Law, Religion, and Social Integration from Bad to Better

Abstract

The more the international scene is caught in a snarl, the more fundamental principles of coexistence begin to crumble (Sidoti 2026). The matter at stake is not exclusively of scholarly interest, although the “solutions” proposed in the public space are more than frequently trivial and virtually impossible to obtain: “learning to navigate the schism”, “engage with others’ different points of view”; “advocate for more regulation and removal of extremist and hateful content on platforms and global scenarios.” Fortunately, in certain corners there has been a rise in awareness regarding the problems and what can actually be done to solve them. For example, when it is acknowledged that “among the most important causes of the crises of the modern world are a desensitized human conscience, a distancing from religious values, and the prevailing individualism accompanied by materialistic philosophies that deify the human person and introduce worldly and material values ​​in place of supreme and transcendental principles”— met with disdain when “the only voices to be heard in public debate are those of the powerful and ‘experts’ ” (Fratelli Tutti 2020). The truth, however, is that among the least considered experts there are those who have most profoundly analysed society’s “primary anchors of social order” (Parsons), “shields against chaos” (families, schools, media, associations, political parties, churches) (Habermas) that articulate our experiences and appropriate everyone’s “inner nature to create subjects capable of speaking and acting.” Precisely the experts who, well before the present schism, had already identified the circumstances of which we all are witnessing today (countercultural forces, pervasive crises of authority, ruling orders unable to lead through consensus, masses turning away from exhausted ideologies and dismantled collectives, disjointed ‘structures of affect,’ dismantled collectives, public spaces seized by a culture of commercialization) as “morbid symptoms”. This essay explores the reasoning of those sidelined experts and their conclusions.