Although I have not been part of the academic community for many years and therefore cannot discuss specific issues regarding university education and its internationalization, I believe there is a broader community to which we all belong: the knowledge society. We are all working together to develop and disseminate knowledge.
Therefore, I have chosen to address the broader framework within which I am trying to better understand the pressing issues of change, freedom, democracy, equality, and sustainability.
I would address the world as if it were an entity capable of providing answers, starting with three core concepts about which there is wide divergence.
Change, fear and future.
I will share with you my understanding of these words, recognizing that understanding does not imply agreement, but it is a prerequisite for respectful disagreement. Respectful disagreement holds the potential to spark new ideas upon which we might ultimately find common ground.
We are in the midst of a true global metamorphosis. The world is changing rapidly, profoundly, and in ways that are increasingly unpredictable.
The tectonic plates beneath our societies are shifting, transforming the very foundations of how we live, work, interact, and react to this unprecedented transformation of our lives everywhere, no matter where we are.
Change comes first, because it triggers fear and casts uncertainty over the future. Change is not a threat, though many perceive it as one. Change is a challenge we must face head-on.
For some, freedom is non-negotiable. Others believe that governments are failing to address the morbid signs of a dying world. Democracy, they argue, is no longer working. In their view, the best solution would be a centralized, autocratic government.
Although I agree that democracies are not working — a point I will discuss later — I do not dispute the idea that individuals should act freely. On the contrary, I am almost an anarchist when it comes to that matter. My concern lies with the notion of “what one thinks is right”, and ”what freedom means”.
At the core of freedom’s architecture lies its foundation: the freedom from necessity, the fundamental freedom to which all humans are entitled but which many are denied. Above this foundation lies the middle layer, consisting of civil rights, universally recognized by democracies and denied by authoritarian regimes, and social rights, accessible only to those who meet the material and constitutional conditions set by increasingly outdated social contracts.
The freedom from necessity and the freedom from fear walk hand in hand, forming the bedrock of what Hannah Arendt termed the “freedom to be free.”
Freedom from necessity is not just a prerequisite; it is the essential, even though insufficient, condition for individuals to become the authors of their own choices.
Nearly four decades ago I wrote in a study on poverty in Brazil, titled Os Despossuídos—The Dispossessed, that “those who live in extreme poverty, expending nearly all their energy just to barely survive, they cannot in any way whatsoever function as fully engaged citizens. Necessity stifles freedom. As a result, they are also politically weakened, and their precarious existence undermines the entire political foundations of liberties.”
The question I pose to the World about freedom is this: Do we wish to leave a vast portion of humankind deprived of the means to fully embrace and enjoy their humanity, unfree to be free? To answer Yes is to accept that a large segment of our human family remains enslaved by necessity, perpetually vulnerable to various forms of slavery, and tyranny. To answer No is to commit to the urgent task of eradicating hunger and all forms of destitution, ensuring to all the basic means for a meaningful life and the ability to experience every layer of freedom.
Let us now look at the theme of righteousness, a concept deeply intertwined with freedom and its other conditioning factor: the acceptance of diversity and difference. Does anyone truly know what is right? Do we genuinely consider the Other incapable of being right on their own?
Otherness is a cornerstone of freedom and democracy. My freedom cannot be superior to, different from, or broader than the freedom of the Other. Equal freedom is the ultimate crown of the structure of freedom, and its realization depends on establishing limits that ensure equality for all. Equal freedom and rights for diverse and different people. However, defining such limits inherently involves an idea of what is right or true.
Yet we must acknowledge that truth is relative; doubt is a virtue in our ceaseless search for it; knowledge is transient. As Einstein once wrote, we mainly teach and write about knowledge that is already dead; and the notions of what is right evolve with time, with experience, and with the recognition of past wrongs.
In essence, righteousness is never absolute; it is a collective choice, shaped and reshaped by the community that defines it.
So many mistakes have been made by peoples, nations, and communities under the conviction that they were right. So much violence and war have been justified by aggressors believing themselves to be right and those they attacked to be wrong. At the root of this mindset lies the notion of Us versus Other, a belief that we, the Us, are right, and the Other is wrong.
The World to which I am directing these questions is a kaleidoscope of otherness. If any piece of this kaleidoscope believes and acts as though it possesses all virtues, all truth, all knowledge, all beauty, and all moral righteousness, it will never achieve the astonishing and nearly perfect forms that could be created by embracing the talents and worldviews of all.
Let me give you an example of cooperation among very different people that could yield a desired outcome.
The Amazon rainforest will only be preserved if it provides the means to sustain the people living in the region. This requires understanding the forest in order to develop a bioeconomy that ensures its preservation while also improving the living conditions of the people who reside there.
But the Amazon can only evolve into a bioeconomy of this magnitude through the collaboration of science, advanced biotechnology, and the knowledge of Indigenous peoples, whose ancestors have shaped the forest into what it is today.
The Amazon rainforest is an ancestral legacy. It was not the same forest encountered by colonial conquerors, and since then, it has been increasingly destroyed by its occupiers, who continue to adopt the colonial mentality — viewing it as a frontier for progress that must be fully occupied, necessitating persistent deforestation, and the annihilation of its indigenous peoples.
Fully understanding and protecting this legacy requires uniting the wisdom of Indigenous peoples with the scientific knowledge of today. This would be an example of a functioning piece in our kaleidoscope. Only by recognizing and valuing equality among diversity can humankind become truly whole, a creative, innovative community of equal human beings.
We are in the midst of a great transition to an unknown destination. A revolution driven by digitization, scientific and technological advancements, climate change, and our responses to it. What is certain is that the world we know—or perhaps the world we are—is coming to an end.
The one thing that seems clear is that the future ahead is a journey toward new forms of digital, high-tech societies. Artificial Intelligence is already influencing our daily lives, and its impact is set to grow exponentially in the coming years. A “figital” existence is inevitable, and it has already begun. We may witness further fusions between life in the social and digital spheres, as these realms continue to intertwine and shape the way we live, interact, and understand our world.
The uncertainty about the future breeds fear, anxiety, and a desperate urge to shift the blame to the Other, the different, the unfamiliar, and the strange. New forms of conflict are emerging, and an increasing number of people across various categories are unprotected by social rights and underrepresented in democracy.
That is why democracy must become digital; an analog democracy cannot function effectively in a figital world. The question before us is this: Do we aspire to democratic societies? If so, we must digitize the processes of choice and decision-making. Democracy should become digital, changing voting and representation models to embrace participatory deliberation and decision-making that only the digital sphere makes possible.
The digital civil society holds the power to enable this transformation, but only if we commit to ensure the full digital literacy required to its growth and flourishing, shaping it into a digital society that embodies the best of our shared humanity.
Allowing the digital arena to be overrun by intolerance, hatred, racism, and the entrenched mentality of patriarchy is not a matter of destiny, nor solely of power. It is a question of choice, collective choice. This is the bedrock of a digital democracy. Fear of digital tools is unproductive; what we need is to making them more thoughtful and responsible for our collective benefit.
Smart regulation should lead platforms do modify their algorithms to ensure conversation and posts do not stimulate the language of hatred, offensive and defamatory, race, gender discrimination or aggression, as well as other anti-social behavior such as child and teens pornography and harassment, inducement of suicidal behavior, mass attacks and all forms of violence.
Digital living is inevitable, and it falls to us to make it enriching— cool, kind, and purposeful—so it fulfills its immense positive potential. This is not a matter of regulating children’s screen time or criticizing platformization in itself.
Platforms can, and should, behave responsibly, contributing to the creation of a civil digital society. The true issue lies in whether we are willing to let these platforms and their unchecked algorithms dictate the contours of our digital lives.
Such a reality undermines freedom, making it impossible to design a digital architecture that prioritizes liberty and equity. Algorithms are the coded translation of choices. Sociotechnical tools shaped by our design decisions. If we choose wisely, we create better algorithms that lead to better outcomes, including improved feeds.
Let me turn to what we have been experiencing over the past several years and the question of what we truly want—not merely expect—for the future. Which legacies from the era of modernity, through this great transition we are now living, should become part of that future we hope to shape?
“Future” is a word so often misunderstood. The future is not a wish, a hopeful expectation, or a whispered prayer. It is not a fixed destination but a mirage, a shifting horizon. What truly matters is the journey itself, as the great Brazilian novelist João Guimarães Rosa wrote in his master piece, Grande sertão: Veredas, a title I wouldn’t dare to translate the title myself. I’ll rely on the careful translation by Alison Entrekin about to be released in English: Vastlands: The Crossing.
Many believe the future is something we become, something that takes shape on its own. It is not.
The journey toward the future is shaped by collective choices, and true choice is not the imposition of a single will. To be inclusive and democratic, it must be a process of reaching consensus on the directions each community chooses to take while, respecting the variety of understandings on safeguarding the security and rights of all.
The future is always a utopia—an aspiration, a guiding ideal. Without this, it risks devolving into a dystopia, a reflection of our fears rather than our hopes. The future is not a distant land; it is the journey itself, a mosaic of interconnected presents. That is why leaving matters to the future is pure nonsense—there is no future to take matters into its hands.
The crucial question is: which path will we choose? Will it be a path toward a diverse, creative, and harmonious kaleidoscope of humanity, where race, gender, and other traits that generate durable inequalities no longer matter?
A world where what truly matters is the unique contributions each individual brings to the collective to the best of one’s abilities—a future that fosters a more fulfilling and compassionate humankind.
Another concern of mine questions how the misuse of sustainability distorts our vision of a truly sustainable world. Sustainability has become a muddled and overused term.
Today, there are more companies claiming to be “green” than those acknowledging the unsustainability of their processes. Sustainability seems to have become a broad consensus among people, countries, and corporations—save for the extreme radicals who believe that species extinction is beneficial and that climate change is a hoax.
Yet, the reality is that species are disappearing at an alarming rate, our emissions continue to rise, and the climate is already changing at dangerously rapid rates and levels. Climate change has already become a climate emergency.
The global metamorphosis of our societies, often referred to as the great transition, is marked by an already changing climate and the ongoing sixth great species extinction. Everything is changing, and will change much more.
Achieving durable sustainability now demands adaptation to a far less hospitable planetary environment, as well as concerted efforts to prevent it from becoming even more inhospitable to its biosphere. We should be aware that the human species belongs to the biosphere, and that our species, humanity, will not be the last to face extinction—unless we choose wisely from this moment forward.
If we manage to cut our emissions to zero, we must then focus on cleaning up our planet’s atmosphere, removing the excess greenhouse gases we have produced since the industrial revolution.
Thus, my last question to the World is do we want a future where a viable biosphere persists, preserving all life forms including the human species, or will we resign ourselves to a dystopian future, one where the planet slowly deteriorates, and life declines?
Or worse, a retrotopia, as sociologist Zygmunt Bauman calls it—an outcome where authoritarian governments attempt to recreate an idealized past that never truly existed and could never be.
Do we desire a beautifully functioning kaleidoscope of diverse yet equal parts, in a world where free humans and the rest of nature coexist in harmony?
It is up to Us—and the Others—to choose the destiny of our journey ahead. We cannot afford to make these choices with the mindset of Us the righteous, and the Other the unrighteous. We need the collective effort of all to build a truly sustainable world—one that is more democratic and where, instead of social or categorical inequalities, there exists only the differentiation of aptitudes, vocations, and political ideals rooted in respectful civic dialogue about political disagreements.
Text of my keynote speech Opening Plenary FAUBAI 2025 Conference, Towards Equitable and Sustainable Partnerships, Brasília, May 27, 2025
