Uma África de sofrimento: Marcio Tavares D'Amaral at TEDxUFRJ

The speaker opens by discussing the principle of evil in contemporary times: the exclusion of 'the other' from society. He contextualizes this historically, noting that while exclusion has always existed (slaves in Greece and Rome, the 'industrial reserve army' of unemployed in 19th-century capitalism), modern exclusion is fundamentally different. Today's world is governed by the imperative to consume; those who do not consume are permanently excluded rather than serving a functional role in the economic system. This affects approximately 3 billion people who exist outside the consumption-based world order. The speaker invokes the postmodern claim that 'history has ended' after the Cold War, suggesting there are no more contradictions or alternatives to the current system. This creates a state where 3 billion people are frozen in the past, outside of time, with no future trajectory. The speaker expresses astonishment at this condition, arguing that ethical thinking must begin from this capacity for astonishment at the real world. He then traces the historical tension between Greek and Jewish cultures as foundational to Western civilization. Greek culture emphasizes abstract reason, philosophy, and universal principles, while Jewish culture emphasizes faith, creation from nothing, and absolute adherence to the divine. These cultures met catastrophically in the first century, creating a paradox at the heart of Western thought: that reason and faith, though seemingly opposed, are both necessary for understanding reality. This fundamental tension has shifted throughout history—from the 13th century theological synthesis, through the modern era's separation of reason and faith into public and private spheres, through the Enlightenment's privileging of reason, through Romanticism's return of God, to today's crisis where fundamentalism owns faith and technoscience owns reason, with neither possessing Truth. The speaker uses the phrase 'Africa of Suffering' (not referring only to the continent but to all excluded peoples everywhere) and invokes Nietzsche's metaphors of the star and the desert to argue for an ethical response. He calls for a conversion toward love for otherness and a dissolution of the selfish, individualistic culture that has replaced earlier loving relationships with the world. The only revolutionary horizon he sees is one that touches both heart and intelligence, bridging the gap between the dancing star (potent life) and the desert (suffering). This is presented as an ethical action not mandated by law—a choice to reach out and allow life to flow between oneself and the suffering other.