Evicted From Eternity_ The Restructuring of Modern Rome - Michael Herzfeld [63]
The social fragmentation of Roman spaces is consistent with this moral economy; each subunit is responsible for its own collective actions, and the level at which such coalescence occurs is determined by the needs of the moment. In pre-World War II times, the local bosses oversaw the good conduct and solidarity of small tracts of the none-typically, two or three streets. Then as now, any unwelcome interference in another's affairs was usually met with an angry "Do your own shit! "-perhaps, given the shifting nature of solidarity, from someone with whom, in a different context, one has just acted in concert. The ciga, the secret deal, is the closest the self-admittedly garrulous Romans usually come to the kind of massive silence that characterizes the operations of mafia thugs.5o
Indeed, a certain kind of silence is widely regarded as the "first seeds of mafia"-the kind that does not itself entail physical violence, although it may presage violence if its implications are not heeded. A flower vendor agreed to talk with me about her open hostility to the immigrants crowding the main square. Later, however, when the opportunity to chat seemed ripe (she was reading a newspaper and there were no customers in sight, she decided that she could not talk. Since she was clearly much less busy than usual, this was as clear a brush-off as could still remain within the bounds of civility. Commenting on her reaction, an exasperated artisan of some formal education, a bemused observer of the behavior of his more traditionalizing colleagues, supposed that she had been afraid she might have given too much away. As he remarked, "No one speaks, no one hears, no one sees, no one knows." In a city where domestic quarrels and screaming matches between enraged prostitutes once provided vivid street theater, serious violence must first ensure the hermetic silence that generalizes menace: uncertain fear, not certain knowledge, keeps the cowed in line. People nevertheless continue to observe, draw conclusions, and keep out of the way. Knowledge is a good to be gathered, not imparted. Faced with any kind of inquisitiveness, each person thinks, said my artisan friend, "I have to live here," and fears that volunteering information, even if it is not dangerous, might provide some unforeseeable advantage to a competitor. Those who benefit from spreading fear are happy to encourage such a silence, one that also draws on stereotypical models of strong-and-silent masculinity (omerta~.sl Those models at first seem irrelevant to the usual cheerful garrulity, especially when no obvious interests are threatened by light-hearted talk. But even chatter must respect the sensitivities of those who might have something to hide, and should not contain jokes that are too heavy (pesanti)-that is, personal and invasive.
Minding one's own business is a prized moral precept precisely because few actually follow it. When serious matters are at stake, it can be enforced.52 Usually, however, it is a contrived performance of non-engagement that permits one "to lighten one's own responsibilities" as a citizen (as my artisan friend sourly observed) while counting on a similar form of tact in respect of one's own illicit activities. There is a dour civility in ignoring one's neighbors' activities, a form of connivance that is also thus a rejection of formal civic ideals.
Neighbors' sins, whether against divine law or against the regulations of the state, are thus always their own business, and theirs alone. While few Romans would hesitate to complain to neighbors about a violation-for example, of the building code that caused them discomfort-reporting it to the authorities is another matter altogether. For one thing, it carries a serious risk of long and complicated involvement, possibly entailing expense and countercharges. Those who do bring such charges often do so more as a diversionary tactic than because they are themselves innocent of similar infractions. Moreover, just as the confidentiality of the confessional is widely viewed as a