I have been eyeing for two days now the pamphlet an Italian writer started on one of our newspapers, daily. I have never been foggy about Alessandro Baricco's writings. No mystery. In this pamphlet, a most welcome to a major newspaper going to sell it as "enough-entertainment" by the pound and under the umbrella in the coming months, Alessandro is looking to define, or at least inquiry about, what he calls "new barbarians". Alessandro, 48, is himself a writer and runs courses on creative writing in Turin, Italy. He has noticed, his words, as of recent (but according to his own observations as far as 5-years back) his scholars changing. He perceives the change tangible and important up hill to call it a "mutation". As a metric he identifies (in the second shot of this promenade made very clear) Beethoven ninth's Symphony as the "citadel" that, supposedly, defines our culture, times, shares and incontrovertible achievement, Byron and all the way down to Madonna. He also points out, handing some comfort over, that Beethoven's piece #9 was perceived at his time (written 1822-1824) as a disgrace, a barbaric acceleration, away from consolidated rules and values. The noise of today the "C" of tomorrow.

First question is: how many times did we experience this AFTER Beethoven?
An honest answer should have been: every day (with no exciting bangs)

Second question is: why is Alessandro (and legions after him) so enamored with Apocalyptic clashes?
An honest answer should have been: because historical facts and processes are easy to read once latent anthropomorphism is expressed as a fact, not methodology.

Is this in the end about our kids, our cold-blooded un-romantic unemotional tax-hater small branches scattered in-to the world without a (desirable?) sense of tragedy, direction, time, space and, most important, don't like Beethoven? Don't know who he was? Could they care if Madonna sits side by side with the iconic said Uber-Composer on the same shelf?

The questions above are naive, the answers are even more obvious. From an editorial point of view we may have appreciated more a long, articulated article than this long, foggy, vague and non-descriptive event horizon. But, fear not, the trend is real (Ludwig Van is LOL) .

The new barbarians own a free Gmail or Hotmail account, are part of an Internet community of some sort, have a blog they often update, experience some sort of virtual sex, have replaced art with graphic design, browse while at work, are on a short term job contract, maybe/sometimes a disqualifying position. They drive an SUV or a Mercedes-made city-car, have no particular concern for pollution, global warming and related geopolitics. The new barbarians do not buy CDs, catch individual songs on iTunes or grab them on the illegal underground, express acceptance/rejection to a website in average 6 seconds and have their first sex experience on the floor or on a couch, often at a party with same sex counterparts. The new barbarians express stable sex preferences around 30, with a wide range of uncertainty, often persistent beyond that age. The new barbarians do not read or buy books, they write. Their inevitable blogs and journals are all along a marketing tool, a psychological backpack, a connecting lane to the only social side of their life, a tie to a closed (and sometimes suffocating) self-referential community.

The landscape is clear.

Should we support? Influence? Get influenced? Slam the door?

People like me, 42 of age, Alessandro, 48 (I could be wrong, sorry :-), we have been going thru a lot. We may have kids, I do. We have answers to the above four questions, respectively: Yes, Inevitable, Sure, Never. But, kids aside, if we have not learned already, at our age, that "open mind" has a broader, deeper and larger meaning, we have failed. If we can not listen, if we are to read the earthquake ahead as "fracture" only and not as an everyday necessity, we have failed.

In the end, dear Barbarians, fear not, you won't be alone. In good company you are. Indeed!