João Maurício Brás - Contra o Último Homem

Every civilization is based on an implicit answer to a question it rarely dares to formulate directly: what is man, and how far can he go without losing himself? When this question ceases to be asked, it doesn't disappear; it begins to be answered by anonymous instances, by the market, by technology, by administrative power, or by the dominant ideology.

The great illusion of late modernity consists in believing that human freedom grows as limits disappear. This belief, presented as moral evidence, is in fact the most dangerous of abstractions. Man is not an unlimited being upon whom culture imposes artificial constraints; he is a fragile, situated, finite being who only becomes free within forms he did not choose, but which precede and sustain him.