Italian national identity: author Beppe Severgnini

Beppe Severgnini once said about Italians:We think it’s an insult to our intelligence to comply with a regulation.
Obedience is boring.
We want to think about it.
We want to decide whether a particular law applies to our specific case.

In that place, at that time.
You don’t change, we don’t change, and Italy doesn’t change, but we all complain that we can’t go on like this.

Our sun is setting in installments.
It’s festive and flamboyant, but it’s still a sunset.

This for me is probably the closest I’ve heard to any Italian expressing the kind of cheerful armageddon attitude of this country.
Italy is quite possibly going to hell in a hand basket, and while plenty of whingeing goes on, nothing ever seems to really progress.