The Typhoon of Counter-Thought – Folha de S. Paulo, February 11, 1983

by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira

Regarding the last election campaign, I lamented more than once that those representing genuine Brazil had remained so oblivious to what was happening.

As February advances, the work of the upcoming federal and state legislatures is becoming clearer. I also want to express my regret over the lack of interest shown by our leaders, considering what might happen in those chambers. Let me explain.

Instead of merely complaining or offering theoretical explanations, I will illustrate my point with a specific example of something encouraging happening among us in this area.

I was shown a newspaper clipping from early December reporting that the Commercial Associations of Brazil are preparing to create an organization called “Ação Empresarial” (Business Action), along with a secretariat responsible for monitoring debates in the House of Representatives and participating in committee work. Every bill relevant to the country’s commerce sector will be analyzed this way. This analysis will then be shared with all of Brazil’s roughly thousand trade associations.

In this way, the entire Brazilian business community will be able to determine whether each of its representatives is supporting or opposing the specific national interests represented in our commercial sector.

The article listed the names of several business figures involved in the debate—Brazilians I either agree or disagree with on some points, but who, in my view, genuinely represent the typical mindset of the business community.

Although I have never been involved in commercial activities, I was delighted by the news. It finally gave me the chance to see a major economic sector in my country take a firm stand on political issues in a fully systematic, serious, and effective manner.

Even so, I do not know to what extent circumstances have allowed the Commercial Associations’ smart plan to be implemented. Therefore, I wait—hoping that every sector of national activity will follow the same path: our industry, sometimes so quick and resourceful, sometimes so surprisingly naïve and submissive; our agriculture, always deserving, always self-sacrificing, and often unable to defend itself successfully in a country where, nonetheless, it is nearly everything; our urban property owners, so disconnected from each other and as inert as beach sand when no wind blows. And I can’t help wondering: in the face of such a noble example, will all these sectors not feel pressured to act similarly?

I highlight only these large sectors because they readily attract attention. In truth, all middle-class and manual occupations could be just as relevant.

Why limit the discussion to just professions? At this point, the very topic of the article compels me to address another issue: anyone who views a nation solely as a collection of professional classes—and nothing more—reduces life to the act of working. Yet, this is not an obvious truth; it’s a serious mistake. Man works for a purpose. And what is that purpose? It depends on the idea he has formed of what life ultimately is. Since work is only a means to that end, it is necessarily inferior to it. The main goal of life is to think, and through thought, to attain the Truth, to love It, and to serve It.

The Truth? Yes, with a capital “T.” The Truth is personified in the One who said of Himself: “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life” (John 14:6).

A society lacking philosophy and religion—reduced solely to economic concerns and narrow professionalism—inevitably fosters great despair among the masses today. Yesterday, they celebrated accumulating wealth; now, they take pride in revolting against it; and tomorrow, they will sink into nihilistic misery: the exaltation of poverty and abandonment, filth, and chaos.

Mammon (engraving by Collin de Plancy)

Like it or not, men are ultimately motivated by thought, not Mammon.

Therefore, it is not enough for the professions to organize; opinions must also surface—those sparks of thought that still flicker within a social life that is increasingly illiterate and pornographic. And these opinions, too, must organize. They need to gather, in broad associations of all kinds, all those for whom thinking still matters. These associations must make their presence felt—collaborative, stimulating, yet vigilant—in the halls of Brazil’s legislative bodies. I oppose free thought. But I am just as much against the absence of thought.

* * *

In light of this, some readers might have felt relief, since living thought is suppressed in the outside world. Others—used only to accumulating money or staging revolutions—may have thought that I had suddenly started to dream a troubling dream. Dreaming of thought unsettles those who, when it comes to brilliance, see only the sparkle of gold, and when it comes to light, understand only the glow of fire that sparks social explosions.

That’s exactly how it is.

Once thought is removed from public and social life, what kind of order do those in power envision for the newly established democracies? Is it the order of a rationed, peaceful, and obedient corral so the State can expand its control even further?

The democratic system adopted in Brazil through political reform not only grants every citizen the right and duty to vote but also requires them to think. Once a person starts thinking, they naturally speak about their thoughts. This creates the obligation to discuss issues of public concern—even in private life. If the family dinner table does not consistently host conversations about politics (and thus about religion, culture, and art), then families don’t think. And when families don’t think, they don’t educate. They vote when forced, dropping into the ballot box a slip of paper with any name—be it trivial, mocking, or even blasphemous, as the case may be.

But this is no longer a democracy, nor even a corral. It is something entirely different: a grim concentration of men under the control of those who hijack thought itself.

Who are these people? They are those who, by constantly claiming that only the economy matters, lead the public to find rest and distraction solely in trivial things, jokes, pornography, and drugs—in short, in various forms of counterthought.

Have you considered how many whirlwinds of counter‑thought are sweeping across Brazil today? And how truly meritorious will be those who, organizing themselves in the manner of Trade Associations, strive to present before our Legislatures the yearnings of authentic Brazil—the Brazil that performs three closely connected acts: it prays, it thinks, and it works? It prays with the prayer of the Church of old, and not—painful though it is to say, with the sour, corrosive, and poisonous devotions of the BCCs.