Marco Senaldi on the Paradox of Wanting Everything and Its Opposite

In an editorial for Artribune Magazine #32, philosopher and art theorist Marco Senaldi explores the contemporary condition of wanting both everything and its opposite, drawing on Lacan's concept of the 'pas-tout' (not-all). He argues that this paradoxical desire is no longer confined to theory but is now normalized in everyday choices from car purchases to sexual orientation. Senaldi sees this as an opportunity for radical reinterpretation of past thinkers, citing examples such as Vittorio Gallese and Michele Guerra's 'Lo schermo empatico' (Cortina, 2015) which rereads 19th-century psychophysiology through neuroscience applied to cinema; Catherine Malabou's 'Le Change Heidegger' (Éditions Léo Scheer, 2004) reinterpreting Heidegger as a philosopher of metamorphosis; Gilles Deleuze's 'Spinoza. Filosofia pratica' (2016) republished by Orthotès editore of Salerno, which also issued Paolo Bettineschi's 'Critica della prassi assoluta' (2012) and Giovanni Gentile's 'Discorsi di religione' (2015). Senaldi provocatively suggests that Arthur Schopenhauer, often labeled a pessimist, may be the true optimist, noting his early 19th-century stance against vivisection and his prescient psychological portrait of evil that anticipates the Frankfurt School's 'authoritarian-sadistic personality' and even Hitler. The editorial concludes that this inherent contradiction can serve as a tool to dismantle entrenched prejudices, enabling unprecedented cultural audacities.