<b>Ironical views on social reality: persian letters and politically incorrect guide of philosophy

Abstract

Current paper relates two views on social reality, each one considered within its specific historical period. The first, from the XVIII century, is presented by Montesquieu (1721), in Cartas Persas, and the second, presented by Pondé (2012) in Guia Politicamente Incorreto da filosofia. Four themes were selected: courage, hypocrisy, female and male relationships and intellectual vanity. Parts Letters I to LII by Montesquieu were selected in which ironical views of reality were detected. The choice of the first third part of Cartas Persas was made by the first experiences of the interlocutor with the other culture, specifically, the French society of the XVIII century. The presentation of the Letters, however, is not linear, but correspondent to the themes selected for this research. It may be observed that both sources, imbued with ironical literary resources, contribute towards an understanding of societies, the French one in the XVIII century and Brazilian society in the XXI century. Underlying ironical language, the two authors try to uncover society´s hypocrisy and demonstrate the need of a profound respect, and not a politically correct respect, among individuals.