Gilberto Freyre e 'O Mundo que o Português Criou'

Escrevi o texto abaixo quando do centenário do nascimento de Gilberto Freyre. Vale a republicação agora por ocasião dos 25 anos do seu falecimento. A despeito de eventuais reparos analíticos que se lhe possa fazer, o mestre de Apipucos é, de longe, uma referência central no estudo do que ele chamou 'O Mundo que o Português Criou'.

Gilberto Freyre and the Portuguese World
 By Ivonaldo Leite                        

The countries of the Portuguese language are this year paying homage to

Brazilian sociologist and anthropologist Gilberto Freyre. The country where he

studied, the United States, is also; and in Uruguay Vamireh Chacon and Diogo

Meneses are writing about his life. This is because it has been a century

since the birth of this Brazilian thinker. But who exactly was Gilberto Freyre?

He was born in 1900 and died in 1987 (in the Brazilian state of Pernambuco). 

His work studies the formation from Brazil as well as what he called the world

that the Portuguese created.  According to the Portuguese historian Cláudia

Castelo, the ideas of Gilberto Freyre at present have a great influence

in Portugal, mainly because a lot of intellectuals of different tendencies

utilize them, although they do not say that their ideas are Gilberto

Freyre´s.

The work of Freyre has some key concepts. For example: the ideas of a half-blood

country in Brazil, Lusitanian-tropicalism, and democracy between the races. His

theory of Lusitanian-tropicalism, for instance, maybe has the following merits: 

First, the studying of the adaptation of the Portuguese in the tropics; the

denial of the idea of inevitable decay of the tropics; the exaltation of the

African, Amerindian and Oriental contribution to the Lusitanian-tropical

civilization; the valuing of the birth of the half-blood, the union of cultures;

and the affirmation that the union between the Portuguese and the

Lusitanian-descendents doesnt annul the regional differences.

Gilberto Freyre has several original theses about Brazil. He says that the

Brazilian culture likes to have fun. The three people (Indian, European,

African) form other people (half-bred), people who like to play. According to

Freyre, the Brazilians play with the words and with the body.  He also imagined

a connection between the French libertinage of the eighteenth century and the

fun that the Brazilian has with the body.

In the book The World that the Portuguese Created, the author asserts that there

is a Portuguese style of living. It is a plastic and tolerant style. This style

would explain how the Portuguese adaptation in the tropics.

Gilberto Freyre was a pioneer. He was friend of the historian Lucien Febvre and

even in the 1920´s worked with quotidian categories, categories that just

now the academics are utilizing.  Freyre does what we can to designate of

Sociology of the Quotidian and that he called Half-Blooded Sociology or Mixed

Sociology.

But the homage to Freyre cannot conceal the limitations of his work. They are,

for example: the idea of a perfect democracy between the races and the

rationalization of the Portuguese colonization. These limitations were enhanced

by the Marxist sociology work of another Brazilian: Florestan Fernandes. This

inclusively was the motive for the theoretical conflict between them. This conflict generated 

a curious episode concerning a

pupil of Florestan´s, Fernando Henrique Cardoso.  Florestan, who oriented Fernando Henrique in the 

doctorate, invited Gilberto Freyre to participate in the commission responsible for the analysis of

Cardoso´s thesis about slavery in the Brazil.  Freyre refused to accept the

invitation. Freyres idea of democracy between the races in the Brazil hides the massacre of

the Amerindians and it doesnt consider the suffering of the blacks brought from

Africa to Brazil.  It hides still the prejudices against the blacks in

contemporary Brazil. Another example earlier cite, the rationalization of the

Portuguese colonization, was used by Salazars dictatorship in Portugal to resist

the independence of the African colonies.  Moreover the dogmatic interpretation

of a half-blooded country doesnt consider the specific details of the formation

of the Brazilian people. For example, the caboclo is unknown in these

interpretations. Who are the caboclo? They were born by the union of the

Portuguese (or descendants) with the Indians and their skin conserves the native

colour, which is a little red. They have smooth and black hair and they also

have the profile of a calm people. The Amazon and the Northeast are regions from

Brazil where there are many caboclos. The Northeast was the region where the

Portuguese first arrived.  Brazilian anthropologist Darcy Ribeiro described very

well the situation of the Caboclos in contemporary Brazil

Gilberto Freyre seems to be an example of the metaphor that Michael Lowy uses to

characterize the action of a social scientist searching for the truth. Lowy now

supports historical Marxism (Luckács, Korsh, Gramsci and Goldmann) and says that

a researchers values affect the results of the research, principally his values

of class. There arent separation between facts and values. But Lowy understands

that there is a relative autonomy of knowledge. This is what explains the fact

of  Marx to recognize importance to classic economy (Smith and Ricardo). Adam

Smith and David Ricardo were bourgeois economists, but their works have

important revelations, they are different from the other bourgeois economy, the

Malthus economy.  Marx called Malthus a vulgar economist, because he wasn't

interested in economic science. He was interested  just to justify the bourgeois

power. The scientists therefore have relative autonomy that isnt Mannheims

autonomy. The relative autonomy depicted by Löwy's Sociology of the Knowledge is

different. The scientist is now a painter. He produces pictures that are

sceneries of the truth. The techniques of painting that the painter (scientist)

utilizes can make the picture more true or false. Here is the relative autonomy.

The painter doesn't produce a truer picture just because he has truer values. The

techniques of painting are important for him to produce the sceneries of the

truth.

Gilberto Freyre maybe was a scientist that utilized good techniques and then his

work has important revelations. But his scenery of truth is problematical.

Florestan Fernandes saw this very well, as did Darcy Ribeiro. Thus the support

of Freyre to military dictatorship in Brazil wasnt surprise. Freyres' values

(principally of class) conditioned his actions.

Therefore the academic commemorations of the century Freyre's birth, in the World

that the Portuguese Created and in other worlds, can't forget the limitations of

his work. This is what the compromise with a scenery of the truth requires.

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Fonte original: http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/marxism/2000w13/msg00110.htm