The Doctor and the Master | Massimo Gramellini’s Coffee

Once upon a time there was an Italy that believed in nothing, like now, but revered the two figures who represented the secular state: the Doctor and the Master.

Public health and education were a boast and an achievement, and those who embodied them enjoyed widespread esteem and general respect. In front of the doctor of the health insurance my grandfather took off his cap, and any decision of my teachers, even the most unjust, was considered by my father a sacrosanct and unquestionable verdict.

Then something happened, or maybe everything. The fact is that the mass rebellion against the established authorities mainly concerned those two roles and not a day goes by without our having to read, like yesterday, about a young doctor who wants to escape from the emergency room in Florence because he can no longer take it. withstand the intrusiveness and insolence of patients and relatives.

Then there is that professor from Bari, Vincenzo Amorese, reached and beaten in class by two strangers for daring to put a note on a student who had publicly insulted him. The first fruits, if we can say so, is that even the principal of the institute has sided with the girl rather than with the professor. We hope he is right the principal.

But if this were not the case, we should recognize that anyone who tries to enforce some rule now passes for a fanatic, lacking that necessary dose of flexibility that is the hypocritical word behind our surrender.

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