Laigle’s Forum

By Olavo de Carvalho

True liberals and conservatives of this country will never make any headway as long as they continue to believe that the only thing separating them from leftists is a divergence of ideas that can be discussed publicly between equally honest, equally respectable persons.  The specific difference of the worldwide revolutionary movement is that it imbues its followers, servants and even sympathizers with a moral and psychological substance that is radically different from that throbbing in the hearts and minds of normal humanity.  The revolutionary sees himself as a member of an anointed suprahumanity endowed with special rights that are denied the common man and in fact inaccessible to his imagination.  When you debate with a leftist, he makes liberal use of these rights, which you know nothing about.  The common rules of debate that you rigorously follow, expecting him to do the same, are for him only a partial clause in a more vast and complex code that confers to him incomparably more flexible means of action than those of his opponent.  For you, proof of inconsistency is a mortal blow dealt to an argument.  For him, inconsistency can be a valuable tool to perplex the opponent and subjugate him psychologically.  For you, the contradiction between word and deed is proof of dishonesty.  For him, it is a question of method.  The actual view of the polemic confrontation as a dispute of ideas is something that is valid only for you.  For the revolutionary, ideas are integral parts of the dialectic process in the struggle for power; they are worthless of themselves; they can be changed like socks or underwear.  Every revolutionary is willing to defend “x” or the opposite of “x” depending on what is tactically convenient at the moment.  If you defeat him in the contest of “ideas,” he will try to integrate the winning idea in a strategic game that makes it work, in practice, in the opposite direction from his verbal statement.  You win, but leave empty-handed.  The debate with the revolutionary is always governed by two simultaneous codes, only one of which is known to you.  When you least expect it, he appeals to the secret code and trips you up.

You might be outraged that a deserter from the national Armed Forces is promoted to general post mortem while in the regime that he desired to establish in the country, not only these deserters but even mere civilians who attempt to abandon the territory are to be summarily shot.  You think that you have dealt a mortal blow to the revolutionary’s convictions.  But in his heart of hearts, he knows that the less the contradiction is explained and the more outrageous it is, the more useful it is in accustoming the public to the implicit belief that revolutionaries cannot be judged by ordinary moral standards.  Defeat in the field of logical arguments is an incomparably more worthwhile psychological victory.  It serves to place the revolutionary cause above the reach of logic.

You cannot defeat the revolutionary by mere “arguments.”  To these must be added an integral psychological unmasking of a tactic that is not intended to win debates but to use as an instrument of power to the point of relegating arguments to an inferior status.  In every debate situation one must transcend the sphere of logical confrontation and reveal the plan of action in which the revolutionary inserts the change of arguments and the psychological and political benefit he intends to derive from it, far beyond its apparent result.

But this means that the effective debate with leftists is that which does not allow you to become enmeshed in the formal rules of argumentation but proceeds further to total and ruthless psychological unmasking.  Proving that a leftist is wrong means nothing.  You must show that he is evil, perverse, false, deliberate and Machiavellian beneath the guise of a sincere, polite and civilized debating partner.  Do this and you will drive these people to tears of desperation, because at bottom, they know themselves and realize they are worthless.  Don’t give them the consolation of civilized camouflage fashioned from the naïve opponent’s hide.

Olavo de Carvalho is a well-known Brazilian philosoper and columnist whose articles have appeared regularly in major Brazilian newspapers. See Mr. de Carvalho’s homepage for details and further columns.

Translated from the original Portuguese by Laigle’s Forum staff.

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