Em maio de 2012, o autordestas linhas frequentava um curso preparatorio para o dificil e concorridoconcurso do Itamaraty. Faziam tres anos que a revista The Economistestampara em sua capa um Cristo Redentor em forma de foguete, acompanhado dachamada retumbante: O Brasil decola! Eramos a sexta economia do mundo, o paisvivia um clima de euforia e sonhos de grandeza, e a sua escolha para sediar aCopa do Mundo de futebol dali a dois anos (a Copa das Copas, na hoje tragicomicaexpressao da semi-presidente Dilma Rousseff) parecia confirmar o seu estatutode potencia economica emergente. Numa aula de redacao em ingles, foi proposto aos alunos quediscorressem sobre a mocao: Brazil is no longer the country of thefuture. It is the country of now [O Brasil nao e mais o pais do futuro. E opais do agora]. O meu posicionamento sobre a mocao e o curto ensaio seguinte, quemantenho em ingles (posto que macarronico), nao apenas por ter sido escritooriginalmente nesse idioma, mas por ser o ingles a lingua por excelencia doceticismo, a lingua de David Hume. When,in 1941, the Austrian-Jewish writer Stefan Zweig published his now eminent book"Brazil, land of the future", one could easily understand hisreasons. Anguished and depressed by the extending power of the Nazi regime andanti-Semitic ideology all over Europe - a fact he had been noticing notice ofsince the end of World War I - he must had found a huge relief when, runningaway from the long winter of those European years, he eventually ended up in akind of tropical paradise of cordiality and "racial democracy, asGilberto Freyre had supposedly stated less than ten years before. From hisperspective then, the Brazilian society showed up as a fresh sea of possibilities.However, regardless of the hopes that the new bright and sunny country hadinfused him with, the fact is that Zweig still committed suicide just one yearafter the book had been published. On February 23, 1942 a barbiturate overdose cutshort the future of the inventor of "Brazil, land of the future".This got to mean something! SinceZweig's book came to light, the idea of Brazil as the land of the futurestarted to be manipulated for political and official reasons (although theauthor was originally referring to some positive features of the Brazilian peoplerather than of the Brazilian government). The idea was omnipresent, forinstance, through the industrialization process in the JK years. The same couldbe said of the so-called "Brazilian Economic Miracle", during themilitary dictatorship, when, despite all the political turmoil, economic growthwas even bigger than today, when Brazilian economy occupies now the sixthposition in the international GDP rank. In sum, what was first an authenticcompliment made by an astonished foreigner suddenly became a boasting patrioticmotto with at least two not so flattering implications: first, the use of anold-fashioned concept of unilinear and homogeneous progress, as if all thepeoples of the world must reach the same peak; second, the exclusive focus onthe economic aspect of the so-called "growth", as if this factoralone could guarantee a nice quality of life for the population in general. Theutopian idea of a previously known future precludes any realistic considerationof concrete