Brazilian Intelligence / Intelligentsia
Brasilianische Intelligenz [Brazilian Intelligence /
Intelligentsia] (1965), an eighty-page book by Max
Bense (1910–1990), can be read as an enthusiastic
tribute to Brazil’s intellectuals, who from 1964
onward found themselves confronted by a military
dictatorship. A progressive civilization, Bense begins,
attracts attention not because of its power
relationships but because of its intellectuals. By
the time he presented his “Cartesian reflection”
(the book’s subtitle) to the then avant-garde Limes
publishing house, after four visits to Brazil Bense
had clearly worked out his aesthetic position.
(Aesthetica, his highly influential series of books
which also comprises the volume Programmierung
des Schönen [Programming the Beautiful, 1960],
had been published from 1954 onward.) Within the
circles of Brazil’s authors, visual artists, and architects,
he found representatives of contemporary
creativity that pointed to the future.
“One has stepped into the realm of an intelligence
that almost loves the adventure which begins
with making an idea reality even more than
the idea itself […].” (Bense, Brasilianische Intelligenz,
1965, p. 17; translated from the German)
Brasília, the capital city which was planned for in
the constitution in 1891 but which was only begun
in 1956 with its inauguration in 1960, is described
repeatedly by Bense as a model and example for
urbanism of the future that will replace the old
humanism: “the city as a complex, collective
housing unit” (ibid., p. 19; translated from the
German). For Bense Brasília is the “city as a
continuation of the emancipated intelligence”
(ibid., p. 21; translated from the German). In this
architecture and urbanism is concentrated what
Bense describes in his book title as “Brazilian
intelligence” or “Brazilian intelligentsia.”
Vilém Flusser saw Brazilian thought as Latin American thought that had, however, been altered, expanded, and updated by the tropics. In the literary oeuvre of João Guimarães Rosa, the music of Heitor Villa-Lobos, and in Brazilian abstract, concrete, and figurative artworks, he saw “the eruptive emergence of completely new structures.” In this Flusser was close to Bense: “Only philosophically can we understand and evaluate [these new structures].” (“Vom Denken und Nachdenken in tropischem Klima,” in: Brasilien oder die Suche nach dem neuen Menschen, 1994, p. 255; translated from the German).
Original article by Jürgen Claus in Flusseriana