Latin American perspectives II Program 14 of 38
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Latin America perspectives a series of information and
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comment about Latin America with Dr. C. Harvey Gardner research professor of
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history at Southern Illinois University. These programs are recorded by
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station w s r u FM. Here now is Dr. Gardner.
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A time when many Americans here in the United States live at
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tempos that deny them leisure to read and others read at
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tempos that deny them all reflection. Some of our literary
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forms are waning in popularity. One such
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is the essay.
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Why ask the average citizen Republik what he has read in the way of essays
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lately.
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And you'll draw a blank white blank that suggests he's read nothing and
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he might even reply in derisive tones that essays are passe.
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Why ask him to name an essayist and he will probably fall back
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on Ralph Waldo Emerson. What this then suggests
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that the essay and the essay for people in our land
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take us to the 19th century but they are no longer a part of the 20th century.
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It becomes one of the things that differentiates a segment of intellectual activity
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in the United States from that in Latin America because south of the border
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there is an intellectual vigor that has long made much indeed still
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makes a great deal of the writing of essays.
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Hey writing and publication of essays is much
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more commonly before the public in Latin America because indeed the
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number of volumes of them published the number of journals that
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admit them to their pages the number of newspapers that do so on are
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legion. It would be somewhat of a novelty for a very
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thoughtful provocative essay to appear on the pages of an
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American newspaper even a Sunday issue special magazine
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section. But it is a common place for magazines and
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newspapers newspapers in particular not only to carry such on
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their pages on Sunday but off time as daily fare
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for the people. This means of course then there is an automatic invitation to the writing of essays
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because there is an outlet for the publication of essays.
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It is of course possible however to easily overestimate the role of the
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essayist. The impact of the ideas there and in Latin American
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circles. The vast majority of that intellectual group
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dedicated to the writing of essays would be found either in national
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capitals close upon major national universities
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or they are to be found in some of the more prominent of the
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provincial or state capitals. This means that there are a few
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isolated nuclei of such intellectual
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workers and one can of course wonder about the
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ratio of literacy and whether or not in Latin America as Herr
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there are those readers who are even given an essay in the newspaper are scaring so
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rapidly toward the so called Comics on the sports page. The latest
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word for the ladies that it is a bit of wasted print on
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paper. It's difficult then saying the role and seeing
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what the impact is but nonetheless the presence of the essay
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as a literary form as a medium for the expression of
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ideals a philosophy of ideological conflict has long been
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with a Latin American and is very vigorous there today.
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The weight of the intellectual sector within the totality of Spanish American
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culture is impressively demonstrated by noting the considerable number of thinkers
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and literary men who have attained high office in those nations.
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Contrast with the United States a striking this nation did not
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elect did not even propose Horace Mann as
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president. Yet Argentina did make the essayist
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and educational theorist Domingo Faustino Sarmiento
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its chief executive. What anyone in the United States thought seriously of
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proposing a writer of original novels and social protest a man such as starting
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back as a presidential. Tended it unlikely. Yet it was
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just such a man. The celebrated novelist Romeo guy here goes.
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Who was elected president of Venezuela 1946. Why
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not American readers may be surprised to learn that Victoria. I get an
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Atari one of the leading candidates in the Peruvian presidential election of
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1962 is an essayist of hemispheric repute
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who has published serious papers while such esoteric themes
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as the relationship between Einstein's theory of relativity
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and the philosophy of history. One might also be surprised to
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learn that Juan Bosch. Former President of the Dominican Republic
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and of late the center of political controversy in the Caribbean was
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a short story writer and essayist of considerable stature. Long before his
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name graced the Associated Press wire services
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her course not all Spanish American presidents or other governmental
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leaders have been writers and intellectuals and by the same token
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this country has had an occasional Jefferson and Wilson and its public life
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nonetheless. In addition to the greater relative number of
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intellectuals in the Spanish American public life as compared with people in the United
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States there is in the hands in the lands to the south a different
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popular attitude toward the man of letters who would seek public
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office.
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One fact that Woodrow Wilson was a professor of political science and
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president of a great university before his election is usually treated as a
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curiosity in the context of American politics. When
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Spanish America by contrast the academic titles of Dr are
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less sentient or the fact that a man has written a good novel are
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unquestionable assets for that political aspirant.
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Understandably the situation has a negative side. Given the limited
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diffusion of general education in many countries it's all too easy to take
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advantage of a blind respect for the academician.
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But whether the well educated man uses his privileged position for
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good or evil is beside the point. The fact remains that his activities as a writer
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philosopher Professor poet do not disqualify him. When I
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took part in determining his nation's destiny rather they
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enhance his chances of playing such a role.
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What is then in the realm of writing whether
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the essay a short thing a thoughtful thing that many
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a Latin-American launches a career that is not simply intended to
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be a literary career but one which finds
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the ideas as they are presented in a magazine newspaper and from a
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public platform catapulting him into political
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prominence. Many a leading politician in Latin America
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has continued to have this intellectual side the literary side of his
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life parallel his political activity.
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Within Latin America there are two centers of intellectual
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activity that stand above all others one in the
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non-theists Mexico City and one font of the South. When US
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is each of these costs dominates as capital
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a country in which it is located. Each of these is also
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bigger than the country in which it is located. As far as it being a magnet
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for intellectuals is concerned numbers
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of intellectuals and somehow intellectuals have a habit of
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crossing the wires. Public opinion find a
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persona non grata with dictators have made their way out of
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one small Central American country to another to Mexico City.
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It's not uncommon to see the Mexican capital the haven
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of the intellectual exile self-imposed perhaps from Honduras
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or Nicaragua or Guatemala or indeed from some of the islands of the
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Caribbean. This has meant that Mexico City has been bigger
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than life bigger than the Mexican prospects for producing the
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life and the ideas the essayists would relish
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and would record. There is a rubbing of intellectual elbow so to speak.
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There is an intensity of activity that is not only a quantitative
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but a qualitative thing. In the final product and it goes without say
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that some of the finest most thoughtful and indeed those that
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seem to have the prospect of a long life as SARS have come out
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of Mexico to the far south of Buenos Aires is
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another focal point for a country because when it's areas as a
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capital it dominates Argentina as completely as Mexico City can be
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said to dominate Mexico and.
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Like Mexico City when a sari reaches beyond the national boundary
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to become the magnetic force drawing the man from Aura by
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drawing the person from Powerglide from Bolivia. And so there has
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been a focal point there of intellectual activity which has
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translated into a greater number of publishing houses books
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issued journals printed newspapers
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published and bought and sold. This means then that
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the words of a man like Abbas can sell US s a s from
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Mexico of Afonso race essayist from
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Mexico of Rojas from Argentina
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of Rodolfo from or a glass of the
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Dominican Republic and others have become as important
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as they have in terms of total impact because they have
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gravitated toward it they have not already been a party to these more
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magnetic centers that are Mexico and when US
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armies one man in the generous list studied
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is Waldo Frank a citizen of the United States by temperament by subject
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matter has long been identified with Latin America.
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The essayists of Latin America can best be studied in the time period
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since 1890 this being a period in which the forces of
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American imperialism the forces of the Spanish-American War that retreat of
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Spain the penetration of investments the refurbishing of capitals
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along the lines of the reforms that Saul Paris
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redecorated as it were by Napoleon the third all this foreign
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influence in and many would want to assess the significance it had in the way
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of life of Latin America. A volume has been written by
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Martin s s t a double B and titled in
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quest of identity. The subtitle is very significant
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patterns in the Spanish-American essay of ideas
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1890 to nineteen sixty. This work
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treats the focus upon scientism
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focus upon race relations to focus upon
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religious life. It indeed gets into the ideological
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conflicts about modernity about the significance of Latin American
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culture nationality of internationalism. And
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so it becomes an introduction to this area of intellectual activity the like
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of which we do not know now in quest of identity by Martin S.
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Staub is published by the University of North Carolina Press.
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This was another program in the series Latin America perspectives
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with Dr. C. Harvey Gardner research professor of history at Southern Illinois University.
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Join us for our next program when Dr. Gardner will comment on another interesting aspect of
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Latin American affairs. These programs are recorded by station
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w s r u FM and are made available to this station by the National
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Education o Radio Network.
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