Italian Sociological Review

Pareto: A Great Classic Author of the Future. Overview and Introduction

Andrea Lombardinilo, Adele Bianco, Emanuela Susca — Wed, 04 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This number of the Italian Sociological Review presents a number of papers emerging from the reflections and debate of the seminar organized in September 2023 by the Universities “G. d’Annunzio” of Chieti-Pescara and “Carlo Bo” of Urbino for the centenary of the death of Vilfredo Pareto.

The intention of the organizers and participants in the seminar was not only to commemorate the figure of a classical author on sociology, economy and political science, but also to reflect on the topical nature of his intellectual legacy and on the importance of his teaching for the future.

Pareto and Elias Facing the Crisis of Contemporary Society

Adele Bianco — Wed, 04 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The purpose of this paper is to compare Vilfredo Pareto and Norbert Elias. Although they differ in many ways, the juxtaposition between the two sociologists provides useful elements to analyze crisis in contemporary society. The distance between their theoretical and thematic approaches can be an innovative driver, fostering a comprehensive analysis of contemporary society.

The paper is structured as follows. The first section explains the reasons for juxtaposing the two authors, highlighting useful elements for our objective.

The second section focuses on Pareto’s contribution to the current crisis of democracy and the rise of populism, identifying their roots and historical continuity. Factors of such “political decivilization” are, in some respect, more serious today than in Pareto’s time.

The third section begins with Elias’ notion of “decivilization”. The analysis focuses on the regressive phenomena of our civilization, such as the rise of irrational behaviour, questioning the competence of experts, and the rejection of science. It also highlights worldviews that rely on imagination rather than on factual data, which can be surprising and disconcerting.

Pareto, Mosca, Michels, and the Advent of Fascism

Giovanni Barbieri — Wed, 04 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This article focuses on the attitudes of the classical elitists towards the advent of fascism, as elite theory represented one of the main reference points for many fascist thinkers. Born between 1848 and 1876, Gaetano Mosca, Vilfredo Pareto, and Roberto Michels had the opportunity to witness and evaluate the phenomenon of fascism firsthand. While all three scholars shared a deep fascination with fascism and its leader, there are several noteworthy differences in their thought, primarily due to their diverging intellectual journeys. The murder of Giacomo Matteotti in 1924 led Mosca to adopt a critical and oppositional position towards fascism and Mussolini, while Pareto died in 1923 and, thus, was unable to witness fascism’s transformation into a totalitarian regime. Nevertheless, one could argue that Pareto, who cautioned against governmental overreach and the suppression of freedoms and advocated for the preservation of parliament, would have disapproved of such a regime. Michels, on the other hand, embraced fascism with conviction and fervour.

Pareto’s Non-logical Actions and the Issue of Humanity

Fabio D'Andrea — Wed, 04 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

In this essay I put forward the hypothesis that Pareto’s theory of action should be understood as an unintentional, pioneering study on the complexity of humanity rather than as an attempt to explain and correct non-logical behaviours. Through a critical reading of Pareto’s vocabulary and unspoken convictions, it will be shown that he went well beyond his own intentions highlighting a fundamental – though unacknowledged and stigmatized – dynamics of human interaction and organization. Building on Pareto’s evidence of the importance of non-logical action, it is possible to free humanity from the normative obligation to be rational and begin to understand the actual complexity of interaction and culture creation, taking into account heuristic spheres that rationalization has banned from awareness, but are still crucial, unbeknownst to us: corporeity, emotions, symbolic-imaginal thinking.

Vilfredo Pareto on Culture and Derivations: Virtuism as a Logicizing Perversion

Andrea Lombardinilo — Wed, 04 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The essay investigates the sociological premises at the basis of Vilfredo Pareto’s tenet of “virtuism” as it complies with his effort to combine sociology, literature and communication and deal with the conservative action fostered by the Catholics against the diffusion of immoral contents and images. The criticism of any form of censorship concerns the celebration of art and the opposition to fanaticism (both religious and political) undermining the everlasting power of culture. In Pareto’s perspective, the juxtaposition of residues and derivations, along with the dialectics of logical and non-logical actions, sheds light on the argumentative techniques that social actors exploit to logically legitimate actions, gestures and decisions that usually appear to be inspired by prejudices, false opinions and cultural heritage, as Pareto scornfully underlines in The Virtuist Myth and Immoral Literature (1914). Two events impose a sharp reflection on the tenet of morality within the public sphere and the impact that images, texts and symbols have on individual and collective sensitivity: the covering of ancient Roman statues in the Capitoline Museum in Rome for the visit of an Iranian president, and the removal of a seventeenth-century painting of a butcher from a Cambridge (UK) university dining hall after protests by vegan students. Such tenets and impacts were illustrated by Federico Fellini in The Temptation of Dr. Antonio (1962). Once again, logical and non-logical actions comply with cultural beliefs and communicative practices, at a time ruled by new forms of moral and immoral display.

Sociology as an Experimental Science of Non-logical Actions. The Relevance of Pareto’s Work Today

Ilaria Riccioni — Wed, 04 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Over the past few years, in terms of a theoretical approach to reality, sociology seems to be lagging behind in disclosing the meanings and dynamics of social issues in connection with individuals’ problems (Mills, 1965). Society has changed dramatically, and the classic sociological tools appear wholly inadequate for the new social reality. And we can also thank postmodernist theories for this, since they managed to deconstruct a number of sociological tools without providing satisfactory alternatives. In the case of Vilfredo Pareto, by the beginning of the 19th century he had already realized that economics was not enough to explain social issues but despite this was becoming the dominant discipline used to tackle social demands. The purpose of this article is to examine those aspects of the work of Pareto that are still relevant for thinking about the current social reality and, in particular, about the potential tools that this work can still offer us today, if properly explored.

Pareto and the Ambivalence of Emotions

Emanuela Susca — Wed, 04 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

In the context of the growing interest in emotions in sociology, this article focuses on Pareto’s investigation of the emotional foundations of society. Firstly, this paper highlights that the Treatise on General Sociology offers two interpretative options: the first reiterates ideas already expressed before the Treatise and the second is profoundly original and focuses on residues.

Accordingly, through an in-depth analysis of the theoretical framework of residues, this contribution highlights the originality and topicality of the Paretian approach. The conceptual framework of residues informs the understanding of the ambivalence of emotions in terms of their rich nuances, contradictions, and possible manifestations. Moreover, Pareto questions the accepted dichotomy between rationality and irrationality and shows how human action eludes rigid categorisation. Finally, employing a proudly elitist perspective that differs from today’s democracy-focused perspective, Pareto is a visionary in his acknowledgment of the importance of emotions in leadership and public opinion.

The concluding remarks reflect on an aspect of the Paretian approach that seems less topical: the idea that humans want to hide their emotions from themselves and others.