AS LEITURAS SÃO COMO AS CEREJAS
Se me pedissem para eleger o jornalista/ensaísta que, até há data, mais me encheu as medidas, poderia hesitar uns bons minutos mas estou em crer que Clive James levaria a taça. E se me pedissem um texto de James para exemplificar as suas qualidades, indicaria a sua própria introdução à colectânea de ensaios Even As We Speak. É impressionante como, em apenas oito páginas, James consegue dizer tanto e tão bem, num estilo vibrante, contagiante, único. Clive James é, de facto, “uma brilhante cambada de tipos”. Todos em estado de graça.
Na já referida introduction (a que volto sempre que preciso de ganhar novo alento para ler, aproveitando, en passant, para saber o que este mitra anda a perder), lê-se, a certa altura:
“If I had wanted to be thought deep, I would have spent the last thirty years proposing something a lot less scrutable than the elementary proposition that democracy is even more important for what it prevents than for what it provides. Some quite complicated issues grow out of that proposition – the most troublesome being that a free nation is bound to provide opportunities for incitement to the very kind of suffocating orthodoxies whose hegemony it exists to prevent – but there is something complicated about the proposition itself, beyond the consideration that historic circumstances drilled it into my head almost before I could spell the words in which it is written.”
E lembrei-me de Popper:
“A diferença entre uma democracia e uma ditadura reside no facto de que numa democracia podemos desembaraçar-nos do governo sem derramamento de sangue e numa ditadura não.”
Daí até Hayek foi um pulinho:
“Democracy has been used to describe various kinds of things which have little to do with the original meaning of the term, and now is even often used where what is really meant ‘equality’. Strictly speaking it refers to a method or procedure for determining governmental decisions and neither refers to some substantial good or aim of government (such as a sort of material equality), nor is it a method that can be meaningfully applied to non-governmental organizations (such as educational, medical, military or commercial establishments). Both of these abuses deprive the word ‘democracy’ of any clear meaning. (…) Though democracy itself is not freedom, it is one of the most important safeguards of freedom. As the only method of peaceful change of government yet discovered, it is one of those paramount though negative values, comparable to sanitary precautions against a plague, of which we are hardly aware while they are effective, but the absence of which may be deadly.”
E, finalmente, Jorge Sampaio:
“Já no final do mês de Novembro de 2004, apercebi-me da inevitabilidade da sua demissão." (*)
(*) excerto de "As Minhas Memórias", de Jorge Sampaio, a que o Contra a Corrente teve acesso. A publicar daqui as uns aninhos.
Na já referida introduction (a que volto sempre que preciso de ganhar novo alento para ler, aproveitando, en passant, para saber o que este mitra anda a perder), lê-se, a certa altura:
“If I had wanted to be thought deep, I would have spent the last thirty years proposing something a lot less scrutable than the elementary proposition that democracy is even more important for what it prevents than for what it provides. Some quite complicated issues grow out of that proposition – the most troublesome being that a free nation is bound to provide opportunities for incitement to the very kind of suffocating orthodoxies whose hegemony it exists to prevent – but there is something complicated about the proposition itself, beyond the consideration that historic circumstances drilled it into my head almost before I could spell the words in which it is written.”
E lembrei-me de Popper:
“A diferença entre uma democracia e uma ditadura reside no facto de que numa democracia podemos desembaraçar-nos do governo sem derramamento de sangue e numa ditadura não.”
Daí até Hayek foi um pulinho:
“Democracy has been used to describe various kinds of things which have little to do with the original meaning of the term, and now is even often used where what is really meant ‘equality’. Strictly speaking it refers to a method or procedure for determining governmental decisions and neither refers to some substantial good or aim of government (such as a sort of material equality), nor is it a method that can be meaningfully applied to non-governmental organizations (such as educational, medical, military or commercial establishments). Both of these abuses deprive the word ‘democracy’ of any clear meaning. (…) Though democracy itself is not freedom, it is one of the most important safeguards of freedom. As the only method of peaceful change of government yet discovered, it is one of those paramount though negative values, comparable to sanitary precautions against a plague, of which we are hardly aware while they are effective, but the absence of which may be deadly.”
E, finalmente, Jorge Sampaio:
“Já no final do mês de Novembro de 2004, apercebi-me da inevitabilidade da sua demissão." (*)
(*) excerto de "As Minhas Memórias", de Jorge Sampaio, a que o Contra a Corrente teve acesso. A publicar daqui as uns aninhos.
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