By MICHEL AIRES DE SOUZA DIAS*
The success of Pablo Marçal and Jair Bolsonaro occurs when society is no longer capable of fulfilling the promises of freedom, social justice and happiness for all.
In a society in which the technical apparatus and the industrial world become omnipotent forces, acquiring great social power, the individual loses his capacity to react to the totality that oppresses him. In mass society, the autonomous individual is liquidated, he becomes a cell isolated from active and conscious contact with the social environment that surrounds him. In his blind isolation, he is unaware of the forces and power relations that subjugate him.
It does not have any content that is not socially constituted. This means that it is empty and only acts for the benefit of its self-preservation. In this way, subjectivity crystallizes from the forms of political economy, shaped by the organization of the market. As Theodor Adorno (2008, p. 145) rightly assessed: “Precisely in his individualization the individual reflects the established social law of exploitation”.
Capitalism is a form of social organization that annihilates the autonomous individual. It is a system that is conducive to charlatans like Pablo Marçal and Jair Bolsonaro, who only seek economic advantages, without any concern for society or the population. The success of these charlatans' discourse is due to the fact that they personify the image of this reified totality, which reduces all human relations to relations between things.
The visibility of these characters derives from the values conveyed by mass culture, which encourages competition, merit, individualism and the unbridled pursuit of money. With extravagant and mystifying ideas, they become commodities of the cultural industry, satisfying the population's need for outsiders that can change politics. In this sense, they are as false as the products commodified by mass culture, such as prosperity theology, self-help books, coaching and the courses of Traders to get rich.
The great success of charlatans, whether in politics, religion or self-help books, highlights the process of individual regression caused by mass culture. Theodor Adorno sought to show in his essay, “Culture Industry”, that mass culture produces in its consumers a process of regression of their critical and reflective capacities. By consuming standardized cultural products passively, without any intellectual effort, individuals lose the capacity to think critically about reality. There is a weakening of sensitivity and understanding, which makes them prone to all forms of heteronomy.
The massified individual, internally frustrated, powerless in the face of technological apparatus, becomes prone to the discourse of the charlatan leader. This mechanism of attraction to a leader was called by Freud, in his book Crowd psychology and analysis of Eu, of identification: “The mechanism that transforms libido into the bond between leader and followers, and between the followers themselves, is that of identification” (Freud, 2019, p. 104).
The charlatan leader keeps the group united in a state of identification through his love and through a catharsis on his members, acting hypnotically on them. In this way, he assumes the figure of an “ideal of the ego”, becoming a model for the entire group. The leader personifies social demands and norms, cultural values and ideals. It is for this reason that conservative and authoritarian values acquire greater relevance for these leaders. The appeal to moral and religious issues becomes an instrument for manipulating the masses.
Em Freudian theory and the fascist propaganda pattern Theodor Adorno sought to show that the discourse of fascist leaders has much more of an emotional, demagogic and psychological appeal than a rational and objective one. This is why far-right leaders do not discuss government plans or objective issues; they always appeal to controversial and conservative issues. Discussing issues such as gender ideology, gay kits in schools, abortion, communist conspiracy and anti-scientific narratives has always been a strategy to defend political and economic interests.
Another fact observed by Theodor Adorno is that the discourse of fascist leaders “attacks ghosts.” It constructs a narrative of homosexuals, blacks, foreigners, and the poor, creating a false image and failing to show how this imaginary relates to reality. Among all groups, communists are the ones who are most attacked as the great enemy of the nation, as a ghost that is secretly governing our world.
The success of charlatans like Pablo Marçal and Jair Bolsonaro also highlights a deeper crisis in Western democracies. They emerge when society is no longer capable of fulfilling its promises of freedom, social justice, and happiness for all. What is unique about these leaders is that they are able to predict the demands, dissatisfactions, and psychological needs of individuals. What they have in common is their anti-system, anti-political discourse.
They are able to assimilate the dissatisfaction and frustrations of the masses towards democratic institutions. The desire for change is closely linked to the psychological suffering of individuals in the capitalist world, related to social and economic issues. This dissatisfaction and displays of hatred are evidence of the decline of the individual and his weakening in the capitalist industrial world.
In our current times, modern democracies have failed to reconcile private interests with universal interests. This is when the conservative and authoritarian discourse of Jair Bolsonaro and Pablo Marçal becomes attractive. The authoritarian personality is reinforced by hatred, which is produced and reproduced by dissatisfaction, releasing destructive impulses against civilization. As Bueno (2009) points out, the conservative individual, with a lack of cultural formation, channels his hatred that should be directed against an unjust, cold, barbaric world, towards society itself.
The big problem is that this aggression is not directed against institutions, but against the weakest in the social hierarchy: blacks, the poor, people from the Northeast and the unemployed. In other words, the hatred that should be aimed at the objective conditions of the capitalist system is instead directed against the real or imaginary helpless. As Theodor Adorno (1995) pointed out, something that has always occurred in the history of civilization is the persecution and violence against the powerless and socially weak and, at the same time, whether this is true or not, they are the ones who consider themselves happy.
*Michel Aires de Souza Dias is a professor in the field of education at the Federal Institute of Mato Grosso do Sul (IFMS).
References
ADORNO, Theodor. Minima Moralia: reflections of injured life. Rio de Janeiro: Beco do Azougue, 2008.
ADORNO, Theodor. Education and Emancipation. Rio de Janeiro: Peace and Land, 1995.
BUENO, Sinésio. From the dialectic of enlightenment to the dialectic of education. Education Magazine: Adorno thinks about Education, year 2, no. 10, p. 36-45, 2009.
FREUD, Sigmund. Group psychology and analysis of the ego. Porto Alegre: LP&M, 2019.
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