Human Dignity Through the Looking Glass: The New Contemporary Totem

Abstract

In Brazil, the human dignity is built like a super principle. Under the privilege to figure in the Constitution as one of the foundations of the Democratic State of Law, it's the only inalienable right of the entire legal system. It's possible to waive the right of life, but dignity is inalienable. Fundamental rights, in this state model, form a kind of systemic and standardizing institute, being the maximum principle the human dignity. The courts, under the guise of a radiant efficiency, use it to supplement various decisions. As a guiding principle of the legal system, with bases first in religions, has a decisive influence in all the other principles and, therefore, became a kind of contemporary totem. But after all, what see the human dignity when confronted in the mirror? Answering this question requires rethinking not only the Democratic State of Law, but the Aristotelian construction of a metaprinciple. The objective is to deconstruct it, taking as paradigm the literary works "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass and what Alice found there", both written by Lewis Carroll. Also, the objective is to reveal it as a legal supplement, identify the terminological origin and analyze its inverted pendulum effect. Last to conclude that human dignity is nothing more than a contemporary legal supplement, a style of argumentation that precisely because it is inaccurate, becomes strong, in dual mode: good for the government and bad for the governed. This article will use the theoretical contributions of Jacques Derridas deconstruction.