Adjectives, truths, and versions

"I am nothing. I will never be anything. I cannot want to be anything. Apart from that, I have within me all the dreams of the world.

(Fernando Pessoa)

Introduction. I begin by apologizing to everyone, because sometimes my arguments are too assertive and may cause discomfort, but I confess: I seek this unease, because I believe that only through debate can we move forward in a solid way and learn from each other.

Furthermore, I am not someone whose opinions can alter the Earth's rotation and revolution; these are my opinions and reflections, which I submit to criticism, corrections, and additions.

Having made that introduction, I will comment on an event that involved former President Tancredo Neves and the senators who supported the civil-military coup in 1964, namely the statement that João Goulart had abandoned Brazil.

Adjectives In the early morning of April 2, 1964, the presidency of the republic was declared vacant, but it was a necessary lie to legitimize the coup. Tancredo Neves reacted to what was happening in Congress that April of 1964 and, shouting, immortalized the phrase: “"Scoundrels! Scoundrels! Scoundrels!" The adjectives used were forceful, but Tancredo knew that the gravity of what was happening would only be understood over time with the use of a precise adjective, so he chose... "scoundrels""Tancredo expressed his indignation at the false statement by the then-president of the Senate, Auro Moura Andrade, that the Presidency of the Republic was vacant due to João Goulart's abandonment of the country, when in fact the president was in Porto Alegre, as notified to the National Congress by Darcy Ribeiro, then head of the Civil House. It is true that Tancredo could have used the available synonyms: infamous, vile, abject, or rogue, but he preferred the one that seemed most appropriate, most emphatic, suited to the magnitude of his indignation and the lie that was justifying the vacancy of the presidency. Moreover, the adjective in question is in the dictionary and has a known etymological origin."Scoundrel" comes from Latin"canal", what does it mean "pack of dogs". Today, "scoundrel""It no longer has anything to do with dogs, and we no longer associate infamous acts and people with dogs, which is very fair to dogs. The use of the adjective “scoundrelThe phrase "" – chosen by Tancredo to refer to the supporters of the US-sponsored civil-military coup in the context of the Cold War – still causes discomfort, but that was the goal of Brazil's longest-serving politician. The fact is that the use of adjectives is always dangerous, whether they are complimentary or contain censure and criticism, because when we use an adjective, we seek to characterize the noun, indicating its quality, defect, state, condition, etc., according to our interpretation of reality. For example,good man" (quality), "naughty boy" (defect), "happy girl” (state), “wealthy family"(condition). The adjective can appear before or after the noun, for example, ""Bolsonaro is a liar" or ""Liar Bolsonaro".

Why are adjectives dangerous? 

Because the characterization of a noun always reveals the point of view of the person narrating the event or describing the object, and because each of us will describe what we see, hear, and feel according to our own understanding.

That is the beauty of language as a systematic means of communicating ideas or feelings.

Where do I intend to go? 

Well, when narrating an event, telling a story, or describing an object, we don't behave in an aseptic way; we are both emotion and reason. Our way of interpreting reveals our ethical, moral, and spiritual background.

Truths and versionsTo try to explain the issue of worldviews and our ability or inability to accurately report facts that we witness, I will again use the film "Rashomon" by Akira Kurosawa – a film that won two Oscars and was responsible for the inaugural presence of Japanese cinema on the international stage in 1951.

Well, the film is set in 11th-century Japan and begins when a woodcutter, a peasant, and a priest take shelter from a fierce storm in the ruins of the Rashomon Gate. 

At one point, the priest, prompted by the woodcutter, begins to recount a trial in which he was a witness; it was the trial of a bandit who had raped a woman and murdered her husband. There were witnesses, but the testimonies were conflicting, each witness describing the event in a different way. 

While the priest narrates in flash back The scenes of the trial unfold, revealing aspects of the crime from the perspective of each witness, including the spirit of the deceased, who is channeled by a medium.

The big problem for the judges is that there are four versions of the same story, and apparently nobody knows the absolute truth. 

The film is a huge parable about honesty and the limits of human dignity. None of the witnesses lied, but each of them narrated the same event in different ways, recounting or interpreting it; each told the court what they saw, heard, and felt according to their own understanding. 

The version is not a lie; the version is a personal interpretation of the fact, while a lie is fraud and a statement contrary to the truth in order to mislead. Conclusion. People, when telling the same story, are unable to do so without some contradictions, due to their ethical, moral, emotional, and intellectual background; we must understand the language used, the text (narrative), from its context historical and the objectives (pretext).

Opinion pieces are more or less that: a personal view on facts. 

The beauty of democracy is that, within the limits of the law, there is complete freedom to use the adjectives we deem appropriate when narrating facts, and we do so according to our ethical, moral, emotional, intellectual, and ideological background. Therefore, we must understand the language used, the text, from its historical context and objectives.  

These are the reflections.