Search the Community

Nice Brazilian Surprise - Olavo de Carvalho While I was in Brazil, I kept seeing the name Olavo de Carvalho on news articles and around and about. But I never got into him for some reason. In my perception, he was a political and cultural pundit of the mainstream back then. Neither perfume nor stink. But now I see I should have read him. Like David Horowitz, he started out as a Marxist, rejected Marxism and gradually evolved into adopting the conservative-libertarian kind of views I hold (with some differences, as always). He has become one of the intellectual forces behind Presidente Jair Bolsonaro (Brazil's more-or-less equivalent to President Trump). What's more, he now lives in Richmond, Virginia. Just recently, Dr. Steve Turley interviewed him. This is a very interesting conversation and is more about philosophy than Brazil, especially about the nature of modern philosophy. There's some focus on the Frankfurt school, which I remember was a big thing in Brazil among the intelligentsia. But speaking of that, there is one comment Carvalho made about communism in Brazil that I witnessed. He said communism (in academia) was not preached so much as protected. Nobody really read the books or understood it in depth, but it was a no-no to bash it. This is 100% in line with what I experienced. Even with the famous leftie singer (Geraldo Vandré) I once produced. If you are interested in a clear but different discussion of philosophy that is quite compatible with most Objectivist ideas, watch these videos and enjoy. I certainly did. Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. I'm going to get some of his books, but unfortunately, they are mostly in Portuguese. I kinda like the title of one (translated): The Collective Imbecile. You can read a translated excerpt on his site: An essay from The Collective Imbecile. It starts out discussing intellectual things in Brazil, but as it goes on, I swear I see modern academia in the US in it, especially the social and fine arts humanities departments. Here is an excerpt. He is discussing the similarities in ideas between two intellectuals who are influential in Brazilian academia. See if this doesn't describe modern American higher education in the social sciences and humanities, from which springs BLM, MeToo, diversity qua diversity, multiple gender movements and all the rest. Michael