By RENATO ORTIZ*
The portrait of Dorian Gray and the anguish that haunts us in these current times
Note to reader
During the Dilma Rousseff government, in the midst of Lava Jato, we experienced a climate of political hysteria. In the streets, people were insulted for their opinions and they were accused of being stateless, Brazilians who had strayed from moral rectitude.
I had lived in Palo Alto, at Stanford University, something similar. The United States was about to invade Iraq (2003) and the accusation of the existence of chemical weapons, never proven, hung in the air. American flags were seen everywhere, newspapers, radio and television were preparing public opinion for war. An atmosphere of uncertainty and fear surrounded us, at the university there was discussion about whether or not the names of foreign students and professors should be sent to the CIA.
The same phenomenon of patriotic unity (a kind of total institution of feelings) – that is, as they said in the 19th century, of an all-embracing and oppressive current of opinion – justified aggressive, violent and stupid actions. I wanted to name this malaise without, however, using the language of politics, the terms that were at my disposal: fascism, end of democracy, dictatorship, ideology, etc.
I believed that these concepts, said in that context, had little persuasive density and would be meaningless. That's when I remembered Oscar Wilde's book and wrote the fable below. It is not located in any specific place, it wanted to convey an anguish that haunts us in these current times.
The Picture of Dorian Gray
In the center of the room, fixed on a standing easel, was the portrait of a young and extraordinary country, but its beauty was tarnished by the ugliness and rot of events, the eyes had a cruel and disgusting expression. A thin linen covering covered his deformed soul, the pustules spread across his wrinkled and cynical face. The portrait should not be displayed in public, the visible deformity required its concealment, it lay in that empty room in the basement of the national congress, removed from the curious gaze of passersby.
There, the true nature of what they wanted to elude was freely manifested: poverty, unemployment, corruption, injustice, prejudice. Each of these harmful qualities could take place under the cover of daylight, the basement was their refuge, the place that allowed them to exist; hampered by the limited space, the uncovered canvas reflected in the mirror the sincere and flawed smile of a world to be forgotten.
Some representatives of the people, men carefully chosen among many others, sometimes came to visit the portrait, sat on the improvised seats in front of it and, raptly, contemplated their own essence. It was the only moment in which they could face their true Self, leaving behind the mask of their weaknesses and dishonor. Outside, the virtues displayed in public were different: equality, wealth, employment, morality, justice.
In the lights of everyday life, the inverted rectitude of what nestled in darkness thrived; There, the beauty of this young country asserted itself in exuberance and splendor. The antinomy between light/dark, virtue/vulgarity, ethics/corruption, persisted for many years, a tacit agreement allowed these exclusionary ideals to coexist. Many had the illusion that the positive attributes of this sepia photograph were protected from the corrosion of time, eternity would be its destiny. They forgot that their denial remained untouched in the dungeon of that small room.
One day, some of these men who gathered in the catacombs decided to definitively unveil the portrait, removed the fine linen mesh that covered it and gazed with fascination at the darkness of their souls. Fascinated by the experience, they decided to remove him from obscurity and place him in the center of the national congress to be seen by the crowd. What was submerged became explicit, intelligible.
However, to their great surprise, an unexpected feeling of uneasiness took hold of the people; Suddenly they found themselves faced with something atrocious, the evident obscenity took them away from the illusion they had become accustomed to, an idyllic vision of themselves. It was at that moment that time stopped, a feeling of immobility and torpor prevailed. Silent and inexorable. Previously, the dichotomy between the public image and the distorted portrait allowed the contrast between discrepant values; despite the denial of reality, a surreptitious hope rested in this contradiction.
The dialectic of contrast between light and dark, beauty and ugliness, fed the imagination; perhaps, one day, vicissitudes could rebel against stupidity and mediocrity. When the portrait of Dorian Gray became public, enthroned in the center of the country, hopes dissipated, there was no longer any contradiction to be overcome. People found themselves faced with the imminence of facts; frozen in time, the basement and the street had met, merging into a single whole. The ungrateful and unfortunate fate brought discomfort to the surface, with it the bitter taste of shame and disgust.
* Renato Ortiz He is a professor at the Department of Sociology at Unicamp. Author, among other books, of The universe of luxury (Mall).
Originally published on BVPS blog.
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