I found the book A Cabeça do Brasileiro in my friend's room a few weeks ago. Given that non-self help books are almost impossible to find in the region, and promising books that purport to teach you something about Brazil are hard to find anywhere, I took the opportunity to pilfer it immediately.
The thesis of the book is excellent for anyone wanting to get a clearer picture of what sorts of attitudes, behaviors and beliefs Brazilians as a whole can be said to hold. The book takes as its point of departure the work of the famous Brazilian sociologist Roberto da Matta, whose books provided most of the basic generalizations about Brazilian culture that are still used by anyone writing about the country today. Most famously, he characterized Brazilians, relative to Americans, as hierarchical, paternalistic, and familiar, three characteristics that stand in the way of a fully functioning democracy in the country. His ideas entered the mainstream and perhaps have become clichés - Brazilians can borrow the ideas to explain away pretty much anything with a quick recitation of "well you know, we're a paternalistic society". Author Alberto Carlos Almeida's task in A Cabeça do Brasileiro is to conduct a massive survey (called the Brazilian Social Survey) to figure out exactly to what degree da Matta's ideas can really be found in Brazilian responses to questionnaires.
One colorful example of de Matta's work is the difference between the phrases "do you know who you're talking to?" and "who do you think you are?" The legend goes that in a situation that pits people against each other in a conflict involving special treatment for one but not the other (let's say that someone thinks he's important enough to cut to the front of the line at the post office, rather than waiting behind the other customers), Americans and Brazilians resolve the situation in different ways. In the US, the person and the counter or other customers are likely to cut him down to size with "who do you think you are?" implying that everyone should receive the same, impersonal treatment, and sending him to the back of the line. In Brazil, however, the jerk is far more likely to get his way with "do you know who you're talking to?" and by exploiting some credential (say, a connection to a politician or a police officer) that spells out the trouble that awaits anyone who tries to interfere with him. It might not be that way in 100% of cases, but is this general description of the two countries true enough to be true?
Probably yes. To test if Brazilians are hierarchical, the survey asks respondents questions such as whether a maid should sit on the couch next to the lady of the house upon invitation to do so, or whether she should still watch TV on another chair or in another room in spite of the invitation. Another example is whether the maid should continue to refer to the lady as "madame" even if asked to simply say "you". The test is to determine whether the reader believes that there is an inherent difference between the two people (that is, a hierarchy) that requires that certain behavioral norms be followed even if the boss requests that they not be followed. Though in the case of watching TV most people felt it was ok for the maid to sit on the couch, Brazilians generally showed themselves to be against the use of "you" rather than "madame" for the maid to refer to her employer.
Of course, that situation is a bit difficult to compare to the US today, since no one but waiters in expensive restaurants say "the lady" or "madame" rather than "you", that I've aware of. Questions related to patrimonialism and civic spirit tend to reveal deeper differences. In one example, more than 70% of the population agreed with the phrase "Each person should take care of only what is theirs, and the government should take care of what is public". In other words, common citizens have no business influencing public affairs once they've voted for office holders, a sentiment very unlikely to gain support among 3/4ths of Americans. Though it received far less support, the following phrase is shocking for the fact that anyone, anywhere, could possibly agree with it: "If someone is elected to a public office, he or she should use it for his or her own benefit, as if it were his or her property". 17% of Brazilians agree with statement, which appears to legitimate corruption and is utterly at odds with the idea that public office belongs to the public, with its occupants merely passers-by that are responsible to the people. Brazilian politics is undoubtedly corrupt compared to US politics (which is not to say that US politics is not very corrupt; only that Brazilian corruption and use of office for personal enrichment is quite a bit more shocking, universal and unpunished).
Other useful results, generally expected, include:
-Brazilians typically trust their family members to a great degree, but trust no one else, including friends, neighbors and colleagues (a fact that can be said to inhibit the development of non-family businesses, associations, NGOs, advocacy groups, etc).
-A majority of Brazilians believes that their destiny is in God's hands, and that the influence of destiny is more powerful than their ability to counter it (that is to say, relax and don't blame yourself if you can't achieve what you'd like).
-In perhaps the greatest point of departure between Brazil and the US, Brazilians have a far greater propensity to trust the government (ironically, given its corruption and the same Brazilians' negative evaluation of government performance) over the private sector, and a surprising number of people are in favor of government censorship of the opposition, government price controls and more.
-A majority of Brazilians admit to racial bias indirectly (for example, by answering the question "Which of these men would you want your daughter to marry?" by selecting a white mechanic over a black lawyer or teacher), adding interesting data to the old debate about whether Brazil is a racist or a classist country (why can't it be both?).
Though some individual numbers manage to shock, the thrust of the book is mostly to confirm through rigorous surveys what many people were already saying about the country. But as obvious as some results may seem, probably none of the clichés about Brazil are without their critics, but these critics now have large amounts of survey data straight from the mouths of the Brazilian people to contend with. The book succeeds in painting a picture that is somewhat troubling for Brazilian democracy, given the large number of citizens that do not believe in basic concepts like equal rights/impersonal treatment of citizens, civic spirit (that is, common citizens banding together to solve their problems with or without government help) and the basic idea of public service (as opposed to private enrichment), and so much more. The book, however, goes beyond merely painting a picture of Brazil and tries to take a look at where all this is going and how it might be best resolved. And this is precisely where it starts to get a bit less satisfying.
Now, I don't know a great deal about statistics. But I read Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam, who is listed as one of Almeida's influences in doing the research and writing the book. What I most remember from Putnam is the intense rigor of his statistical analysis (probably everything I understand about what you do and don't know from reading statistics comes from reading Putnam). When there is a potential whole in Putnam's argument, he sorts out as much evidence as he can for and against. He looks at all the possible counter explanations to his hypotheses. For example, if Putnam states that old people trust their friends and neighbors more than young people in 2010, he will then go on at length to make sure we know everything we can about whether this is difference is a result of what generation we are looking at (that is, the characteristic is due to when that person was born, and probably won't change in the person's lifetime) or a difference due to age itself (that is, younger people will start to trust their friends more as they age, and in the future they will come to resemble today's old people). Almeida does not show much interest in these differences in explanation, and appears to attribute almost every difference between young and old people to generation (that is, he believes that the attitudes of today's young people will be the attitudes of tomorrow's old people).
One point made in the book over and over again (in every chapter) is the difference that education level makes. Generally, the attitudes that Almeida mostly characterizes as "backwards", such as low trust in non-family members, high tolerance for corruption, and a worldview strongly influenced by belief in hierarchy and destiny, and trust in the federal government as the solution to Brazil's problems, are associated with low education levels. Time after time, he notes that education is the solution to Brazil's problems. On page 120 he makes a typical comment after a quick discussion of Brazilian fatalism: "Consequently, the obvious recommendation for those that want to combat this mentality is: universalize higher education". Somewhat shockingly (to me, anyway), nowhere in the entire book does he ever entertain the idea that correlation might not be causality in this case. The idea is simple: what if people that don't believe in destiny are more likely to pursue higher education?
It's not a crazy thought, since someone who thinks his future is firmly in god's hands may be less incentivized to work hard to improve his lot. Both backwards thinking and a lack of education could be the result of the same common third factor... perhaps poverty itself, or a cultural value system that would resist the effects of higher education. And it's not a trivial nit-pick either; the Brazilian educational system is already inefficient, with higher spending relative to results achieved than its Latin American neighbors. Yet Almeida doesn't show any interest in actually demonstrating one of the most belabored points of his book, that Brazilian backwardness will be solved by churning everyone through the university mill. Here are a few reasons why he might be wrong that higher education provides a solution to many of Brazil's anti-democratic tendencies:
- Students that come from families with "backwards" value systems may either be unable to absorb new ideas in universities, or perhaps unwilling to.
- The expansion of higher education would invariably result (or actually, is resulting) in a great drop-off in quality of teaching, meaning that diplomas get handed out, but values don't change and nothing gets learned.
- Universalizing higher education means pushing the worst students into the system, without any promise that they'll get something out of it.
And I'm sure there are more concerns we should have here too. I currently teach at a very low-quality higher education institution in rural Bahia, which is basically home to the most "backwards" people that Almeida manages to find in his survey. From my experience, I feel at liberty to speculate that the university experience is not fundamentally changing these students' values. They enter the school wanted to avoid homework, spend their classtime in idle conversation, and fight the teacher at every step when he or she tries to make them understand a new concept. Cultural values (especially the lack of real value of education, which is supplanted by the value of a diploma and a higher salary) prior to their entry in the university appear to prevent these students from obtaining the benefits that Almeida predicts they will have. Thought there may be some positive results of the four years they spend there, I suspect that many will just get their diploma (for it's a private school, and they have to keep pushing the students through to avoid bankruptcy) and run. Yet in Almeida's universe, anyone studying higher education is on the fast track to contributing to an enlightened and democratic Brazil...
At one point, Almeida makes an incredibly naïve statement, in my opinion, to the effect of "Perhaps by the time higher education is universal in Brazil, all American students will have master's degrees." Given that only 30% of Americans have a four-year degree, this is not going to happen anytime soon, and I'm not even sure that an increase in this number is a tendency, much less an eventuality. In my opinion, he is simply out of his depths and needs to do a lot more research specifically about education in order to make any sort of credible claims about how higher education is going to solve Brazil's problems.
The data in the book is extremely interesting and essential for anyone that wants to understand Brazil better. Almeida's text, however, generally ranges from explicit description of the data ("as we can see in the table, 87% of people believe...") to unsubstantiated public policy recommendations. It might make for good controversy here and there, but for the most part, the reader might as well just read over the data and decide for himself rather than to take Almeida's word for it.
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And a final remark I wanted to make, that didn't fit into the steam of consciousness I wrote above; although Almeida presents his analysis as a data-driven test of da Matta's theories, he also starts with a great deal of baggage that make his analysis more than just a come through the objective data. He starts with the assumption (though he is not an economist) that the state is not fundamental to the functioning of the economy and that the liberal economic position is the "correct" one (he might be write in many cases, though not necessarily in all of them). He briefly apologizes for dividing the country into two "halves", one being archaic and the other modern. In the modern half, the typical person is a young, working man living in the capital of a state in the South of Brazil (the most developed region of the country) and has a university degree. In prototype of an archaic Brazilian is an old small-town woman in Brazil's undeveloped Northeast, who is retired or doesn't work and has little to no education. If this book had been written by an American, public condemnation in Brazil probably would have run him out of the country. I salute Almeida's bravery in writing the book with his opinions being stated outright, but I also feel he's gone beyond the call of duty in interpreting his findings through his own, personal lens in some cases.
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