Why my Italian neighbour had every mother
on the block pounding on his door

Blazing Reader,

In Sunday's post, I asked people whether they believe the government's purpose is to protect freedom or to promote virtue.

Author and speaker, Peter Wright, wrote to say: "Personally, I am in the Freedom camp but with the proviso that my faith and values would drive me to encourage others to follow a virtuous life..."

This is my point exactly. It's not that society doesn't need to be aligned with virtue. I just don't think it's the government's job to ensure that it happens. Crazy things could result, such as forcing everybody to take a poisonous injection for the "greater good."

Peter Wright continues: "A live and let live philosophy if you like. For example, I don't care if you watch porn movies at home, are unfaithful to your spouse, are confused about which bathroom to use or cheat on your taxes, but I will join a posse to hunt you down if you try and pervert my or my friend's grandchildren, coerce them to use unsafe drugs or steal from us."

I agree, otherwise, what will we do, start raiding people's homes because they watch porn? And if they resist, we shoot them?

Here's an amusing true story about that...

When I lived in Florence, Italy, I had a first-floor apartment. Front lawns don't exist there, so the windows to my living room and dining room were flush with the sidewalk.

The same was true for my next-door neighbour. He was a bit of a rough character. He had long, straggly white hair and alcohol always on his breath. I never had an issue with him. He was always friendly and would politely correct my Italian.

Now, because the front windows of both our apartments were flush with the sidewalk, passersby could see into both our living rooms.

But, what they saw... well, that was quite different.

I was studying fine art and had turned my living room into a studio. On the wall, I usually had a print of a Renaissance painting and the duplicate I was rendering in charcoal. I made copies of Hoffman's "Christ and the Rich Young Ruler" and Andrea del Sarto's "Madonna and Child" (pictured below on the left). People started making a point of stopping by my window every day to see how the drawings (pictured below on the right) had progressed.

Now, my neighbour... he wasn't painting the Mona Lisa. He was usually watching pornographic videos. Yes, with his window open, making it hard for passersby not to share in his "entertainment."

It was quite the contrast: Jesus and his mother on my side of the building, and on his side... well, you get the picture.

Soon people were pounding on his door, asking him to consider "i bambini."

He said the window was so high, that no bambino could see inside.

Eventually enough angry Italian mothers complained and he started closing the shutters for his movie nights. Florence gets real hot in the summer, so closing the shutters probably made it all the more "hot" inside his apartment.

But that was the end of the issue. No one had to call the police. He knew he'd crossed the line. What he watched in his apartment was his business — but only when he kept his shutters closed.

—John C.A. Manley

PS For more on this subject, check out last week's episode of Just Right with the provocative title, "The missionary position—on sex, politics, and religion" over at: https://justrightmedia.org/blog/archives/14081

PPS I didn't agree with everything Bob Metz says in that episode. Tomorrow, I'll explain why.

John C. A. Manley is the author of Much Ado About Corona: A Dystopian Love Story, the forthcoming All The Humans Are Sleeping and other works of speculative fiction. Get free samples of his stories by becoming a Blazing Pine Cone email subscriber at: https://blazingpinecone.com/subscribe/