The afore-mentioned distinction he draws between the elite and the masses is crucial to the thinking of this essayist , as he recognises two distinct levels of Portuguese identity: the educated elite, which emulated and sought to imitate France, particularly from the 19th century onwards, and the general population, which remained rooted in ancestral practices (captured, for example, by diverse figures such as Oliveira Martins in historical texts and Teixeira de Pascoaes in poetry). This population resisted assimilation, apart from superficial external modernisations, some of which were merely cosmetic.

A prototypical example of an essay in which Lourenço reveals his fundamental theoretical framework for historical analysis is “Portugal como Cultura” [“Portugal as Culture”], included in the volume A Nau de Ícaro, seguido de Imagem e Miragem da Lusofonia [The Ship of Icarus, f ollowed by the Image and Mirage of Lusophony]. This essay opens with a statement that summarises and corroborates the points made above: " The silent or silenced aspect of what we now call ‘Portuguese culture,’ being the vital and symbolic expression of the Portuguese people, is the obscure magma of millennial inheritances and rites where, without being aware of it, the visible and clear manifestations of this culture are rooted ” (p. 37). It is worth continuing the quotation, as it is illuminating: " Mythologised as Iberian, Celtic, or tinged with accidental Phoenician or Greek colours before Rome imposed the mark of its institutions and, most decisively, its language, only this silent substratum explains why, at the farthest tip of the Iberian Peninsula, and beyond the patchwork quilt that all cultures are, Portuguese culture acquired and preserved its distinct identity among its Celtic, Latin, and Mediterranean counterparts ” (p. 37). Lourenço goes on to assert: " Our cultural mythology — and also the opinions of those who have studied it — includes the idea that the central and even obsessive drive of Portuguese culture is its lyrical vocation. […] What is meant by this insistence on the lyrical vocation of Portuguese culture is its historical dominance, not only over other forms of our poetry, but also the permeation of all other expressions and manifestations of Portuguese sensibility by that voice, which is closest to humanity’s ecstatic awe at the beauty of the world or its nostalgia for it ” (p. 38). After a succinct exploration of literary figures, highlighting the lyrical vein of the “country of tears,” Lourenço adds: " It is natural to think that this painful sense of existence, imbued with sweetness and resignation, which seems to characterise Portuguese culture, is due to the influence and omnipresence of Christianity. Denying this influence, or rather this near consubstantiality of our culture with Christianity, within which it evolved and was defined, would be absurd. If there is a country in Europe, aside from perhaps Poland, where the Church exercised its intellectual, spiritual, pastoral, and even temporal authority in its full plenitude, it is surely Portugal ” (pp. 39–40). Lourenço’s foundational ideas about Portuguese history become even clearer a few lines later: " In a certain sense, which might be more perceptive than a profane, historicist, or sociological perspective, Portuguese culture could be described in its symbolic functioning as a latent or active conflict between the profane demands characteristic of a society prior to Christianity and the demands of a religious, ethical, and spiritual behavioural model that, in principle, underpins all acts of existence ” (p. 40).

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