Conflict and Creation: The Futurism Paradigm

With the beginning of the twentieth century, Europe saw a moment of great political, economic and social stability. That period was dominated by a liberal discourse based on two main principles: the abolition of war and the need for the States to establish commercial relations in order to reduce conflict. This climate was interrupted by the birth of a new antagonistic discourse that took shape in Italy, attacking the idea of peace as a positive value and promoting hate and conflict as means to destroy the vices and weariness that, according to the intellectuals supporting this idea, characterized the new continent. The seeds of this new political and intellectual wave were sewn by the Futurist movement, starting with the publication, in 1909, of its Manifesto, which clearly stated that conflict was to be used as a means for the creation of a new artistic, social and political project. Conflict would serve to lead to a revolution of the consciousness that could erase the border between life and art. The firm conviction that only through a destructive conflict could there be the possibility of renewal for the existing world was made explicit by the apology of war that Futurism strenuously promoted: war as the only hygiene of the world. This movement allowed for the spread, in Europe, of a counter-discourse that was able to influence the public opinion in the direction of the unforeseen total mobilization of World War I.