Comment by busyant | Hacker News Reader

Comment by busyant | Hacker News Reader

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My parents grew up in southern Italy and moved to the US in the '50s.

Growing up, I got a strong taste of that culture--there were many positive aspects, but a common negative theme that permeated my childhood was that you should never trust anyone outside of your extended family. The world was filled with con-artists trying to scam you.

About 15 years ago, a relatively large company offered to purchase my small business and 'acqui-hire' me. As I considered the offer, my parents were convinced it was a 'trick.'

"Don't let them trick you! I'm very worried about this. I don't trust them." etc. etc.

They couldn't fathom the idea that someone would willing pay me (and hire me) for something I created.

I remember thinking my parents were naive ... "We're in the USA! This is the land of optimism and positivity. It's not 1940s Italy filled with brigands and charlatans."

It's now quite sobering to me that we seem headed back to the culture that shaped my parents' worldview.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinocchio#Literary_analysis

The structure of the story of Pinocchio follows that of the folktales of peasants who venture out into the world but are naïvely unprepared for what they find and get into ridiculous situations.[11] At the time of the writing of the book, this was a serious problem, arising partly from the industrialization of Italy, which led to a growing need for reliable labor in the cities; the problem was exacerbated by similar, more or less simultaneous, demands for labor in the industrialization of other countries. One major effect was the emigration of much of the Italian peasantry to cities and foreign countries such as the United States.

Thank you for the link.

If you haven't heard of this book, you may find it interesting:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moral_Basis_of_a_Backward_...

The Moral Basis of a Backward Society is a book by Edward C. Banfield, an American political scientist who visited ... the ... town of Chiaromonte, in the Southern Italian region of Basilicata ... in 1955. He observed a self-interested, family-centric society, which sacrificed the public good for the sake of nepotism and the immediate family. As an American, Banfield was witnessing what was to become infamous as the Southern Italian Mafias and a self-centered clan-system promoting the well-being of their inner group at the expense of the other ones. Banfield postulated that the backwardness of such a society could be explained "largely ... [by] the inability of the villagers to act together for their common good or, indeed, for any end transcending the immediate, material interest of the nuclear family."[1]

Banfield concluded that Montegrano's plight was rooted in the distrust, envy, and suspicion displayed by its inhabitants' relations with one another. Fellow citizens would refuse to help one another unless their own personal material gain was at stake. Many attempted to hinder their neighbors from attaining success, believing that others' good fortune would inevitably harm their own interests. Montegrano's citizens viewed their village life as little more than a battleground. Consequently, there prevailed social isolation and poverty and an inability to work together to solve common social problems or even to pool common resources and talents to build infrastructure or address common economic concerns.

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