By Daniel Cidade
Comments by Thiago De Oliveira Santos (DGI volunteer):
After an introduction talk about Zeitgeist – the spirit of the era, he starts with reels from a Brazilian TV show called “Roda Viva” in which Rafinha Bastos is being interviewed by Mauricio Stycer. At the time, Rafinha Bastos was facing a public backlash because of a joke that he made in a TV Program. Mauricio Stycer argues that the 90’s famous Brazilian figure known as Didi was able to make racists jokes on tv as he was Didi, a carismatic and beloved figure, in opposition to Rafinha Bastos, that didn’t share the same features.
Rafinha goes on to point out that the problem wasn’t because of the joke or the persona rather because people like Mauricio Stycer would spend their whole day looking for the next big gossip or the next scandal. The YouTuber uses this to give context about how both of them are wrong in their arguments and how problematic this discussion really was. He starts by saying that Mauricio Stycer point of view isn’t valid because the thing wasn’t that Didi could do this, as at the time when the Didi program was on air, people would be offended by him, but due to the social and economic problems in society, they wouldn’t have the means to protest against Did. That belief that the Zeitgeist allowed this kind of thing to happen nonetheless is not true.
The YouTuber then brings another reel of a person, whom I am not familiar that tries to explain the concept of Zeitgeist using the exactly same subject of discussion from the prior video, which is Didi’s tv show “Os Trapalhões” – a kind of Three Stooges, but in this case, were 4 – and how the zeitgeist at time allowed them to make racists and homophobic jokes, and since this wasn’t allowed anymore, we should all adapt to our current zeitgeist. In the reels, it is said that the concept of zeitgeist is a phenomena of philosophy and psychology, and the YouTuber comes to say that this isn’t the case as zeitgeist is also an economic and political phenomena. He then returns to the argument of how most people in society aren’t able to confront this kind of behavior, by being excluded from the public social and economic debate. He brings a more modern example, talking about the red Brazilian football t-shirt, which made an impact in recent weeks as it fueled the discussions that we have nowadays in Brazil about the far-right capturing national symbols, like the yellow football t-shirt, and since CBF – Brazilian Football Confederation – is one of the most corrupt organizations in the country, this red shirt is only money-making scheme by people who stopped buying the yellow t-shirt for political reasons, and not because CBF suddenly became communist.
The Youtuber then sums up his arguments by saying that zeitgeist is a real thing, but we need to sum up the political and economical aspects of the society to better understand the zeitgeist and how capitalism is inclined to capture revolt as a means to continually oppress people.
He then brings two videos about the situation in Gaza , and the naturalization of everything that is going on there right now and talks about how it is not just an economic and political critique, but a moral critic about what is happening , and how he – the youtuber – has criticisms of capitalism not only in its structure, but also in its basic values. He argues that without a moral critique, some people will still defend capitalism, that some people might not see its structure as a problem and that only by showcasing capitalism’s moral problems is it possible sometimes to show how capitalism isn’t going to work.
He spent a lot of time in this discussion, bringing some comments from his followers and answering them.
By the 01:16:00 mark of the video, he opens the video of David Graber talking about Marx and the case of the energy companies uniting themselves to write a letter to have more governmental constraints, using an automatic legend generated by capcut. He states that for him, David is the greatest thinker of the XXI century and then goes on to explore David Graeber’s point of how the intentions and morals inside of a capitalist system, do not make a difference. He brings a phrase popularized by another brazilian youtuber called João Carvalho, talking about how capitalism failed, fails and will fail – Falhou, falha e falhará.
He then starts answering some questions of his followers, about the famous Focault-Chomsky debate of morality and some other questions.
In short, the video is a live reaction that was recorded and submitted to youtube. The Youtuber brings on some discussion about subjectivism and moralism in current capitalist society and how despite some notions that seem to be more progressive or such, the structures that capitalism provides to society will eventually be responsible for society losing its humanity.