By FLÁVIO R. KOTHE*
If Qualis measures quality by metrics that ignore the originality of thought, then we are faced with a system that canonizes mediocrity. While Spinoza, Marx and Nietzsche are remembered for having been rejected by their peers, Brazilian academia celebrates articles that obey empty formulas.
1.
The logic of art cannot be resolved with formal analytical logic, which for centuries has tried to domesticate and circumscribe the thinkable. Logic is not studied in Brazilian schools as a problem, but rather one is forced to memorize the categories of syntactic analysis – subject, predicate, adversative clause, coordinated clause, etc. – as if they were the means to resolve what happens in language. There one learns what is right and wrong, one knows that one cannot write a sentence without a verb and that one must put a period at the end of it. Writing just one word is wrong. However…
If, in order to be approved, one must follow the rules, one ends up thinking that writing correctly means writing well. The university does not allow science to be done using street jargon and without the ABNT standards. And without the Qualis level A…
What is correct according to parameters is confused with what is true, it is believed that quantity expresses quality, that the formalism of the editorial board guarantees the truth of the content. The reviewers take advantage of their anonymity to avoid approving anything that goes beyond their limited horizons, it is pretended that double blindness is an impartial way of seeing better and not double blindness.
It is as if there were a hierarchy of angels, archangels, cherubim and seraphim, singing songs of praise to science and imposing the will of an anonymous Lord. This is not how people think, how philosophy advances, how science is produced, how great art is created.
Who is not in the parameter of this stablishment He is left out of teaching positions, research grants, and invitations to conferences. He is more out of the loop than a starlet's navel, as my late father used to say. This is nothing new in the history of thought. Spinoza was expelled from the Jewish community, Marx was expelled from Germany, Nietzsche was not allowed into any German university and was rejected from the philosophy department of the Swiss university where he taught philology. The best Brazilian professors were expelled from the university.
It is thought that quality is defined by quantity, without understanding the underlying logic of 2 + 2 = 4, A = A. Neither teachers nor students have studied basic works such as Physics of Aristotle, the Phenomenology of Spirit and Science of Logic of Hegel, being and time or Origin of the work of art by Heidegger. They think they know everything, but they don't know the basics. They didn't learn to think because they didn't have teachers who thought, because the dictatorship tried to eliminate those who thought. The university tried to exclude divergent thinking. It thought its desert was populated. No collaborator of the dictatorship was held accountable.
2.
In architecture, the so-called pure geometric figures are celebrated – the triangle, the circle, the rectangle – and it is believed that art is being created when variations are made around them. When building temples, the triangle is intended to represent the Holy Trinity, without asking whether it exists, or whether it is logical that 1 = 3 and 3 = 1.
This is dogma, a mystery, it is not questioned. If one wonders how René Descartes tried to explain this, it is unlikely that anyone will have studied the precise text (passions of the soul).
The circle is intended to represent divine perfection, since all points on the periphery are the same distance from the center. Therefore, it serves as a model for human behavior: to act in the same way, always in accordance with laws. However, one should not always act in the same way: the response must be appropriate to the new circumstances. In addition to not questioning whether God exists or not, it is believed that rigidity is correct in itself, excluding negotiation.
Believing that the universe is shaped like a parabola could lead to building the ICC at UnB, the Minhocão, in the shape of a fragment of a parabola, as if the building were a miniature of the universe. The edges of infinite spaces are unknown: every geometric figure is finite, delimited. There is no whole that closes in on itself, as the notion of “universe” would have it.
When temples are the most beautiful buildings in the city, they lead to the belief that they represent “truths”, that is, dogmas of religion. Placed in the center of the urbs, make everyone revolve around them, as if they were the center, the highest values. If everything is made by God, and God is perfect like the circle, it is necessary to accept the status quo as an expression of divine will, which legitimizes the privileges of the ruling class.
Since there is so much misery, arrogance and wrongdoing in the world, it is difficult to see a perfect world in reality. Leibniz invented the thesis that we live in the best of all possible worlds, one that has a minimum of defects to test man; Voltaire ironized this with a heroine who suffers many setbacks, but survives because she is in the best of all possible worlds. This problem has been swept from the living rooms and salons; there is no longer a single god who wants to take responsibility for everything that exists.
Anyone who dares to doubt something like the truths of faith is not welcome in the high hierarchies of Qualis. They do not deserve to approach the throne and kiss royal hands. They will be seen as a furious dog without a leash, without a chain to restrain them. If they dare to assume that reviewers and editors are restrained by an invisible chain that prevents them from breaking into predefined spaces, then they will have no chance of getting a grant, publication, position, or patronage.
All that matters in Brazilian universities are numbers, points to obtain a ranking. Even teaching positions are “allocated/crazy” by numerical productivity formulas. In the logic of Qualis, any publication is worth 1 as would be 1 an essay like The Origin of Species, The capital, The theory of relativity, being and time. Based on this illogical logic, funds, positions and scholarships are distributed. This is not serious.
This numerical logic does not even know what quality is, but intends to dictate the excellence or lack of research lines, laboratories, equipment, and the number of computers that funding agencies provide to researchers.
* Flavio R. Kothe is a retired full professor of aesthetics at the University of Brasília (UnB). Author, among other books, of Allegory, aura and fetish (Cajuína Publisher). [https://amzn.to/4bw2sGc].
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