Art, ritual, and play are the most common motivations to come together in Brazil, and the drive to make beauty gives both meaning and purpose to estar juntos — being together. Think, for instance, of the immense investment of time, money, and energy required to prepare the performance of a samba school, a maracatu rural, or a Bumba-meu-boi: each one of these afro-Brazilian carnaval rituals demands huge groups of people who imagine and sew costumes, compose and rehearse new and relevant songs, and rehearse complex and difficult dances. Back rooms in homes in the favelas are filled with the cloth, feathers, and beads that dozens of women — and sometimes men — will transform into elaborate and beautiful fantasias. Sheds and barns in the sertão (backlands) become workshops where families — who may not have land or even a job — make extraordinary works of art.

What can we learn form Brazil? Why should we listen to insights from a country where politics is an messed up as it is in the United States and Europe?

Indigenous and afro-Brazilian thinkers can offer new insights about why people all over the planet have come to hate each other so much... and centuries of conflict and living with difference can give new perspectives about how to encounter and life with people who are different from us.

In this bonus introduction, the host of Learning form Brazil explains the origin of this podcast and the research that gives it depth and bredth,

Aristotle began his Politics by defining humanity as a zoon politikon (ζῷον πολιτικόν), a phrase often translated as “political animal”, but which really means something closer to “community animal” or “animal that likes to be together.” Though day-to-day living together in Brazil owes more to African and indigenous cultures than to ancient Greece, the country is truly a place where people value and seek for ways to be together. Aristotle will not be our guide through contemporary Brazil, but his idea shows that Brazilians are not alone in seeing “estar juntos” or being-together as one of the most important goals of a good life.