Pasolini for the Future responds to a recent book by the French art critic Georges Didi-Huberman entitled Survival of the Fireflies [La survivance des lucioles] (2009) in which the critic, albeit with some measure of sympathy, accuses Pier Paolo Pasolini and, to a lesser extent, Giorgio Agamben of being too attached to the past and too apocalyptic with regard to the future. Disputing the soundness of Didi-Huberman's criticism, this essay discusses Pasolini's belief in change and transformation through a close reading of his late critical essays collected in the volumes Lutheran Letters [Lettere luterane] and Corsair Writings [Scritti corsari]. In these writings, the idea of the future as a radically different prospect from the present looms large. To understand this view of the future requires revisiting the issue of Pasolini's insistence on a cultural apocalypse. Through a reading of the scenario for Pasolini’s unproduced film project "Porno-Teo-Kolossal" and of his responses to the influential work of the anthropologist Ernesto De Martino, it becomes possible to reframe this issue in order to question the ethical and political presuppositions behind the general tendency of commentators to assail Pasolini's supposedly apocalyptic tone of thought.

This essay reflects on Giorgio Agamben's The Highest Poverty: Monastic Rules and Form-of-Life (2013) with particular attention to the Italian philosopher's detailed analysis of the question of the open, free sharing of goods, or "simple use," as the ultimate point of contention between the Franciscan movement and the Roman Catholic Church.  The essay refutes Agamben's contention that such a practice is unthinkable in contemporary society.  Indeed, in the digital domain, the question of the open sharing of goods such as information or network bandwidth has resurfaced with renewed urgency.  Yet it is highly doubtful whether the Internet represents the genuine triumph of simple use.  Through examples such as the indictment of Aaron Swartz for downloading scholarly articles from the JSTOR database, the ascendancy of Coursera as a corporate publisher of online educational content via a MOOC (Massive Online Open Course) model, and the current debate surrounding network neutrality, the essay debates the extent to which the Franciscan idea of simplex usus remains a problematic spectral presence.