by Vinício Carrilho Martinez*
Translated and reviewed by Matheus Lucas Hebling
“There is much more between heaven and hell than your vain philosophy can assume”[1]. This is an absurdly realistic political sentence, as it reveals the truth of the facts – and there is no Politics, Polis, and much less Political Science or Social Science without the blunt truth of the facts.
Social reality, especially under Necrofascism, continues to assert social Darwinism: blunt, lethal, and racist[2] – a phenomenon that has followed the routine of privatizing life since the US Empire, with a much greater decline in black and Latino children, in the COVID-19 pandemic[3].
More than ever, we need scientific knowledge; in opposition to the denial that spreads like common sense and in combat against proto-fascism bristling in anti-science movements: endless ridicule[4]. This assures us that science is power and that a humanistic education is essential in the fight against Fascism.
Educate scientifically for power
Education to overcome the current situation of denial of reality and the obvious, and of humanization itself must be endowed with a critical quality – that is, it must be based on scientificity and analytical capacity of societal involvement: on the economic, social spectrum, political and cultural – which, in turn, implies saying that it must be a broad and permanent education, not shy or buried in the “fields of training and specialization”, but rather directed to the social context, that is, Ethics.
So, here we have already removed specialization, repetition of tasks and slogans, as a routine in the public life of the “political animal” (ARISTÓTELES, 2001). Education without a vast coverage of general culture will never be critical unless one understands by criticism the eternal chant (buzz) of “critical aspects” about the same looks and the same situations. An example of this would be learning in mathematics that leads the subject to the path of logic, to the recognition or formulation of intrinsically coherent postulates (free from misrepresentation), and obligatorily from valid premises.
If we learn the difference between right and wrong in elementary school, that’s great. That is, it would be education with rationality and social sensitivity, with a view to social and republican ends, emancipatory and proper to social interaction.
Societal involvement, as an educational basis for permanent training, would certainly go through the inexorable encouragement of the organic intellectual of the working or subordinate classes (GRAMSCI, 2000), in the face of the power belt. The organic intellectual of the working classes would itself be the main motivator so that the working classes would no longer be reduced to a mere link in the power transmission belt.
As an active subject, the organic intellectual of the working classes is precisely the political animal endowed with sensitivity and social responsibility, which lives prospectively for the benefit of the Public Thing.
With this, we move forward to emphasize two more points: 1) the demand for an education based on common sense and the capacity to overcome common sense; 2) the requirement of education for popular power. In this second aspect, there would be a metaphor similar to the idea of a Permanent Constituent Power; and this would lead us to the presentation, teaching, and debate of the Federal Constitution of 1988 (as a Political Charter) from the first grades of elementary school on.
However, it is worth emphasizing, again, this is a prospective education, that is, properly restless, motivated for and by research, for discovery, and capable of feeding the feeling of insatiability: “beyond what is seen” – for that, it can also be propositional and no longer supporting, reactive. Something like curiosity that doesn’t abdicate common sense.
Far from decorative manuals and prescriptions (usually reductionist), permanent and prospective training would imply an education based on the main national (societal) frameworks and under the Civilizing Principle that aimed at autonomy and the unique capacity for a critical assessment of the society and science.
Therefore, an education beyond Fascism, after Auschwitz (ADORNO, 1995), cannot be contained in short-term cages – even if it is the “iron cage” of rationality (WEBER, 1979) and the arrival to the power of The organic intellectual of the oppressed classes is urgent. Popular education must be removed from the power of any partisan veneer. This is also common sense as well as a truism.
After all, not every organic intellectual will be a “ man of virtù ” (MAQUIAVEL, 1979) – which does not correspond to the traditional virtues. However, that everyone knows what this means, its scope and responsibilities, as well as being ready to exercise power as a leader and organization.
This education for power – prospective and permanent (arts. 205; 206, IX; 207) – is equivalent in mandatory autonomy to the “Governing Citizen” (CANIVEZ, 1991). Thus, the citizen would have been educated to understand the meaning and reach of the Democratic Rule of Law (3rd generation) and, who knows, to constitute an intellectual stature aimed at the synthesis of this form-State.
At that point, we should observe a phenomenon that, from time to time, finds an essay, formulates projections, or alerts us to an urgent need, which is to be able to look at Polis and verify that no one writes to the colonel (MÁRQUEZ, 2001).
At this point, we will have reached a stage within the Civilizing Process in which the Political (Charter) will have a level worthy of the human dignity of the “political animal”, as a demonstration of having (collectively) surpassed the political realism that today is hostage to realism Magic. For us, then, there is an urgent need for an Education for the Polis that convulses and overcomes the antithesis imposed by tragic political realism.
Thus, scientific education for power is an action aimed at the future, under the material and subjective conditions of the Civilizing Process – which includes Utopia – and always from teleology, which needs to know in depth the ontology of its people – especially for that teleology is more relevant, especially in public space, than theology.
Among the current formulas of theology, that scientific education for power is capable of denying – as the antithesis of the human denial thesis – what is called Prosperity Theology: a type of slot machine of the barbarous God of capital. Here we return to Ethics, with determination, to nullify the interfaces of Evil, of negationism, of the “new” forms of colonization, of Necrofascism (MARTINEZ, 2021).
Two words of (in)completion
Therefore, synthetically, there are two knowledge or skills of elementary education (the former “fifth grade”) essential to this project: the development of logic (reason) and that of abstraction. Without this, the political animal loses the differentiating factor with the animal kingdom.
What differentiates us from the most complex possible group of beavers, for example, is not the ability to socialize, but rather the projected and constant exercise of teleology. In this sense, the organic intellectual of the working classes would act as a designer and architect of society, and this requires overcoming and transformation, far beyond the spider, which adapts and shapes its webs according to the environment.
It is education for libertarian ethics, which culminates in the ability to nullify the effects and permanence of Fascism, which will make the social being the transformed political animal, an organic intellectual agent of the working classes.
* Vinício Martinez is is a lawyer, social scientist, and an Associate Professor II, from the Department of Education and conducts his research in the fields of education and political science. He holds two Ph.D., one in education from the University of São Paulo – USP (2001), and a second in Social Sciences from São Paulo State University – Unesp (2010). Has also conducted five post-doctorate researches in Law, Political Sciences, and Education. He is currently publishing a book analysing the fascist structure and appearance in the XXI century and organizing a university extension course for a hermeneutical and integral read of the Brazilian Federal Constitution of 1988.
References
ADORNO, Theodor W. Educação e emancipação. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 1995.
ARISTÓTELES. A Política. São Paulo : Martins Fontes, 2001.
CANIVEZ, Patrice. Educar o cidadão? Campinas, São Paulo: Papirus, 1991.
Del ROYO, Marcos & MARTINEZ, Vinício Carrilho. Hamlet: homem de virtù. IN Estudos de Sociologia, UNESP/Araquara, v. 26, 2008, pp. 77-89.
GRAMSCI, Antonio. Cadernos do Cárcere. (Org. Carlos Nelson Coutinho). Volume III. Nicolau Maquiavel II. Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, 2000.
MAQUIAVEL, Nicolau. O Príncipe – Maquiavel: curso de introdução à ciência política. Brasília-DF: Editora da Universidade de Brasília, 1979.
MÁRQUEZ, Gabriel Garcia. Ninguém escreve ao Coronel. 18ª Ed. Rio de Janeiro: Record, 2001.
MARTINEZ, Vinício Carrilho. Necrofascismo. Curitiba: Brazil Publishing, 2021.
SHAKESPEARE, W. Hamlet, príncipe da Dinamarca. Tradução de Ana Amélia de Queiroz Carneiro Mendonça. In BLOOM, H. Hamlet: poema ilimitado. Tradução de José Roberto O’Shea. Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, 2004. p.140-319.
WEBER, MAX. Ensaios de Sociologia. Rio de Janeiro: Zahar Editores, 1979.
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[1] Hamlet (SHAKESPEARE, 2004) is the staging of virtù, the character embodies modern virtù – watching the play or reading the unfinished poem is seeing this live parade of virtù (DEL ROIO & MARTINEZ, ).
[2] https://g1.globo.com/monitor-da-violencia/noticia/2020/09/16/mulheres-negras-sao-as-principais-victims-de-homicidios-ja-as-brancas-compoem -almost-half-of-body-injury-and-rape-cases.ghtml?fbclid=IwAR1n-P10TWFnNYEoPi8EIZieAH0synhAJezp6MB9WoFIbJErbvyfixKORso .
[3] https://www.uol.com.br/vivabem/noticias/redacao/2020/09/16/estudo-criancas-negras-e-latinas-tem-mais-risco-de-morrer-de-covid us-us.htm.
[4] https://noticias.uol.com.br/internacional/ultimas-noticias/2020/10/04/medico-classifica-saida-de-trump-do-hospital-como-insano-e-teatro-politico .htm .