Luigi Zingales: belief

Transcript context

…You told me you’re a quarter Sicilian. What’s the part of your thought that’s a quarter Sicilian? I have a huge sense of pride, which is not typical of my region. It’s typical of Sicilian. My grandfather was in military, but in his life, he did three duels. Won them all. [laughter] That was part of the culture of Sicily at the time. What is interesting is a very interesting mechanism. If you are in the military and you are challenged to a duel, if you did it, you were punished. If you did not do it, you were demoted. Which is the right way to do it. You don’t want to encourage something like this, but you don’t want to encourage people to be cowards. I thought it was a brilliant system. I think I have this element that goes back to my Sicilian roots. Another Gramscian question, also an Italian question. In Europe, you’re European, it seems to many of us there’s some kind of line. Gramsci asked what’s the difference between East and West, and where in Europe would you draw that line? What from culture, what from governance, all the different areas of your research, what determines that line? Why is, say, Macedonia in the situation it is right now and Southern France is not? It seems to have something to do with that line.…

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