Considered one of the most influential and respected philosophers in Brazil, Marilena Chauí is emphatic when she says that there is no democracy in Brazil. “Democratic society does not exist in Brazil. The condition of a democratic polity and a democratic state is a democratic society. And Brazilian society is an authoritarian, violent, hierarchical, discriminatory society, therefore, the conditions for true democracy do not exist in Brazil yet.”
The statement was made in a chat with journalist Leandro Demori, for the DR program with Demoriwhich airs this Tuesday (5), at 11pm, on TV Brasil.
For Marilena Chauí, the new great political subject in Brazil must be social movements, which, according to her, organize entire populations around common objectives and, above all, rights.
“Social movements are, by nature, democratic, in that they fight for new rights, for recognition and guarantee of rights. So, I think they are the new political protagonists without a doubt”, he states.
But she believes that the lack of a unified, universal agenda is the biggest problem faced today for society to achieve revolutionary politics. “You only do revolutionary politics, politics of change, when you have certain universals as a reference. Something that is common to a huge group of people. […] I’m not seeing this reference emerging and what I’m seeing is these social movements becoming more and more identity movements, fragmenting themselves”, he assessed.
Marilena Chauí, Brazilian writer and philosopher, during an interview with Leandro Demori, on the DR com Demori program, on TV Brasil – Paulo Pinto/Agência Brasil
“You have the movement of each form of sexuality, then you have the movement of each type of motherhood, each type of fatherhood, that is, instead of the movements being unifying and the production of the universal, by becoming movements of defending identities […] they become fragmented and they do not produce this common reference that is necessary to make political change and social change”, he added.
For Marilena Chauí, what characterizes political life in a democracy is the creation, guarantee and conservation of rights, as well as the ability to promote them. In such a way that power is social. “And it is this social power that is expressed in political decision-making. So, the policy that is carried out depends on the quality of the society in which we live. Politics will express whether we are in a conservative society, a democratic society, an authoritarian society, a violent society. Politics expresses this. She doesn’t correct this, she is the expression of it”, he states.
Marilena Chauí also analyzes the changes that the digital world is bringing to society. According to her, what we are experiencing is not just a technological change, but a civilizational mutation. “A new subjectivity produced by this digital world is emerging. First, it is a narcissistic subjectivity, that is, to exist is to be seen. If you are not seen, you do not exist. Being seen is the first mark of narcissism. But, as you depend, to be seen, on the other’s gaze and you have no control over the other’s gaze (…) As Freud said, narcissism is inseparable from depression, so, you have a new subjectivity that She is narcissistic, depressive and desperately dependent on the eyes of others”, he warns. She attributes this addiction to the validation of others brought by technology as the cause of the increase in suicide cases among young people around the world.
Another issue brought about by technology, according to her, was the change in society’s way of life. “A change in the economy. What is the emergence of the entrepreneur from himself, that is, the ‘precariat’, is the disappearance of the figure of the working class. The working class that, concretely, through work, related to the world, was the form of the social and political relationship that came in the constitution of class. Now, what you have is this dispersion and this illusion that I own myself”, he concludes.
