By JEAN PIERRE CHAUVIN*
The same casuistry found in moral guidelines reverberates in corporate “ethics”
One of the most difficult things is for citizens to admit their prejudices. Prejudices? I say more: prevention. In other words, what factors would explain the rejection of a significant part of the electorate, including those who call themselves “progressives”, to candidates affiliated with the Workers' Party? The first of these will have a socioeconomic character. There are those who, without admitting it, act that way because they believe they are refined, supreme, different from the “rabble”. Want to know how to identify one of these specimens? Just see how slavishly he acts with people a grade above them; and how curtly and harshly he treats those in a condition he supposes inferior to his own.
It would be obvious to remember that part of our behavior is rooted in the way we were raised (and, by extension, in clubs, associations and other environments recommended by grandma-grandpa, uncle, auntie, daddy-and-mommy or friends). In addition to the triad of patriarchy, apology for the family and occasional morals, it is undeniable that many act in this or that way without understanding where, why and how these and other revulsions are born. How many of us led a double life during adolescence, not being able to talk about “forbidden” subjects with our parents?
Woe to the children of today if they come home with campaign buttons and stickers, or books about revolution, unionism, Brazilian military surrender, aporophobia, or even videos about modern democracy. It's just that the “good citizen” tolerates almost all the excesses of his offspring (“age thing”); but they should not dare to talk about public policies, inclusive agendas, creating opportunities, combating prejudice, disarmament, social assistance or income distribution.
In addition to the imposture that is based on the mania for social distinction, nurtured in the warmth of the home and reinforced in more or less restricted circles, resistance to voting for PT members is usually associated with frank corporatism. Each area, each sector, each self-employed person, legal entity, liberal professional usually finds “justifications” to transform the other (that is, those who think beyond the petty interests of their category) into communist beasts, demonized, simpleminded and disorderly.
The same casuistry found in moral guidelines reverberates in corporate “ethics”. Who does not remember the fuss made by doctors, throughout São Paulo, when the PT took the Mais Médicos program to cities with difficult access to the needy population, where no “doctor” would accept to work? Who wasn't questioned by the dentist – indignant to find out that her client, peaceful, orderly, paying on time, voted against ultraliberalism, moralistic hypocrisy and surrendering patriotism? Who has never been hit by an app driver, suggesting that voting for “extreme left” candidates would be a sign of radicalism?
Radicalism, mind you! Radicalism… How many times were banks saved (and how much did they profit?) during the terms of Lula and Dilma? How many incentives for macro and micro entrepreneurship were created during your governments? And how many vacancies, in higher education and the job market? The same “radicalism” also allowed demonstrators to freely and unrestrictedly occupy the government palace, in 2013, during the pretentious “June days”, soon co-opted by the extreme right (the latter, financed by American businessmen and “nationalists” who live in Orlando). The president's posture was so "radical" that, the day after the act on the esplanade, Dilma Rousseff came out in public to defend the right of the people to demonstrate... .
However, there is another layer where prejudices, preventions and rejections have found greater reverberation since 2013: the semi-individual sphere. It would be a case of counting and reflecting on the proportion of voters who voted according to the “recommendation” of their parents; or as per the “teaching” of your religious leader; or else, in accordance with the “order” of the boss.
What does this suggest? (1) That the so-called halter vote persists since the times of the “colonels”, stuck in the unproductive latifundia of this territory during the First Republic. (2) That the supposed autonomy of thought (the so-called conscious vote) is sometimes a chimera: only a person who is unaware and/or despises the multiple forms of knowledge and knowledge, believes to think alone and elect someone on their own. If I had more audacity, I would repeat that paradoxical refrain by Humberto Gessinger: “Listen to what I say: don't listen to anyone”.
Let's agree: it is for these and other inexcusable factors that we need to give this state of affairs a more precise name. It is not just about preconceived ideas against a party legend – which is very serious –, but a mix of prevention against the people and rejection of what is embedded in social policies. It would be less dishonest for anti-PT supporters to define themselves in this way, especially when they persist in abstaining, annulling the vote or renewing credit in the main destroyer (despite witnessing four years of neo-fascist misrule, in conjunction with the most nefarious and dangerous sectors of society). .
Now, if the allegation of the vote against the PT rests on a protest against corruption, then it will be pure and simple impudence of those who evade taxes; takes pride in opportunities and mocks the underprivileged; that simulates inability to see cracks, or the purchase of 57 properties with cash; who still defends the lavajatista operation, made in USA (orchestrated by the then judge who intended to make a career as a minister of the candidate he helped elect) etc., etc., etc. The defense of an effective project of a sovereign and less unequal country, guided by the democratic rule of law, should be situated well before and above personal disgust, meaningless tradition or class tackiness.
Kindly make a difference for yourself and others on the 30th.
*Jean Pierre Chauvin He is a professor at the School of Communication and Arts at USP. Author, among other books, of A thousand, one dystopia (Publisher Glove).
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