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I'm a brazilian in his 20's. Here's my long-winded commentary on this:
If studying Latin America can help on anything, it's to highlight the pitfalls of "democracy" and everything that was assumed to be universally true by The Enlightenment and still taken as self-evident by some of us today.
Brazil is a straight-up failed state. Despite being blessed with good weather, natural resources, lack of natural disasters due to its position among the tectonic plates, lots of land, large population and since 1985 a "democracy" (that is now dying), it consistently manages to fail in becoming relevant. This deeply troubles many brazilians, including me as a young kid, because as reflected in the joke "Brazil is the country of the future and it'll always be", we look at ourselves and forever wonder "Why aren't we a first-world country?"
There's many crappy usual explanations for why we failed: Colonialization Past, American Imperialism, "Corrupt culture" inherited from the portuguese, Systemic Racism, etc. However the more you look into it, the more you realize that none of those are the real reason. If there was a point where you can point to in Brazil's history and say "only downhill from here", it's the "Proclamation of The Brazilian Republic".
I'm not a monarchist, I believe that in the right conditions democracy (ideally a more decentralized system of government) wins over more centralized systems like monarchies or dictatorships by avoiding the issue that "Philosopher Kings" are impractical, rare and mortal. However it probably really starts there, with the army, the oligarchic farmers and the intelligentsia all supporting getting rid of the Emperor (which had some moderating power although in a constitutional monarchy), the Emperor in turn does something rather uncommon in history (due to many reasons but mostly being tired of "The Paraguayan War" and lacking greed for power) and instantly surrenders the throne even though he had not only the popular support but also the support of the navy.
It's extra funny to me that this moment is still praised today given not only the current state of the country, but also the countless coups that occurred after that, the fact that this was just after and in OPPOSITION to Princess Isabel signing a law abolishing slavery, and better of all that Deodoro da Fonseca (the man who declared The Republic), which by his letters just before the "revolution" normally supported the monarchy, acted in such a way out of jealousy due to rumors that the Emperor had promoted his romantic rival instead of him. That absolute clown-show is taught to us as something we should praise, because it's "democracy" and democracy is inherently good regardless of any result that it brings, including the country becoming significantly worse.
Fast-forward to today and we can see a continuation of the shitshow that this country has been since it stopped being a monarchy, casually switching through history between failed republic and tyranny, with the help of science and history we also have a much better answer for why we fail to become a better country.
"Free Speech" is used by socialists and all kinds of demagogues to fool a 83 IQ poor population that they'll "solve all issues" as long as you give them power, elections select for the opposite it's supposed to select for and the consistent winners are often the most psychopathic greedy liars you can imagine (which eventually result in Venezuela, at least kings were a glorious coinflip), and due to the gap in IQ between people of different ancestries, inequality raises and creates extra social tension/division which fuels political polarization and justification of authoritarian behavior like what Alexandre de Moraes does. It also doesn't help that women as a group consistently vote for whoever tell them nice things (even if by lying) and are the biggest supporters of censoring what they consider "mean people". Brazil is ethnically, politically and economically divided through a spectrum of "North to South", which "coincides" with places where there was recent euro mass immigration and places where there wasn't as many. The Northern regions of course massively supports the people behind all the censorship and it was a key source of votes to them winning the elections through the years (and packing the Supreme Court in the same strategy that Venezuela used and the Democrats want to use in USA too). Countless brazilians right now, in the X platform itself, are celebrating this "Great Nationalistic and Socialist Act" by Alexandre de Moraes striking down an "Evil Right-wing White Billionaire". I don't like Bolsonaro but the whole "he's about to start a coup" was of course, as almost anything in mainstream media, a strawman. I think Bolsonaro actually sort of did want to start a military coup but he and most behind the scenes knew it was impossible because he had little institutional power, the unique side that could realistically start a coup (and ARE STARTING IT) were the socialists that have almost every institution packed with their own tribe by this point.
Therefore, as Padme from Star Wars once correctly said: "So this is how liberty dies...with thunderous applause."
Tyranny is eventually welcome with open arms by democracy, or at least the current way we "practice" democracy. Do not assume the people aren't complicit with this until it starts to REALLY hurt them, many Venezuelans that came as refuges to Brazil still believe Hugo Chavez was "good for the country", they're often just "confused and indignant" of how things eventually went wrong with Maduro and so on.
I used to despair that not only we're losing democracy, but The West in general is also trending in a similar way although slower. The entire western hemisphere seems to be becoming like Brazil, bit by bit, all sort of places that I used to admire in North America and Europe gradually resembles me of my own country. There's soon gonna be no champion of Free Speech, Small Government and so on in the global stage.
Totalitarianism, A.I Automation, Populational Collapse and Genetic Engineering. What a great combination of incoming catastrophes, I truly think we're entering a new global "dark age". Some still try to clumsily "go back", "restore tradition" and so on, but I ask of you, can we stop this foolish nonsense?
Voting for those that "want to go back" may be a good stopgap, the practical way of delaying the incoming stuff, but those "traditions", "ideals" and so on, they've ultimately got us here. I believe it's a natural progression. The slave morality of Christianity (which modern christians need to creatively reinterpret as to not fall in contradiction given Jesus didn't seem to like rich/successful people just like their average political enemy doesn't), the "Free Speech" that was used by all kinds of destructive people to subvert an entire hemisphere by this point and prepare it for complete Tyranny (because we found out that the average population has little resistance to mass propaganda and aren't as much agents of reason as they're agents of faith), the focus on "empathy"/"morality" as opposed in raw intelligence/IQ (which seems to be the most consistent metric by which societies seem to become "better"/"civilized" from economy, politics to general social cohesion and game theory cooperation).
I believe we're invited to what I consider the "True End of Enlightenment" and the epitome of the consequences of the French Revolution. I believe we're invited to accept the tragic incoming consequences of the nice-sounding beliefs that began to be preached by then, and tear it all down as we contemplate what went wrong.
I believe we need a new system of values, a new political ideology, and a new set of mythos (historical or fictional) to base ourselves in.
It's the Death of God AND Enlightenment. We've killed both, or perhaps we just found out both of their tombs empty when we inched closer to see their full glory. Perhaps we were just delusional to believe in them in the first place.
False promises of "the way" to paradise.
This reminded me an old article from Foreign Affairs called The Brazilianization of the World. It is a little bit more lefty critique for my taste, but some passages are eerie:
I am from Eastern Europe and I was born into socialist country and lived my childhood through the tail end of communist regime and then the newborn democracy. I disagree with the author that this is the result of some neoliberal capitalist plot, this pervasive feeling of frustration, political apathy and resulting cynicism was defining feature of late-stage communist regimes as well. I'd say it is the feature of out-of-touch bureaucratic regimes, all too quick to use force to save their pretend legitimacy. Everybody shouts the slogans and lies and everybody knows that everybody knows it's all a farce. Actually it is even worse than that, if somebody has some ideals or expects some decent behavior, he is laughed at - especially if something wrong happens to him. It is certain level of schadenfreude - you stupid naive moron, you thought you could have some hope? You got what you deserve for not being as cynical as me.
Corruption is no longer viewed as something wrong, it is basically the normal way to live. Everybody knows that some professions are underpaid, that some palms have to be greased so it is absolutely normal that your doctor asks for a bribe, if only because he also has to bribe somebody else in order to keep his license. "Patrimonialism, clientelism, and corruption" is the oil that lubricates the whole machine, everybody understands and accepts it. Everything is so bleak, people find solace in their private spaces - their huts where they can escape for a brief time and forget the drudgery and hopelessness of their situation with elephant doses of alcohol. Yeah, it is quite depressing and I always get this feeling if I watch some local movies from 70ies and 80ies. You can almost feel it through the screen.
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Have you considered that the problem is simply low human capital and an elite culture that developed around exploiting the low human capital through low margin extraction?
Brazil’s average IQ isn’t that low.
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Yeah, I'd say he's considered that.
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That's a bit of a stretch.
How so? Most of Brazil has magnificent weather.
But is is the sort of weather that is conducive to being a developed country? Meaning a weather not characterized by extremes?
Brazil was the 4th largest agricultural producer (in dollar terms) in 2020, so the weather is good enough for that at least.
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I don't understand, how is it a stretch? It seems Brazil is in the top 10 countries with most natural resources given the amount of land it has, and tropical weather is good for agriculture even if hard to live/maintain roads/etc. Maybe I'm missing something but yeah? Please explain?
Isn't a significant part of the country a) practically impassable rainforest unfit for agricultural use b) similarly impassable arid grassland and scrub, which is also of little use?
True, a substantial portion of the country isn't normally suitable for agriculture but land still has plenty of theoretical value as we go into a future where resources/energy rather than intelligence will be the economic limiter. There's plenty of sun shining in those arid places which you can use to gather solar energy like China is trying to, and although I'm not very knowledgeable in this subject, it seems we cultivate even in not-optimal land through chemical fertilizers and GM crops, not to mention cattle raising or mining. It's not as good as some other countries but vast land is rarely a bad thing to have, I'm always surprised to learn how much fighting there is/was for small pieces of land in other continents. American countries in general (including USA) probably would never be as big as they're if they had a long history of civilizations fighting each other like Europe/Asia.
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Brazil's the size of the continental US and Mexico combined. Consider the "impassable" areas like uninhabited Alaska.
Except our version of the Amazon - the Mississippi basin - has incredible natural soil quality while as I understand it the actual Amazon does not.
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In general, the problem in Latin America is that high inequality means the rich are typically comfortable enough not to mount decisive action against the left (which comes with nasty stuff like risking their wealth, their lives, their retirement in Miami etc), so there’s no real opposition other than some atrophied principled conservatives and some crazy weirdos, especially once the left cements its power structure in the military.
Rich American rightists fight more and harder (even if not enough) because there’s nowhere more suited to their politics on earth, certainly in the rich world.
My wife is from Latin America but also has a Spanish passport, and we’ve debated on and off again about moving to Spain with our family if things truly got out of hand in the USA.
I take her point into consideration but my response always boils down to “If the USA turns to shit, there’s nowhere really to retreat to.”
My children are American. Hopefully my children’s children will be American, and their children, and so on and so forth.
Although battles may be fought elsewhere, the war for the future is here, and nowhere else.
What would even be the point of running?
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Yeah, sometimes I daydream about a nonsensical timeline where we gave more power to the Imperial Family rather than take it away from them at all. A completely unrealistic timeline where the Emperor lead us into a civil war and stops the formation of a republic, perhaps even going back to absolutism.
Our last Emperor was a good man but the problem with "good men" is that they cannot be "great men" at the same time given accomplishing "great" things often involve at least some amount of sacrifice, pain and suffering. He said something along the lines of "Not wanting to spill more brazilian blood to keep the throne", but I wonder if he would change his mind knowing the circumstances of today.
I like "freedom of speech" because I enjoy being able to publicly debate certain ideas like the above in an attempt to understand and improve things, but if it wasn't for that I would probably prefer to live in China than most countries in The West at this point (to my younger self surprise), this late-stage of democracy turning into tyranny feels like living in asylum where everyone is demented by propaganda and you are supposed to pretend everything is normal or else be labeled "anti-whatever". Everything turns political.
My problem with the recent turn of events is that given democracy select for the most psychopathic narcissistic liars out there, when they get absolute power they generally don't really have a mindset of trying to build-up a nation, or perhaps it's often this way in Latin America because as a bunch of failed countries of immigrants there isn't a deep sense of patriotism like the Chinese seem to have. America seem to have gained patriotism through their collective great actions in the last centuries which Latin America obviously doesn't share.
If Lula, Alexandre and so on gave me any hope that we would be more like China and less like Venezuela, I wouldn't lose sleep over it, perhaps even welcome it because then a bunch of corrupt-but-technical-enough people would be in power and we could all stop pretending that the opinions of an uneducated 83 IQ population can do a better job, but they seem fully committed to become Venezuela rather than China and...it's just tiresome.
Perhaps China is just really bruteforcing everything because of higher IQ but I do wonder whether there's more factors than nationalism and IQ for this sort of "Totalitarian Technocracy" they seem to have, rather than the "We hate our people and want them to starve" Venezuelan/Soviet model. Any potential insights on that would be welcome.
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