"'A morte 'o ssaje ched'è? è 'na livella". La prospettiva dell'annientamento come condizione di assoluta eguaglianza. Per un excursus storico-politico

If the problematic dichotomy of security and freedom is one of the most fruitful and popular areas of discussion within the debate on politics and democracy in particular, the analysis of the relationship between security and equality has benefited from a smaller contribution of dedicated theoretical works, despite its undoubted centrality. What relationship can exist between these two elements, what are their reciprocal influences and what, above all, are their consequences for civil life? Looking at the danger of annihilation as the ultimate horizon, with reference to both local and global contexts, different authors, because of their respective contingent realities, have had to confront these problematic questions and have read or reread the theme of equality within this interpretative framework. From the plague of Athens in Thucydides to the danger of nuclear destruction in Bobbio, the prospect of annihilation - real, presumed or fictitious - or of a status of total absence of security understood as a moment of absolute equality among human beings - whether feared, hoped for or expected - enters several times in the history of political thought and as such it seemed worthy of being investigated.