Presentation “The End of the End of History. Inhabiting the Discomfort of the World”

Presentation of Gabriele Segre‘s latest book, “The End of the End of History: Inhabiting the Discomfort of the World,” published by Bollati Boringhieri. With Dario Fabbri, moderated by Simone Disegno.

For thirty years, in the West, we told ourselves a reassuring story: history was over. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the future seemed like a smooth ride toward democracy, well-being, and rights for all. All we had to do was wait, iron out a few details, correct a few injustices, and the entire world would follow. Then reality hit: attacks, economic crises, pandemics, new brutal wars, environmental catastrophes, waves of hatred. The majority of the world told us, very clearly, that that dream was ours alone; history wasn’t over at all, we had just stopped looking at it. Faced with this disillusionment, we chose denial. Instead of mourning a future that can never come, today we cling to normality. When asked “How are we?” we automatically repeat, “Everything’s fine,” but that’s not the case. Politics has been reduced to managing emergencies, managing the present, maintaining algorithms. Instead of visions, it chases polls, obsessed with real-time data. Political language—incapable of processing the trauma of the end of certainties—has been reduced to a purely technical matter. In these original and insightful pages, Gabriele Segre analyzes the failure of politics without succumbing to catastrophism. It’s not about mourning the world we imagined and which will never materialize, but about accepting that we inhabit an uncomfortable place, where, willingly or unwillingly, we must remain. If history has begun again, we can no longer ask ourselves “when will we return to normality,” but rather “how will we inhabit a time that promises no certainties.” This is the task of politics: recovering the ability to feel, to desire together, to give hope, which is the only honest way to answer the simplest and most frightening question: “How are you?”