The “Flat idea” and the rejection of others

the Bolsonaro(s) affair

Abstract

We seek to analyse the ideological intricacies behind the discourse of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and his sons. We have included the President’s sons because of a peculiar characteristic of Brazil’s current administration: the sons Flavio, Carlos and Eduardo actively take part in the Republic’s affairs, either influencing their father in administrative decisions, for instance in the designation or dismissal of Ministers, or acting in the family’s social networks with messages to their followers. Our starting points are the notions of truth and opinion laid out by Philosophers Leszek Kolakowski, John Dewey and Hannah Arendt. From the works of Roland Barthes and Anselm Strauss, we constructed the notion of “flat idea”, to which we incorporated a vision of authoritarianism through the views of Vassili Grossman, Edwin A. Abbot and Mikhail Bulgakov. Our work presents the flat-shaped idea both in the form of Bolsonaro’s populism, with its easy communication of senses, and its authoritarian side, with his rejection to the democratic dialogue. The title’s ‘idea’ in the singular form relates to the single truth that rules out other ‘ideas’ concurring in the world of life.