A corrosão da democracia representativa

Abstract

Politics is far more complicated than physics," (Albert Einstein's response when asked why man was able to dominate the atom but not control it.) T HAT WHICH is called the "crisis of the Congress" would be more aptly called the crossroads of representative democracy. In these so-called "post modern" times, of a delirious "end of history" and a fascination in good and bad faith for "direct democracy," based maliciously on elitist forums that dispense with social representation sustained by the universal vote, we witness an unparalleled offensive against Politics. Instead of social pacts, opened with the fi ne needle of negotiation and sewn with the course thread of public debate, new types of guilds are presented to coral the great issues and national decisions. From the start, however, as a premise of analysis on an important plane and not as an epitaph for the theme, it is essential to admit that our political system has carried various deformities for decades. A good portion of our diffi culties, cultivated in the state apparatus, originate from anti-Republican practices, certainly nurtured since the days of colonization and the Empire. Unrepentant, they are hidden or exposed, attenuated or exaggerated according to the rhythm and temperature of the political struggle. The moralist zeal is product of a second need in this bazaar of interests. In an article for the electronic journal of the Democrats Party (DEM), entitled "The Greatness of Politics," I had the opportunity to show that certain criticisms that are presented as new are older than the problem: There are few studies among us of the relationship between politics and public opinion as presented by the media, but in the case of the United States, there is an excellent work by an infl uential journalist, James Fallows, published in Portuguese by Civilização Brasileira with the title Detonando a Notícia [Breaking the News] and the revealing subtitle: How the Media Undermine Democracy. Fallows, then editor of the magazine U.S. News & World Report and now national correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, addresses the "sensation of cynical distrust that threatens American politics." With a philosophical tone, he reviews the discussions and disturbances that were particularly intense in the 1920s, heated by journalist Walter Lippmann Bibliographic References