THE OBSCURANTIST NEOLIBERAL COMMON SENSE AND ITS IMPACTS ON BRAZILIAN EDUCATION

Abstract

Based on Antonio Gramsci's ideas about common sense, this article presents an analysis of obscurantist neoliberal common sense and its impacts on Brazilian contemporary society and education. Contrary to some interpretations that separate political-cultural obscurantism from neoliberalism, it is argued in this article that they are two sides of the same coin. The neoliberal worldview, connecting the idea of freedom to the assumption that social evolution should be ruled by the free market's logic, contains a kind of rationality that leads to the most irrational forms of thought and sociability, becoming a fertile ground for the spread of belligerent obscurantism.