From negation to negationism: the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil

Author:
Paulo Beer University of São Paulo, Brazil

Search for other papers by Paulo Beer in
Current site
Google Scholar Close
Article Category:
Research Article
Copyright:
© Policy Press 2021
Online Publication Date:
13 Sep 2021
Pages:
187–201
Publisher:
Policy Press
Volume/Issue:
Volume 14: Issue 3
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1332/147867321X16285243650694
Restricted access
Get eTOC alerts
Rights and permissions Cite this article
Buy article/chapter (
GBP  £25.00
)

Even beyond the dramatic social and health consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, one can affirm that the manner in which the pandemic was and is being handled in Brazil involves more than mere questions of public health. This article focuses on the negationist discourse that emerged in Brazil, and proposes that its roots are to be found in a previous process of dismantling established knowledge and identifications. This process is observed in the government’s handling of the pandemic. To support this idea, we refer to two main clinical and theoretical frameworks, the first of which involves a psychoanalytic understanding of the place of truth in discursivity and in identification processes; this will be employed to shed light on a particular functioning of negationist discourses. Second, the idea of historical ontology is introduced from the philosophy of science to gain a further understanding of the effects of this process on identification.

  • Ajzenman, N., Cavalcanti, T. and Da Mata, D. (2020) More than words: leaders’ speech and risky behavior during a pandemic, Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 2034, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Badiou, A. (2005) Theoretical Writings, London: Continuum.

  • Beer, P.A.C. (2020) A Questão da Verdade na Produção de Conhecimento Sobre Sofrimento Psíquico: Considerações A Partir de Ian Hacking e Jacques Lacan, São Paulo: Tese de Doutorado, Instituto de Psicologia, Universidade de São Paulo, doi: 10.11606/T.47.2020.tde-28052020-185500.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Castro, M., Massuda, A., Almeida, G., Menezes-Filho, A., Andrade, M., Noronha, K., Rocha, R., Macinko, J., Hone, T., Tasca, R. et al. (2019) Brazil’s unified health system: the first 30 years and prospects for the future, The Lancet, 394(10195): 345–56, doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(19)31243–7.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Consensus (2017) A queda da imunização no Brasil, https://www.conass.org.br/consensus/queda-da-imunizacao-brasil/.

  • Da Silva Junior, N. (2019) The politics of truth and its transformations in neoliberalism: the subject supposed to know in algorithmic times, Filozofski Vestnik. Ljubljana, Slovenija, 40(3): 133–44, https://ojs.zrc-sazu.si/filozofski-vestnik/article/view/8125.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Dunker, C. (2015) Mal-estar, sofrimento e sintoma. São Paulo: Boitempo.

  • Ferigato, S., Fernandez, M., Amorim, M., Ambrogi, I., Fernandes, L. and Pacheco, R. (2020) The Brazilian government’s mistakes in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, The Lancet, 396(10263): 1636, doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(20)32164-4.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Freud, S. (1908a) ‘Civilized’ Sexual Morality, and Modern Nervous Illness, SE 9, London: Hogarth.

  • Freud, S. (1908b) On the Sexual Theories of Children, SE 9, London: Hogarth.

  • Freud, S. (1921) Mass Psychology, and the Analysis of the Ego, SE 18, London: Hogarth.

  • Freud, S. (1923) The Ego, and the id, SE 19, London: Hogarth.

  • Freud, S. (1925) Negation, SE 19, London: Hogarth.

  • Freud, S. (1937) Constructions in Analysis, SE 23, London: Hogarth.

  • Gajanan, M. (2018) Donald Trump: ‘What you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening’, Time, 24 July, https://time.com/5347737/trump-quote-george-orwell-vfw-speech.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Garcia, G., Gomes, P.H. and Viana, H. (2020) E daí? Lamento: quer que eu faça o quê?’, diz Bolsonaro sobre mortes por coronavírus; ‘Sou Messias, mas não faço milagre’, G1, 28 April, https://g1.globo.com/politica/noticia/2020/04/28/e-dai-lamento-quer-que-eu-faca-o-que-diz-bolsonaro-sobre-mortes-por-coronavirus-no-brasil.ghtml.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Gaspar, M. (2021) O sabotador: como Bolsonaro agiu, nos bastidores e em público, para boicotar a vacina, Revista Piauí, Edição 173, February, https://piaui.folha.uol.com.br/materia/o-sabotador.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Gomes, P.H. (2020) Brasileiro pula em esgoto e não acontece nada, diz Bolsonaro em alusão a infecção pelo coronavírus, G1, https://g1.globo.com/politica/noticia/2020/03/26/brasileiro-pula-em-esgoto-e-nao-acontece-nada-diz-bolsonaro-em-alusao-a-infeccao-pelo-coronavirus.ghtml.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Gragnani, J. (2019) O que é ‘globalismo’, termo usado pelo novo chanceler brasileiro e por Trump?, BBC Brazil, https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/internacional-46786314.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Hacking, I. (1995) Rewriting the Soul: Multiple Personality and the Sciences of Memory, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

  • Hacking, I. (1998) Mad Travelers: Reflections on the Reality of Transient Mental Illness, London: University Press of Virginia.

  • Hacking, I. (2002) Historical Ontology, Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

  • Jucá, B. (2021) Capitã cloroquina’ admite documento que pressionou Manaus a usar o remédio ineficaz e contradiz Pazuello três vezes, El País Brasil, https://brasil.elpais.com/brasil/2021-05-25/capita-cloroquina-admite-documento-que-pressionou-manaus-a-usar-o-remedio-ineficaz-e-contradiz-pazuello-tres-vezes.html.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Kohut, H. (1979) The two analyses of Mr Z, International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 60(1): 3–27.

  • Lacan, J. ([1945] 2006) Logical time and the assertion of anticipated certainty, in Écrits, London and New York: Norton.

  • Lacan, J. ([1953] 2007) O Mito Individual do Neurótico, Rio de Janeiro: Jorge Zahar Ed.

  • Lacan, J. ([1953–54] 1991) The Seminar, Book I: Freud’s Papers on Technique, J. Forrester (trans), London and New York: Norton.

  • Lacan, J. ([1955] 2006) The freudian thing, in Écrits, London and New York: Norton.

  • Lacan, J. ([1958] 2006) The direction of the treatment and the principles of its power, in Écrits, London and New York: Norton.

  • Lacan, J. ([1964] 2008) Seminário, Livro 11: Os Quatro Conceitos Fundamentais da Psicanálise, Rio de Janeiro: Jorge Zahar.

  • Lacan, J. ([1966] 2006) Science and truth, in Écrits, London and New York: Norton.

  • Lacan, J. ([1973] 2003) Televisão, in Outros Escritos, Rio de Janeiro: Zahar.

  • Lacan, J. (1967-68) Séminaire 15: L’acte psychanalitique, http://staferla.free.fr/S15/S15.htm.

  • Latour, B. (2013) An Inquiry into Modes of Existence: An Anthropology of the Moderns, Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

  • Lowy Institute (2021) Covid Performance, index, https://interactives.lowyinstitute.org/features/covid-performance/#rankings.

  • Orwell, G. (1949) 1984, London: Secker and Warburg.

  • Padiglione, C. (2018) Não tem Whatsapp? GloboNews submete Miriam Leitão a ditado para rebater Bolsonaro, Folha de São Paulo, 4 August, https://telepadi.folha.uol.com.br/nao-tem-whatsapp-globonews-submete-miriam-leitao-repetir-ponto-eletronico-para-refutar-bolsonaro.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Passarinho, N. (2021) Brasil consegue vacinar 60 milhões por mês contra covid-19; só falta a vacina, diz fundador da Anvisa, BBC Brazil, 21 February, https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/brasil-56104951.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Rose, N. (1996) Inventing Ourselves, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

  • Scherer, M. (2017) Read President Trump’s interview with TIME on truth and falsehoods, Time, 23 March, https://time.com/4710456/donald-trump-time-interview-truth-falsehood/?xid=homepage.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Teitelbaum, B. (2020) War for Eternity: Inside Bannon’s Far-Right Circle of Global Powerbrokers, New York: Dey Street Books.

  • The Lancet (2011) Brazil (Global Health Series). The Lancet 377 (9779): 1721–2053, https://www.thelancet.com/series/health-in-brazil.

  • Uribe, G. (2020) Bolsonaro estimula população a invadir hospitais para filmar oferta de leitos, Folha de São Paulo, 11 June, https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/cotidiano/2020/06/bolsonaro-estimula-populacao-a-invadir-hospitais-para-filmar-oferta-de-leitos.shtml.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Vilalta, L.P. (2020) O neoliberalismo é uma governamentalidade algorítmica. Lacuna: uma revista de psicanálise, São Paulo, 9: 7.

  • Walsh, N., Shelley, J., Duwe, E. and Bonnett, W. (2020) Bolsonaro calls coronavirus a ‘little flu’: inside Brazil’s hospitals, doctors know the horrifying reality, CNN, 25 May, https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/23/americas/brazil-coronavirus-hospitals-intl/index.html.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Winnicott, D. (1971) Playing and Reality, London: Routledge, 2005.

  • Worldmeters (2021) COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, 26 July 2021, https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus.

Paulo Beer University of São Paulo, Brazil

Search for other papers by Paulo Beer in
Current site
Google Scholar Close

beerpaulo@gmail.com

Content Metrics

May 2022 onwards Past Year Past 30 Days
Abstract Views 699 615 252
Full Text Views 434 7 1
PDF Downloads 335 4 0

Altmetrics

Dimensions

Cover Journal of Psychosocial Studies
Journal of Psychosocial Studies