The CascoDuro Case and who laughs last.. 36 comments

11 Mar 2010 @ 17:55, by Max Sandor Far from making a joke, a pack of Brazilian self-acclaimed intellectuals attacked Brazilian's President as being analaphetic and unable to speak correct Portuguese. In the end it turned out to be a joke but the joke was on them as Lula's choice of words was not only legitimate but even intelligent as I will show below. However, the problem lies deeper than using a certain word or not. It is symptomatic for a mental, oops, intellectual illness, it is a SYNDROME. One could simply focus on the obvious part and call it 'literal thinking'. But this would easily be dismissed as pertaining only to autism. In reality, an autist DOES conceive outside the framework of words but does not abide to the 'domestication process' that commands people to abstract from words the same way that had been determined by the current 'society'. In a larger sense, 'literal thinking' also describes the inability to conceive a thought outside a pre- and other-determined frame of words. In other words, to 'think outside the box'. Rigid language thus keeps people captured within a limited range of possibilities and, Heavens forbid they would step beyond those boundaries of the mind. Don't even think of it! Let's look at languages that are less rigid than Portuguese: the English of the United States is notoriously open to newly constructed expressions and even allows for 'inventing' new words, be it from scratch or through combinations of existing words like 'brunch' (= BReakfast plus lUNCH). It's no news that the American people were world leaders in innovation during the last century even though the vast majority of them is still at the 'literal level'. The German language provides another example of linguistic flexibility: agglutination. The former communist regime of Eastern Germany wanted to export their fabrications of angels for Chrismas trees without internally referring to religion. They created the new word 'Gefluegelte Jahresendfigur' - a 'figure with wings for the end of the year'. Back to the pack of predatory journalists in Brazil: they just can't confront the success story of a Northeastern metal worker becoming president. Whenever he speaks in public, they are hunting for some signs of illiteracy and they had a feast when Lula declared the other day: "tenho o casco duro", claiming it should be 'casca dura'. But the class of journalists of Brazil that is hunting for Lula-bloopers outdid themselves in their own smartness: not being a Brazilian, it took me less than 2 minutes on the Internet to find out who's right and who's wrong! This is silly, of course, but it comes to show that preconceived thinking combined with literal thinking makes anyone a fool of himself. To add shame to injustice, the same journalists and bloggers that blasted Lula for alleged 'erroneus Portuguese', took down their own pages ridiculizing Lula faster than you can say 'casco duro'. Where is Google here - to conserve this outrageous, shameful behavior of the Brazilian mass media? Like in the recent case of an accident in Sao Paulo, they quickly remove any links to whatever is not convenient to the wannabe rulers and enemies of the Brazilian president, doing their part in local politics without the official status of a lobbyist. But Google's links (or non-links!) are in part controlling the Memes of the world and in this case local politics. Something that should seriously be looked into on a larger scale! In any case, Lula, a 'simple' 'Nordestino', from a formerly poor and underdeveloped region of Brazil, rose to power in an unprecedented way and despite a massive mass media campaign of lies, unproven allegations and badmouthing in general. It was in the context of these shameful maneuvers that he stated that he survives these attacks of the mass media because of having a 'thick skin' as we would say in English. Here is a little Portuguese lesson for the Brazilian mass media who claims that 'casco' should be 'casca' and only an illiterate person could mix those up: 'casca' - the shell of an egg, the rind of a tree 'casco' - the hull of a ship, the hoof of a horse, the shell of a tortoise So, dear reader, what did Lula mean? That he's like an egg or a tree? For me the message is clear and it prompted me to engage in some interesting musings about Lula's archetype: one thinks of a metal worker as an Ogun-type person. But Lula changed his career from a worker to being an advocate for workers as a syndicalist and then, much to the surprise to Brazilian Elitists, he went on to become President of Brazil. And reelected. Wow! What a shock it must be! And what a strange way to go for an Ogun! Isn't this a classic, THE classic, path of Shango? Let's look for clues in Lula's words, not just of the other day but along the past years of presidency and we can see an old warrior carefully scheming his way amongst his own enemies, deflecting all attacks by a strong shield while maintaing his heart soft, warm, and intact, the way of the turtoise (sic!), and, after the storm is over, having the last laugh! What archetype would that be? (Note: one can find the answer, of course, in the book 'Your Personal Archetype' (by Ed, Aaron, and myself), but you can also find it on the Internet if you sift long enough through all the trash&jewels that's out there about archetypes, Orishas, Archons, Devas, you name it).

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