A village mentality– in transformation

It’s always useful to recall that until about two years ago, you could get a bus to stop and pick you up in Rio de Janeiro merely by raising a finger. Life occurred as if everyone knew everyone else, a city of cousins and aunts and people you’d gone to school with. And this was often truly the case.

The tragic nightclub fire in southern Brazil demonstrates that the phenomenon exists just about everywhere in the country. At all levels of society, a web of personal connections takes precedence over institutions and laws. Behavior thus flows from the assumption that not all Brazilians are created equal.

One’s family, colleagues, friends and contacts are more important than everyone else. And so the common good is relegated to the back seat. As is much that resides in the public sphere. This is why, for example, some of…