Bezos yes, Bezos no. Maybe with this question you could even get a quorum at a referendum.
The topic is popular, a very rich American lands in one of the most beautiful places in the world as well as Italian cultural and environmental heritage, and occupies the Lagoon for a couple of days to get married to the beautiful journalist Lauren Sanchez.
Liturgies and mundane rituals almost longer than controversies, a neverending wedding as the specialists say that some political incorrectness would have reduced to a simple though always complicated YES.
You will not hold it against us, but we reduce to almost nothing the boundless chronicles of gossip, who was there and who was not, how they were dressed and by whom, what they ate (with or without gluten) and how much, who sang and who did not. No media outlet abstained from this narrative game. First Bezos bonus, more copies sold, and that is no small thing these days. But let’s get to the bottom line.
Is it fair or not that the Amazon tycoon , the one who brings everything to our house, comes to our house and gives himself a public place for a ritual that remains private? Here we have heard everything from the moral dimension to the pedagogical dimension (a bad teaching for young people who thus think that money is everything) to even equality among men.
The moral question I liquidate it right away because it takes us to a slippery slope, that is trashy or not, envy and annoyance over wealth, nostalgia for rich Americans who however opened museums, in short what is good and what is not, and who are we to say?
On the pedagogical issue it is like emptying the sea with a spoon (maybe the Lagoon is more within reach ), we should censor on kids’ cell phones millions of dis-educational models every day.
On the issue of equality I remember heartfelt alarms about the floors of St. Mark’s being trampled by the poor tourist hordes, the sandwich proletarians included. And isn’t the entrance fee undemocratic? Since only 8 percent pay it, a bit like taxes, issue dismissed. Instead, the 700 who demonstrated for bridges and calli (those left free) to the cry of NospaceBezos had some reason: were the environmental rules for such a pervasive thing respected?
However, for a brief disturbance, just two days, Bezos and company left about 30 million in the Venetian coffers. Already today Venetians will be able to serenely take the vaporetto to work. So much hubbub for nothing but that kiss on the Grand Canal. Rich and happy. On the relationship of cause and effect the debate remains.
The article Bezos from Venice comes from TheNewyorker.
