L’ironia della genesi. Modelli alternativi del conflitto comunicativo

Abstract

This paper will take as a starting point the return of elitism in political life and in cultural debate, and it will analyse the communicative conflict. This will be done by putting in opposition two models of communication, the elitist model and the cooperative model, exemplified respectively by Pareto's theory of discursive manifestations and by Gramsci's theory of expressiveness. The paper will show that the elitist model is characterized by dysphoria as a result of the splitting of original equilibrium, that is removed by elitism. Therefore the speech becomes a compromise formation oscillating between the skeptic notional domain, which is dominated by the simulacra of consensus, and the fideistic notional domain, which is dominated by the authoritarian formulas. Subsequently the cooperative model will be taken into account, which is based on the abrogation of the fixity of roles of the pedagogical relationship as basic structure of social relationships. The speech is thus configured as an integral expression, i. e. as an adaptive search for truth by the community, which is achieved by assuming neurocognitive, cultural and social constraints of communication. Consequently, notional domains appear as the figures of a sociocognitive dialectic in which the practice of rules universalises the verbal reflection and makes it binding for the action. As a consequence, consensus does not appear as a simulacrum of strength any longer, but as a collective decision implemented by means of expressive freedom. Thus, if in the elitist model conflict gives rise to periodic revolutions which  propose again the same social block under new guises, the cooperative model gives rise to new developments which are functional to the mobility of the adaptive search of truth. The paper will conclude that if conflict in the elitist model is cyclically suspended because it is permanent and destructive, in the cooperative model it is permanently admitted, because it is temporary and constructive.