Roberto Mangabeira Unger facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Roberto Mangabeira Unger
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| Born | March 24, 1947 |
| Education | Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (BA) Harvard University (LLM, SJD) |
| Era | 20th-/21st-century philosophy |
| Region | Western philosophy |
| School | Radical pragmatism |
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Main interests
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Social theory · Legal theory · Economics · Political philosophy · Natural philosophy |
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Notable ideas
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False necessity · formative context · negative capability · empowered democracy · radical pragmatism · transformative vocation · institutional alternatives |
Roberto Mangabeira Unger (born March 24, 1947) is a famous Brazilian thinker and politician. He works in many areas like law, philosophy, and economics. He is known for his ideas about how society works and how we can make it better.
Unger believes that people are more than just the situations they are in. He thinks everyone has the power to live a greater life. He also believes that the world we live in is something we create ourselves. This means that things like property rights or how governments are set up are not fixed. They can be changed and improved.
He thinks that our social rules and systems should always be open to new ideas. This way, we can experiment and change them to help people become more powerful and free.
Unger has also been very active in Brazilian politics. He helped Brazil move towards democracy after a time when the military ruled the country. He even served as Brazil's Minister of Strategic Affairs twice.
Contents
About Roberto Mangabeira Unger
His Family
Roberto Unger's family has a history of public service. His grandfather, Octávio Mangabeira, was a minister in Brazil. He was also a governor and a senator.
Both of Unger's parents were thinkers and writers. His father, Artur Unger, was from Germany. His mother, Edyla Mangabeira, was a Brazilian poet and journalist.
Early Life and Education
Roberto Mangabeira Unger was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1947. He spent some of his childhood in New York City. When he was eleven, his father passed away. His mother then moved the family back to Brazil.
He went to law school at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. Later, he studied at Harvard Law School in the United States. He became one of the youngest professors to get a permanent teaching position there.
His Work in Academia
Unger started his academic career with books like Knowledge and Politics. These books helped start a group called Critical Legal Studies (CLS). This group questioned how law was taught and understood in American universities.
He wrote a big work called Politics: A Work In Constructive Social Theory. In this work, he said that society is something we create. He argued that there are no fixed ways society must be organized. He believed that social change happens step by step, not all at once.
Unger spent many years developing his ideas further. He wrote about how to rethink social life and how to make democracy stronger.
His Main Ideas
How Society Works
Unger believes that society is like a building we can always rebuild. He thinks that past thinkers sometimes believed society had to develop in a certain way. But Unger says we can always change and improve our social structures.
He argues that society changes through conflicts and struggles. The winners of these struggles set the rules for how people interact. These rules become what Unger calls a formative context. People then start to believe these rules are natural or necessary. Unger calls this idea false necessity. But in reality, these rules can be changed. He calls the ability to resist and change these rules negative capability.
Unger believes that small changes can add up to big ones. He suggests ideas like Empowered democracy. This is his vision for more open social systems. These systems would let people and groups suggest changes and make them happen.
Ideas About Law
Unger's work on law questions why modern societies have the legal systems they do. He shows that our current legal rules are not natural. They developed over time because of different historical events.
He helped create the Critical Legal Studies movement. This group wanted to rethink how laws could help individuals become more free. They also wanted to create social systems that could be changed easily. The goal was to create more chances for education and economic success for everyone.
Ideas About Economics
Unger thinks we should always be rethinking how we produce and trade goods. He believes that economic systems are not fixed. We can always find new ways to organize them.
He criticizes how economics is often studied. He says that economists sometimes try to make their study too scientific. This makes them forget about how human actions and politics affect the economy. Unger believes economics should always be connected to ideas about people and society.
He suggests that free trade should help countries experiment and innovate. He also thinks that the way we organize work should allow for constant learning and new ideas.
How to Change Society
Unger believes we need to imagine new social systems before we can change them. He calls this "programmatic thought." He says we should not think there's only a few ways society can be organized. He also says we don't need a huge, sudden revolution. Instead, we can make changes step by step. He calls this "revolutionary reform." It means having a big vision but making small, steady changes to get there.
Two Kinds of "Left" Thinking
Unger talks about two main types of "Left" political ideas today:
- The recalcitrant Left wants to slow down markets and globalization. They want more government control and social programs.
- The humanizing Left accepts the current market economy. They try to make it fairer through taxes and social benefits.
Unger thinks both of these are not enough. He calls for a Reconstructive Left. This group would try to change the market economy itself. They would experiment with different ways of owning property. They would also focus on everyone sharing responsibility for helping others.
The Left Alternative Plan
Unger has specific ideas for different areas:
- Economic Development: He wants an economy that helps small businesses and encourages new ideas. This would create more self-employment and cooperation.
- Education: He believes education should encourage creativity and problem-solving. It should not just be about memorizing facts. He suggests local schools with national standards.
- Civil Society: He wants the government to help local groups provide public services. He thinks everyone should help care for others, not just rely on government programs.
- Political Democracy: He wants a political system that can change quickly. He suggests ways to make politics more active. This includes public funding for campaigns and letting political parties try out new ideas faster. He also wants to give people more power to directly participate in local and national decisions.
His Ideas on Philosophy
The Individual and Human Nature
Unger's philosophy focuses on two main ideas. First, he believes that each person is "infinite." This means we are more than just the roles society gives us. We can always grow and change. We are "context-bound" (shaped by our surroundings) but also "context-transcending" (able to go beyond them).
Second, he believes there is only one real world, and time truly exists in it. This means history is very important. Our actions in the world can make a real difference.
Religion and Life
Unger talks a lot about religion and what it means to be human. He says religion helps us deal with our biggest fears and hopes. He believes humans have four main flaws:
- We are mortal: We will all die.
- We are groundless: We don't fully understand why we exist or what the meaning of life is.
- We are insatiable: We always want more, and we seek the infinite.
- We are susceptible to belittlement: We often face small, boring routines that make us feel less important.
He identifies three ways people have responded to these flaws throughout history:
- Overcoming the world: Trying to escape suffering by ignoring the physical world and its problems (like in Buddhism).
- Humanization of the world: Creating meaning through helping each other and being responsible for one another (like in Confucianism).
- Struggle with the world: Believing that we can transform ourselves and society to live a bigger life. This idea is found in religions like Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and also in modern movements for freedom.
The Religion of the Future
Unger believes the "struggle with the world" idea is where the future of religion lies. He thinks we need a revolution in our beliefs. This means changing ourselves and reorganizing society. We should face our mortality and groundlessness honestly. We also need to create social systems that let us constantly break free from our limits. The goal is not just to make society more human, but to make humanity more divine.
His Ideas on Science and Time
Unger's book The Singular Universe and the Reality of Time talks about how the world is unique and how time is real. He argues against the idea of many parallel universes. He says there is only one real world, and everything in it is affected by time.
He believes that even the laws of nature can change over time. They are not eternal. This means that our future is not set by fixed rules. It is open to many possibilities. This idea supports his view that society can always be changed and improved.
Political Work in Brazil
Unger has been involved in Brazilian politics for a long time. In the 1970s and 80s, he worked against the military government. He helped start the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB) and wrote its first plan.
He worked with important politicians like Leonel Brizola and Ciro Gomes on their presidential campaigns. He even tried to run for president himself.
As Minister of Strategic Affairs
In 2007, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva asked Unger to be the Minister of Strategic Affairs. In this role, Unger tried to put his ideas into practice. He focused on helping small businesses grow and expanding credit for them. He also worked on improving education. He wanted schools to teach problem-solving skills, not just memorization.
One of his important projects was in the Amazon region. He helped create laws to give land titles to small farmers. This encouraged them to protect the environment. It also gave them economic opportunities.
Unger served as minister for two years. He left the government in 2009 to return to Harvard.
Work Outside Brazil
Unger has also shared his ideas with leaders around the world. He believes that many countries face similar problems. He thinks that general changes can be made to systems. This would allow for local new ideas and growth.
In the late 1990s, he worked on the Latin American Alternative. This group wanted to find new ways for countries to develop. They suggested ideas like guaranteeing social rights for everyone. They also wanted to break up big media companies. This led to the "Buenos Aires Consensus" in 1997. Many Latin American leaders signed this agreement.
Books by Roberto Mangabeira Unger
- Knowledge and Politics, 1975.
- Law In Modern Society: Toward a Criticism of Social Theory, 1976.
- Passion: An Essay on Personality, 1986.
- The Critical Legal Studies Movement, 1986.
- Politics: A Work In Constructive Social Theory, 1987 (3 volumes).
- What Should Legal Analysis Become?, 1996.
- Democracy Realized: The Progressive Alternative, 1998.
- The Future of American Progressivism: An Initiative for Political and Economic Reform, 1998.
- What Should the Left Propose?, 2006.
- The Self Awakened: Pragmatism Unbound, 2007.
- Free Trade Reimagined: The World Division of Labor and the Method of Economics, 2007.
- The Left Alternative, 2009.
- The Religion of the Future, 2014.
- The Singular Universe and the Reality of Time, 2014.
- The Knowledge Economy, 2019.
- Governing the World Without World Government , 2022.
- The World and Us, 2024.
See also
In Spanish: Roberto Mangabeira Unger para niños
- Empowered democracy
- False necessity
- Formative context
- Negative capability
- Passions
- Structure and agency
