A-Infos (en) Italy, FDCA, Cantiere #41 - Human Needs and Requirements - Paola Perullo (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Addressing the question of culture and education as a form of liberation 
from the idea of human exploitation by human beings inevitably brings up 
the topic of human nature, which remains to be explored and clarified. 
If we consider the most revolutionary discoveries in human biology over 
the past fifty years, the discovery of human birth, developed by Roman 
psychiatrist Massimo Fagioli, cannot go unnoticed. According to this 
vision, humans are not only made of needs, but also of requirements. 
From Marx's insights, made in the second half of the nineteenth 
century, on the possibility of overcoming the inhumanity of capitalist 
society through the struggle against human exploitation, the question to 
be asked is whether, once material needs have been satisfied, we can 
move on to researching the true fulfillment of human beings, taking into 
account needs, first and foremost those related to interpersonal 
relationships and emotional and sexual investment. In an age when they 
still know nothing about life, the newborn is capable of "imagining" by 
latching on to the breast and developing trust in humanity.

Equality is grounded in human birth because the emergence of thought 
from the biology of the body is a universal phenomenon, affecting all 
human beings. This idea of equality at birth is revolutionary and gives 
us the opportunity to wage a cultural struggle against all racism: if we 
think beyond the satisfaction of needs and the fulfillment of demands, 
the underprivileged must be redeemed from their condition without 
begging, because human identity is the same for all. If the term "human 
identity" is affirmed, the terms "foreigner" and "different" are abolished.

Human identity emerges at birth; denying this means killing the humanity 
within us and justifying violence as an inevitable form of human 
relationship, which, in addition to racism, leads to war. From this 
perspective, even the issue of women's emancipation cannot be understood 
as the achievement of formal equality: it has implications for every 
perspective of human emancipation.

For those responsible for shaping the minds of children and young 
people, I believe it is essential to counter the dominant right-wing 
culture, which views reality as immutable and relies on racist notions 
of human nature, with a new culture, a "new humanism" that begins by 
asking what humanity is. Human life begins at birth with a cerebral 
reaction to light, which Fagioli calls a "disappearance fantasy": the 
child closes his eyes to the light stimulus and "makes disappear" 
everything that disturbs him, inanimate things like light, noise, and 
objects. At the same time, he develops a fantasy-image that stems from 
the desire for human connection. This demand for connection has no 
connection to the representation of the external world, nor is it tied 
to the five senses; it is a creation of thought that has its antecedent 
in the memory of biological contact with amniotic fluid.

Although human birth, from a positivist perspective, may seem similar to 
that of other living species, it actually follows a dynamic relationship 
with the surrounding human reality, which is much richer and more 
complex than that of other mammals. With birth, therefore, not only the 
need for nourishment arises, but also the need for an emotional 
connection. It is crucial, given the delicate nature of the moment, that 
the newborn find an adequate response to its need for love, because its 
psychological well-being and human fulfillment will largely depend on 
this beginning. The newborn, like every other living being, dies if its 
physical needs are not met, but unlike other living beings, its 
emotional dimensions are wounded if the need for connection is not met. 
Needs are inherent to human reality, contrary to any idealism, because 
the mind also develops through a physical act. The dynamics of birth, 
due to the biological nature of the disappearance fantasy and the 
intuition-hope that a breast exists, are entirely rooted in the 
characteristics of the human species. Subsequently, interhuman 
relationships are central to the development of thought and the 
well-being of the individual. No room is left for biological 
determinism, nor for the idea of a divine origin of thought, nor even 
for the Enlightenment idea according to which thought is formed by the 
five senses.

Marxism searches for the experience that provides content for thought in 
social analysis, ideologies, culture, and the conditions that determine 
earthly happiness and unhappiness. However, it locates the human 
experience that underpins thought in economic relations, neglecting the 
entire phase of life that precedes the formation of the adult 
individual, thus neglecting birth. What might result if the idea of a 
humanity that is naturally egalitarian and fulfills itself in the 
exchange of love and brotherhood with other human beings were to enter 
culture?

https://alternativalibertaria.fdca.it/wpAL/
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