The Duties of Man - Giuseppe Mazzini

Giuseppe Mazzini (1805-1872) ranks among the most influential public intellectuals of the 19th century. Although today he is mostly remembered as a spiritual father of Italian unification, he saw his patriotic goals as part of a larger struggle for the emancipation of all oppressed people--notably, slaves and women--inspiring revolutionary movements around the world, for which he had been called "the Apostle of Modern Democracy."

Individualism and nationalism had emerged as the twin mandates of nineteenth century European history. But the French Revolution and Napoleonic expansionism, respectively, had become emblematic of their excesses. Mazzini, holding a dialectical view of progress and human history (strongly influenced by Hegel), rejected these extremes and instead envisioned a perfect synthesis of the individual and society, freedom and necessity, thought and action, secularism and Christianity.

He denied the Enlightenment notion of political rights as entitlements against external restraint. Instead, Mazzini conceives of freedom positively as a choice to do good, only secured through action, arguing that "the sole origin of every right" is duty. Only by a proper dedication to one's obligations--to family, country, humanity, and God--can a people achieve "the progress of all through all" and defeat (as he sees it) the "two lies" menacing the world: Machiavellianism and materialism.

For this meetup, we will read The Duties of Man (Doveri dell'uomo, 1858).

The Duties of Man:

• Google books
• Internet Archive

Extracts:

• "The term ‘freedom of the press’ they consider on a par with freedom of Colt’s revolver. Hence, for truth and the right, they hold, to indulge hopes from the one is little more sensible than for Kossuth and Mazzini to indulge hopes from the other." (The Confidence-Man, 29)

This meetup is part of the series The Risorgimento.