By LUIZ CARLOS BRESSER-PEREIRA*
Considerations on an essay by Pierre Vesperini
In his essay on New Left Review with that title (no. 146, 2024), Pierre Vesperini begins by discussing “cancel culture”. Young people accuse some of the most prestigious figures of thought, art and politics in Western culture as racist, misogynistic or authoritarian. He distinguishes “culture as inheritance” (knowledge acquired through generations), which is the target of the cancellation proposal, from “culture as custom” – the set of dominant beliefs and values, ideologies or mentalities. But what really interests Pierre Vesperini is not cancel culture, but how Western culture was formed and through what stages it went through.
Pierre Vesperini says that for him “the West is the result of the globalization of European civilization” (p. 100). Although it was based on Ancient Greece and Rome, Western culture did not begin then. There were two factors that, around the XNUMXth century, determined its origin: the division of the Roman Empire into a Byzantine Empire, and another in the West and the beginning of Christianization – the conversion of the entire population to Christianity. He writes Christianization with a capital c because this fact or Conversion plays a central role in his vision of the West.
He reminds us that “the ancient world did not convert spontaneously; Christianity was rather a yoke violently imposed upon him.” I learned exactly the opposite when I was a boy, but today historians leave little doubt that Christianity was imposed by iron and fire on all those people. And the Church soon adopted a powerful argument as well – that pagans would all go to hell. “Looking back over the centuries, we cannot but recognize that Europe was never freely, sincerely, peacefully Christian. A sword was always raised over the conscience of the population” (p. 101).
Christianity brought innovations that strengthened it. First, eternal life after death. Older religions also spoke of another life, but only now did eternal life become deserved by good behavior. Secondly, in ancient times the body and soul were a unity, now no longer so, the flesh led the soul to sin and damnation. Finally, to be saved, man must accept all the dogmas of the Church – accept them without reservation. And so the clerics became the guardians of order. Those who denied this faith – the Jews, the Muslims, the 'heretics', the witches and the pagans were the enemy.
Christianity was the first layer of Western culture, the second was capitalist. Capitalism soon proved to be much more than an economic system – a great mixture of the economic, the political and the religious. Now, more expressly than in the case of conversion, it constituted 'a political project'. Pierre Vesperini, could have remembered that this political project is based on a myth – that the 'market' would have the capacity to coordinate the entire economy without practically any State intervention.
With the capitalist Revolution, the West greatly increased its power and was able to conquer the world. It was the colonialist Imperialism of the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. Pierre Vesperini points out that Marx, “an unparalleled historian, observed that the veiled slavery of wage workers needed, as a basis, unskilled slavery in the New World” (Marx, The capital, trans. Ben Fowkes, 1976: 925).
This order, if such an unjust system can be called 'order', was and continues to be marked by all types of violence. “The unimaginable catastrophes spread across Europe during its conquest of the world and the violence it inflicted on its own populations over the centuries, notably women and minorities, are traumas felt by today's generations.” Thus, the current cancel culture becomes understandable. “The ruling classes worship Western culture as a sacred and therefore untouchable object” (p. 105-06).
Walter Benjamin was one of the authors who placed culture as a heritage under judgment in his Theses on the philosophy of history. He saw history as “a triumphal procession in which all the leaders are the heirs of the previous culture” which they treat as spoils. For Walter Benjamin, all great works of culture have a base in barbarians. There is no Virgil without the Roman Empire, there is no Michelangelo without the papacy. Walter Benjamin, however, warns that all great works should be viewed with “cautious consideration”, that is, with suspicion regarding their sacred character.
It is understandable that cancel culture reacts against the sacred, hierarchical and undemocratic character of Western culture. Whose great characters were often heretical in their time, like Voltaire or Sartre, or were not democratic, like Goethe, Renan or Thomas Mann. But cancel culture is unacceptable.
Based on his cautious consideration, Walter Benjamin proposes the philologist's approach to Western culture, which does not hierarchize or sacralize, but asks “how was this work made?” Pierre Vesperini states that from this approach we can arrive at 'cultural humanism', which seeks to understand the past without instrumentalizing or dominating it. As Charles Péguy proposed, “seek to approach the text as if there were nothing between him and you” (Complete works, 1913 [1992]: 200). It is the philological approach.
Finally, Pierre Vesperini sees a third layer in Western culture, which adds to the ecclesiastical and capitalist layers – the layer of emancipation, which emerged in the 113th and 114th centuries. “It emerged in the period in which belief in the afterlife and especially belief in hell went into decline… beliefs that were fundamental tools of domination.” And he notes: “For a time, the capitalist project and the emancipatory project united against the Christian order, an alliance that produced the French Revolution. But this alliance fell apart when the new capitalist order refused to guarantee economic and social emancipation” (p. XNUMX-XNUMX).
The war of 1914 ended European universalism. As early as around 1900, Western culture was defining the 'enemies within,' primarily race. A reactionary cancel culture then formed, which defined the internal enemy as cultural humanism, the fruit of emancipation.
A cancellation that was also undertaken by Christians in the Middle Ages, but Charlemagne prevented it from being successful when he decided to base his government on texts in Latin, at a time when attempts were made to prevent the production of texts in that language. In fact, the formation of a new canon was never accompanied by the annihilation of the previous culture.
What will happen now? Pierre Vesperini says that “we all know the importance of a reflective awareness of the past in an individual’s life. And the same goes for societies… The individual is not just a cog in the system. He marvels at philosophical theories, masterpieces of poetry, music and art, which can give him meaning in life” (p. 117).
Capitalism sought to convince us that we are nothing more than matter and material interests. “But humans are above all souls… A soul is an impulse that is at once playful, aesthetic and epistemological: we want to play, create, feel and wonder; we want to seek, discover and know. And we want to do this in the company of others.” (p. 118).
A beautiful conclusion, although a little too individualistic. Pierre Vesperini does not forget society, the individual seems to be at the center of his thinking. I myself distrust the individual and the individual's ideology, liberal individualism. But “How to read the past” is a beautiful essay – so thought-provoking that it led me to write this commentary. It is not possible to cancel the past, much less to sacralize the present, to sacralize the capitalist Western culture that resists emancipation and democracy.
* Luiz Carlos Bresser-Pereira He is Professor Emeritus at Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV-SP) and former Minister of Finance. Author, among other books, of In search of lost development: a new developmental project for Brazil (FGV Publisher). [https://amzn.to/4c1Nadj]
Reference
Pierre Vesperini. “How to read the past? Reflections on 'Cancel Culture'”. London, New Left Review, 146 March/April 2024: 99-122.
the earth is round there is thanks to our readers and supporters.
Help us keep this idea going.
CONTRIBUTE
