Simone Marchetti's editorial: Redemption and empathy

This article is published in issue 15 of Vanity Fair on newsstands until April 9, 2024

“I no longer live based on what others think of me.” It's one of the phrases that struck me most in the interview with Anne Hathaway, our cover star. The actress's reflection might seem banal, the classic claim of someone who has chosen not to care about the opinion of others. In reality, what Hathaway said is truer and more profound: it talks about that fear, that terror of making a mistake, of saying something that puts us in danger in a historical moment in which social media places everyone and everything under the lens of judgment summary and, to complicate things, in an era in which the cultural change underway requires a revolution in the choice of words, which yesterday we took for granted and which today, however, are dangerous or offensive.

Nothing can be said anymore, many say.

It's not true: instead everything needs to be changed, others reply.

In this issue of Vanity Fair, the reflections of its editorialists, the interviews and the stories you will find there are all united by the common thread of these two questions. That is to say: How can we live without worrying too much about hatred, without paying too much attention to the various and flawed opinions that rain down like stones from social media? And how can we change, how can we write a new future without being crushed by the fear of making mistakes, by the anxiety of doing everything right?

I'll tell you in advance: you won't find a real answer but, I promise, we will help you refine the question. Because, on the one hand, what emerges from the pages you will read is first and foremost a feeling of self-determination and redemption from the confused chatter of comments, the thousand opinions and rantings that are now part of our lives and, unfortunately, also of daily information . On the other hand, you will also discover a need for empathy, a sort of tolerance of mistakes and right things, of successes and failures that naturally accompany every era of change.

In this regard, I bring you another quote, this time taken from history On board a violin by Nina Verdelli (you can find it on page 52). Speaking is Arnoldo Mosca Mondadori, poet, philosopher and president of a foundation that supports and promotes the work of violin making in the Opera prison in Milan. «Years ago in Lampedusa I saw a ten-year-old child get off a dinghy barefoot», says Arnoldo. “I asked myself: why him and not my son?”.

Here: I think that empathy education can truly be a shining beacon in the perfect storm of revolutions and in the rough sea of ​​social chaos.

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