By LISZT VIEIRA*
Manichaeism has always been predominant on the right. But unfortunately, many people on the left behave in a Manichaeist way, considering people to be either entirely good or entirely bad.
1.
The best known examples of fake news come from the right: gay kit, dick bottle, communism threatens Brazil, etc. The latest and successful example was the Pix tax, announced by right-wing congressman Nikolas Ferreira. But the left also naively receives and passes on fake news. These are recent examples of fake news the double disclosure of Pepe Mujica's death, the information that Trump's mother was an illegal immigrant in the US, the photo of the US immigration service arresting a man with the inscription “Latinos for Trump 2024” on his t-shirt, etc.
Any news that is of interest is accepted and passed on without any critical spirit. Fake news has a long history, it is not an invention of our time. What is new is that today all news expands and becomes instantaneous, the true and the false. The biggest best sellers the world, Bible, is full of fake news. From Jewish beliefs in the Book Genesis (creation of Adam and Eve) to the Christian miracles of New Testament, Bible It is a set of legends that, throughout history, became religious dogmas, in a process that took centuries.
There are many other examples such as the legend of the Trojan Horse. Whether real or myth, it was a stratagem, real or literary, used by the Greeks to deceive the Trojans in the Trojan War. Others recall Sun Tzu, the famous author of The Art of War, who lived in China between 544 BC – 496 BC. fake news They have been used throughout all wars as counterintelligence to deceive the enemy. But the impact is now immediate and much greater in our age of virtual electronic communication. And with Artificial Intelligence, the montages imitate reality perfectly.
Many people, misinformed, accept any information that confirms their beliefs and opinions, generally the result of prejudice or a false understanding of a fact. They believe what they want to believe. And they retransmit it, feeding the algorithms that will fatten the fabulous profits of big tech.
The search for truth was the foundation of scientific thought spread throughout the world mainly from the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment in the 18th and 19th centuries overthrew magical thinking and promoted what the German sociologist Max Weber called the “disenchantment of the world” which would come to be explained by science investigating the facts of reality, and no longer by religion. The British philosopher Bertrand Russell, in his Message for the future, from 1959, advised us, in the study of any subject, to “seek the facts and what the facts reveal”.
2.
In recent years, however, scientific logic has begun to be questioned by superstitions, dogmas and lies disseminated on a large scale to society as a whole, mainly through electronic media. Until the scientific revolution in the 16th and 17th centuries, facts and legends, truth and lies, were mixed together. Thus, the phenomenon of fake news is not new in history. What is new is its instant multiplication in the press and on the Internet, mainly for commercial and political purposes. Today, information can be disseminated instantly to the entire world.
An enlightening example in times of internet is the one described in the book The Chaos Engineers, by Giuliano Da Empoli. From a database, a Coordination sends hundreds of millions of different messages, saying opposite things, to different audiences. This system, adopted by the company Cambridge Analytica, was used successfully in the election of Brexit in the UK in June 2016, in the election of Donald Trump in November 2016 in the US and in that of Bolsonaro in November 2018 in Brazil.
The uncritical acceptance of fake news It is a serious contemporary problem, as many people are not interested in knowing whether information corresponds to reality or not. They cling to opinions based on their beliefs. Belief has a religious, dogmatic connotation, as opposed to conclusions or predictions based on facts of reality.
Our civilization based on enlightenment, reason, and argumentation is being attacked and threatened by the growing acceptance of fake news. Opinion and belief are irrational because they do not require verification based on facts of reality. False information is accepted because it corresponds to previously existing opinions and feelings. It confirms what the person thinks, it confirms an opinion that does not care whether or not it is anchored in reality. fake news fired on an industrial scale by the extreme right are directed not at reason, but at the emotions and beliefs of the recipients.
The civilization built on the Enlightenment principles of reason and logic is currently experiencing a dilemma and an impasse.
3.
Manichaeism has always been prevalent on the right. But unfortunately, many people on the left behave in a Manichaeist way, considering people to be either entirely good or entirely bad. They do not understand and do not work with contradictions. This helps to explain why some people only see the positive or negative aspects of a political leader.
I will give an example that will certainly scandalize those who do not accept contradictions. Please, you can disagree, but do not kill me.
I consider Leonel Brizola a national hero for his fight against the military dictatorship and the right wing in Brazil. And also for his role in defending public education. He has his place in the history of the fight for democracy in our country. But Leonel Brizola was a very authoritarian politician. See below one of his actions when he was governor of Rio de Janeiro.
As you know, the Public Defender has the obligation to defend the rights of the underprivileged, the poor, who have had their rights violated by whoever, whether individuals, companies or governments. When the Military Police kills someone in the favela, be it a young person, a woman, a child or an elderly person, the family is defended by a Public Defender. But Governor Leonel Brizola didn't like that. He thought: I pay the Military Police and the Public Defender's Office, one cannot fight with the other. As a Public Defender that I was, and still am, I can testify to this. Leonel Brizola personified the State in his person.
In other words, Leonel Brizola can be considered a hero, but an authoritarian hero. With due distinctions, he is somewhat reminiscent of the case of Getúlio Vargas. For some, Getúlio Vargas was a statesman who bequeathed us labor legislation and initiated industrialization in Brazil with the Volta Redonda factory, negotiated with the United States in exchange for Brazil's support in World War II and against the wishes of his generals, such as Goes Monteiro and Eurico Dutra, who wanted to support Nazi Germany.
For others, Getúlio Vargas was a dictator who imprisoned and tortured political prisoners who opposed him, and suppressed individual and political freedoms during his dictatorship. Getúlio Vargas fell after the war in 1945, was re-elected in 1951, and under pressure from the military, committed suicide in 1954, delaying the military coup by 10 years. Both are correct. Getúlio Vargas was a great statesman, a pioneer in industrialization and social rights, but he was also a dictator. The challenge of political analysis is to incorporate these two dimensions.
But talking about Getúlio Vargas no longer carries any risk. As Congressman Ulisses Guimarães used to say, time is the master of truth. But Leonel Brizola still stirs passions that, at the limit, can contribute to violence, especially in Rio de Janeiro and Rio Grande do Sul. Saying that Brizola was a hero, but also an authoritarian leader, involves risks. I said that once and they almost killed me. I hope that doesn't happen again.
I have narrated a fact above. Let each person interpret it as they wish. As I said before, many people reject the facts of reality and only want to hear what corresponds to their beliefs. This is common on the right, but it also occurs on the left, unfortunately. The new winds blown by the advance of the extreme right in the West, with its neo-fascist message and its cultural revolution, end up affecting a part of the population, including some segments of the left. Resistance is necessary.
*Liszt scallop is a retired professor of sociology at PUC-Rio. He was a deputy (PT-RJ) and coordinator of the Global Forum of the Rio 92 Conference. Author, among other books, of Democracy reactsGaramond). [https://amzn.to/3sQ7Qn3]
the earth is round there is thanks to our readers and supporters.
Help us keep this idea going.
CONTRIBUTE