Recently, an establishment dedicated to aesthetic issues, more or less related to health, displayed a sign on the door announcing the possibility of receiving a "solidarity massage". The advertisement caught my attention; after all, a massage is not the first thing that comes to mind when one thinks of solidarity actions. However, there is nothing to prevent it from being considered in that perspective, as long as it is part of an action guided by a solidary intention. On the part of the owners of the establishment, such intention seemed clear, since in the advertisement they indicated that the totality of the amount would be destined to a certain association (supposedly promoting charitable activities). But the advertising also implied that potential clients could show their solidarity with these purposes, be personally supportive, if they contracted these massage services. This was the strength of advertisement.

It could just as well have been the purchase of a yogurt with special anti-cholesterol properties, the proceeds of which were to be donated to the victims of any catastrophe. These subject initiatives and advertisements, now quite frequent, continue to attract my attention because they synthesize and seek to reconcile two characteristic traits of our late-modern culture, which are often in tension: care for the self and concern for solidarity.

As Foucault saw, care for the self has become a dominant feature of our time. Among us, this feature has become particularly noticeable in the last two decades; I have the impression, moreover, that the initiatives aimed at satisfying this demand have not suffered much from the crisis - by way of example, in a small street of no more than 200 meters, three beauty salons have recently opened in my hometown. Judging by the multiplication of increasingly detailed and demanding rules and advice on health, beauty and style, which, especially in the summer season, colonize the media and are aimed at the individual - the ultimate manager of his or her own health and appearance - it seems that care of the self has become an increasingly defined and detailed ethical obligation, socially encouraged in a thousand different ways and personally internalized with an almost absolute docility. 

Thus understood, care for the self gives an aesthetic slant to the cult of the individual, which, according to Durkheim, would constitute the only "sacred residue" that holds modern societies morally together. Indeed, although care of the self should not be understood exclusively in aesthetic terms, in our late-modern societies, individualism often takes this direction. It is in this social and cultural context that Gilles Lipovetsky has been able to affirm that "we no longer recognize any duties other than those we have towards ourselves"; chilling words that, as a description of a cultural state, are not without reference: care of the self has become one of the signs of our times, of which self-help books, relaxation techniques or the fitness internship are particularly popular expressions.

This trend, however, coexists with an undeniable concern for solidarity, which often leads to linking our consumption practices to social goals. This is how advertising creatives, tireless interpreters of dominant values and always on the lookout for emerging values, have understood it. Certainly, the artificial connection between values of solidarity and acts of consumption suggests that, deep down, we do not really believe that our duties end with ourselves, and we need to justify, in our own eyes, the care we take of ourselves by adding a more or less altruistic purpose.

It is true, on the other hand, that it is one thing if our duties do not end with ourselves, and another if there are no such duties. For while the care we give ourselves may undoubtedly be excessive, in some cases it may also be meager. Who has not had to tell a friend, or a particularly devoted relative, that he ought to take more care of himself? The right measure of one's own care cannot be established once and for all and for all equally: it is precisely in getting it right that ethical wisdom consists, in which the ancients placed the happiness of life.

It should be noted, however, that, generally speaking, in the context of individualized society, the real moral challenge issue at stake is that of achieving a real transition from the "I" to the "we". And, in this respect, the internship of linking an end of solidarity to an act of consumption centered on the care of the self always presents an ambiguous face. Indeed: although the importance of market and consumer relations in our world makes it possible to understand the attempts and the will to express solidarity by the same means, the more or less solidary quality of such an act cannot be taken for granted: to associate a solidary end to a consumption internship centered exclusively on the care of the self, can respond to a will to "kill two birds with one stone", but it can also be a source of self-deception. And it may well be so if feelings of solidarity do not find other more direct and genuine channels of expression, where care for the other, obligations towards the other, come to the fore, even to the apparent detriment of the self.

Apparent, I say, because, without falling into the psychologistic trap, which looks at the relationship with the other exclusively in core topic of gratification staff, the care of the self can also be considered on a deeper level, attentive to the authentic good of the person himself, which, as Plato saw, must take into consideration piety and justice. From this perspective, the same ordinary care of the self can also be considered at core topic in solidarity. Thus, it happens, when, with all sense, we speak of the caregiver taking care of himself, so that he can better perform his task, which is never a simple technical task, because in it his person is somehow compromised. The care of the self then has an obvious ethical sense, because it unfolds in a social horizon, which takes into account the needs of other people, and takes them as a measure of its own.