The latest essay by Susanna Tamaro, between attacks on modernity and defense of the individual

In his Returning human (Solferino, 2022, 288 pp.), Susanna Tamaro cultivates a Darwinian Franciscanism or a Franciscan Darwinism, depending on the moment: it recognizes that the world, so to speak, belongs to microorganisms, which exist outside us in galactic numbers, but which also inside us, as a microbiota, are more numerous than the cells of the body, where they protect us from discomfort and help us feel good. Only a couple of thousand known microorganisms cause disease, in some cases fatal. As life moves on a precarious raft in a sea of ​​entropy, the struggle for existence or the necessary Darwinian rebalances go hand in hand with Franciscan feelings for fellow creatures, such as swallows or domestic animals, which eliminate killer insects or feed us. Thank you, sister swallow? The fact is that there is no project in evolution, mosquitoes have no “meaning”, viruses do not, and the values ​​of Franciscanism, which we all appreciate and respect as personal choices, are not what allowed us to erase so much suffering from the planet (as, after all, Tamaro knows well).