By LUCIANO NASCIMENTO*
Education is the necessary source of any possibility of getting rid of the barbarism that surrounds us
“Incivility” is evident in the ethical-political scenario resulting from the deterioration of social responsibility links between individuals and between these and the State. This deterioration has been accelerated by the growing mediatization and financialization of socioeconomic dynamics in globalized contemporaneity. I addressed this issue in the article “(In)civil Engineering” posted on the website the earth is round [https://dpp.cce.myftpupload.com/engenharia-incivil/].
In Brazil, hostage to bewilderment (the present disarrangement between superb stupidity, hallucinatory anti-scientificism, pseudo-religious fundamentalism, militia truculence and economic ultraliberalism), incivility has shown signs of going “very well, thank you”. Two samples of such well-being can be seen in two recent events, separated from each other by less than thirty days. It is noteworthy that both were enrolled in the field of Education, the necessary source of any possibility of getting rid of the barbarism that surrounds us.
The events are as follows: the publication, on September 30, of Decree 10.502/20, establishing the new National Policy on Special Education – PNEE –; and, on October 21, the publication, by Public Agency, with a report denouncing the practice of censorship of some specific topics and content in Military Colleges in our country.
A careful observation of these episodes becomes even more interesting if we bring up the memory of the sympathy devoted by agents of the current government to initiatives linked to the “Movimento Escola sem Partido”, which preaches a supposed liberation of Brazilian schools from “ideologization” [sic]. Apparently, the project of “civic-military schools” is the antidote endorsed by them against the so-called “leftist threat” [sic] that hangs over our children.
Let us therefore quickly see to what extent the new PNEE and the censorship of themes and contents in the CMs really reflect the search for a school free of ideologies, or just the planned sedimentation of an absolutely uncivil society.
Censorship and segregation
The new PNEE has been criticized by many Education scholars, especially for what it confronts the Statute of Children and Adolescents (ECA) and the Brazilian Law of Inclusion (LBI): encouraging the segregation of people with disabilities (PCDs). This stimulus to segregation is not explicit in the letter of the law, but it is undoubtedly a predictable consequence of the relaxation of regulations for the enrollment of PCDs in regular schools, a flexibility that was indeed foreseen in the decree. It is legitimate to predict that regular schools, especially private ones, will start to discriminate against students with disabilities shielded by the new national policy, because this is precisely what happened before the enactment of the ECA and the LBI, although the LDB already, since 1996, encouraged the inclusion of students with specific needs in schools and regular classes. Therefore, among other damages, Decree 10.502/20 brings the ghost of “legal” segregation back to the national education scene.
Still attentive to possible waves of seas already navigated, although we are all innocent until proven otherwise, including institutions, the alleged practice of censorship in Military Colleges is not surprising: Institutional Act No. 5 (the famous “AI-5”, which made censorship official in the country in 1968 and today is a reason for nostalgia for several of our representatives) was signed by a general-president, during the military regime. Furthermore, more or less subtle techniques for silencing dissent tend to be naturalized in organizations such as the Armed Forces, which are based on the pillars of discipline and hierarchy. So it wouldn't be surprising if there really was censorship in the CMs, and if you look closely, it might not even be that difficult to get and disseminate material evidence of it.
Censorship and segregation are two sides of the same strange polygon: the self-enclosed image of the presupposition of a “natural univocity”, a “logic” (very peculiar) structuring the belief in the existence of a universal and Cartesian truth. Some call this worldview “cultural monism”. For adherents of this belief system, circumstantial possession of any power implies that they are immediately authorized to determine who can and who cannot say and/or do what. The defining criteria for these permissions and prohibitions in general are quite subjective; after all, as George Orwell's pigs teach, “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others”.
That "i-logic” structuring is blatant in military institutions and manifests itself, for example, in their obsession with categorizations (Army/ Navy/Air Force; infantrymen/ artillerymen/ intendants…; officers/ squares…) and standardizations (uniforms, united order, standard procedures , memos etc). These are evident disciplining mechanisms and, to a large extent, are explained by the fact that, in military environments, it is essential to generate and maintain “docile bodies” (cf. Foucault).
It so happens that, in Brazil, especially since the last presidential elections, we are witnessing the growing militarization of civil institutions, with evident reflections in the most ordinary interpersonal relationships. This would already be problematic enough, but, in the Gordian knot of Brazilian colonial society, tension is the rule: here, in fact, since 2018, we have experienced the establishment of a dangerous “simulacrum” (cf. Deleuze) of militarization.
"The triumph of the false pretender"
It is not necessary to retrace in this article the steps of Gilles Deleuze in his well-known essay “Plato and the simulacrum”, in which the thinker proposes to reflect on a “reversal of Platonism”. However, the invocation of a succinct passage of Deleuzian text gains relevance in the analysis undertaken here. He says: “The simulacrum is not a degraded copy, it contains a positive power that denies both the original and the copy, both the model and the reproduction”. The simulacrum is, therefore, “the triumph of the false pretender”.
The new PNEE and the alleged practices of censorship in the CMs, the installation of civic-military schools... all these figures fit into the same frame, the frame of the simulation of objects, ideas and concepts. The PNEE is not new, on the contrary: it re-edits and reinvigorates the old, and is nothing more than a malicious pastiche that allows those responsible for children with disabilities to be deceived, giving them a feeling of freedom and care.
The interdiction of contents – which, bluntly, has everything to be a daily occurrence in school institutions “commanded”, this is the current term, by people trained to optimize uncritical obedience and eliminate disagreement at any cost – is a practice that impedes any kind of education that really intends to be of quality, a commitment supposedly assumed and widely proclaimed in the always self-praising discourse of the CMs. Civic-military schools, in turn, are born with a vice of origin: the defense of cultural monism and the promise of its ostensible inoculation in the minds of children and adolescents of generation Z (it would be funny if it weren't tragic). Perhaps these institutions will turn into barracks, but they will hardly become schools in fact; more likely they will turn into torture centers…
The panorama before our eyes is symptomatic of the accuracy of Deleuzian reflection: in the positive power of the simulacrum, the old is designated as new; the yes crosses the no; prison is sold as release. All of this having as a slogan the biblical passage: “And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free”. Only not. You will not know the truth, and the lie will imprison you.
What is underway in Brazil is the deliberate construction of this lie, along the lines of a “great national agreement, with… with everything”. Segregation of PCDs, withholding knowledge, assembly lines of uncritical zombies... all of this concealed by an effective propaganda that speaks of God, freedom, good customs and security.
If this perverse project succeeds, we run the serious risk of soon having regular schools exclusively for normotypical students who will not be taught to respect and enjoy living with PCDs. As adults, what reasons will these students have for even tolerating bedridden parents and grandparents, or those made deaf or blind by the simple unstoppable action of time, for example?
Where CMs students will be taught that no woman “deserves to be raped”, no one is gay for “lack of beatings”, black quilombolas cannot be weighed by arrobas, and indigenous communities do not necessarily understand agribusiness and mining as natural advancement of “progress”?
In which school will students from civic-military institutions learn that identity diversity is an undeniable reality, vaccines are necessary, the Earth is round... which is, yes! ”, and that believing this is no abomination?
The uncivil project of apartheid of minorities, extermination of critical thinking and serial reproduction of a herd of maneuver necessarily involves the construction and consolidation of a school with a party: the party of continuous simulation of the guarantee of social order through the multifocal dissemination of the most absolute civil disorder .
It's chaos. And even the good military handle him well. Only the bad ones.
* Luciano Nascimento He holds a PhD in Literature from UFSC and teaches Basic, Technical and Technological Education at Colégio Pedro II.
