Nem Hamlet, nem Fausto: o amor fati de Dom Quixote no antiliberalismo de Francisco Campos

Abstract

Francisco Campos uses the classic Don Quixote de la Mancha to diagnose, in the essay Actualidade de Don Quixote, the spiritual crisis of modern times and the feeling of despair experienced by man. Three emblematic figures of literature appear in the narrative from the countryside: Hamlet, Fausto and Don Quixote. Hamlet and Fausto represent the cowardly indecision and the hermetic literature and art of liberal intellectuals, who fail to communicate collective experiences and to engender a stable social order, giving opportunity to the strong criticism of Campos, in a Schmittian antiliberal bias, to liberal ideas and institutions. There is an urgent need to revitalize the spirit of Don Quixote, who, with his love fati (love for common destiny), decides how a Statesman “to transform thought into will and will into action”, in the arduous civilizing task of raising the mass into a people, obedient, civilized and united in a common superior order (the National State), guided by Catholic values, and willing to fight against the enemy. It is only possible to save democracy from “cataclysm” if the call for the final Crusade is accepted. Hence the Actuality of Don Quixote. This article intends to carry out an interpretive effort on Actuality by Don Quixote, in order to highlight some aspects of the political and constitutional thought of the anti-liberal camp.