By ANA CAROLINA DE BELLO BUSINARO*

The hope that governability will come only through composure is an illusion that sterilizes any transformative vocation by maintaining the status quo. After all, governing in times of social tension is not about choosing between peace and war, but deciding which side of the historic conflict one is on.

1.

In a context marked by profound social transformations and intense political conflicts, Antonio Gramsci wrote the manifesto “I Hate the Indifferent”, in which he makes a strong criticism of the political apathy that compromised society's capacity for transformation.^[1]

Indifference as a tacit form of collaboration with the established order manifests itself in the silence and inaction of those who, out of fear, convenience or misinformation, refrain from taking a position in the face of decisive disputes that permeate the social fabric.

This apparent political neutrality represents as content a complicity with the dominant structures, constituting a “dead weight” that hinders the mobilization of emancipatory forces and contributes to the perpetuation of the current relations of exploitation and domination.

Faced with a kind of diffuse faith that hovers over part of the hegemonic left – which, upon observing the institutional chaos and brutality of the extreme right, still believes in the ethics of common sense, as if it prevailed by its own moral force –, the obsolete belief that “the truth will overcome lies” is put forward, as if democratic reason were a transcendental entity, and not the conflicting result of a concrete struggle between power projects.

Antonio Gramsci writes: “Indifference acts powerfully in history. It acts passively, but it acts. It is fatality; it is that which cannot be counted on; it is that which confuses programs, which destroys even the best-constructed plans; it is the raw material that revolts against intelligence and suffocates it.”

It is the myth of surrendered kindness: the hope that governing with composure will, in itself, bring the fruits of the much-promised governability. A comfortable and fearful illusion – but not at all uninformed – that, in practice, sterilizes any transformative vocation.

The government's recent loss in the debate on the IOF clearly reveals this situation.^[2] The coalition with the Centrão is not just a survival maneuver – it has been presented as the basis of the rhetoric of national stability. The surrender, the waving of the white flag since the formation of the coalition at the beginning of the term, and especially the lack of a proportional reaction to the pressures of the parliamentary bourgeoisie, reveal a deliberate choice: to contain any trace of social conflict.

Just like in the episode involving Pix,^[3] in which the government, faced with the spread of fake news, chose to take legal action, the current response to the revocation of the IOF decree follows the same logic: once again, judicialization is used as a substitute for direct popular political action.

This logic of not engaging in direct confrontation is combined with the outsourcing of the dispute to more combative sectors of the left, such as the PSOL, responsible for appealing to the Supreme Court and calling for popular demonstrations, which, let's face it, are short-lived due to the government's own inactivity. The result is a division of roles within the left itself that protects the PT base from the radical nature of the conflict and undermines direct responsibility in the dispute over social imagery and strength.

2.

The public impression remains: the institutional left has its hands tied, or worse, it seems to consent to its relegation in the political debate, as if it believes that there is some trace of nobility in enduring the crisis within the law rather than confronting it on and from the margins.

The problem is not politics itself, but the surrender of politics to the logic of the eternal pact with the elites that have historically prevented the people from governing. The myth of goodness, here, is the myth of non-confrontation. Against this logic, we must return to what Vladimir Lenin taught us: revolution does not arise from spontaneity or harmony.

“The change in power relations requires clear organization, direction, rupture and delimitation capable of altering the correlation of forces, or again in Leninist ideas, “(…) it is impossible to expel and eliminate the bourgeois intelligentsia, it is necessary to defeat it, transform it, re-form it, re-educate it, in the same way that it is necessary to re-educate in a prolonged struggle, on the basis of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the proletarians themselves, who do not rid themselves of their petty-bourgeois prejudices suddenly, by a miracle, by the work and grace of the holy spirit, by the work and grace of a slogan, a resolution or a decree, but only in a long and difficult mass struggle against the petty-bourgeois influences of the masses”.^[4]

Politics, above all, is conflict. Governing in a tense social context is not about choosing between peace or war, but rather deciding which side of the historical conflict one is on. Refusing to confront the dream of peace, when it is inevitable, becomes consent to the maintenance of the chaotic state of life.

Therefore, to paraphrase Gramsci's sentiment, I hate the indifferent people of our times. Those who refrain from feeding the political fire necessary for social change are not only doing nothing – they are actively contributing to its extinction. In the same way that we cry out that transformation is unavoidable as the future of human life, we demand recognition and concrete action in conflict as the driving force of history – and, with it, the courage to take sides.

*Ana Carolina de Bello Businaro is a graduate in Social Sciences from the São Paulo State University (UNESP).

Notes

[1] GRAMSCI, Antonio. I hate the indifferent. The Future City, No. 1, February 11, 1917. In: GRAMSCI, Antonio. Political writings (1910‑1920). Translated by Carlos Nelson Coutinho. Rio de Janeiro: Civilization of Brazil, 1999. Online version: https://www.marxists.org/portugues/gramsci/1917/02/11.htm

[2] PSOL goes to the Supreme Court against Congress's overturn of the IOF bill; Boulos calls for a demonstration. Brasil de Fato, June 27, 2025. Available at: https://www.brasildefato.com.br/2025/06/27/psol-vai-ao-stf-contra-derrubada-do-congresso-de-projeto-sobre-iof-boulos-convoca-manifestacao.

G1. With the overturn of the IOF decree, Lula's minister says it is inevitable to go to court. 27 June 2025. Available at: https://g1.globo.com/politica/blog/gerson-camarotti/post/2025/06/27/com-derrubada-de-decreto-do-iof-ministro-de-lula-diz-ser-inevitavel-entrar-na-justica.ghtml

[3] G1. Pix: government will take legal action against fake news and scams, says Haddad. 15 Jan. 2025. Available at: https://g1.globo.com/economia/noticia/2025/01/15/pix-governo-vai-acionar-justica-contra-fake-news-e-golpes-diz-haddad.ghtml

[4] LENIN, Vladimir I. Leftism, childhood disease of communism. Sao Paulo: Boitempo, 2017.

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