By LUIZ MARQUES*
The moral and cultural reform of the country depends on the ideological struggle for the emancipation of consciences subjugated and underestimated by conservative thought, in captive democracy
Italian political scientist Giovanni Sartori, in the book Theory of democracy, says: “The efficiency of democracy depends first and foremost on the efficiency and ability of its leaders”. This understanding is based on the presumed intellectual minority of the people. The citizen is “incompetent” to dictate the direction of the city. It follows that “professionalization” is inevitable in society. Politics is transformed from a vocation into a “career” with retirement based on the length of the term in office. This is the theoretical framework of Western representation; with the exception of Sweden, where deputies do not have advisors, sleep in studio apartments, pay for their own coffee and cannot increase their salaries.
The fall of the Berlin Wall cemented political liberalism on the one hand and the market economy on the other as an insurmountable barrier to human progress. In the terminology popularized after 1989, this was the “end of history.” A hasty conclusion, given the rise of the extreme right, which seizes opportunities in the rule of law to colonize democracy and impose a regime of exception. With force, along the lines of the Argentine misfortune, “anarcho-capitalism” (the prefix is unfair) seeks to ensure state deregulation in order to maximize accumulation.
Infrastructure sanctifies the free market and the laissez-faire; however, the superstructure is still pulsating. If the economy is frozen; the future remains suspended in politics. The selection of the “best” to occupy prominent positions in the Executive and Legislative branches makes the wheel of uncertainty turn. The ideological rivalries between competitors every four years have not cooled down; they have forged enemies.
In Robert Dahl's sense, “polyarchy” (government by many) explains the autonomy of politics. “Democracy is a system in which leaders listen, more or less, to the wishes of those they lead and can function with a weak level of citizen participation.” It does not imply strong regimentation. In fact, the less interference there is, the easier it is for the “elites” to deliberate. Even the inspiring participatory democracy of now yes in Athens in the 5th century BC, it covers only a small minority of the population (demos) in their own interest. Among us, the situation has similarities.
Em Democracy and its critics, to the Conference for the Study of Political Thought In an iconic work of liberal and/or democratic doctrine, the American political scientist evaluates democracy as “a unique process for making binding collective decisions.” An entity with ties to “the set of political institutions and practices, a particular body of rights, a socioeconomic order, a system that ensures certain advantageous results.” The problem lies in the fact that the “substance” is appropriated by a few, warn the attentive defenders of “government by the people.”
As a rule, only politically active individuals are consulted about decisions, with the added problem of belonging to privileged social categories. Most of them become passive, which becomes a kind of “Achilles heel” of the model – the loophole for questioning its legitimacy. See the treasonous interest rates of the Central Bank’s Selic rate in Brazil. In the offices on Brigadeiro Faria Lima Avenue, the powerful commercial and financial epicenter of São Paulo, the rich know why. The plot is hatched at the table, in front of the eyes of old diners. “State secrets” are taboo for peripheral communities. Misinformation is consumed by the poor and the well-off.
Perfection is a goal
In the Workers' Party, which is now in its forties, the fighters for changes in social organization were assertive – “workers don't vote for bosses.” However, the hardships that disrupt the constellation of labor in economic production and the importance assumed by issues more closely linked to social reproduction bring about new tasks: combating the effects of necropolitics, the spread of unemployment, discouragement, and hunger. The discourse absorbs abstract language to reach out to sectors without union experience or class identity. Sticking to radio and television propaganda, the PT does not evoke the radical renewal of its origins, although it is part of the resilient trench of the oppressed and exploited. Red takes on nuances of other colors, needs, and challenges.
Among democratic societies, the United States is certainly a master in the art of perpetuating the ruling classes at the top of the pyramid. Presidential clashes are set up to prevent universal suffrage, ever since the leaders of the colonies (their “founding fathers”) drafted the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and the Constitution in 1787. An elitist filter anoints or rejects the “aspirants” to the White House, in the Democratic and Republican Parties. By blocking the adventurers, surveillance provides internal stability for imperialist hegemony. Donald Trump breaks the blockade.
Hillary Clinton's defeat in 2018, despite having won the majority of votes, is due to the confederative arithmetic of the delegates in the primaries. The principle of one head, one vote is not valid in the great power of the North to obtain the general will; as paradoxical and aristocratic as this may sound in a nation defined as a Republic. The paradigmatic (sic) democracy fails in a basic and consensual aspect. As Gilberto Gil's song goes, Midfielder: “Perfection is a goal / defended by the goalkeeper / who plays for the national team / and I am not Pelé / if anything / I am a Tostão”.
Marketers know the architecture of power and modern decision-making mechanisms. The script is found in Tomasi di Lampedusa's novel; the first bestseller worldwide, with 250.000 copies sold in the months following its publication in 1958. The current design of the marketing politician reinforces the idea of “competence” (technique), “effectiveness” (performance), “leadership” (persuasion), “skill” (broad dialogue) and “dissimulation” as learned from reading the leopard.
The highlighted values coincide with what is required of the store manager in a shopping center, in the hiring interview. The market even predicts the psychosocial profile to be selected for the political arena. Vast resources enhance success at the polls, not a programmatic understanding. The polysemy of meanings underlies the repetition of identical concepts. Acronyms always seem to offer more of the same. Dusk hides otherness. Where's Wally?
Civilizational setback
Everyone shares the ideals of “development,” “security,” “education,” “health,” “improvement of public services,” “job creation with income distribution,” “freedom of the press,” and “constitutional precepts.” In mass democracy, words adapt to contradictory interpretations. Differences in content are domesticated in form. The purpose is deliberately not to provide any cognitive discernment; it is to feed back the plurality of manifestations that, by cross-cutting paths or not, leave the status quo.
For the extremist, the solution is to disguise himself as outsider systemic, breaking civility and disqualifying the circumspection of opponents under the apparent institutional normality, teaches Olavo de Carvalho, the guru of Bolsonarism, in The collective imbecile. By exacerbating emotions with mannerisms and mockery, rational criteria of comparison hitch a ride on Elon Musk's rocket and go into space. In impeachment of the honest president, the militiaman pays homage to a torturer from the military dictatorship, “the terror of Dilma Rousseff”. The outrage bears witness to the degree of ethical degeneration to which the coup led.
Today, at the indecent invitation of the corporate media, the coach It makes electoral moments spectacular; it nullifies party projects and, with impunity, parades meritocracy in the neuralgic captivity of Brazilian politics. Sadistic pleasure prevails. Dignity is redeemed in the chair-throwing, which unites Corinthians and Palmeiras fans in the unison celebration of a goal, literally, “awesome”. The event has restored respect for the protocol of debate in the confrontation of positions. No one goes to church without praying.
For the progressive, the solution lies in overcoming empirical perception to transcend the trap that confines criticism to the enclosure of establishment. The candidates for “managers,” to use the neoliberal lexicon that nullifies the political dimension of choices, are tied in intentions; the election schedule breaks the tie. The deciphering of demagogy ideologizes and politicizes the confrontation, contrasting its authoritarian and totalitarian substance with the democratic organizational principle of society and city.
Not surprisingly, in 2016, the Oxford Dictionary has indicated “post-truth” as the symbol of our era. British journalist Matthew D'Ancona classifies the “war on facts” and “the contagious spread of pernicious relativism disguised as legitimate skepticism” as evidence of the “declining value of truth as a reserve currency.” Civilizational regression is riding on the crisis of democracy. May the statue of denialism be toppled soon, and images invade the bunkers of the reaction, the traditional and the digital. “And the rain tomorrow will run from the bottom up”, prophesies the German poet.
Democratize the process
In Rio Grande do Sul, the Reconstruction Council formed by the governor after the floods excludes environmental associations. The mayor of Porto Alegre hires foreign companies (from the Netherlands, in this case) for preventive studies whose answers have already been provided by local intelligence. Submission to Eurocentrism is shameful. The saying is true: “homegrown saints don’t work miracles.” Decolonization has a long road ahead of it, so that Brazilianness can breathe self-determination.
For “them”, Eduardo Leite and Sebastião Melo respectively, the opinion of the residents immersed in the neighborhoods of the disaster does not matter; or the expertise of the employees of the Department of Storm Sewage (DEP), extinguished to accelerate the privatization of basic sanitation; or the knowledge of the Institute of Water Research (IPH/UFRGS) about the Guaíba (in Tupi-Guarani, Gua-ybe is the “bay of all waters”). What matters is to serve financial, real estate and agricultural capital. They do not fight for the abolition of hierarchies, but for a higher position on the social scale. The exemplary intervention of the federal government appears in obscure footnotes, far from the headlines and applause.
For “us”, on the other hand, the people should not be treated as an object or an inept mass, but rather as the subject of reconstructive actions. Popular empowerment does not deny science and technology; rather, it incorporates them into the political exercise of the sovereignty of the commons, which rejects transforming everyone into merchandise. Without social participation, public happiness is a caricature. The touchstone is the democratization of the decision-making process to deprivatize power and defeat the concept of governability, which is compared to a scalpel to cut the soul and manage people as things.
Those responsible for the destruction of property and the psychological consequences of the torture are spared the deserved execration, in the interests of the mongrel elites who, otherwise, would make a scandal out of the tragedy that totals two hundred deaths in the municipalities of Rio Grande do Sul, in addition to the missing bodies. The media coverage of the climate catastrophe never mentions the dead. In silence, the innocent wait for justice. The omission of news is the subtle variant of gross and cynical manipulation.
Anti-ecological contributions to environmental imbalance and the elimination of biomes are pushed behind toxic smoke and venal journalism, so as not to interfere with alienation. Finance, mega-construction companies and extractive agribusiness own the information, and the fake news. The complicity of the rulers is a disgrace. The moral and cultural reform of the country depends on the ideological struggle for the emancipation of the consciences subjugated and underestimated by conservative thought, in the captive democracy. The motto of the Enlightenment demands responsibility – “Dare to know”.
In the “pseudoworld,” the unity of the real is fragmented into parallel spheres. The liar lies to himself and takes pride in a Worldview (worldview) inverted, which sometimes distills hatred, sometimes the extortionate seduction of misery. It is seen in the lottery of ““Familion”, on global Sunday, which consecrates a fetish for individuals to free themselves from poverty, money; not engagement in a social movement or political party. “Value as a spectacle” expresses the pure essence of rentism, non-work. It is time to take the block to the streets, with determination and hope. The motto now is – “Dare to win”.
* Luiz Marques is a professor of political science at UFRGS. He was Rio Grande do Sul's state secretary of culture in the Olívio Dutra government.
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