Wake culture invades government and covers up concrete social dramas

The government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) has left the gate open for identitarism and woke radicalism at the beginning of his mandate. The trend permeates several ministries and manifests itself in hearings, ordinances, speeches by authorities and in the implementation of public policies.

Speculations of an unscientific nature, such as theories about gender and structural racism, are treated as absolute truths and underlie various government decisions. Defeating the “machosphere”, adopting “a language that promotes equity” and combating the “patriarchal system” seem to be more pressing needs for some government sectors than solving objective social problems with a concrete impact on citizens’ lives, such as violence and the lack of basic sanitation.

In early March, in the middle of the week of the series of attacks by a criminal faction in Rio Grande do Norte, the Ministry of Justice launched a public security program supported by theses dear to the woke culture: Pronasci (National Program for Public Security with Citizenship ) 2, update of a failed project whose validity between 2007 and 2012 – in Lula’s second term and Dilma Rousseff’s first – coincided with the beginning of the exorbitant increase in violence in the country. Among the five axes of action of the new program is the “fight against structural racism”.

Sociologist Lucas Azambuja, professor at Ibmec-BH, explains that the expression “structural racism” is “an import of a reading of racial relations in the United States by a post-Marxist current of thought, which is inspired by the Marxist worldview to understand the relations between blacks and whites”. “In the context of American society after the civil rights movements, which put an end to that tragic situation of racial segregation, a series of flags were created linked to tensions in racial relations. finance, among other things, research in the area of ​​humanities, this term was imported, and they are trying to apply it to guide public policies. .

Invasion of ideological jargon from woke culture has social impact

As well as “structural racism”, according to Azambuja, other ideological concepts of woke culture have been used as a way of “politically capturing” real and sometimes serious problems. With the dissemination of these terms in the public debate, it is possible to use them to guide regulations and, thus, shape society according to ideological projects.

“There is violence against women. There are problems with race relations. We live in a violent country. That is, there are a number of real problems. And these terms are a way of politically capturing these problems. It is an attempt to create a kind of political monopoly around the issue. When I manage to get people to address the problem of violence against women from the word ‘femicide’, whoever opposes me will be, in quotes, ‘in favor’ of femicide. The use of the word helps to stop the monopoly”, he observes.

At Women’s Ministry, terms like “misogyny,” “machosphere” and other trendy feminist jargon became frequent. On March 28, at a public hearing at the STF on the Civil Rights Framework for the Internet, a representative of the folder said, without showing how she arrived at the data, that there are 30 million followers of “machosphere” channels in Brazil.

In early March, the Ministry of Health published an ordinance alleging that the division of labor implemented in the SUS (Unified Health System) is “male and racist” and openly defending the deconstruction of the concepts of “man” and “woman”. The document also says that the SUS should contribute to confronting “cultural machismo” and that “macho and patriarchal” terms should be avoided in the institutional daily life of government health establishments.

Gender ideology has also been explicitly defended in various departments of the federal administration, based on ideological jargon and controversial data that would justify special attention to the subject. On March 30, for example, the government signed a declaration proposed by Argentina at the United Nations (UN) on “recognition of gender self-identification”.

Symmy Larrat, National Secretary for the Promotion of Defense of LGBTQIA+ People in the government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), has already said that one of the first missions of her portfolio will be to erase the expression “gender ideology” from the public debate.

The proposal is strategic: adherents of the woke culture seek to propagate the term “gender identity” to conform public opinion around the idea that no one is born male or female; each one would discover throughout his life his identity in an imagined spectrum of femininity and masculinity, regardless of what the biological reality determines.

The word “gender” is usually used instead of “sex” precisely to deconstruct the watertight categories “man” and “woman” and to imply that sexual identity can be created subjectively, transiting through the mentioned spectrum according to the feeling of person. The expression “gender ideology”, on the other hand, seeks to emphasize the anarchic purpose of these ideas, which, ultimately, serve to debunk objective realities such as biological sex and, thus, establish the reign of subjectivities in public debate. The purpose of using “gender ideology” is not to downplay the objective reality of the existence of, for example, transsexuals, but to safeguard the certainty of the objective existence of men and women.

Brazil is a country with little social cohesion, and PT feeds on exacerbating division, says researcher

Lucas Mafaldo, researcher in political science and postdoctoral in philosophy at the University of Ottawa, says that Brazil is, historically, a country with low “social cohesion”, that is, little capable of creating a sense of community and uniting the population around common purposes. According to him, this is largely due to the high degree of distrust that people have among themselves. Phenomena such as urban violence, robberies, financial scams, cheating in social situations, impunity and disbelief in Justice as an instance for conflict resolution make Brazilians prone to distrust their fellow countrymen in everyday situations.

The PT, in his view, is a driver of the lack of social cohesion, insofar as it benefits from the discourse of division. The PT’s growing adherence to woke culture, which is essentially divisive, is a manifestation of this old propensity of the party. “The PT discourse since the 1980s and 90s has always been a discourse of division. It was the boss against the employee, the Southeast exploiting the Northeast… Lula’s entire career was based on this idea of ​​antagonistic groups. And, although there are tensions – because some actually exist – this is not the best way to create a collaborative environment”, he says. “Brazil has always had a very strong culture of not resolving things collaboratively, and the PT reinforces that, because it is constantly repeating this discourse of division.”

The antidote to this tendency, for Mafaldo, is the authentic search for an environment of social cohesion. “It’s not a question of individuals versus society, but of how to create an environment of collaboration and mutual help that favors as many people as possible. The objective of social cohesion is valid regardless of the political debate. a really inclusive policy. If it is a policy that really promotes social cohesion, it is valid and should not be seen as a leftist principle”, he comments.

The PT’s tendency, however, is the opposite, says Mafaldo: to promote mistrust among citizens and prevent social cohesion, as a reflection of its revolutionary spirit. “The PT is, in my view, one of the institutional branches of the revolutionary movement. It acts by dividing society, playing one group against the other. This is an idea that is well theorized even in Marxist literature: that you have to have a revolution, not a reform. There is even the idea that those who solve social problems reduce the energy that could be used for the revolution. It is never in their interest to solve problems. Their interest is to feed the degree of tension and revolt to generate this revolutionary energy.”

Another element that explains the PT’s adherence to the woke culture is generational change, says Mafaldo. “The older generations of the left were not so interested in these agendas. And the younger generations are really interested in it. I think there is a calculation on how to keep young militancy engaged. Electorally, in terms of the majority of the Brazilian population, I would guess that they are not agendas that bring a lot of votes. But I think that young militants really like these agendas. And this is happening all over the world. In the general election, I don’t know if that gives a lot of votes, but, in terms of the ability to attract militants, I think that makes a difference.”

One last factor that explains the PT’s interest in the woke wave, according to Mafaldo, is the Americanization of Brazilian culture, both on the left and on the right – in the case of the latter, in guidelines such as homeschooling and civilian armament. “There are very American agendas even on the right. As much as I can even agree with some of them, I see that they arrive in Brazil imported in the wrong way. The explanation for this is simply the fact that American culture produces a lot. so much on the internet, so many videos… And, nowadays, English is practically the second language of many Brazilians. We make a mistake by importing the debate without translating it to our specific social dynamics, which is totally different. right or left are making the necessary adaptations to understand the typical social dynamics of Brazil”, he observes.