RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – From the viewpoint of prizewinning Spanish sociologist Manuel Castells, Brazil is entering into a “subtle dictatorship” through the government of Jair Bolsonaro, who seeks to disfigure education and change the population’s mindset to positions altogether at odds with human rights.
Castells is the world’s fifth most-cited social science scholar, and the foremost-cited communication scholar, especially associated with research on the information society, communication, and globalization.
He said on Tuesday, during a seminar organized by the Getúlio Vargas Foundation (FGV) in Rio de Janeiro, that the first element evidencing this “subtle dictatorship,” managed through social media, is the downgrading of education, since “a poorly educated, ill-informed and uncultured population is much more malleable.”
“You are currently entering what I call a computer-era dictatorship, a subtle dictatorship in which the mindset of a large part of the Brazilian population is being changed in directions utterly contrary to human rights, respect, and freedom,” explained the sociologist.
In Castells’ opinion, the Bolsonaro government is carrying out a process of deconstruction of all that enabled Brazil to fight against the military dictatorship.
“The only useful tool is the ability built into people to form their own standards, their own opinions, their values, and resist,” Castells detailed.
For the Spanish sociologist and economist, the case of Brazil is not isolated. Castells includes the Brazilian context into a worldwide trend of populist manipulation of citizens, in which he also includes Donald Trump, in the United States, Matteo Salvini, in Italy, and the Brexit process, in the United Kingdom.
“You (Brazilians) are not the only ones aggrieved. What is happening in Brazil is part of a much broader context in which negative emotions in terms of human rights are predominant,” said the academic.
Castells argued that power has always been based on the control of information and communication, by which the manipulation of minds and emotions is effected through coercion and persuasion.
However, the Spanish sociologist pointed out that this power sustained by coercion is frail “because there are always ways to escape from coercion.” According to Castells, there are no permanent dominations, since “humans are free and can react.”