Olavo de Carvalho

Olavo Luiz Pimentel de Carvalho (1947) was born in Campinas, São Paulo, on April 26, 1947. He began his career as a journalist at Empresa Folha da Manhã S/A and later worked at the magazine Planeta. He was a columnist for the newspapers Folha de São Paulo and O Globo, and for the magazine Bravo.Olavo de Carvalho studied philosophy at PUC in Rio de Janeiro but did not complete the course, which was discontinued due to the death of the professor and course director, Pe. Stanislavs Ladusans. Nevertheless, he wrote and presented two academic papers: “Structure and Meaning of the Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences by Mário Ferreira dos Santos” and “Analytical Reading of ‘The Crisis of Western Philosophy’ by Vladimir Soloviev”.Olavo de Carvalho chose, in contrast to journalistic activities, to study philosophy in a self-taught manner. He studied comparative religions extensively, traditional astrology (he worked as an astrologer and created his own astrological reading, astrocharacterology). He studied the liberal arts, a model for initiation into medieval higher studies. Once prepared, he began to create booklets that would become books and to teach privately in individual classes. Starting in the 1990s, he published his writings in books, including: “Aristotle in a New Perspective: Introduction to the Theory of the Four Discourses” (1996), “The Collective Imbecile: Brazilian Incultural Truths” (1996) (a bestseller that critiqued Brazilian intellectuals and opinion makers), “The Garden of Afflictions: From Epicurus to the Resurrection of Caesar – Essay on Materialism and Civil Religion” (2000), and “The Minimum You Need to Know Not to Be an Idiot” (2013).One of Olavo de Carvalho’s main ideas is that the individual’s consciousness must be preserved from the collectivism represented by the state, institutions, and media, or any opinion groups. He is openly a conservative thinker who fights against the tyranny of dictatorships and communism. Olavo de Carvalho conducts in-person and online philosophy classes, as well as writing essays. Carvalho’s philosophical and essayistic work has been praised by personalities such as Paulo Francis, José Sarney, Jorge Amado, and João Ubaldo Ribeiro. He has published around 21 books.Source: www.ebiografias.com, by Dilva Frazão