Por uma filosofia do subdesenvolvimento : história, estética e colonialismo a partir de Vilém Flusser

Abstract

In his book Phenomenology of the Brazilian, Vilém Flusser problematizes the relationship between “historical peoples” (First World) and “non-historical peoples” (Third World). In other words, the former can be read as the colonizers and the latter as the colonized, since the philosopher highlights the cultural domination that constitutes this relationship, and this type of domination is at the heart of Frantz Fanon's definition of colonized people. With the aim of investigating Flusser's contribution to decolonial critique, especially to research into aesthetics, we turned to the study of history as a philosophical problem based on a reading of Hegel, Nietzsche and Walter Benjamin in order to understand the terminology used by Flusser. This study showed that a purely non-historical dimension cannot be sustained, but Flusser's use of this expression denounces that the history of Brazil, like that of other Third World countries, has been made in an inauthentic way. This is because during the so-called colonial period, Brazilian history was effectively written by Europeans. As this period is over but the colonial logic continues, there is currently an “underdeveloped bourgeoisie” that represents Eurocentric interests by writing Brazilian history using terms from the central countries. According to Flusser, these terms are imported and adopted in peripheral countries in order to compose outdated narratives, i.e. those in which there is a mismatch between what is narrated and what is experienced. The lag reinforces the idea that countries in the Southern Hemisphere are backward compared to those in the Northern Hemisphere, since imported labels are obviously first used in their country of origin and then adopted elsewhere in the world. Although the notion of backwardness is fallacious, since all the phases currently in force coexist, this idea reverberates in Brazilian reception and aesthetic productions. Flusser discusses this in the light of the baroque of Minas Gerais, which, according to him, can only be admired if it is not read as baroque. He argues that “baroque”, as a historical and European category, omits the heterogeneity inherent in the so-called baroque of Minas Gerais, and its originality refers precisely to this character of synthesis that is omitted. This Flusserian discussion served as the basis for our formulation of the concept of aesthetic colonization. We concluded that breaking with the relationship of cultural domination makes it necessary, on the one hand, for anti-colonialist history to go beyond documentary pretension and be thought of aesthetically, and, on the other hand, for art to be thought of according to models different from those established by historical narratives.