“Será mau tudo aquilo que é moderno?”: análise da coluna “ambiente, costumes e civilizações” de Plínio Corrêa de Oliveira na Revista Catolicismo (1951-1959)

Abstract

A wandering time walker, I return decades, almost a century, to remember the past that gnaws at the present. I examine, on this metaphorical path, the slips in which forgetfulness finds, in the imaginary formations1 of language in its relationship with the real, the objective reality in which its meaning returns, signifies and quiets the despair of possibilities. Thus, in the 1950s, Brazil seemed like a world of possibilities, and, for some, it was seen as the “country of the future”, from which a new, more democratic and modern civilization would be born, hope soared in the air under the influence of the winds of national-developmentalism. Thus, within a larger context, shaped by the modernization subsequent to the Second World War (1939-1945), by the political-economic project based on the Keynesian model of state intervention for the development of countries, and by the Cold War between the USSR and the USA, Brazil found itself subsumed in this historical process marked by tensions and profound transformations.2 However, if we see a modern Brazilian economy3 subsidized by the State, where almost everything was produced and created a consumerist demand in line with the standards of developed countries, we will also observe a backward elite, who did not take the lead in seeking guidance for the country's development, on the contrary, they identified themselves only as the dominant class. If the “winds of modernization” took the mass of society to the “halls of hope”, the bourgeoisie enjoyed the luxury and opulence of its privileged position and full of benefits, leaving collective interests adrift, echoing them almost silently, far below the sounds propagated by the winds of their encrypted pretensions.