Reflections upon Brazilian social unconscious

Abstract

This chapter explores various aspects of the Brazilian foundation matrix by means of an investigation into its historical roots, followed by reflections upon the “the existence and constraints of social, cultural and communicational arrangements of which people are unaware”. The implementation of a European culture in a vast territory like Brazil, with natural conditions somewhat hostile and strange, was, in Holanda’s opinion, the crucial event of the early Brazilian colonization. Holanda, in “Roots of Brazil”, introduces a psychological analysis of Brazilian social formation since the beginning of the Portuguese colonisation. The independence and the cult of idleness, the loose social structure and the lack of an organised hierarchy, characteristics of the Portuguese society, encouraged anarchic elements in the colony, typical of incohesion processes, all omnipresent in Brazilian society. The concept of miscegenation is tied to concepts of racial difference, diverging globally as well as historically, depending on cultural perceptions and socio-political circumstances.