Every human being possesses, by its very nature, an intellective potency inherent to their soul. Evidently, the exercise and efficacy of this potency correspond to the exclusive formational reality of each being — and, when speaking of formation, I refer to everything that made and makes that individual be who one is: from the nature of their hereditary composition to the environment in which they are inserted, including their customs, their diet, and all other possible influences of their surroundings, their contacts, and their experiences.

The natural and expected movement of every intellect is the journey toward the Truth. But, since everything in this world has been distorted and nothing is (re)defined abruptly or imposed immediately, much less results from chance, the idea that the non-negotiable pursuit of the Truth is a potent generator of intolerance is the fruit of a purposeful subversion, very well crafted since the 13th Century. In a brief chronological retrieval, just to situate this decay in time, let us remember the 13th Century with the severing of Truth (Averroism with the ‘Double Truth’ and the Voluntarism of Scotus); the 14th Century with Ockham’s Nominalist rupture; the 15th Century with the pragmatic reduction (the Renaissance and the teleological deviation of Truth); the 16th Century with subjective fragmentation (the Protestant Reformation and the loss of the unified hermeneutic order, pulverizing the concept of Truth); the 17th Century with the dogma of tolerance (a political response to the ‘wars of religion’, electing tolerance as the supreme virtue and substitute for Truth); the 18th Century with the epistemological wall (Kant and the imprisonment of human reason to phenomena, as ontologically incapable of apprehending the essence, condemning any absolute affirmation as dogmatic arrogance); the 19th Century with the hermeneutics of suspicion (Nietzsche and other thinkers favorable to the destruction of the intellect’s adequacy); and, finally, the 20th Century with the institutionalization of Relativism (suspicion as a social principle). We could even view these medieval and modern crises as an echo of antiquity, by remembering the Sophists and the Skeptics (5th century B.C. to 3rd century A.D.); and, if we chose to go back even further, we would search from the very beginning, starting with Adam and Eve.

It is impressively appalling when we stop to observe how this avalanche formed and how it has behaved and grown even larger. Because the simple assertion that the pursuit of Truth makes a being intolerant necessarily presupposes also that the authentic intelligence is fragile to the point of taking offense at civic disagreement. This idea fails miserably due to the simple fact that he who loves the Truth does not fear the clash; debate and objection are, to the lover of Truth, instruments of refinement and not threats. The wrathful refusal in the face of contrary thought does not descend from reason, but from a pathological pride. The wise man has enough lucidity and intellectual honesty to admit his flaws and recognize another thought as the correct one; however, if the other’s premise is false, the authentic intellectual will make a point of debating the matter until it is exhausted, scrutinizing and rectifying every argument; without any need to resort to hysterical sentimentalism or to savagery.

Even more tragic is observing in act the rise of a hypocrisy disguised as virtue. In this scenario, a supposed lettered elite puffs out its chest to boast of its erudition and its class for not resorting to physical violence or shouting, but, paradoxically, questions freedom of thought when non-academic voices dare to expose what they think, obviously, about subjects they do not master — and the contradictions of this caste are not restricted to this example.

From this resentful elitism, a true market of vanity has been structured, subdivided according to private goals and desires. We see the self-idolaters, who seek personal aggrandizement and create personas to herd blind adoration and a cult of personality; the merchants of illusion, who take advantage of the sad Brazilian educational void to package introductory or shallow products and sell them as treasures of unparalleled wisdom; and the false messiahs, who through manipulation — which borders on the diabolical — sell their own image and knowledge as the exclusive path to the recovery and salvation of the being.

In absolute contrast to this fair of illusions, there remains a minuscule and genuine portion of true intellectuals. These, moved by love and the responsibility to disseminate the Truth, distribute treasures openly and charge accessible prices only for that which requires more intimate deepening, preserving the nobility and charity of the teaching craft.

The current landscape, in the end, has become a terrifying tug-of-war for validation and money. Ruthless battles of egos are waged behind masks of benevolence, exposing the sterile arrogance of creatures who hoisted themselves onto golden pedestals for the simple fact of having learned to recite classics or to operate the basic mechanics of discursive logic.