The Bolsonarist obscurantism, the neoliberalism and the academic productivism

Abstract

The implications of Bolsonarism for the production and diffusion of knowledge in Brazilian public institutions of higher education are analyzed in this article through the development of three theoretical arguments. The first one is that Bolsonarism is part of a broader sociocultural phenomenon that is obscurantism, which places a demand for understanding the processes that feed obscurantism worldwide and in Brazil in particular. The second is that obscurantism is connected in a non-accidental way with neoliberalism understood here as the contemporary form of organization not only of the economy but of all social practice and consequently of the different dimensions of human life. The central political and ideological vector of neoliberalism is that the freedom of individuals can only be ensured by a society that is commanded by the spontaneity of the market. The neoliberal defense of freedom is, in reality, an imprisonment of society to a perspective that removes from human beings the possibility of making choices about the future of humanity. In this sense, the fight against Bolsonarism may not achieve significant results if it is not part of the struggle for the liberation of society from imprisonment to market logic. The third argument presented in this article is that productivism, as an academic expression of neoliberalism, configures the production and diffusion of knowledge in public institutions of higher education in a way that favors the penetration of obscurantism in academic life.