Book, Political Ridiculousness: investigation into the laughable, manipulation[LS]

Language: Brazilian Portuguese. An investigation into the laughable, image manipulation and the aesthetically correct. From the author of How to Talk to a Fascist. The ridiculous scenes – and the already well-known characters – convey the meaning of politics in our days, but not just as a mess made by people unprepared for the positions they occupy. The misrepresentation serves a new politics, in a highly problematic sense: power is transformed into violence, and the seriousness of certain issues gives way to cynicism. Abusers of power remain ever more powerful as harmless jokesters or buffoons, often even trustworthy, while the population pays a huge price for a depoliticization presented as the best of all worlds. Loose on a social scale, fascism, machismo and racism set the rhythm and tone of politics today without it seeming like anything can be done. By introducing the notion of “political ridicule” into the debate about aesthetics and politics, the essays in this book are an original – and fundamental – contribution by Marcia Tiburi to make us think about how serious the habit of not treating political things seriously is.