This text is a translation of chapter four from Vilém Flusser’s book Fenomenologia do Brasileiro: Em Busca de Um Novo Homem (Phenomenology of the Brazilian: In search of a new man). The book was written in the 1960s but published posthumously in Brazil in 1998. It has yet to be fully translated into English. For a contextual introduction to this excerpt, see the essay in this issue by the translator, Rômulo Moraes: “On Vilém Flusser’s Phenomenology of Underdevelopment.”
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If history was considered as development (say, the development of virtualities stored in the spirit or in genetic information), we would be surprised to notice that certain forms are repeated in its processes. There are curious similarities between Hellenistic and rococo architecture, or between Hindu temples of the sixth century and Spanish churches of the seventeenth century, or between Persian buildings of the sixth century BC and fascist buildings of the twentieth century.
It would be difficult to reduce such similarities to certain causal relationships between similar phenomena. Of course, it’s easy to “explain” the similarity, for example, by resorting to cyclical theories; after all, everything is “explainable” this way. It’s more reasonable to accept the simple fact that the apparent wealth of forms in the world is actually not that ample. To give another example: in the world of biology, apparently so rich in forms, entirely surprising similarities will emerge between certain fish and certain butterflies, certain marine animals and terrestrial plants. It thus seems like nature has a limited repertoire of forms (perhaps limited by the very structure of matter), and that the human spirit is equally limited in its repertoire of forms to impose upon nature (perhaps for similar reasons). That’s why forms tend to repeat themselves (and this might just be another “explanation”). In other words, the human spirit as an actor in the theater of history has a limited number of masks that reappear as the play goes on.
Two things should not be denied in this case: that new masks will always appear (that is, masks whose previous uses we ignored) and that every time a mask reappears, it acquires new meaning. What matters here is to keep in mind that there are “phases” in history, that is, comparable forms, without there being a measure of comparability. In an attempt to approach the problem of historical delays, this fact must be noted, although it can be provisionally set aside in order to open up a second path of access to the problem.
At every historical instant, the spirit of time (or whatever we want to call that which manifests itself) manifests itself in all cultural phenomena, from language to instruments, from fashion to dreams. This means that at any instant the human spirit takes on a particular mask. However, it doesn’t mean that all contemporary men have taken on such a mask, not even all actively engaged men. It only means that a decisive elite (the “avant-garde”) has managed to push this mask on society. The vast majority can well continue to wear masks that are outdated, even long overcome. An analysis of French society at the end of the eighteenth century could well result in the following: a small elite wearing a Romantic mask, a larger elite wearing an Enlightenment mask, a rural mass wearing a Neolithic mask, and several intermediate layers wearing various masks. And yet, had the Neolithic population not behaved in a certain way, the French Romantic revolution would have failed, despite the efforts of that elite. So the Neolithic population is co-responsible for the Romantic revolution, a disturbing fact that should also be kept in mind when questioning the “delay”—that is, the history—of Brazilian society.
Because in Brazil we talk about a history, and we not only talk about it: it is cultivated from primary school to graduation, to the detriment of universal history. A continuous stream of academic writings deal with this history in its smallest details, a stream comparable only to those of treatises on Portuguese grammar. As anyone with a superficial knowledge of psychology knows, this is a terrible symptom for Brazilian history. Let us give a single example to illustrate this overcompensation. On the occasion of the discovery of the Brazilian coast, a certain Pero Vaz de Caminha wrote a letter to the King of Portugal, and this letter haunts Brazilian youth from the age of six to sixteen (be it authentic or not, and be it true or not that the Portuguese really discovered Brazil first). This obscure Renaissance man went on to become the constant companion of countless young people from an early age until puberty. What does this mean for Brazilian history?
A superficial way of answering this question would be to say that Brazil has a short and relatively unimportant history, but a history nonetheless, and that the aforementioned Renaissance man would be a kind of Vercingetorix or Arminius the Cherusci, who appeared with a certain delay. Such an answer would ignore the fundamental fact that Brazilians have no history or sense of history. This fact surprises the migrant once again. Brazilians think ahistorically, even and especially if they are interested in history, and this is especially clear in Brazilian philosophers who consider themselves “historicists.” This can be observed on a daily basis, but it should be enough to cite just one example. The migrant learns that Brazil was called an “empire” during the nineteenth century, and this evokes hilarity in him, until he learns that this hilarity is a misunderstanding. The hilarity results from historically explicable thinking: the title of “Emperor,” with Persian roots and pretensions of universality (“king of all kings and lord of all Aryans and non-Aryans”), is soaked in Roman and Christian influences with a distinctly sacral character and sipped in its ultimate decadence from the pathetic figures of Vienna and Petersburg. In the nineteenth century, the Bonapartes and Hohenzollern illustrate the attempt to profane this title by putting it at the service of a profane pretension of universality (bourgeois revolution and Germanizing mission). Even in Mexico, the title can be interpreted as an attempt (albeit inauthentic) to appeal to an Aztec pretension of universality, but in Brazil it’s nothing more than an operetta’s title. In this case, historical thinking is mistaken. In the ahistorical way of thinking, the title would symbolize Brazil’s geographical size, its surpassing of Portugal, and its virtual potency.
The example illustrates the difference between the two thoughts. For historical thinking, human society is the result of an overcoming process that begins with magical-mythical origins (in prehistory), preserves this origin in all its phases, and aims for a goal (the fullness of time) in which the original virtualities will be fully realized. That’s why even figures like Napoleon III allow us to clearly see Cyrus, Constantine, and Charlemagne in the past, and the Zoroastrian divine kingdom, the Roman Peace, and the heavenly Jerusalem on earth in the future. For ahistorical thinking, human society is a way of breaking the tragic loneliness of man facing his death, giving shape and meaning to his unique, incomparable, irrevocable, and unrepeatable life. For such thinking, Napoleon III is nothing more than the representative of a victorious but threatened bourgeoisie, and the attempt to project Cyrus and Jerusalem onto him is nothing more than a demonstration of alienated bourgeois ideology. It is senseless to ask which of the two ways of thinking better captures reality, because it doesn’t matter the answer given by each of the two mentalities. One thing is certain, however: there are now clear trends in historical countries towards ahistorical thinking (phenomenology, existentialism, structuralism, logical positivism), and these trends are symptoms of the abandonment of history, similar to a Brazilian way of thinking. Only Brazilian ahistorical thinking is spontaneous though, while such trends are deliberate, and therefore dubious.
The two horizons of historical thought, namely the magical-mythical origin and the eschatological goal, clearly distinguish one mentality from the other. Pero Vaz de Caminha does not take place in myth and Pedro II does not aim for the millennium so that Pero Vaz de Caminha would be a delayed Vercingetorix and Pedro II a delayed Charlemagne. It is necessary to explain the difference more concretely. Brazilian kids tend to ask when Italy was discovered and the answer that it was never discovered or was always discovered is not satisfactory, because it is magical-mythical and thus meaningless in the Brazilian context. The migrant asks about Brazil before the discovery and the answer that there was no Brazil is not satisfactory because it is ahistorical and thus meaningless in the migrant’s context. Of course, both questions can be answered satisfactorily at a more refined level, for example by pointing out the Italic tribes and Italy’s “primitive” population, and by pointing out the Karibé and Tupi migrations in Brazil, but such refinement only obscures the difference. And the same difference could be demonstrated just as blatantly from the point of view of eschatology.
Basically, it boils down to this: historical man unconsciously and spontaneously takes himself to be a link in the chain, and therefore the bearer of immemorial forces that act upon him, for which he is responsible to his ancestors, and which he must shape in order to give meaning to his life, passing it on to his successors, to whom he is equally responsible. If he can consciously realize this, the dialectic between determination and freedom will appear to him as a tension between historical determination and the freedom to transcend it, and this transcendence will be the task of his life. Nonhistorical man becomes unconsciously and spontaneously through his irrevocable and unique existence in a natural and social environment that determines him. If he can consciously realize this, the dialectic between determination and freedom will appear to him as a tension between environmental determination and the possibility of transcending it, and this transcendence will be the task of his life, because he can either fall into the determination of the environment, and into primitive ahistory, or he can impose himself on the environment in dignified ahistory.
This requires a little more elaboration. The ahistorical man is primitive if he accepts the determination of an environment, forming rigid structures that are well suited to that environment (this is what ethnologists have in mind when they speak of “primitives”). The ahistoricism of the civilized Brazilian is anything but primitive, since it aims to modify the environment, since it is not adapted to it, and since it is ahistorical on a higher level. And historical man, in his ability to transcend history, aims to reach this same level (for example, by thinking formally, or existentially), but such an attempt only results in the absorption of formalism and existentialism into history, or the destruction of history as a dimension of human existence. Finally, it has to be said that Brazilian ahistorical thinking is constantly tempted to historicize itself, because it aims to open up a “future,” and it knows that there is only a future where there is a past (as the attempts to artificially create a “Brazilian history” can prove). This is a tragic mistake, which confuses ahistorical existential freedom with historical freedom, risking losing the former. Such a mistake is responsible for the aforementioned engagement of the bourgeoisie and forecloses the whole problem of the delay.
Practically all ideologies imported to Brazil, from Judeo-Christian to Romantic-bourgeois to Marxist, are historicizing. Newspapers and other media have historical sources and transmit historical events; economic, political, and cultural influences come from history, and no amount of ideological fog can cover up the painful fact that historical decisions manipulate Brazilians. The consequence is that Brazilians feel wronged, powerless, and emasculated when facing history, seeing in history a position that objectifies them for scientific interest, for paternalism, and for either brutal or covert manipulation, while seeking to affirm their human dignity against it. Unfortunately, as a result, the Brazilian bourgeoisie has chosen the method of penetrating history and reversing its terms. “Unfortunately” because the bourgeoisie is delayed, and it doesn’t realize that the inhabitants of historical countries are equally determined and manipulated, and that the few who determine and manipulate have acquired this position at the price of losing existential freedom, authentic freedom. These bourgeoisie don’t know that Brazil provides to such freedom an unbelievably wide terrain when compared to historical countries, a terrain that is threatened by their own attempts to join history. What the Brazilian bourgeoisie risks losing is precisely what historical men long for without ever being able to achieve it. This historicizing tendency masks Brazilians’ nonhistorical essence and makes it impossible for them to find themselves. Nonetheless, the nonhistorical essence continues to be active despite all contrary facades, and is visible to the distanced thinker, making it possible for him to diagnose the delay.
As a first example of this, let’s look at a phenomenon from the past. Shortly after the outbreak of the French Revolution, around 1791, an attempt was made in Ouro Preto, the then-capital of the state of Minas Gerais, to overthrow the Portuguese government and establish Brazilian independence. At this point, Ouro Preto was seized by a creative wave unparalleled in Brazil’s past, resulting in works of architecture, sculpture, music, and literature that were incomparably more accomplished than any that would follow, with the exception of the present day. The uprising had Romantic traits, and in fact Brazilian schools teach that its motifs were taken from the American and French Romantic revolutions. Yet their cultural works are called, in practically every textbook, “baroque.” So this would mean Romantic politics in a baroque situation—well, something must be wrong. Obviously, the labels “Romantic” and “baroque” must be wrong, in the sense that they refer to phases of Western history, phases that appear in the Brazilian context in a distorted way, namely: delayed. Such attempts to label Brazilian phenomena do not explain, but rather cover up, reality, and this can be illustrated very well in the case of the “barroco mineiro.”
The essence of the baroque can be visualized as an ellipse whose two foci are “nature” and “reason” in a very specific sense: nature as mechanism and reason as rationalism. This essence manifests itself in the natural sciences as a mechanistic worldview, in politics as rational systems (for example: absolutism), in theology as rationalizing mysticism, in music as exact composition, in painting as tension between light and shadow, in sculpture and architecture as spiral and calculated labyrinth, and in theater as broad, round, well-studied gestures. This last manifestation, the theatrical one, which creates the illusion of grandeur to the point of becoming grandiose to the second degree, characterizes all of the baroque. There is something of the cold ceremonial grandeur of the Spanish in everything, which is why the material of baroque sculpture and architecture is cold marble, its color is purple, and its method is the illusion of enormity. None of this can be found in Ouro Preto except the spiral and the ellipse. The material of barroco mineiro is wood or soft stone, the color is a naive gold, and the churches are small and timid. The migrant who visits this supposedly baroque city, especially if he is a native of a European baroque city, is tempted to laugh again, because the touching naivety of Minas Gerais contrasts violently with the refined illusionist technique of the baroque. Aleijadinho’s prophets are to Bernini’s statues as boys playing ball are to chess masters. By the way, it’s been 150 years since Bernini, and music from Minas Gerais is contemporary with Beethoven, not Vivaldi. So there’s your delay.
But the laughter subsides into admiration as soon as the migrant frees himself from the label of the baroque. Because then he discovers an unparalleled phenomenon, in which elements of Portuguese, Oriental (Hindu and Chinese), and Black cultures manage to form a synthesis in which it is possible to discover the germination of a new human type. It’s true that the Portuguese element has a roughly baroque mask (hence the ellipses and spirals), and it’s true that the Hindu element has something baroque as well (at least for the Western observer), but this is what matters least. What is important is that, entirely outside of the historical mainstream, in a lost corner of the world, a man has emerged who imposed his will upon matter in the form of some beauty. Here emerges a way of informing and organizing matter, and therefore affirming human dignity, in a spontaneous and unintended synthesis. Here emerges a nonhistorical culture, which, although naive, is anything but primitive—an event of the first order indeed. What is curious, though, is that Brazilians, seeing this phenomenon, do not discover themselves in it, or imagine themselves as part of the roots and potentialities of a new phenomenon, but, obsessed with ideology, want to see a baroque—if they are chauvinistic enough, even an exceptionally well-crafted baroque, a high point of the baroque.
As for the apparently Romantic intent of the situation, it’s easy to put it back in its true context: it’s the result of an ideology promulgated by bourgeoisie who, alienated from their environment, tried to impose over it an American and French Romantic spirit, one that they may understand, but certainly do not live, and hence they are therefore doomed to fail in their pursuit. It’s proof that men are ready to sacrifice their lives for a pretense. In fact, this political episode is passed over with indifference (although Brazilians will later want to sentimentally glorify the main figure among the conspirators, Tiradentes, and eventually find a place for him in the symbols of the Empire, of which a Portuguese prince is emperor, so that this place can be anything but revolutionary, in the sense of a proper insurrection). The lack of echo from the revolutionary attempt proves that it was a matter of alienation and Romantic posturing, and not a historical event (since it has not been “overcome”). Today’s bourgeoisie should take careful note of this fact, so that they can get back in touch with reality instead of playing with ideologies.
The example makes the essence of the delay evident. In Brazil, there are processes that spontaneously aim to synthesize contradictory historical and ahistorical tendencies, and these processes can result in culture, attesting to an ahistorical, non-primitive man who lends new meaning to human life. Other processes seek to impose outdated phases of Western history onto this one, the consequence of which is not only to cover up authentic processes, but to suffocate them. If they are victorious, they will transform Brazil into a backward, mimetic, and falsely historical society, in which living would lack meaning. It is time to return to the two historical factors mentioned at the beginning of this chapter: the repetition of forms in the course of history, and the fact that at each historical moment only a small elite is the bearer of the spirit of the times, problematically synchronized with the rest of society. Both of these factors make the problem of delay extremely difficult, and must be considered honestly. They allow for the following argument, which at first seems to be in favor of the bourgeoisie’s current engagement: the historical phases that appear late in the Brazilian context (among them the baroque and the Industrial Revolution) have new significance here simply because they are late. And the avant-garde elite, although it lives with a different spirit from the masses (that is, historically), is not alienated from the masses, but on the contrary, drags people with it into history, and that is why it is the avant-garde.
The arguments are tricky and must be eliminated.
The first argument states: when two groups do the same thing, it’s not the same thing. This is true in the case of Hellenism and rococo, but it is not true in the case of the delay. Because in the first example there is no apparent relationship between the two phases, and in the second there is a deliberate transference of an exhausted phase into another group. The argument claims that the baroque of Minas Gerais has a different meaning than the baroque of Europe simply because it is late. Wrong. It does have a different meaning, but not because it is a late baroque, but because it is not baroque, and in this case there is no delay involved. The argument states that the Brazilian Industrial Revolution has a different meaning than the European one because it took place in the second half of the twentieth century and not in the first half of the nineteenth century. Wrong. This is an outdated form that will have exactly the same consequences as when it first appeared, and the alienation of urban Brazilian society proves it so already. To say that a delay allows us to “learn from past mistakes” is delusional, since similar causes have similar effects. A story about a conversation between a Brazilian finance minister and his American counterpart seems relevant. The Brazilian says that inflation in Brazil will have different consequences then inflation in Europe, since economic laws don’t apply equally. “One day they will,” the American replies, and he is obviously right. The difficulty is to distinguish between authentic phenomena such as the barroco mineiro and outdated phenomena such as industrialization, and this is a task for serious analysts, one of the gigantic tasks to be solved by Brazilian thought.
The second argument claims that history has always been made by a small minority, and that therefore the fact that the Brazilian masses live ahistorically should not prevent the avant-garde minority from historicizing it. But the comparison between the French Revolution and the Brazilian coup attempt proves this to be a dangerous error, as does the comparison between the European Revolution of 1848 and the current struggle between the two bourgeois camps. It is true that the French rural population lived just as Neolithically as the people of Minas Gerais. It is no less true that this was a population with some connection to history, whose elite always kept in touch with it. In Minas Gerais, the opposite is true: the elite was sourced not from the rural masses, but from the European elite. This explains the indifference of the masses in Minas Gerais as well as the march to Versailles of the Parisian sansculotte. And it also explains why, today, both conservatives and revolutionaries have to rely on the indifference of the masses (however much they try to hide it)—why the famous specter of communism that frightened the European bourgeoisie in 1848 has since materialized in such a way as to move and change the masses. The argument is wrong not only because the Brazilian elite is effectively alienated from the masses, but even more so because it is alienated from itself. It is a matter of blind engagement in which only external tendencies manifest themselves, of which the so-called “elite” is nothing more than a tool.
In Brazil, engagement in history has always been accompanied by loss of identity, and this will continue to happen in the foreseeable future. That’s why it’s a delaying commitment, even if you’re willing to offer your own life and the lives of others in a holocaust.
This circumstance does not entail that the Brazilian essence must close itself off to historical influence in order to preserve itself. On the contrary, it means that it is in the essence of Brazil to open up to this influence, not to copy it but to assimilate it. An example of this, industrialization, will be discussed later in this book, around the topic of misery. Let’s now further illuminate the phenomenon of delay from a close-up point.
The current media revolution seems to have profoundly influenced this delay, because it has synchronized the source of information (history) with the receiver (Brazil), greatly increasing the amount of information available and making it easier to decode messages. In reality, however, the delay remains the same. On the contrary, that media revolution helps to remove that mistaken conception that the delay was a consequence of moroseness, of the difficulty and cost of communication between Brazil and Europe or the United States. Removing this mistaken conception should reveal the true phenomenon of delay more clearly.
When communication between history and Brazil took place almost exclusively by sea, the Brazilian bourgeoisie literally flocked to the ports to receive and quaff the latest news (mainly from Paris), as if quenching a terrible thirst. The curve of Brazilian philosophy, politics, art, and fashion in the century should’ve probably mirrored the curve of ships arriving in the ports of Salvador, Rio, and Santos with a delay of a few days. Such is the characteristic of all cultural exiles, and in Devil’s Island or in Papeete it must have felt this way, truly. That this is not the case in Brazil is proven by its continuing, current delay, despite the ease of communication. Because this delay has deeper and more interesting causes than communicative ones, and Brazil is neither Papeete nor Devil’s Island.
We don’t need to insist on the well-known (although not always well-understood) fact that nowadays all events on the globe (and not just on the globe) happen simultaneously. This is true not only for decisive events, but also superficial and fleeting ones: not only every natural and social catastrophe and every expedition to the moon, but also every sporting event and every film star’s love affair is witnessed by the Brazilian proletariat at the very moment it occurs. The Brazilian bourgeoisie can dine in São Paulo and have its supper the next day on the Parisian Rive Gauche. It’s undeniable that the revolution in communication has had important consequences in Brazil as elsewhere. It is deniable, however, that it has fundamentally changed the problem of the delay.
What is essential to the delay is that it is an attempt to translate communication into the concrete, lived world of the receiver of a message, since communicated facts are not facts experienced by the receiver, given that lived experiences (the “concrete”) can’t be communicated. Communication takes place through agreed-upon symbols (codes) that signify the concrete, and therefore it always takes place in theory. Wittgenstein once said that it is possible to communicate the news that I have measles over the telephone, but it is impossible to communicate measles over the telephone. This aspect of communication illustrates the limit of human thought, its incompetency in grasping the whole of lived experience, and this is approximately the problem of the relationship between theoretical and practical reason in the Kantian system. The revolution in communication has made it even clearer than in Kant’s time that communicated messages cannot be lived, and when they are retransferred to lived experience they are distorted. Were it not so, we would react violently to televised scenes of African wars, for example, instead of assuming empty representations. Shaw’s thesis that paradise on earth will come when people cry when they read economic statistics is a consequence of his lack of understanding of communication as a non-lived channel. The delay is the attempt, doomed to failure, to turn messages into lived experience, and failure cannot be avoided with the ease and reversibility of the available means of communication. On the contrary, this facility can in some cases even intensify the delay.
Plenty of examples can prove this, so let’s give two that seem to be illustrative. The migrant finds the reaction of many bourgeois Brazilians to Nazism revolting, until he understands the difference between what is lived and what is communicated. The lived experience of Nazism is that of vulgar kitsch, and it is this experience that gives color to the whole movement. The fundamental lie that was Nazism is immediately experienced as the abyss between kitsch and the other masks, manifestations, and acts of Nazism, and this lived experience cannot be communicated (not even through the sentence that has just been written). Yet the Brazilian, who did not have such lived experience, interprets Nazism either as brutal barbarism or as Nietzschean vertigo, and in both interpretations he loses the essence of Nazism. And this is not in spite of, but because of, the intense communication in the form of radio-telegraph broadcasts, UFA films, and newspapers that arrived in Brazil with little delay.
Nazism is an innocuous example, since its theoretical aspects (if it really has a theory and not just a mythological pretense) are opposed to the Brazilian essence, it being too ephemeral a trend to ever have been transplanted. More relevant is another example, of a much better theoretically founded trend, much more in line with the Brazilian essence, and much more solid all around: Marxism. This example fully manifests the tragic dialectic of the delay. Brazilians lack the experience of the Marxist movement, both in its victorious form and in its oppositional form, and both in its revolutionary form and in its reformist form. So Marxism becomes for them either a bloody mythical monster (reminiscent, with its “atheistic materialism,” of the still-inexperienced monster of the European bourgeoisie at the beginning of the century) or a paradisiacal utopia (reminiscent of the Romantic Marxism of the European bourgeois youth until the Spanish War). It is to such a degree that this well-known phrase is valid in Brazil: nothing is more terrible than the Marxist, except the anti-Marxist. The other side of the dialectic is that Marxism preaches attachment to the concrete situation, but the concrete situation cannot be captured in Brazil by Marxist categories. To summarize the dialectic of the delay in this case, it can be said that in order to be a Marxist in Brazil you have to stop being a Marxist.
The two examples can be multiplied in countless fields to reveal that the delay is the result not only of a lack of experience, but also of the historical structure of the communicated message, which might not be applicable and livable in the Brazilian context. This applies to economic, social, cultural, artistic, philosophical, and religious models, including Catholicism. Despite its “catholicity,” it is a system informed by Jewish historicist thinking, which communicates a message in “sacred history” and is transformed here into magic.
However, the Marxist example offers a glimpse of a possible break with delay, a break that is taking place in various fields. The Brazilian Marxist tries to capture and change the Brazilian situation with Marxist categories and is doomed to failure, even for Marxist reasons (since it affirms a dialectic between model and reality in which both change, and in the Brazilian case the model changes to the point where it is no longer Marxist). There is another possible attitude towards Marxism though: not engaging with it but trying to absorb it as important information for a synthesis on a different level. This rupture with delay takes the concrete elements of the Brazilian situation as a vivified basis and adds various historical communications to it in order to synthesize the ingredients into a new structure, and it can be observed in many parts of the Brazilian context, especially in art and literature. Before we talk about this authentic awakening of Brazilian culture, we need to consider a latent danger.
The difference between mixture and synthesis and the predominance of mixture over synthesis in Brazil has already been mentioned [in this book]. In the current context, mixture manifests itself in the form of eclecticism, which is not a rupture with delay, but a violent form of delay. To offer just a few examples of Brazilian eclecticism in philosophy: magical positivism, spiritist logical analysis, Marxist kabbalah, Zen Catholicism, Spinozist vitalism (this writer is ready, under challenge, to name respective authors). It is possible to call such eclecticism madness, not in the strictly clinical sense of the term, but in the sense of evidence of the violent alienation of an outdated bourgeoisie. The tendency towards eclecticism also manifests itself in the readiness to accept the “most novel” (in the sense of: last to be communicated) and take it as another patch to be added to the quilt. In other words: the readiness to shout the dernier cri with greater vehemence is less repressed than in historical countries, since here it is not a question of digesting it, as it is there. This explains the apparently “modern” and “advanced” appearance that Brazil offers the unwary observer. Brazilian cities look extremely modern until you discover that they are much “older” than European cities, and then that they are ageless, since they have no history in the strict sense of the word.
Although eclecticism is not a rupture with delay but a violent form of delay, there is a surprising openness in the Brazilian mentality, an openness that, when made conscious, can become creative and result in true synthesis. In Os Sertões [Rebellion in the Backlands], Euclides da Cunha describes the crushing of a mystical-messianic uprising by a cold technical army, and suggests that the Brazil of the future will be a synthesis between the mystical-messianic element and the cold technical element. Since Euclides da Cunha, the Brazilian situation has become much more complex—the synthesis is no longer so simple—but, on the other hand, it has become much richer in potential. Since then, there has been a wave of migration from Europe and the near and far East, the center of the country has moved towards São Paulo, and the proletariat has become so numerous that it rivals the rural population and is no longer an exceptional class. This means, from the point of view of a possible synthesis, that the number of elements to be synthesized has increased. And that this synthesis must take place at a much higher level than Euclides da Cunha imagined. For him, the nonhistorical (mystical-messianic) elements were represented by black magic, Indigenous ritual, and Portuguese Sebastianism, but to these must now be added others, equally nonhistorical, but in a radically different sense—for example: Shintoism, Zen Buddhism, Tai Chi, Cantonese cuisine. For him, the historical (cold technical) elements were represented by Portuguese culture, French positivism, a little German idealism, and American pragmatism, but numerous other elements should now be added—for example, Neapolitan music, American futurism, Polish irredentism, Russian orthodoxy, Dutch Calvinism, Jewish irony, Spanish mysticism, Arab abstractionism, and, as three very characteristic elements, Italian industrial condottierismo, Japanese agriculture and architecture, and Jewish intellectualism. Is it possible to imagine such a complex synthesis?
You don’t have to imagine it if it’s already happening. At the University of São Paulo’s Polytechnic School, a Jewish professor with Japanese students is working on a nuclear physics project to be carried out using American methods by creole workers. An architect of German origin and another of Brazilian origin, along with a landscaper of Jewish origin and under the guidance of a president of Czech origin, are looking for a new capital according to two plans to be synthesized, and to be carried out by workers of Black and Indigenous origins. A painter of Italian origin became the bearer of the mestizo message thanks to French technique; a painter of Jewish origin synthesized geometric concretism with abstractionism, using Brazilian colors; a painter of Japanese origin used Zen technique for an American abstractionism with equally Brazilian colors; a poet of Arab origin used Portuguese idioms employed by Italian laborers to achieve pseudo-Koranic compositions in American concretism; a poet of Greek origin achieved the same concretism thanks to Greek rhythm and German metrics in Portuguese; a poet of Brazilian origin in collaboration with a philologist of Jewish origin translated Mayakovsky to make him a model for Brazilian poetry; an Italian propagandist used American techniques and Marxist theory to turn commercial advertising into a channel of communication with the rural population; a Brazilian writer took the language of the countryside and enriched it with European elements to put it into the mouth of a worker who has read Plotinus, Heidegger, and Camus, and has a Kafkaesque view of the world; a composer of Brazilian origin barrowed Bachian structures, Schoenbergian harmonies, Portuguese melodies, and African rhythms, and this composition was performed by a conductor of Belgian origin, a Black singer, and a Japanese choir in front of an enthusiastic audience of Italian origin. Such examples could be continued ad nauseam—the most complex have probably not even been mentioned.
With what right do we say that these examples are syntheses and not mixtures? Strictly speaking, in order to support such a claim, it would be necessary to analyze each individual work from an aesthetic and ontological point of view, in order to ascertain its information load (originality). This is a huge task for Brazilian philosophy (it’s one of the countless tasks awaiting a philosophy worthy of this name). One fears that such an analysis could reveal that, in the majority of cases, the works are unoriginal and unimportant (although there are certainly some very important works among them). This doesn’t mean that they are not ruptures with delay. It makes no sense to speak of such works as out of date, since there is no historical phase that they mirror. Of course: they mirror aspects of historical phases (and sometimes do so ineptly and as a mere copy), but they all also contain elements that did not exist in historical cultures, and in this sense they provide “original” elements for the culture of humanity. If this is true (and it is impossible to see how it can be denied), then we are witnessing the awakening of a new culture. That is to say: the manifestation of a new cultural personality, which, although largely irrigated by historical sources, has a nonhistorical structure of its own, and although it may not yet have a well-articulated personality, it is certainly anything but primitive. And this is what this chapter aimed to convey as the essence of the Brazilian situation.
From the point of view of delay, the Brazilian situation in the last third of the twentieth century can be presented as follows: the great mass of the population, both rural and proletarian, lives ahistorically. The rural mass lives ahistorically, in the sense of having degenerated into a second primitiveness (if contradiction may be allowed), structured by magic and ritual in a not entirely true sense. The proletarian mass lives ahistorically, in the sense of having lost touch with history and the ability to think historically. This fact is not contradicted by the constant hammering of the masses by the media, since these media transmit messages that are not lived, nor by the fact that the masses are largely determined by technical methods and instruments (themselves historical), since these methods and instruments are experienced as foreign to the masses themselves. The bourgeoisie basically lives as ahistorically as the rest of the population, even though it doesn’t want to admit it and even though a series of ideologies make it difficult for it to discover this fact. It is equally incapable of authentically historical thinking, and the outdated manifestations in its culture, politics, and economy prove it.
The bourgeoisie reacts to this in two ways: ideologically and authentically.
Those who look at the country’s surface can only see the ideological reactions, that is, the desperate attempts by the bourgeoisie to transplant outdated phases (including the most recent ones) into Brazilian reality. The attempts are desperate, as the bourgeoisie has not lived through these phases, even if it understands them intellectually (which is also doubtful, in many cases). Yet those who engage with the country and try to be “Brazilian at best” also see a rupture with delay in many places, where an authentic identity is articulated, in the form of an ahistorical culture that is a synthesis of own and other, assimilated elements.
Rupture with delay is not, as the alienated bourgeoisie believe, an irruption into history, because this irruption is itself delayed. It happens (or rehearses happening) at the very moment when there are tendencies in history itself that aim to break historicity. Rupturing with delay means consciously and decisively assuming your own nonhistorical identity, transforming it creatively, with openness, into culture—that is: in such a way that this identity changes the natural and social situation creatively, in order to give meaning to life. To take part in such an enterprise, to offer one’s identity in order to do so, is an engagement in the true sense of the word. Living means despising death and taking the sting out of it, and therefore aiming for immortality in the immanent. In this case: to live is to leave the mark of your own identity on a culture that is emerging, and thus immortalize yourself. To imprint yourself onto a culture that, if realized, will contribute a specific and extraordinarily original note to the human community.
