O Brasil entre a modernidade e a tradição : a originalidade interpretativa de Gilberto Freyre

Abstract

This work seeks to understand the relationship between the ideas of "tradition" and "modernity" within the Brazilian social thought. At first, we established the meaning of "modernity", in the light of the different perspectives that history and philosophy and sociology do about it. This is necessary to provide a better understanding under what circumstances the debates that took place in Brazil between the 1920’s and 1940’s were given. In the context of these decades, the interpretations about Brazil have always involved three specific themes, namely: national identity, Brazilian social formation and the modernity project. As reminders of the discussions begun in the late 1900’s, the theme of miscegenation was also present. By confronting the thoughts of Sérgio Buarque de Holanda and Raymundo Faoro’s, it is noticeable both the guilt of the Iberian roots as a cause of Brazil’s non-modernity, and the need to break with tradition for the realization of the modernizing project. Gilberto Freyre offers a broader view, by not proposing to break the tradition, but keeping the balance of these antagonisms instead and realizing the technicality of the modernity.