Cervi: 'When religion focuses on material power, it is because it has already lost its essence'
Cervi, in dialogue, views journalism's role; religion focused on material gains loses purpose.
Tempo previsto
23/4/2025
Arruda urges political reform, not voter 'reform,' criticizing current election mechanisms.
Sgarbe: João, we met speaking ill of the MDB. Both of us were (are) members. Something that connected me to you was your capacity for self-criticism, I’ve been calling this disposition “serene pessimism”. But, I look at the candidates for the Chamber of Deputies and the State Assembly, and I think: they can’t even criticize themselves, let alone their own party, or national politics. Where have we gone wrong in the "selection" of people for public life? Doesn't it seem to you that the personnel are just going with the flow?
João Arruda: The problem lies in who does the choosing. Party leaders perpetuate themselves at the helm of their organizations, and, with control over delegates and electoral funds, it becomes practically impossible to remove them from power. It's a fiefdom! Today, party presidents earn a good salary and treat the position as a profession. They could take advantage of the opportunity to improve the quality of their ranks, to train and develop leaders capable of transforming the country, but that's not what happens in practice. Another problem is the disinterest of the population. What gives electoral returns? A good proposal or fake news on social media? A project or money? Ideals or popularity at any cost? Principles or a mayor on a leash? Without votes, the greatest political figure in the world won't survive, and won't put anything they've learned into practice. They will, at most, write and debate with friends and colleagues. Everything I've written here, low-quality leaders, challenges for voters to pay more attention, can only be solved in one way: a radical and well-thought-out electoral reform, through a plebiscite. Any reform approved by Congress will only benefit the senators and deputies who are already there, who want to stay there forever.
Sgarbe: We have a lawyer friend in common, but I've forgotten her name, who advocates for the "reform of the people". A reform of the voter. I mentioned this in a group of journalists, and someone immediately said that the idea was Bolsonaro's. Well, we've finally arrived at a not-so-bad idea from the president. When I refer to the "people", it has to do with a type of change that can't happen from one election to the next. In Italy, the first woman to govern the country is enamored with Mussolini. Assuming Mussolini hadn't killed approximately one million people, there should be at least some embarrassment in supporting a man who allegedly killed a million people. But there isn't. It's when I think about your last paragraph, about the "chieftains" who choose banners of sadistic entertainment to secure their seats, that I conclude that politics is too full of "individuals", of unresolved personal histories, of souls clinging to revenge, self-destruction, pollution. When I'm the Supreme Leader of Brazil, I'm going to decree at least six months of therapy for candidates before they register their candidacy.
João Arruda: There's a crazy person for everything! The other day, my sister told me that anyone who votes for Bolsonaro is fascist, racist, and doesn't like poor people. I asked her: "Have you ever stopped to think that you're judged as corrupt because you vote for Lula? Each person makes the choice they want, and finds their reasons to vote. Do you think there's malice when they do that, even when they vote for a criminal?" I've been disappointed many times in the past, but today, I try to understand the reasons why someone votes for a scoundrel. Reforming the voter is more or less what some are trying to do. Perhaps Mussolini, Hitler, and other dictators would consider such an alternative. Or perhaps the more modern alternative would be "the cure for the voter who doesn't know how to vote", something like Feliciano's "gay cure". But, investigating the reasons why a good person votes for someone worthless, I come to the conclusion that the reform has to be electoral, not personal. It all has to do with access to information and knowledge, with internet bubbles (fake news), dissemination structures (campaign funds), deviations from the constitutional responsibilities of those holding office, the press, polls, TV time, production of materials, campaign length, reelection, and much more... Oh! But don't you talk about the voter's empathy for the candidate? The voter-candidate relationship is built by the system, or rather, by the system's flaws. We will evolve, and have much more political awareness, when we are truly interested. A decent system could even spark more interest in politics. Meanwhile, we'll continue with scoundrels exploiting the ignorance of others. Or do you think the vote of a person who is uninformed or easily manipulated is worth less than the vote of a politically aware intellectual? The debate is tough and we need to evolve, but by accepting our flaws and taking revolutionary action.
Leia insights sobre a interação de humanos com modelos de linguagem de IA, e sobre os ODS no Brasil. Lab Educação 2050 Ltda, que mantém este site, é signatária do Pacto Global das Nações Unidas.
Networks' fakenews distorts choice & weakens human debate.
Strong, just institutions key to real democracy's guarantee.
Cervi, in dialogue, views journalism's role; religion focused on material gains loses purpose.
I was happy every Monday afternoon this semester. In an elective course at the Federal University of Paraná (UFPR), in a class of very few students, I received from Dr. Emerson Urizzi Cervi the impetus, so dear to me, to discuss journalism. Cervi has a sober journalistic style that reminds me of newsrooms that did not succumb to the allure of the internet.
Sgarbe: Dear Professor Cervi, the readers of this website would be bored if I didn't tell them that I wrote to you when I was still in high school and dreamed of being a journalist. I remember being interested in political communication. Well, as is the nature of self-fulfilling prophecies, here I am about to write my first article for your consideration. Having overcome the main emotional aspect of this conversation, I move on to the next. That is, the cold feeling that watching television journalism causes me. It is not, evidently, a matter of personal taste, but a collegial, collective, and communal dimension of journalism. Despite my conviction that it is not possible to do mass journalism as we conceived it decades ago, it is possible and necessary, it is just and necessary, that television journalism resort to the basic literature of what constitutes news. I refer directly to the "new generation", which has at its disposal reporters of excellent quality, and through whom, via interpersonal relationships, the DNA of journalism can be transferred. I am very seriously suspicious of any journalism that does not clearly address the "commercial-editorial" dilemma. And my first question is: which came first? The chicken or the egg? Is flabby journalism the product of a flabby community?
Cervi: Sgarbe, journalism is a human activity, constrained, limited, and empowered by the social context in which it finds itself. Twenty-first-century journalism will not be the same as twentieth-century journalism, which cannot be compared to nineteenth-century journalism simply because the society of each moment in which journalism is inserted is specific. We need to avoid some exaggerations if we want to understand the role of journalism in twenty-first-century society. The first is technological determinism. It is not technology that shapes journalism, but rather journalism that makes use of available technologies to shape itself. The second is the excessive centrality of journalism in the world.
Journalism is a professional activity and a social institution that integrates the so-called intermediary institutions. Journalism, by nature, mediates the relationship between people and people, people and institutions, people and more abstract social concepts.
So, journalism plays its role well when it manages to mediate social relations in a relevant way, that is, in a consequential way. Historically, mass journalism is an intermediary institution for social stability. It presents the expected rules and behaviors (of course there are cases of journalism used for revolutionary purposes, but this is not the rule). However, and here is an important element, the positive consequence of the intermediary role does not depend only on who mediates, but on the expectations of those who are at the "ends" of the intermediation processes - outside the direct scope of journalism - the sources, on one hand, and the public, on the other. If we want answers about twenty-first-century journalism, we need to ask the sources and the public what they expect from twenty-first-century journalism, not the journalists directly.
Sgarbe: When I read your paragraph, I thought", I have to come back with at least a few interviews in which I ask people what they expect from journalism". Obviously, this is not the case, but I had a reporter's impulse. I understand that to keep journalism alive, as has been done in other eras, we will have to deal with communities absurdly different from those we had ten or twenty years ago. These rapid changes, sometimes justified by technological contributions or even by the severity of a pandemic, have little to do with cell phones and vaccines themselves - items that are much more symptoms than causes. After the fascist uprising and Covid-19, we are in a post-war period. Let's go back a bit. After the First World War, we experienced the avant-garde art movements, among other less singular effects. Psychoanalysis and religious fundamentalism also came out of there. However, in the case of these last two, the results were completely different. For the former, the conclusion is that the end is inevitable and desired, while the latter clings to the harshness of a few phrases that encourage waiting for the return of the Messiah. I understand that, as is expected of history to repeat itself, our present has traces of those patterns. It is utopian, but it would be very good if individuals were able to deal with their internal problems before going on the public stage. Maybe in a thousand years. There are many scenarios and micro-scenarios on the screen, so I am aware that the following excerpt is imprecise. We are polarized more or less like this: on one side, the academy, the cult of scientific investigation (a few hours ago, I said that believing in science without restrictions makes science a religion - it didn't go over well with the group, but I don't care, in this case); on the other, the powerful God who will avenge the wicked and distinguish us from the perverse. I think both are delusional, for this reason here: what good is all this if what is sought is not peace? It will be very difficult to get answers from these people about journalism. Meanwhile, my bet is on precision journalism and a brilliant capacity for dialogue and good humor - with whomever.
Cervi: Well, if I understood you correctly, we have broadened the discussion, moving beyond journalism itself. If so, I agree with your proposal. If we take journalism for what it is: a professional activity with collective impact as its purpose, we will realize that it can only be understood when placed in front of other institutions, groups, and social norms.
The collective purpose of journalism is to meet society's demands for information.
When this purpose is successful, journalistic information serves as a social amalgam, shaping and uniting other social institutions. In other words, the purpose of journalistic information is social cohesion, not distension. The typical phenomenon of the 21st century is that journalism as a purpose faces competition from the dissemination of content and information with the opposite objective of social cohesion. An interesting discussion would be that of freedom as a right. Like any other, there are no absolute rights in any society. Ultimately, even the right to life is not absolute in many societies. What happened in the 20th century is that the struggles for the right to expand and democratize information, which are means, left the ends, which is social cohesion, in the background. It is necessary to bring the discussion about the purposes of freedom of expression back into the public debate. I understand that this was not what you proposed, so I'll stop here. Your proposal was to look at contemporary social conflicts from the micro level, the individual. And, in this case, you point out which institutions have the most impact on social behavior starting from the individual: the church, notably. Religion has the ability to cross from the private to the public sphere without the need for any filter. We will only understand personal conflicts at the beginning of the 21st century when we think about how religions are addressing the differences between spiritual power and material power. When religion focuses on material power, it is because it has already lost its essence, which is spiritual control. From then on, it tends to be increasingly involved in worldly issues and less in spiritual ones. All of society loses, but mainly religion is the biggest loser. Addressing individuals' crises, conflicts, dissensions, the formation of social bubbles from the role of institutions has a greater explanatory capacity than falling into technological determinism, which tends to be a dead end.
Cândido Machado analisa relação entre mídia e conservadores, criticando distância da imprensa das pautas populares.
The journalist Cândido Machado Neto and I graduated from PUCPR, back when we were discovering politics. In the elections for the Communication Student Center and the Student Union, we encountered corruption. Even ballot box tampering. Cândido, whom my family and close friends call Kiko, is recognized for his conservative views. He has a remarkable reach among young conservatives. We never stopped talking about politics, and we don't understand why people fight over it. In this publication, we are trying out a format inspired by The New York Times opinion columns.
Sgarbe: Kiko, few men in the world are more affectionate with me than you. Maybe Father Paulo. For years, we've discussed politics. I remember us talking about the role of man in the world, whether greater, lesser, or equal to that of a dolphin. Back at the PUCPR Student Union. Do you have any idea how much you change my point of view?
Machado Neto: I can't imagine, my dear friend. I still have issues with dolphins. My point about these pro-democracy texts is that they aren't truly about democracy. I'm going to use a crude phrase, but one that explains well what "democracy" means to so many people". Democracy is like a dick, everyone who has it in their mouth, sooner or later, sticks it up their ass". I am the author of this beautiful reflection that explains it well. The pro-democracy letters are signed by people who not only defend dictatorships but actively participated in financing them. With public money. How can these people talk about democracy? But we don't need to go to extremes, let's talk about our journalist colleagues. They talk about democracy, but they applaud arbitrary arrests, investigations outside any legal framework, persecution, and cancellations. Every day, some Bolsonaro supporter either has their account blocked or gets fined for the simple reason of being a supporter. You met Érica, who was a municipal school teacher and went to protest in Brasília. She ended up imprisoned for five months in Papuda. Meanwhile, in 2014 (you can look it up), the MST tried to invade the Supreme Court during a session, with sickles and machetes, and nothing, nothing, happened to any leader. I can mention the congressman who was arrested despite parliamentary immunity. Something inadmissible in our Constitution. A former president impeached who didn't have her political rights suspended (as the Constitution says) because the president of the Supreme Court at the time didn't want to. Is this democracy? Judges dictating how farmers should plant soybeans. It happened last week. Who the president should or shouldn't appoint to the Federal Police. Judges overturning tax decrees. Interfering in economic matters that are the prerogative of the Legislature. And I won't even mention the pandemic, where people were literally dragged off the streets, stores welded shut with lead to prevent them from opening. Vaccine passports, etc. We no longer live in a democracy. Those who say this, who defend this "democracy", are only defending their own dictatorship. Which one day will bite them too, because the monster of legal authoritarianism is insatiable.
Sgarbe: I understand that you're reacting to Pedro Ribeiro's text on democracy and my question. I'll make it clear, then. You change me. I think it has to do with our level of sincerity. A few months ago, I interviewed a woman who is now a candidate for federal deputy. She has a killer resume. But she told me something like, "we have to study so we can drink half a bottle of wine and question everything we've done". She fits in with us. About Érica. I had the opportunity to talk about her during a class at the university. I told the story in a way that even surprised me. You know I'm on the side of freedom. But back to politics. Is Bolsonaro a kind of Tiririca? Is he computed as a clown? Is it reasonable for someone to see him as "a vote against the system"? It seems coherent to me. But part of the communication is interrupted, thus useless for "everyone", when one argues that he has what it takes to be a president.
Machado Neto: I understand your point. I remember you saying that you talked about Érica at the Federal University. Bolsonaro isn't Tiririca, nor a clown. Bolsonaro is your father, my father, an ordinary person. He is not, and that's why the press loathes him, a social democrat, a socialist. Because the fetish of socialism is the biggest fetish of our press. I'll give you an example. The entire press said that he mocked, made fun of, a person dying from lack of air, from Covid. Even Renata said that. What is the truth? So, we have a media that is fetishistic. That thinks a president is not what he is, but what he appears to be. Unless that president is a simulacrum of a leftist leader like Lula. A press that doesn't give a damn about what the people think. The other day, look at this absurdity. Paulo Martins, Bolsonaro's Senate candidate here in Paraná, went to RPC. So, questions back and forth. A journalist there said that in the 2005 referendum, the people voted against the trade of ammunition and firearms. Paulo said no, that the people voted in favor, and it was a high turnout. She argued and got angry. The next day, she was issuing a correction, saying that the [candidate for] senator was right. Making a mistake isn't the problem here. The problem is the reporter being so detached from reality, so absurdly outside any political discussion. Tucked away in such a huge elitist bubble. That she didn't know that the people voted in favor of guns. You know why she didn't know? Because she can't conceive, in her Novo Batel Shopping Mall mind, of a society that is conservative. That defends families, civilian gun ownership, is against abortion. "It's absurd for it to be this way, they are just extremists". Therefore, the people could only have voted against guns, right? You see? The extent of the divorce our colleagues have from the real population?
Sgarbe: I think Bolsonaro is a parliamentarian. He should have stayed in the Legislature, in my view. It's the right stage for many of his themes. But I consider the Presidency to have a dual function, head of state and the people's "coach" - laughs. I don't want to "fight" for the Brazil of Ciro Nogueira, of Silas Malafaia, I don't even think Brazil is that important anymore, since Bolsonaro is president. A journalist didn't know how to interview Paulo Martins? Doesn't surprise me. Television journalism is a kind of living dead, it doesn't know if it's an Instagram Story, if it's the biggest broadcaster in the country, if it's a life diary that greets the ridiculous "beautiful photo" of a viewer who thought the moon was pretty. Even experienced reporters are losing patience with mediocre "anchors". But it's this journalism that was okay with Lava Jato. Every time Moro farted in his office, it made headlines. 😂
Machado Neto: I don't think Bolsonaro is ideal in anything. He's not a mass leader, nor does he resemble those intellectual mass leaders of the 1930s in either fascism or communism. And that's precisely his advantage. Bolsonaro, if he were a malicious person with the amount of influence he has over a gigantic portion of the population, if he were a bad person as the journalist with the generic foreign last name says, he would have already turned this country into a dictatorship. But those who have been turning this country into a dictatorship are precisely those who claim to want to protect democracy. "We will protect democracy even if we have to implement a dictatorship", they say.
