The culture of donations in Italy 2009

Eurispes has carried out a study on the culture of donations in Italy, looking at the various and most significant aspects that can be used as indicators of the level and spread of this culture: from organ and umbilical cord donations to blood donation, from a long-distance support to assistance to the elderly, to the solidarity expressed by businesses, from national and international donations to the presence of associations and citizens working in the solidarity sector.
The art of giving, or the lost art of giving, as Adorno used to say, is a metaphor for a world in which human relations are limited to mere superficial knowledge that does not engage or involve. A world in which relations and relationships are woven to achieve a result, which is exhausted in the same way as the relationship between seller and buyer is consumed at the moment of purchase. Relationships as goods to be sold or at best exchanged. Another indicator of the collapse of the culture of gift is mistrust or lack of trust: no one trusts anyone anymore. Utilitarianism and hedonism tend to replace traditional political and religious ethics, opening up, new fronts of unease and the laborious search for a new personal and social identity, especially among the young. On a more positive note, this process in turn opens up new avenues for researching and experimenting with new forms of commitment and solidarity, of which volunteering and pacifism seem to be the best projections.