slaves, shoddy construction and murder for hire.
it’s all in the book.
Do you really think that the Mafia is more corrupt than, say, a Joe Kennedy or John D. Rockefeller? The only difference is that one is honest about its corruption and the others are not. Let’s give credit where it is due. Without the Mafia we would have been deprived of some of the best movies ever made. We would have also not had the pleasure to doubling down on a nine-deuce in the middle of a rattle snake infested desert. Take it easy on the goodfellas. It is only beezinessi.
An alternate view of this history–from The Economist
” RENAISSANCE-era Florence is remembered not for its bankers but for its beauty.
Yet the city is now hosting a splendid exhibition that reaffirms the important link between the two.
High finance not only funded high art, but its money and movement helped to fuel the humanist ideals that inspired the Renaissance.”—-
http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2011/10/money-and-beauty
Beautiful post about Naples. Interesting that an underlying theme of the post predicts the impending and inevitable “doom” of Israel. Are you really such a pessimist about Israel’s future (beyond just recognizing that they have some big challenges and threats)?
I’m not a prophet. I don’t know what will happen to Israel. But the sense of doom is real enough, and no doubt plays a role in the Israelis’ amazing creativity.
I have great respect for your judgment so am interested in your analysis in this matter.
From what I have seen, Israelis (even doves) have a great mental toughness. They also have a great realism about their neighborhood in the Middle East, esp. after the failure of the Palestinian Peace process and the so-called Al-Aqsa Intifada in 2000. Finally, even “secular” Israelis (excluding militant secularists) seem to have a faith in the future and G-d’s goodness. I don’t find this surprising in a nation whose national anthem called is Ha-Tikvah (“The Hope”). Your PJM colleague Spengler has a beautiful analysis of how this is demonstrated by high Israeli birthrates (the highest of any developed western country). For myself, I have witnessed how it is common for educated, secular kibutzniks to have three and four children.
I am no great expert on Israel, but it seems to me that the Israelis have a mixture of toughness and romanticism very much like the Neapolitans. And us.
Interesting.
It comes to my mind that our body works at its best, in its full capabilities, when the danger is imminent and the “fight or flight” chemical reactions mobilize every ounce of our energies.
You seem to imply that our mind behaves exactly in the same way.
And it cannot be forgotten that the classical philosophers have always said that only the reflection about death opens the way to true depth of thought.
Dear Michael, it is great to write about this great country (Italia) or its beautiful and charming cities. The world in general, and the Western world in particular should not forget the great contribution to them by the greatest civilizations “Greek and Roman civilization.” That great societies were the one to contribute most to mankind and its advancement. They have greatly influenced Western culture, and the Western culture on the life of whole the world. Thank you, indeed that great nation is highly worthy of respect. They were the Founding Fathers of the Western World and its great culture.