Distrarsi: abitudine storico-naturale?

This article delves into the phenomenon of distraction as a cluster of habits that underliesthe nervous lives of literary modernityand holds a potentially counter-canonical conceptual significanceby haunting daily and scientific practices likereading. On one hand, thesehabits of distraction could be considered as a part, perhaps even the common denominator of those highly routinizedactivities that may constitutethe natural history of the human forms of life. On the other hand,they may serve asa lever to rethink the natural-historical conceptual tradition itself. Starting with an analysis ofthe thematic and methodological literary relevance of this phenomenological areainMoravia’s major existentialist novels,this article will further exploreits philosophical and anthropological importanceby contrasting De Martino’sinterpretation of Moraviaand Benjamin’s idle materialism with Gehlen’s concept of “second nature”as based on James’spsychologyand Heidegger’s stigmatizationofeveryday life as inauthentic.