The cancellation of Maria Rita Kehl and the pitfalls of identity politics.

By Rodrigo Toniol

Last week, psychoanalyst Maria Rita Kehl was the target of a virtual lynching after criticizing what she called the "identity movement." The reaction to her speech included an argument reminiscent of humanity's worst crimes: the idea that she should remain silent because of a genetically transmitted "moral inheritance."

The accusers were referring to the fact that Kehl's grandfather had been a eugenicist in the early 20th century, suggesting, therefore, that she had inherited his "moral palette" through her genes.

History shows us that when biology and moral judgment come together in the same argument, the serpent's egg has already been hatched.

The attacks took over social media profiles and even encouraged people to edit Kehl's biography on Wikipedia, highlighting his 'hereditary degeneration' — to use a term dear to eugenic theories.

The criticism made by the psychoanalyst that motivated the online attack was that the identitarian movement is a "narcissistic niche." According to her, in the dynamics of this movement, only those who belong to the group can speak about it. They have the "right to speak." For everyone else, only the "right to be silent" remains, as Kehl proposed.

Maria Rita Kehl is one of Brazil's leading psychoanalysts and worked with the Landless Workers' Movement for decades. Invited by Dilma Rousseff, she was a member of the National Truth Commission, which investigated crimes against human rights during the dictatorship. Last week, however, her biography was reduced to that of "granddaughter of the father of Brazilian eugenics."

It is as common as it is worrying that identity movements, associated with the progressive camp, attack those who are also in this camp. This was also the case with Lilia Schwarcz who, despite her extensive work on racism and eugenics in Brazil, was vilified for a criticism she made of Beyoncé.

Systematically turning former allies into enemies makes self-destruction only a matter of time.

In the virtual massacre against Kehl, the psychoanalyst was stripped of the authorship of her own life. Her biography was ignored or reduced to her genetic inheritance.

Now, isn't the anti-racist struggle precisely against the accusation of hereditary moral behaviors? The logic that moral impurities are transmitted through blood ties led the most authoritarian regimes of the 20th century to the extermination of millions. Holding Kehl accountable for her grandfather's actions dangerously revives the formula of essentializing biological morality.

If authorized, will we start charging the descendants of a criminal for the crimes of their parents, uncles, and grandparents?

In Greek mythology, which Kehl referenced, Narcissus was a very handsome young man who was cursed by the goddess Nemesis. His punishment was that he would never fall in love with anyone other than his own reflection and would always despise others for not being as beautiful as him.

This is the paradox of identitarianism: although it emerged as a movement to address difference, it itself cannot cope with difference. Just like Narcissus.

It is worth remembering that one of the figures who was hopelessly in love with Narcissus was the nymph Echo. This nymph was also cursed. In her case, the punishment she received was that she could never initiate any dialogue and was condemned to always have the last word in the form of an echo. Just like the identitarian movement.

Narcissus, enamored with himself, drowned upon seeing his reflection in the water and trying to grasp it. Echo ended her life isolated in a cave, never able to converse with anyone.

Like Maria Rita Kehl, I fear the risk that the progressive democratic field runs of being captured by movements that will take us to the bottom of the river or to the depths of solitude in a cave.

* Text originally published in Folha de S. Paul, on February 12, 2025, and in Boitempo's blog.