Summary: | By means of an analysis of central concepts in the book, O processo civilizatório, by Darcy
Ribeiro, such as the evolutionary acceleration as an antithesis of reflexive modernization thus
the autonomous appropriation of the necessary means in the process of development of a
nation the article examines the meaning of the necessary university postulated by Darcy
Ribeiro. By doing this, it also suggests affinities between his thought and the one of the
Hungarian sociologist, Karl Mannheim, stressing the need to plan society on the basis of the
democratization of education itself and of culture in general with a view to overcoming, in the
Brazilian case, the backwardness. Being aware of the fact that the reception of Mannheim in
our intellectual circles in the decade of 1950 legitimized the formation of a new intelligentsia
that intervened in the course of political events, the article situates Darcy Ribeiro in this
scenario, as well as his bet on the role of the public intellectual and the ideological commitment
of science to the formation of a national conscience in tune with the construction of a
democratic society.
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