By LUIZ ROBERTO ALVES*

The Estadão and its frayed, repetitive and prejudiced criticism

Language welcomes us at birth, circulates in the totality of our relationships with the world and words, creates foundations for the intelligibility of complex life and accommodates us in the silence of an already tired life. Not even in death does he lose senses, because he creates memory of what really matters. This gift forged in the specificity of the sapiens, with due respect to the language of all agents of natural life, built enriched thoughts in order to know, categorize, transcend, define, judge, create. Culture was made.

The human cultures in circulation in the communication process of civilizations make time-space and its intelligent and refined distinctions known. Although it may stagnate, it is natural in this discursive and creative gift the continuous curiosity that induces science and art, ethics and aesthetics. And it is fundamental that this wise gift forged skills to understand dynamic totalities, such as the ways of organizing organizations and institutions in their historicity and their spaces of action. The sciences and so many other types of knowledge are growing there.

I repeat: it is possible to stagnate, to turn language into a swamp with no exits in which not only the speakers of the word can submerge, but also its more charitable or unwary receivers. Both for the complexity of living and the nomenclature of living, as the wise Edgar Morin teaches, and for the dynamics of learning in the confrontations of history, the public word should exist as a search, research, revelations of phenomena and discovery of interrelations that are still little known.

That's what doesn't exist in the editorials of the big newspaper The state of Sao Paulo when it comes to Lula and the PT. And the swampy terrain that he creates for himself and for many of his readers when dealing with the obsessive theme almost suggests that one no longer read the written recipe from the title or the first sentence period. By way of remembrance, or paranoia about the evils of the so-called lulopetismo, what it produces is the opposite of any scientific or aesthetic creation. It's Nonada. Especially for being a diary with brilliant specialists in different fields of social work and long history, such editorials become the weak corner of discourse in the context of journalistic creation, a kind of vault where resentments and analytical laziness are hobbled. It is not fair or intelligent to consider that the worst ruler on the planet, in every sense, unfortunately now in federal power, is fully spared in the face of the evils PT and Lula for Brazilian democracy. But in the swampy, repetitive discursive backlog it might get there in the coming months. To see.

The last editorial, dated January 23, 2022, smells like paper, or papyrus, never cared for by airing, curiosity, the desire to think. And there it goes again. Reproductive addiction grows to such an extent that suddenly there is no longer a Lula or a PT in the texts, in the edicts, as their almost zero degree of creative writing involves the obsessive characters in the confines of the issuer itself. Lula and the PT reveal themselves as the necrotic face of the scribbler. In fact, for millions of people in this beautiful, diverse, unequal and unfair land, such characters have already entered the world of dreams, delusions and wills that no longer articulates communications. Perhaps it will remain in Sérgio Moro's booklet with a view to guaranteeing the difficult condition of tertiary of this year's electoral process.

It also seems that these vast groups and individuals sympathetic to the PT and Lula, or curious, or fans are irrational, people who don't think, who don't confront the complex dynamics of living on a daily basis and who find themselves dumbfounded and dumbfounded in the face of the evils reiterated by the boring scripture .

It seems, therefore, that the Estadão will not change and some candidates lacking a governance program will accompany it, it is necessary to dialogue and argue with the Brazilian people thought by Darcy Ribeiro, mixed, sometimes warrior, soaked in unintelligible cultures by the economic- cultural values ​​and frankly dedicated to work and the guarantee of life, which just doesn't do much more because the way society is organized, based on the colony, the empire and liberal developmentalist dreams, pragmatically privileges the abyss between classes, unleashes rights, it loosens historical senses of citizenship, oppresses desires for change and continuously and selectively cuts off the fundamental right to participate with responsible freedom.

This columnist has a clear preference for the documents of the Workers' Party created before the Letter to Brazilians and he knows that such documents were the great motivators of the base nuclei, of the work groups, of the patience in placing intellectuals, workers from the field and from the montages, the arrival of young people in the process of political discernment, often misunderstood, the presence of people of faith and hope in the country, communities originating from scientific work, education, popular cultures, environmentalism, human rights and confrontation necessary between the perfidious society, machine of misery, hunger and cultural repression, and the construction of a society that effectively symbolizes and represents its territorial greatness, its ethnic-cultural and gender diversity, its distinctive groupings, its dignified forms of work in the fullness of the territory and its eco-environmental responsibility before the world, now extremely urgent.

Certainly, the editorial of the Estadão should not be addressed to PT supporters and supporters, who are not represented in the acronym PT in the editorial, corruption of anti-democracy. They are represented, yes, in the party's complexity assumed in dark times, in the texts that they helped to write, in the community filling of slabs, in the criticisms that they always knew how to make to the party authorities, in the assemblies in which they took participatory decisions, in the good projects of governments local, state and federal and the right to continue to criticize the errors, misconceptions and misrepresentations of the party association, which is not alone in these facts and misteres. Certainly, there was no other republican party capable of building itself in such a complex, difficult, step-by-step and educational way. The confrontation process is understood as educational, which has not stopped or died in a few years of power over the Brazilian state, even though it runs the risk of stagnating in the wave of its own mistakes. Where, then, is the acronym representing people who are only obedient, only followers of “party cadres” or only simple-minded and maneuverable, as the editorials of the important newspaper suppose?

It is obvious that the linguistic figure who gives rise to the acronym continually written in editorials wants precisely to stigmatize and demoralize, to make simpletons people proud of their thinking and their decisions, people who already return to the streets and squares and who are present in new movements, especially in the work of educational redemption and the guarantee of life in the terrestrial biosphere. Well, these people never evaporated. Or will editorials with a low degree of curiosity, research and analysis change the minds of people who are demanding the condition of citizenship in a country that is far from it for the majority? Flat and bland speeches never reverse positions of lives determined to change social injustices trapped and defended by such speeches. And it must be recognized that the average of this determination of individuals, groups and crowds tends to always be ahead of party leaderships and not the other way around, as judged by the vain editorial bookkeeping.

Even more: those documents constructed by ordinary people, prone to grammatical errors and, for that very reason, useful as a linguistic and political learning value, in a difficult process of intelligibility and legibility of the word politics, they remain in the memory and in the family and community discourse after governments and power. And at the time of the governments, when the right to execute policies and develop projects and programs was exercised, they were represented by a second tier of professionals from ministries who gave their blood, the best of their intelligence and their skills for the fulfillment of the ideas, desires, agreements, collective decisions. And they did so by seeking harmony with career officials. This in all policies, plans and programs. Evidently, not without confrontations. For Paulo Freire, confrontation in the world and in life is a central factor in learning and overcomes our incompleteness through education, a sister of human culture.

Well, did the stubborn acronym and the Lula man in the Estadão editorials ruin all of that? Or were she and he agents who also had to learn and suffer in the Brazilian conditions of doing politics, people and party unfinished in their nature and part of a complex of popular movements in search of values ​​and purposes? Probably, the good party representation, the support for Lula and the PT that amazes and infuriates such editorials lies in this common learning, which has not ended, because it never ends. It transforms.

As for the vaunted problems of corruption – unfortunately the central theme of Brazilian history – this democracy that we were able to build, although fragile and sometimes tottering, has legal instruments that need to be taken seriously, which, by the way, has not happened since January 2019st 57.797.847 and the nameless was not ousted from power. Even so, it is far from worth saying that its XNUMX votes derive from popular blundering, as the people cannot be tutored by speeches lacking in fundamental scientific research.

The editorial discourse favors the adventure of Moro, his acolytes and the possible justice system in Brazil. Could it be that weak legal thinking, Moro's lust for power, his darkest desires and instincts and his business agreements would determine the pitch of Brazilian justice?

The different compartments and platforms of the juridical power have decided – about Lula, Party members and the PT itself – in a way that is different from what the Estadão editorialist would demand, and this infuriates him within the swampy discourse. Strange for such an intellectual level of newsrooms. We, from the class of educators, who have systematically eaten the bread that the devil kneaded in this republic, in this democracy, do not, therefore, close our eyes to phenomena, dynamic facts or things that must be weighed, compared, organized, analyzed and judged. in the concrete time in which we live. By chance we had support from the popular power of the time to overthrow the almost nameless governors from the palaces of São Paulo who claimed for everyone to hear that our fellow teachers had little money because they were badly married? Florestan taught that social interactions are also confrontations and cannot be measured only by victories or the other's submission. There is much more between heaven and earth.

This columnist researched Italian university institutions in the first decade of the century and read and was enthusiastic about the action called mani pulite, clean hands, notably with the judges who arrived at the sacrifice. He also saw the bewilderment that occurred in business confrontations, often mafia. He came to believe that we could do something better in Brazil, but in the very field of law and justice, many hands were not even washed. The judicial body of a nation, thought of as a totality to be scrutinized, may be the language that most reaches the zero degree of transparency, since it has a historical discourse legitimized by the weight of doctrines and nuances and paths that, after all, are hidden from the majorities of populations. Our great writers, whether of Realism or Modernism, understood this very well.

The legal warp can be vile. And since an analysis of the institutional totality must not neglect its structural sense, the vileness of a part compromises the whole. However, there are marches and counter-marches in legal thinking and it is not possible to impose a united order in the treatment of phenomena. In this dynamic was Lula, arrested and supported by many people from the population who intuited and in fact thought differently from Moro and some places in the judiciary. Nor is it believed that everyone in this country believes that Sergio Moro and his people have destroyed the country's business capital, made up of a significant parasitic group of all governments, which requires all sorts of subsidies to earn money and offer some jobs. In fact, the capital-labor ratio in Brazil has hit rock bottom. And reversed all rights. This is also what a decent government will have to face and come up with new solutions. If it doesn't happen, it's because we are incapable of political learning. The editorialist must not like this premise.

Why do such editorials not study the complex action of the person who signs up for a party to undertake a struggle? And it would still be necessary to study successively the most complex set of what happens in it, with no chance, therefore, of summarizing the action of a public person and a party on a small piece of paper moved by resentment and analytical poverty.

Certainly, no leadership should be proud of its power, from which lies its own falsehood. Much less imagine yourself as the owner of the guava paste. Such facts go beyond what the editorials say and, in fact, are of the essence of what is sound in politics, of what has not been corrupted. However, one cannot deny the greater sense of representation that the party and the person obtain due to their messages and practices, thought and action. It is evident that the original story of the migrant, worker, union leader and builder of re-democratization itself, later President Lula, was the engine of this long party dominance and the strength of its arguments and proposals. Human memory is always connected to what matters, to what is vital in an experienced historical time that continues to flow, producing the representation and choices of values ​​realized in life. Now, the governments of Lula and Dilma did not compromise the democratic structure as much as they created objective confrontations that produced results of great importance in the relationship between the suffered majorities and their civic and human rights.

Memory and historicity continue, despite the editorials considered here trying to determine that the only suitable memory would have to be that of the evils committed by Lula and the PT. But that's not how millions think and those millions need to be respected and understood. Furthermore, the problem of party self-criticism in Brazil could be the result of broad consensus and done regularly, as education evaluates students and the school internally and externally. Or as science suggests, that we recognize the errors of our instrumentation and our methods. Such values ​​already make up a universal ethics, acclaimed and desired, despite being little followed.

What belongs to the field of justice is its competence, even if it is feet of clay. Lula has been judged on her, as she is or could be. The legal field that was by her side did her job in order to change previous procedures. She fulfilled her wish. Lula is also judged among the people, as she is a profoundly public person. What other judgment do the editorials of the old and influential daily want? Your own judgment, representation of your historical resentments, of the conduct of things that do not match your purposes as a business and media institution of power in society?

Well, at least that is not their responsibility, nor is it their right, except when this editorial thinking no longer means anything other than a linguistically impoverished place that reflects the corners of the contradiction between the people and the mediating power. Such editorials, moreover, have nothing more to do with mediators, because they do not fulfill the basic task of writing publicly, or the nature of the language favored by science: combing data, analyzing its complexity, establishing analytical codes, carrying out the study and presenting, in a balanced way, the true. Possible, but true.

In the book I miei occhi hanno visa (My eyes saw) by Agnes Heller, the Hungarian thinker who died in 2019, narrates the experience of friendship, philosophical influence and personal goodwill towards György Lukács, whose works were fundamental for us to understand literature and art in the West. But this strong relationship did not prevent Heller from opening his eyes to Lukács's denial of all art that was Modernist or appeared to be. Aesthetic thought – who knows creative intelligence – would have stopped in Proust, Joyce and Kafka. Besides them, or after them, the others would not really be writers. Worse: a few months before he died, the extraordinary intellectual told his friends: I am a bankrupt existence (p. 68).

Among us, the equally extraordinary Monteiro Lobato resents the apparently strange work of Anita Malfatti and, in 1917, he branded what he saw exposed as paranoia or mystification, which made the young painter suffer for a long time. Fortunately, the difficult and intricate modernist times, here and in other parts of the world, prevailed and bore fruit, always open to good criticism. And better, capable of engaging an entire intelligent youth in new projects, including in the various fields of communication, science and education.

Too bad Lukács didn't believe in the intelligence of those who arrive and conquer some representation. Ditto for Lobato, who, however, has great credit for his literary and political work. Both he and Lukács, whom we continue to read and learn from, are independent of the low-level and bipolar ideological discourses so common today. But the memory of their positions teaches and alerts us.

I do not suggest any political connection between the illustrations offered by Heller's text and the party and politician judged by the newspaper's editorials.

It is, once again, about the possible readings of complexity, sometimes simplified without proper judgment about the historical dynamics and movements of the creative intelligence in the world. Or respect for the groups, people and crowds that make up the people and institute their projects and wills. Very soon, the Estadão editorials about Lula and the PT will be nothing more than jokes. Publicized thinking needs to gain some transcendence to take the necessary steps towards truth sincerely admitted.

And this may not happen, mainly due to ideological options, in the succession of our thought and writing, which causes suffering and tears relationships. When the editor thinks he is succeeding and exposing truths, in fact he is burying his writer's intelligence and submerging himself in the swamp of his obsessive reproductions. The editor's freedom could or should consider limits so as not to suggest debauchery of writing riddled with power.

For those who have broad and widespread social responsibility, as is the case with the media, it is important to never forget the curiosity of research and analysis with a touch of humanity before the other, the other, the other, in some way components of “ me” in the world.

Will the upcoming election again be another mess? Isn't learning at this planetary latitude? Perhaps that is why education, understood as a sensitive and evaluative construction of incomplete beings (not just children!) has never been a Brazilian priority, in which governments invested or should invest the very meaning of their existence and reason for governing.

* Luiz Roberto Alves is a senior professor at the School of Communications and Arts at USP.