FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE: REFLECTIONS ON HUMAN FORMATION AND THE PROHIBITION OF THOUGHT

Abstract

It points out reflections on knowledge, thought, and human formation, considering the importance of reading in this context during certain historical periods, where authoritarian power relations can be identified. Censorship, restrictions on literacy, and the control and surveillance of knowledge have marked historical moments in Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and in the dictatorships of 20th-century Latin America. Bringing the discussion to the present, it indicates that restrictions on knowledge may have, among other things, two causes linking historical processes to the current situation: the historical “danger” that looms over knowledge and thought; and the rise of utilitarian and urgent knowledge in the age of the Internet. The theoretical-methodological approach includes thinkers such as Roger Chartier, Alberto Manguel, Roger Shattuck, Hannah Arendt, Joseph Comblin, and Néstor Canclini; to reflect on contemporary society, Zygmunt Bauman and his relationship with formal education, along with authors like Edgar Morin and Paulo Freire.