Alienation and nihilism in the “affluent society”: the topicality of Augusto Del Noce

Del Noce’s thought unravels over several decades on the stimulation of the great historical events in the 20th century (Totalitarianism, the Second World War, the Cold War, the Second Vatican Council, the Historic Compromise in Italy, etc.). Del Noce tackles the major philosophers of his time in this long journey of meditation: from Maritain to Gilson, from Gentile to Gramsci, from Löwith to Lukács and from Voegelin to Croce, not forgetting the dialogue with the classics from Descartes to Rosmini, and Marx to Gioberti. In this paper, I will concentrate mainly on his reflections around the so-called “affluent society” where he has gathered together, prophetically, those nihilist and anti-Christian traits which we are now experimenting in all their dramatic power.