Olavo de Carvalho(1947-2022)
- Writer
- Producer
Olavo de Carvalho, born in Campinas, State of São Paulo, Brazil, on April 29th, 1947, has been hailed by critics as one of the most original and audacious Brazilian thinkers of all time. People of intellectual inclinations as diverse as Wolfgang Smith, Diana West, Jeffrey Nyquist and President of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro have already expressed their admiration for his person and for his work.
The keynote of his work is the defense of human interiority against the tyranny of collective authority, especially when supported by a "scientific" ideology. For Olavo de Carvalho, there is an indissoluble link between the objectivity of knowledge and the autonomy of individual conscience, a link that gets lost when the criterion of validity of knowledge is reduced to a uniform and impersonal form for use by the academic class. Believing that the most solid shelter of individual conscience against alienation and reification is found in ancient spiritual traditions -- Taoism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam -- Olavo de Carvalho seeks to give a new interpretation to the symbols and rites of these traditions, making them the matrixes of a philosophical and scientific strategy for solving problems in today's culture.
An example of this strategy is his brief essay "Os Gêneros Literários: Seus Fundamentos Metafísicos" ["The Literary Genres: Their Metaphysical Foundations"], where he uses the symbolism of verb tenses in sacred languages (Arabic, Hebrew, Sanskrit and Greek) to re-substantiate the distinctions between literary genres. Another example is his reinterpretation of Aristotle's logical writings, where he discovers, among Poetics, Rhetoric, Dialectics and Logic, common principles that imply a unified science of discourse in which answers are found to many topical questions of interdisciplinarity and that he wrote about in "Aristóteles em Nova Perspectiva: Introdução à Teoria dos Quatro Discursos" ["An Aristotelian Philosophy of Culture - An Introduction to the Four Discourse Theory"].
Along the same lines is the essay "Símbolos e Mitos no Filme 'O Silêncio dos Inocentes'" ["Symbols and Myths in the Movie 'The Silence Of The Lambs'"] which was called a "fascinating and - dare I say - definitive analysis" by Prof. José Carlos Monteiro, from the Film School of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. In this work, Olavo applies to a discipline as modern as film criticism the criteria of the ancient symbolic hermeneutics.
His work published so far culminates in "O Jardim das Aflições" ["The Garden of Afflictions"], where some primordial symbols like the biblical Leviathan and Beemoth, the cross, the khien and the khouen of the Chinese tradition, etc., serve as structural molds for a philosophy of history, which, starting from an apparently minor event and taking it as an occasion to show the links between the small and the large, widens in concentric turns until it encompasses the entire horizon of Western culture. The subtlety of the construction makes "The Garden of Afflictions" also a work of art.
There is great difficulty in translating Olavo de Carvalho's texts into another language other than its original highly expressive Portuguese, where the depth of the themes, the relentless logic of the demonstrations and the breadth of cultural references are combined with a most unique style, which introduces the use of popular language -- including many wordplays of Brazilian daily life, of great comicality, practically untranslatable, as well as sudden changes of tone where the expressions of the sermo vulgaris, interspersed with the most technical and rigorous philosophical language, acquire unforeseen connotations and surprising depth.
Olavo de Carvalho's work also has a controversial component, where, with forceful eloquence and a fearful sense of humor, he exposes the false academic prestige and the fallacies of the current intellectual discourse. His book "O Imbecil Coletivo: Atualidades Inculturais Brasileiras" ["The Collective Imbecile: Brazilian Incultural News"] earned him a good number of enemies in the so-called "literate circles", but also a multitude of devout readers, who sold out the first edition of the work in three weeks, and the second in four days.
Based in the United States from 2005 until his death in early 2022, Olavo de Carvalho undertook one of the most ambitious and successful educational projects that Brazil has ever known, the Online Philosophy Course, better known as "COF" (acronym for Curso Online de Filosofia, in Portuguese), reaching thousands of students. A successor to the Permanent Seminar on Philosophy and Humanities, a course that he taught in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Curitiba, the COF has been educating a new generation of Brazilian aiming at a rebirth of high culture in the country after decades on intellectual decline brought about by a Marxist take over of the cultural fields.
In philosophy, his main area of expertise, he also published "Maquiavel ou A Confusão Demoníaca" ["Machiavelli or The Demonic Confusion"], "A Filosofia e seu Inverso" ["Philosophy and Its Inverse"] and "Visões de Descartes - Entre o Gênio Mau e o Espírito da Verdade" ["Visions of Descartes And The Psychology of Doubt."], all published in Brazil by Vide Editorial publishing company.
Important for the understanding of Vladimir Putin's political-military strategy and the precepts of Eurasianism on the world stage was the internet debate between the Olavo and professor Alexandre Dugin, an eminent Russian thinker and strategist, which took place in 2011 and was published in book form by Vide Editorial under the title "Os EUA e a Nova Ordem Mundial" ["The USA and the New World Order"].
In 2013, Olavo soared to the top of the bestseller lists in Brazil with "O Mínimo que Você Precisa Saber Para Não Ser um Idiota" ["The Minimum You Need to Know to Not Be an Idiot"], with a selection of articles published in the Brazilian press, between 1997 and 2013. This book elevated him to the status of one of the most successful authors of recent times, with more than 400 thousand copies sold.
His time as a columnist for the newspaper Diário do Comércio between 2005 and 2015 also yielded the 8-volume collection "Cartas de Um Terráqueo ao Planeta Brasil" ["Letters From An Earthling To Planet Brazil"] also published by Vide Editorial. With an acute, fierce and profoundly critical voice, his articles cover topics related to culture, politics, education, philosophy, behavior and society with a stylistic richness that has not been seen in the Brazilian press for a long time.
In contrast to the image of being a spiteful bully that his opponents wanted to superimpose on his authentic figure, Olavo de Carvalho is recognized, among those who enjoy his acquaintanceship, as a man of balanced and calm temperament even in the most difficult situations, and as a generous soul capable of taking to the ultimate consequences, even at his own loss, the gift of loving, helping and forgiving others.
He died in Virginia on January 24, 2022 and is survived by his wife and 8 children.
The keynote of his work is the defense of human interiority against the tyranny of collective authority, especially when supported by a "scientific" ideology. For Olavo de Carvalho, there is an indissoluble link between the objectivity of knowledge and the autonomy of individual conscience, a link that gets lost when the criterion of validity of knowledge is reduced to a uniform and impersonal form for use by the academic class. Believing that the most solid shelter of individual conscience against alienation and reification is found in ancient spiritual traditions -- Taoism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam -- Olavo de Carvalho seeks to give a new interpretation to the symbols and rites of these traditions, making them the matrixes of a philosophical and scientific strategy for solving problems in today's culture.
An example of this strategy is his brief essay "Os Gêneros Literários: Seus Fundamentos Metafísicos" ["The Literary Genres: Their Metaphysical Foundations"], where he uses the symbolism of verb tenses in sacred languages (Arabic, Hebrew, Sanskrit and Greek) to re-substantiate the distinctions between literary genres. Another example is his reinterpretation of Aristotle's logical writings, where he discovers, among Poetics, Rhetoric, Dialectics and Logic, common principles that imply a unified science of discourse in which answers are found to many topical questions of interdisciplinarity and that he wrote about in "Aristóteles em Nova Perspectiva: Introdução à Teoria dos Quatro Discursos" ["An Aristotelian Philosophy of Culture - An Introduction to the Four Discourse Theory"].
Along the same lines is the essay "Símbolos e Mitos no Filme 'O Silêncio dos Inocentes'" ["Symbols and Myths in the Movie 'The Silence Of The Lambs'"] which was called a "fascinating and - dare I say - definitive analysis" by Prof. José Carlos Monteiro, from the Film School of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. In this work, Olavo applies to a discipline as modern as film criticism the criteria of the ancient symbolic hermeneutics.
His work published so far culminates in "O Jardim das Aflições" ["The Garden of Afflictions"], where some primordial symbols like the biblical Leviathan and Beemoth, the cross, the khien and the khouen of the Chinese tradition, etc., serve as structural molds for a philosophy of history, which, starting from an apparently minor event and taking it as an occasion to show the links between the small and the large, widens in concentric turns until it encompasses the entire horizon of Western culture. The subtlety of the construction makes "The Garden of Afflictions" also a work of art.
There is great difficulty in translating Olavo de Carvalho's texts into another language other than its original highly expressive Portuguese, where the depth of the themes, the relentless logic of the demonstrations and the breadth of cultural references are combined with a most unique style, which introduces the use of popular language -- including many wordplays of Brazilian daily life, of great comicality, practically untranslatable, as well as sudden changes of tone where the expressions of the sermo vulgaris, interspersed with the most technical and rigorous philosophical language, acquire unforeseen connotations and surprising depth.
Olavo de Carvalho's work also has a controversial component, where, with forceful eloquence and a fearful sense of humor, he exposes the false academic prestige and the fallacies of the current intellectual discourse. His book "O Imbecil Coletivo: Atualidades Inculturais Brasileiras" ["The Collective Imbecile: Brazilian Incultural News"] earned him a good number of enemies in the so-called "literate circles", but also a multitude of devout readers, who sold out the first edition of the work in three weeks, and the second in four days.
Based in the United States from 2005 until his death in early 2022, Olavo de Carvalho undertook one of the most ambitious and successful educational projects that Brazil has ever known, the Online Philosophy Course, better known as "COF" (acronym for Curso Online de Filosofia, in Portuguese), reaching thousands of students. A successor to the Permanent Seminar on Philosophy and Humanities, a course that he taught in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Curitiba, the COF has been educating a new generation of Brazilian aiming at a rebirth of high culture in the country after decades on intellectual decline brought about by a Marxist take over of the cultural fields.
In philosophy, his main area of expertise, he also published "Maquiavel ou A Confusão Demoníaca" ["Machiavelli or The Demonic Confusion"], "A Filosofia e seu Inverso" ["Philosophy and Its Inverse"] and "Visões de Descartes - Entre o Gênio Mau e o Espírito da Verdade" ["Visions of Descartes And The Psychology of Doubt."], all published in Brazil by Vide Editorial publishing company.
Important for the understanding of Vladimir Putin's political-military strategy and the precepts of Eurasianism on the world stage was the internet debate between the Olavo and professor Alexandre Dugin, an eminent Russian thinker and strategist, which took place in 2011 and was published in book form by Vide Editorial under the title "Os EUA e a Nova Ordem Mundial" ["The USA and the New World Order"].
In 2013, Olavo soared to the top of the bestseller lists in Brazil with "O Mínimo que Você Precisa Saber Para Não Ser um Idiota" ["The Minimum You Need to Know to Not Be an Idiot"], with a selection of articles published in the Brazilian press, between 1997 and 2013. This book elevated him to the status of one of the most successful authors of recent times, with more than 400 thousand copies sold.
His time as a columnist for the newspaper Diário do Comércio between 2005 and 2015 also yielded the 8-volume collection "Cartas de Um Terráqueo ao Planeta Brasil" ["Letters From An Earthling To Planet Brazil"] also published by Vide Editorial. With an acute, fierce and profoundly critical voice, his articles cover topics related to culture, politics, education, philosophy, behavior and society with a stylistic richness that has not been seen in the Brazilian press for a long time.
In contrast to the image of being a spiteful bully that his opponents wanted to superimpose on his authentic figure, Olavo de Carvalho is recognized, among those who enjoy his acquaintanceship, as a man of balanced and calm temperament even in the most difficult situations, and as a generous soul capable of taking to the ultimate consequences, even at his own loss, the gift of loving, helping and forgiving others.
He died in Virginia on January 24, 2022 and is survived by his wife and 8 children.
