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Third Text

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UTOPIA: A photo-text
Maria Thereza Alves

To cite this Article Alves, Maria Thereza(1992) 'UTOPIA: A photo-text', Third Text, 6: 21, 42 45 To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/09528829208576383 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09528829208576383

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UTOPIA: a Photo-Text
Maria Thereza Alves

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Our members are practically always doing what they want to do what they 'choose' to do but we see to it that they will want to do precisely the things which are best for themselves and the community. Their behaviour is determined, yet they're free. Walden Two, B.F.Skinner

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When ye are passed over Jordan into the land of Canaan, then ye shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, and destroy all their pictures, and destroy all their molten images, and quite pluck down all their high places: and ye shall dispossess the inhabitants of the land, and dwell therein for I have given you the land to possess it. Numbers, 33:51-53

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Brazil was a mythical place for Europe before 1492.

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The millenia-obssessed ex-pagan European's desire for a paradise which the Catholic Church has not converted into a land of repressed neurotics is not, in itself, an evil act. And yet, 'utopianization' together with colonization has resulted in a mythic narrative named 'Brazil'. The myth became real once Brazil was named. The process of naming is also one of appropriation into the possessor's history, which must also include the mythologization of those who are being possessed. Possession implies a kind of knowledge. The owner-produced knowledge begins a discourse. That discourse becomes the definition of that which is possessed. Brazil, having been a myth since its naming, cannot divest itself of this imposed function to become un-Brazilian. There are millions of abandoned children in Brazil. What I mean to say is, where in the Brazilian mythic narrative is there mention of the mind that abandons?