With this fourth volume of the Uncertain Manifesto, we cross the Atlantic to Buenos Aires, where we will dive into the nineteenth century. With Friedrich Nietzsche, first of all, and his very elitist conception of education; then with Ernest Renan – we will follow every step of the crisis of doubt that led him to leave the school that was preparing him for the Seminary; and we will learn about the life of Arthur de Gobineau, the author of the highly debatable Essay sur l’inégalité des races humaines, in great detail: from his desperate and despair-inducing ideas to his lonely death in a hotel room in Torino. Discussing these three reactionary thinkers in reference to such conflictual topics as elitism, racism and religion, the author revives a crucial period in his own youth: two years spent in a free school in the south of France – left to his own devices, without rules or requirements — whence the sub-title: Mandatory Freedom. These interwoven threads will also address current television and culinary fashions.

Three reactionary authors are discussed here: Nietzsche, Renan and Gobineau, their confusion, certitudes and doubts. Elsewhere in the book, the narrator revisits his own youth in the early 1970s, when he attended a free boarding school, where he was left to his own devices, without rules or requirements. He also examines our own era, analyzing both television and culinary fashions. As a backdrop, a voyage across the Atlantic Ocean and along the Brazilian coastline all the way to Buenos Aires. Includes almost 150 of the author’s drawings.