By LUIZ MARQUES*
Recovering ethics in politics means proposing a complete restructuring of everyday life. This is the duty of a new left, in fact and in law.
An aggressive marketing campaign is circulating in the corporate media to describe the virtues of owners of pickup trucks of a certain brand. It argues that: “Being a pickup truck driver is not about having; it is about being. We are adventurous, unique, family-oriented, entrepreneurs.” In other words, owning a pickup truck is not a matter of social class, but a spiritual/racial gift. “We have the courage to go further.” Thus, Aryanism was propagated in Germany by highlighting the distinction of pure Germans (Aryans) in relation to inferior ethnic groups. The common people do not share the essence of being, they accommodate themselves to the pasteurization and anonymity of the crowd. They do not value blood ties and do not idolize private initiative. The product-signifier transfers the heroic meaning to the consumers.
The surreptitious invitation to transcend renews the Nazis’ expansionist discourse in neoliberal practices against state regulations. If we consider that the advertisements are aimed, in particular, at the market of agribusiness agents who travel long distances on dirt roads, and who advocate “self-monitoring” on their lands with regard to ecological balance, then the emphasis on going beyond conventions becomes clear. Studies of semiotics by Roland Barthes help us understand the linguistic symbols of the new rebels in favor of the system.
Propaganda is interested in the grammar and lexicon of socioeconomic groups. It is in habitus It is in the construction of the political economy that the traces of capitalism are found in the social classes. The colonialist (racist) arrogance of the dominant, the vector of accumulation (hyperindividualism), the logic of agriculture in the countryside (the soybean plantation that attacks the biomes, the deforestation of the Amazon) and the predatory action of mega-construction companies in the cities (the skyscrapers on the waterfront, the financialization of spaces of sociability) are the signs of the destruction that leaves a trail of ruins behind it.
Everyday life is the stage, par excellence, for the capitalist contradictions that threaten democracy. In short, it is at the level of everyday life that we can truly judge a society. In Brazil, the 350-year colonial-slavery past is present in the way the middle class approaches the cashiers in a supermarket; or in the dismissive approach to a waiter in a restaurant; or in the supremacist demand for a “maid’s room” in apartments.
Collar around the neck
In the current election campaign, the right wing calls the verticalization of cities in regions that have facilities (hospitals, schools) “densification”; a euphemism. What is implied is the abandonment of the outskirts to chance and the alliance of the municipal administration with real estate speculation for profit. The only time that care is taken is in the outlying communities during elections. In Porto Alegre, after the climate tragedy, the pro-Bolsonaro mayor Sebastião Melo (MDB) began paving streets in neighborhoods affected by floods; like the southern lapwing, it always sings far from its nest. Demagogy hides negligence and property, financial, psychological, and moral losses.
In São Paulo, in a solemn tone, Mayor Ricardo Nunes (MDB) declares that he will accept former Economy Minister Paulo Guedes – from the misgovernment during the four-year militia period – for a position as secretary in his second term; if Jair Bolsonaro asks him to. The sycophancy towards mediocrity and denialism is only surpassed by the irresponsibility towards the people of the great metropolis of São Paulo. In a facade center, Melo and Nunes militate with the leash of status quo, around their necks. They do not seek voters with proposals to perhaps fulfill promises that have always been broken; they wave the old signal to resurrect the ghosts of “anti-communism” – a must on the menu of fear.
The strategy of the right and its extreme reeks of the “money-mongers of the temple” of ancient times. It combines makeup and fake news about everyday life with a nod to the cultural war: “a politician is not known by what he promises today, but by what he did yesterday”, says Olavo de Carvalho on his website, Sapientiam autem non vincit malitia / “Against wisdom, evil does not prevail”, a tribute to the apostle Paul. The memory of the occupations of the MTST led by Guilherme Boulos (PSOL/SP) and the defense of Human Rights by Maria do Rosário (PT/RS) are aired for the ideologization of the leftist origin to spread the panic of the class struggle. The way out of the cunning labyrinth is to highlight a generous project that is – qualitatively – alternative for the population.
By subtracting your condition, terrible children They reiterate prejudices against change. Presenting more of the same, as if the dividing line between right and left depended on the amount of energy needed to achieve identical goals, does not work. Conservatism achieves this without changing what is already there. Promoting consumerism and passive adaptation to the order puts the subversive spirit to sleep. In the global South, at most, it creates romantics with no appreciation for political organization.
Do as the dawn does
Moralistic criticisms bounce off the armor of extremist populism. In the revived Hobbesian “state of nature,” what matters is defeating the enemy. The advantages garnered by the Treasury are trophies won by undermining the ethical foundations of the democratic rule of law, held to be bunker of the “political elites”. This is what makes activity in the Executive and Legislative branches good business for scoundrels, whose sole vocation is to enrich themselves with elastic advantages in elected positions.
The Judiciary does the same, with the pen Montblanc to authorize the increase of salaries and indecent perks in their own interests. The paradox consists in the conversion of the left into an apologist for a rotten system, in the spheres of command of the Republic, in each federative unit. The abstract exaltation of institutions favors the idea of complicity with the establishment official. The bill includes the precariousness of work legalized in the approval of the Labor and Social Security Reform by the government of the coup leader Michel Temer, and the outsourcing law celebrated by the current president of the Supreme Court Luís Roberto Barroso. The stranglehold “against radicalization” stifles all indignation.
The risk is to eliminate criticism from everyday life so as not to appear radical, giving up another possibility of individual and collective existence so as not to be labeled as utopian. The result is a silent endorsement of the reproduction of structures that exacerbate the malaise of civilization and the Herculean sacrifices to put food on the table. By making everyday life synonymous with neoliberal immediacy, alienation blocks the consciousness to fight for a new reality. In Marxist terms, it implies dissociating the individual from “belonging to the human species,” which generates sub-citizenship.
Recovering ethics in politics means proposing a complete restructuring of everyday life. This is the duty of a new left, in fact and in law. Egalitarian ideals are not limited to economic achievements, but rather are expressed in the transformation of the daily tasks of workers, their feelings and desires. The increase in “identity” representation in parliamentary bodies is a cry for liberation from everyday life in the face of the shackles that bind people in the immediate. Combating suffering means challenging the oppressed and exploited to qualify their/our existence.
As Agnes Heller points out, in The theory of besoins chez Marx / Marx's theory of needs: “Socialism is not only the most economically just society, it is the society that allows a different life”. Exercising imagination based on everyday experiences is the way to deconstruct the artificial world created by neoliberal and conservative marketing, with the help of the media watchdogs that partner with the powerful. History does not submerge everyday life.
A political and ideological program to change society must also change life, and vice versa. To humanize one is to humanize the other; something that neofascism cannot and does not intend to do. Such is the commitment of the left that dares to speak its name, and advances without fear of being happy. Come, follow the poet's advice, and do as the dawn rises: “Take off your red handkerchief and wave it in the wind.”
* 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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