An Appeal for Fraternity Against Violent, Vindictive Pettiness

Virtual Positivist Church

 

An Appeal for Fraternity Against Violent, Vindictive Pettiness

 

Love as principle and order as basis; progress as goal

Live Openly              Order and Progress  Live for Others

 

There is no point in mincing words: threats and actual acts of boycotting, dismissal from employment, failure to provide assistance, refusal of service, and the provision of inadequate products (including medications and medical treatments) – all perpetrated by many Brazilians who identify as “right-wing” or conservative – are unacceptable and must cease immediately.

Since the evening of October 25, 2026, following the confirmation of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's victory and Flávio Nantes Bolsonaro's defeat in the presidential election, there have been repeated expressions and actual instances of the most despicable conduct: systematic humiliation, particularly of vulnerable individuals (children, homeless people, the elderly, and others); children being run over by vehicles; motorcyclists being struck by police vehicles; murders and attempted murders through beatings or gunfire; workers being dismissed; boycotts organized by business owners and service providers; refusals of service by physicians, nurses, attorneys, and public officials; the provision of poor-quality services and/or inadequate products; and so forth. Even animals have not been spared: donkeys and mules have been marked with numbers and symbols associated with the winning candidate and forced to endure the cruelest working conditions, sometimes to the point of death. All these forms of conduct have been advocated or carried out by some Brazilian citizens against others, as though they were virtuous and justified actions.

However, far from being acceptable or legitimate, these behaviors constitute the systematic practice of direct physical violence, moral violence, discrimination, and civic and professional irresponsibility. All of these behaviors are rightly considered illegal, and those who advocate or engage in them are already being reported to the appropriate authorities. Yet these behaviors are, much more than – and long before being – illegal, profoundly immoral, insofar as they deliberately harm fellow citizens and other human beings, all for reasons rooted in pettiness.

The spread of these proposals and practices, together with the spirit that sustains them, requires us to speak out clearly. Such behaviors constitute political violence. Their suppression by state authorities, although necessary, addresses only the surface of the problem. Since they involve values and ideas, their solution must necessarily be moral – or, more precisely, religious. This is why we are issuing the present appeal. (Religion is not the same as theology. Religion is the systematic integration of the whole of human existence – affective, intellectual, and practical; private and public; domestic, civic, and universal; objective and subjective – with a view to achieving the dynamic harmony of human beings. The foundation of such integration is altruism, or universal love; in civic terms, this takes the form of human fraternity.)

The profound immorality of these behaviors is evident not only in the conscious and morbid intention to harm other human beings as much as possible. Their immorality is compounded by numerous additional aspects:

-      The behaviors we criticize consist of retaliatory measures intended to express dissatisfaction with the outcome of deeply polarized and radicalized elections;

-      Ultimately, they are futile efforts, since the elections have already ended: the matters that were to be decided have been decided;

-      They represent an attempt to impose by force what should be achieved solely through peaceful and dignified persuasion;

-      They brutally undermine the foundations of any society, namely fraternity and mutual trust, by encouraging and practicing systematic hatred, violence, and resentment;

-      They reflect precisely the kinds of practices and intentions that conservatives and those on the “right” fear and attribute to their “left-wing” opponents;

-      They consist of practices and intentions that conservatives and those on the “right” would ordinarily consider unacceptable and would readily denounce and criticize;

-      They are degrading practices and intentions whose proponents and perpetrators, as soon as they are criticized, cynically or hypocritically claim that they have been “misunderstood” or that their statements were “taken out of context,” and so forth;

-      They are practices and intentions directed against vulnerable or dependent individuals, making them particularly petty and brutal forms of conduct;

-      Identical practices, likewise motivated by resentment and pursued for punitive or vindictive purposes, are nothing new in history. They were widely employed by the Nazis and their supporters in Germany during the 1930s and 1940s.

These practices and intentions are violent and reveal profound moral and intellectual degradation. Besides being childish, they are the opposite of what their conservative and “right-wing” proponents ordinarily profess to accept – or, at least, claim to accept. These behaviors amount to a petty reaction to a particular electoral outcome. Had the election produced a different result, those advocating these practices and intentions would demand precisely the opposite from the defeated side: acceptance, moderation, respect for the election results, and so forth. Simply because they lost the election, their proponents consider themselves scandalously entitled to take revenge on the supporters and voters of the winning candidate.

Elections are simply not the best mechanism for selecting political leaders. As is well known, elections constitute a mechanism for undermining authority from below; moreover, they turn several issues that are qualitative by definition – governing capacity, the representation of society's interests, public opinion, and so forth – into purely numerical matters. Nevertheless, despite these serious and fundamental shortcomings, the selection of governments in Brazil is based on electoral procedures, whose outcomes, for better or worse, must be accepted. Such acceptance has nothing to do with whether one likes the results. It requires only that the procedures administered by the Electoral Court be followed fairly and honestly. Indeed, acceptance of electoral outcomes is closely connected to a fundamental characteristic of any society: mutual trust.

Despite acting openly in the opposite direction, conservatives and those on the “right” who advocate various forms of petty violence against vulnerable and dependent individuals need mutual trust just as much as any other citizens. There can be no society without mutual trust. All the practices and intentions criticized here destroy that trust. More than that, they destroy fraternity and generosity while fostering hatred, anger, distrust, and resentment.

The conservatives and those on the “right” whom we criticize here supposedly support conservatism and social order, while opposing “progress.” The social and political practices most conducive to development, freedom, and human dignity are affirmed in the reflections and teachings of the Religion of Humanity and synthesized in the proposal of sociocracy. The sociocratic proposal, in turn, makes clear that genuine conservatism is neither static nor concerned with restoring the past, just as progress does not mean the systematic destruction of institutions. Yet, as is well known, the conservatism that has emerged in Brazil in recent years takes pride in destruction and in declaring that “before building anything, we must destroy a great deal” – particularly anything and everything associated with “progress.” Against these destructive intentions, genuine conservatism maintains that society and its institutions must continue to exist, both so that citizens can lead their lives and so that living conditions can improve, particularly for the weakest and most vulnerable. Genuine conservatism is therefore simultaneously progressive and opposed to systematic destruction. For such improvements to take place, mutual trust must be genuinely shared throughout society, on the basis of fraternity.

The practices and intentions we criticize here reject fraternity, destroy trust, promote particularistic interests, and prevent any form of progress. Worse still, despite presenting themselves as “conservative,” they oppose the preservation of virtually anything. Thus, by systematically opposing “progress,” these practices and intentions are, in fact, opposed to order itself. The result is neither order nor progress, but rather widespread violence and anarchy.

Opinions must be respected. Changes of opinion must always and necessarily occur through peaceful persuasion alone. Using violence to impose changes of opinion is, at its core, no different from using the state to impose beliefs. The regrettable peculiarity of the present case is simply that the violence is being perpetrated within society itself and takes on a punitive or vindictive character. There is no doubt that many of the conservatives criticized here wish to use the state to impose their beliefs, particularly theological ones. In light of this, we must reaffirm once again: neither state violence nor societal violence is acceptable; neither violence in general nor violence used to impose beliefs is acceptable; neither violence used to impose beliefs nor violence used to punish people for their beliefs is acceptable.

As stated at the beginning of this document, there is no point in mincing words. We therefore issue a clear and direct appeal to conservatives and those on the “right”: they must immediately cease advocating and/or engaging in the practices criticized here; reconsider their behavior and intentions so as to respect and uphold genuine conservatism – progressive, fraternal, and peaceful; and change the intentions and practices of those who support violent and punitive pettiness. In short, far beyond simply urging them to refrain from illegal – that is, criminal – conduct, we appeal to conservatives and those on the “right,” in the light of genuinely religious principles, to put an end to the monstrous political violence they have been perpetrating and to return to the practice of fraternal conduct that fosters mutual trust.

 

Curitiba, 24 Descartes 172 (October 31, 2026).

 

Priest of Humanity Gustavo Biscaia de Lacerda,

on behalf of the Virtual Positivist Church