A queda: um ensaio sobre o Discurso da Servidão Voluntária a partir de M. Chaui e J. Saramago

This essay presents as a starting point the short story "Chair", by the Portuguese writer José Saramago, to illustrate the continuous relevance of the study "Amizade, recusa do servir" (Friendship, refusal to serve) by the professor and philosopher Marilena Chaui, published in 1982 by the Brasiliense publishing house as a postface to the treatise "Discourse on voluntary servitude", by Étienne de La Boétie. Our intention is to start from the Saramago’s allegory of the fall of the Salazar dictatorship in Portugal to show how La Boétie’s thought, especially when analyzed by Chaui, pierces whole centuries unscathed, reaching European and Brazilian contemporaneity and that possible alternative paths to this system can be found.