Bewilderment, a Step Toward Defeat – Folha de S. Paulo, May 23, 1971
by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira
I am struck by a contrast. On the one hand, the information available to the public has never been so abundant. On the other hand, I believe the public has never felt so stunned and confused in the face of it.
Let me offer a remote point of comparison to clarify the contrast. Before World War II, the average reader was largely informed about the most important events by newspapers, not only in their own country but also in Europe and the United States. In second place, in terms of the quantity and importance of information, came other regions of Western civilization, including the three Americas, Australia, and South Africa. In the same category was Japan, notable for its political and economic importance. In third place were rare news items concerning other nations—a cyclone, a flood, a monarch’s wedding or divorce, a revolution or war. These sensational events erupted in a vast, confusing world that was or seemed asleep. And just as they erupted there, they were consumed and disappeared there.
Although the area covered by the abundant news was much smaller than today’s, the news was clearer and more cheerful. At the height of its prosperity, the United States enjoyed what Americanophiles from all countries regarded with awe as the wonders and delights of the “American way of life.” In Europe, there was a resplendent order of things in which the prestige of centuries past merged with that of contemporary science, technology, and comfort. Telegrams reported speed records, efficiency, or extravagance broken in the land of Uncle Sam, or sensational books or dazzling premieres in the great European capitals. Or yet of tourist seasons reaching their peak, archaeological finds revealing new worlds, and distinguished parliamentary debates taking place in old Europe.
This brilliant and optimistic jumble gave the impression of a world in celebration, which we in Brazil associated, as best we could, with our coffee harvests, trips abroad, domestic parties, and the celebration of our own artists and intellectuals: Rui Barbosa (“the Eagle of The Hague”), Osvaldo Bilac, Oswaldo Cruz, and many others.
The news also cast shadows on the picture, but these served largely to make it even livelier. Hitler roared, and the sullen Duce harangued the troops bound for Ethiopia. A cold wind of cruelty, cynicism, and irreligion blew from Russia. England remained in its usual triumphant phlegm, more concerned with episodes such as the marriage of Edward VIII than with the problems looming on the horizon. The decorative figure of Pius XII, “gloriously reigning” (such was the beautiful official formula used at the time), hovered peacefully over the vastness of the Church. France enjoyed itself and let the days pass. Spain was healing from the effects of the civil war. And Portugal was reorganizing itself step by step.
These are some randomly selected, chronologically mismatched visions that give us a sense of the brilliance, dynamism, and precariousness of those distant days.
I say precarious because there was no shortage of crises, tensions, and factors of discontent, but they were, at least for the most part, relegated to a corner of the picture. In the center of the picture, things were clear. There were the communist and anticommunist worlds. In the former—that is, in Russia—there reigned the peace of prisons and graves. In the latter, civilization flourished.
In the non-communist world, Communist Parties tried to tear everything down; they were the left. Nazis tried to liquidate the Communist Parties and implement frenzied imperialism; that was the right. Democracies organized and enjoyed the good life; that was the center. From these very clear positions, logical struggles ensued, and their moves were easy for everyone to follow. In them, everyone knew clearly where to place their preferences. They were, so to speak, fans of a well-identified team.
Is this picture clear? Yes, clear and simple, or rather, simplistic. The real problems were underestimated or silenced. The realities underground were almost unknown, and this mutilation of reality in the news was a mistake. If the public had been aware of the whole truth, it might have forced events to take a different course.
* * *
After World War II, and especially today, the opposite has happened. Everything has come to light. There is news about everything, about every country, and it is reported with a very different set of values.
The friction among African republics occupies more space than a cabinet reshuffle in Sweden. Franco-German rivalry has almost disappeared, but the struggle in Vietnam, the tension between the two Koreas, fighting between Arabs and Jews, the tensions and détente between Russians and Chinese, discontent among Tatars in Crimea, the nudist gathering on the Isle of Wight, the hippies promoting bomb protests in the United States, the Archbishop of Paris protesting against the punishment of sacrilegious rioters in the Sacré-Coeur Basilica, the West German Defense Minister buying thirty thousand hairnets to contain the long hair of female soldiers in the German Army, the latest exploits of terrorists of various kinds (there is bloody terrorism, as there is publicity terrorism, the sartorial terrorism of crazy fashions, and finally the pornographic terrorism of sexual assault), humans planning to reach Mars, cancers that no one can beat, and Paul VI receiving girls in shorts. All of this is “news.” What does this information frenzy do? Does it arouse interest, attract, or guide?
In my opinion, most of the time it causes confusion, agitation, and ultimately boredom – yes, boredom within agitation. This is the state of spirit that the information plethora creates in very many of our contemporaries.
In short, everyone knows everything, understands nothing, some become nervous wrecks, and almost everyone yawns for lack of anything better. How could it be otherwise?
Everything seems to be rushing toward the abyss… that never appears but could appear at any moment.
Will “Ostpolitik” ultimately open Europe’s gates to Russia’s ideological and political invasion? It seems so, but the situation is stuck. Ask an average reader why. He has already lost his footing and no longer knows.
Will the “Vietnamization” of the war in Southeast Asia come to an end? It seems so, but so slowly that no one knows when. Will it lead to the victory of communism? It seems so, but it is not certain. Ask readers what they think. They no longer know.
How is the Arab-Israeli conflict progressing? Few readers can say clearly. What will its outcome be? A decade-long stalemate or a sudden, precarious agreement? Or perhaps the outbreak of World War III, even before I finish this article? No one knows.
Who can predict what will happen in the Vatican after the girls in shorts were received? And who can say what new concession Nixon will make on his sad journey toward the decline of the US? No one dares to predict.
In South America, what will communist Chile and Bolivia, along with “Peruvianized” Peru, do? Will they attack the free countries? With weapons? With propaganda? What will the still-free part of the continent do then? How will the superpowers respond? Where is Lanusse headed? Where is he dragging the hemisphere? Anything can happen, or nothing will happen. No one understands each other.
* * *
But someone might say the problem lies not so much in the excess of news as in the excess of disorder. I agree. The two factors add up.
However, I ask: to what extent is the disorder of facts, already so immense and tragic, further exacerbated by the frenetic sensationalism of this information overproduction?
Above all, who benefits from this overexcitement?
In the communist world, it enters in dribs and drabs, filtered through relentless censorship. Meanwhile, in our world, it circulates in torrents.
What effect does it produce here? What is the nature of this bewilderment if not to discourage and sap people’s will to fight?
The decline in the will to fight is half the defeat…
It is to this phenomenon that I call the attention of men capable of finding a remedy.
