By LUIZ MARQUES*
The privatization of personal existence can be interpreted as a symptom of “alienation,” which suspends collective ties with the species and the planet.
Benjamin Constant was an eloquent member of the National Assembly in the second half of the French Revolution, from 1795 onwards, and also during the Restoration between 1815 and 1830. He was a leader of the liberal opposition called the “Independents”. In the famous conference, Of the freedom of the ancients compared to that of the moderns, addresses the transition from direct democracy to representative democracy, from “Revolution Square” to “Parliament”. The reflection engages with some contemporary themes.
For the Swiss thinker based in France, the freedom of the ancient Athenians was based on the sharing of political power and the satisfaction of influencing decisions on the public stage of governance. As part of a collective body, citizens can question, dismiss and approve armistices by design of the group. They publicly set the course of polis. Privately, it obeys cultural determinations, reproducing the morals and customs already consolidated in society – without questioning what is established.
Freedom is for the exclusive enjoyment of the citizen, not of the individual. Daily life is surrounded by many precautions and impediments. Laws delimit marital conduct and treatment of children under penalty of ostracism, at the limit. Thus, submissive to the order of the Republic, people wander lost in the normative tangle of Athens, trying to decode what is right.
In the freedom of modern people, what matters is the enjoyment of private life. It is up to the institutionality to guarantee objective conditions for the enjoyment of the privilege of coming and going without asking permission, of having property to use or abuse. These are basic desires for fulfillment. Enjoyment comes from individuation, and depends on the inclinations and idiosyncrasies of each person. The individual projects himself in the hierarchy of values. Private commitment takes priority. Hedonism replaces loyalty. The Aristotelian definition that the human is a social animal (son politician) gives in to narcissism.
Commerce turns citizens into consumers, inspiring autonomy in the face of social conventions. Intervention by republican authorities is disapproved of so as not to hinder speculation and competition between speculators. “When governments direct business, they do so with fewer advantages.” The ideological virus of fake news against state planning.
The privatization of personal existence can be interpreted as a symptom of “alienation,” which suspends collective ties with the species and the planet. This assertion echoes the hegemonic spirit of Antiquity. Anyone who did not intervene in public life, despite having the prerogative, was labeled an “idiot”; etymologically, in Greek, “one who abstains from political matters.” Participation was considered a categorical imperative, a noble and irrefutable moral obligation; now, no longer.
However, admiration still beats in our chest for those who dare to take the reins of destiny into their own hands. Their feats seem to awaken the memory that nothing today makes us feel such a vibration. It is difficult not to feel nostalgic for the period in which the individual's ability developed with dedication and dignity to overcome obstacles. It is impossible not to want to imitate the disposition capable of changing the world. status quo. What is needed is “an efficient Jacobin force”, in the words of Antonio Gramsci.
Challenges of our time
Under neoliberalism, the existential void left by the aegis of money is filled with an anti-systemic simulacrum against the system. See the terrorists from Santa Catarina, the federative unit with 320 active Nazi cells; more than a quarter of the estimated number in the country (1.117). São Paulo, with 12 million inhabitants, has 96 (Piaui, May 2023). Bolsonarists howl to seize proof of identification with the pack. “Let someone come and like me,” reads Cecília Meireles’ verse.
Oaths of love for the nation shift sacrifices to scapegoats, such as immigrants. Intellectual reductionism protects necropolitics, deindustrialization, fiscal austerity, economic deterioration, environmental catastrophe, and the explosion of inequities. Chaos, intolerance, commodification, dehumanization, and violence against rights are spreading. The apocalypse is approaching.
The far right proposes squaring the circle. On the one hand, it promotes the dogma of individual freedom where “all that is solid melts into air” with the destructive laissez-faire neoliberal. On the other hand, it appropriates the conservatism of pre-capitalist communities. Emotional duality makes up the mosaic of the coup. Communication technologies and organizational modalities of big techs in the era of digitalization, they are used to attack the democratic rule of law on a global scale. Meanwhile, politics and regulation clash with legislation from the analog era.
Neofascism rebuilds the affection that globalization destroys. This is the meaning of cyber networks. Hatred and resentment are tempered with romantic criticisms of life in the metropolis and an attitude blasé in the face of suffering. Faria Lima’s handbook on economic, financial and media power does not admit alternatives. However, in China, 600 million people have escaped poverty through control of finances, low interest rates for investments, financial fertilization with technological innovations and an “entrepreneurial State”. Not all the chips were placed on the “entrepreneurial Individual”.
Unlike the illiberal right, Benjamin Constant does not advocate a renunciation of public freedom. Rather, he emphasizes that it is necessary to learn to combine it with private freedom. Personal affairs do not prevent people from voting. After all, research shows that apathy and absenteeism do not result from disinterest, but from the absence of channels of communication to drain civic spirit. If they do not exist, it is because citizenship bothers the plutocracy and the structures of domination stifle the voice of the people. If capitalism was democratic, no one remembers it; the incompatibility is alarming.
In the book recently released by Editora Hucitec with the Perseu Abramo Foundation, Democracy versus neoliberalism (Organized by Wagner Romão), Ladislau Dowbor points to “rentierism” as a mode of production and neoliberalism as a disguise. “Those in charge are no longer the captains of industry, but rather those who control algorithms, communication platforms and immaterial money, within the framework of financialization”. It is better to focus on the digital revolution and the transition from industrialism to finance than to list adjectives for capitalism (corporate, parasitic, surveillance). Rentier greed already outweighs the surplus value extracted from low wages, and reconceptualizes employment.
Focused on “truth” (the value of knowledge) and “good” (ethical value), politics contributes to the revelation and demystification of the hidden power of society (rent-seeking). Emancipation requires the creation of spheres of participation, awareness and organization to face the challenges of the 21st century, in an adverse correlation of congressional forces in Brazil. Alliances help as much as they condition the actions of the oppressed to the framework of the “third way”: sometimes they sail the rough waves, sometimes they anchor the ship. The dialectic of freedom of the ancients and the moderns demands empowerment for the common people. To keep alive the passion of rebellion and the will for transformation.
PS: The Broad Front in Uruguay, led by José Mujica, Yamandú Orsi and Caroline Cosse, brings new hope to Latin America after the tango of the desperate, in the anarcho-capitalist shipwreck of Argentina. The sun is shining again. Fighting is worth it. The sky below / The sky to those below.
* 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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