Abstract

In 1965, at the time of his untimely death, Ernesto de Martino was writing a work on the theme of the End of the world, which was later published in the format of preparatory notes. Faced with the risk of nuclear catastrophe, de Martino studied the ways in which human cultures deal with the terror of history – and how modern society, secularized and aware of its own historicity, could specifically deal with it. Today, in the face of the pandemic crisis, the war in Ukraine, and the environmental disaster, culture is back to thinking about apocalyptic scenarios. In this dialogue, Fabio Dei questions Marcello Massenzio (co-editor of the most recent edition of de Martino’s book) on five fundamental questions: 1) Are there similarities between the context that worried de Martino and the present situation? 2) Can current representations of the end of the world constitute moments of a ritual dynamic of redemption from the crisis? 3) Is the Demartinian dynamic of ritual redemption of presence compatible with a culture that refuses to recognize supernatural horizons? 4) What can we say about the contemporary tendency to attribute present evils to an essentialized idea of the West? 5) Does the comparison that de Martino proposed between individual psychopathological experience and the cultural theme of the end of the world still have value today?