Sunday 20 May 2012
THE SECOND RENAISSANCE BY RIFKIN
Monday 04 October 2010
Jeremy Rifkin
“A second Renaissance: the world directed to a civilization based on empathy” is the title of the lectio magistralis held by the American professor and economist Jeremy Rifkin. In front of an audience composed by the President of the Italian Chamber of Deputies Gianfranco Fini and numerous authorities connected to the world of energies, professor Rifkin exposed his ideas on the future of the human civilization, arguing that we find ourselves at the end of a chapter and that a new civilization is knocking at our door, the civilization of the empathy.
In his introduction President Gianfranco Fini underlined the importance of Rifkin's thoughts: “What is striking in Rifkin's idea – Fini stated – is that his unitary vision of the man and of the civilization.” In Rifkin's opinion “freedom is not something isolated, we will be completely free when we will trust the other”. Rifkin begins his discourse talking about a third industrial revolution. A revolution that will be grounded on a new capitalism, on a shared eco-sustainable economy.
In Rifkin's opinion the great changes in the history of humanity have happened in relation to the development of the empathy between the individuals. The professor has recalled that Hegel said that “periods of happiness are the white pages of the history”. Historians recorded only pathological moments of the society, whereas great changes happened when there was a more empathic disposition between the individuals. The ability to think about the human society as a great family had lead humanity towards two great changes: new energetic sources have been developed and new means of communication.
Human nature is to be an “empathic being”, and this fact brought to the great revolution of the Internet. Rifkin describes as the “millennium generation” the first generation raised with the Internet, and it is thanks to the latter that the third industrial revolution will be possible. “The Youth – says Rifkin – have more power than the Rai. The BBC, of any network; youth – he continues – have already learned to live in an open source structure, whereas we are still bounded to the old pyramidal structure”.
The autumn of this historical period has already started, in Rifkin's opinion, in July 2008, when the price of the oil had reached 147 dollars per oil drum. “This fact – stated the professor – is the clear signal that coal, oil, gas and uranium are over, we have to rethink to all the energetic regime of our civilization”. Rifkin proceeded in his speech underlining the dramatic conditions in which our planet is constricted. “We have to react with extreme urgency – he stated – the great ices have begun to melt, there's more drought, more inundation and there's the serious risk of extinction for the 70% of the species living on the Earth”.
In the European Union there are 191 millions of buildings, and those buildings are the greatest producers of CO2 poisoning the air. As Rifkin thinks the future relies in the distributed energy, produced with renewable sources and spread through ample and horizontal nets, as the Internet has taught. This will be the real revolution of the empathic civilization. In the upcoming thirty years every single building will be converted into a micro-energetic central, that produces more than it uses. The surplus will be distributed and exchanges allover the world thanks to a net.
This will lead to an energetic revolution, but also to an economical incrementation, creating new job opportunities, the evaluation of the little and middle company, urban requalification, a renewal of the real estate trade and more wealth for everyone. This is the new Renaissance wished by Rifkin.
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