Abstract
In characterizing contemporary individualism as “post-social”, in order to describe what he considers postmoderm nihilism, Peter Sloterdijk presents a kind of man who rejects the advancement of his bloodline in favor of his own privileges, in an extreme self-centeredness. The novel Heranças (2008) by Silviano Santiago, in its pastiche of the well-known Memórias póstumas de Brás Cubas (1880) by Machado de Assis, elegantly stages this new vision of humanity through the protagonist Walter. His cynical attitude, captured through self-conscious narrative, embodies the most genuine incarnation of Sloterdijk’s “englightened false consciousness.” This occurs, to the extent that this “confessed culprit” is able to arrive at a certain synergy between his personal ambitions and the injunctions of an economic system that is corrupt and unfair. In this way, Heranças recapitulates the aseptic style of Brás Cubas through Walter’s voice and his vulgar tone.
Keywords:
dystopia; individualism; cynicism