The Idea of the Mediterranean - Bernardo Piciché

A Mediterranean Identity?

The paper will explore the concept of "Mediterranean identity" by reflecting on the following points: 1) What do we define as identity? 2) Did a Mediterranean identity ever exist? 3) Does it make sense to try to cast a specific identity of the Mediterranean today? 4) An hypothesis for the area as a paradigmatic response to prevailing identity models.

The first point entails a brief account of the concept of identity as developed in Europe in the modern era, as well as of the risks inherent to this concept. The second point will focus on concepts of "pluriverse," "globalization," evolutionary and revolutionary monotheism, and medietas. While raising questions about traditional categories of "honor and shame," and by passing obvious factors of cohesion due to common climate and land morphology, the paper will defend the hypothesis that the Mediterranean identity in the past was the result of the interaction among the religions of the Book, and each of these with the Greco-Roman culture. The paper will propose the concept of "Mediterranean paradox" to indicate the situation of coexistence and cultural osmosis in the Mediterranean area, in spite of the ontological dichotomy of its religious and philosophical substratum - even Greek dialectic presumes a unique True, opposed to Untrue. The paper will investigate the reasons for this contradiction, if it is such. The third point will reflect on the loss of identity of the Mediterranean today, with a North and South too far apart. The fourth point will propose the Mediterranean utopia, an ideal for the area, probably impossible to achieve yet always pursuable, as a paradigm of all the "Mediterraneans" and "Souths" of the world, a proposal for identity models that can be complementary, not alternative, to the present overarching model.