Reflections in Contexts of Anti-democratic Offensives

Abstract

The paper resumes debates produced during the 20th century in two different historical moments and contexts, but which present a central aspect to an anti-democratic configuration: the establishment of a political border between "us" vs. "them" from the consideration of "them" as an enemy to be destroyed. We resume discussions proposed in the book The Authoritarian Personality, published by Theodor Adorno and colleagues in 1950, and texts produced by Ignacio Martín-Baró in the 1980s, in the context of the civil war in El Salvador. The purpose of resuming these debates is to present reflections and possible solutions formulated by the authors for the social order they were questioning and, based on that, make considerations about some aspects that contribute to the understanding of anti-democratic offensives today, considering the strengthening of the extreme right in Brazil and other countries. Seeking to point out dialogues between those texts and the contemporary context, we also resort to the democratic theory developed by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. Considering what was produced in the past not as a "museum piece", but as something that instigates reflection on the past and the present is what motivates the writing of this paper.