Health, education and the post-truth as an educability strategy: notes on the pandemic and bolsonarism

Abstract

This paper aims to analyze the post-truth perspective as strategic as a means of educability mainly during the coronavirus pandemic and the Bolsonaro government. Since the election campaign, the current President Jair Bolsonaro, term 2019-2022, has been developing an anti-intellectualist and delegitimizing policy of scientific knowledge, with systematic attacks on the university and education in general, places that are traditionally considered legitimate for production and spreading the “truth”. It turns out that with the pandemic, these attacks and delegitimization processes were also accentuated in the health area. So, for such an analysis, we take the actions and speeches taken by the Bolsonaro government and its supporters in relation to education, science and the way it led the coronavirus pandemic, through the attack on medical knowledge and institutions such as the World Health Organization (WHO). Therefore, the study is divided into two parts, the first aims to contextualize the emergence of the post-truth and its effects on scientific knowledge, and the second part analyzes how science denial has been affecting the way of coping with the coronavirus in Brazil. It is indicated that the underestimation of scientific knowledge and the institutions of “truth”, based on post-truth discursive practices, has led to social division, proliferation of conspiracy theories, violence, and crisis in Brazilian education.