Carroll Quigley - Tragedy and Hope - A History of the World in Our Time

This picture of Latin America and its problems will be resented and criticized by many as exaggerated, one-sided, or even as mistaken. Naturally, in view of its brevity, it is oversimplified, as all brief expositions must be. And equally naturally all its statements do not apply to all groups, all areas, all classes, or all individuals. There are numerous exceptions to large portions of this picture, but they are exceptions and are explicable as such. And there are obviously different degrees of emphasis among various groups, backgrounds, and periods. These again are explicable. Those Latin Americans who are close to the Negro traditions of Africa and of slavery put more emphasis on present preference and sociability than they do on domination, harshness, and cruelty. Again those Latin Americans who are close to the Indian tradition put more emphasis on resignation to fate and indigenous superstitions than they do on male dominance and proving their sexual virility (called machismo , a key concept in Latin American outlook and behavior). Above all, the scores of millions of Latin Americans who are on a poverty level at, or even below, subsistence have many of the characteristics of social and psychological disintegration that we associate with extreme poverty everywhere, even in the United States, and are to that degree unable to carry on the traditions of Latin American life—or any traditions. As such, they emphasize, interestingly enough, the traits of male dominance and egocentric selfishness rather than the companion traits, in the Arab tradition, of female chastity or family solidarity.

In general, we might say that the Latin American tradition we have identified as a modified Arabic tradition with Asiatic despotic overtones is more typical of the oligarchic, Spanish upper classes than it is of the Negro, Indian, or poverty-racked urban poor. And this is of the greatest significance. For this shows that the means and the method for the reform of Latin American society rest in the same group of that society. Such reform can come about only when the surpluses that accumulate in the hands of the Latin American oligarchy are used to establish more progressive utilization of Latin American resources. By the word “reform” we mean that the power pattern, the economic and social pattern, and the ideological pattern be reorganized in more constructive configurations rather than on the destructive patterns in which they now exist. And of these three, the patterns of ideology—that is, of outlook and value systems—are most in need of change. Of course, in any society it is precisely this pattern of outlook and values that is most difficult to modify. In most societies this remains unchanged—repeated in slogans, war cries, and religious incantations long after the behavioral and structural patterns have changed completely. But in Latin America there is this ray of hope. A more constructive ideological pattern is already familiar, at least in words, to Latin America: Christianity.

The whole system is full of paradox and contradiction. The real obstacle to progress and hope in Latin America rests in the oligarchy, not so much because it controls the levers of power and wealth but because it is absorbed in the destructive Latin American ideology. But the real hope in the area rests in the same oligarchy, because it controls wealth and power, and also because there is no hope at all unless it changes its ideology. The ideology it could adopt is one that places emphasis on self-discipline, service to others, love, and equality, but these virtues, almost wholly lacking in practice in Latin America, are the very ones that are, in words, embodied in the Christian religion to which the oligarchy of Latin America nominally belongs. In a word, Latin America would be on the road to reform if it practiced what it preached, that is, if it tried to be Christian. Of course, we cannot really say that the solution lies in practice of what one preaches, the Christian virtues, because Latin American religion, like everything else, is largely corrupt and, as a consequence, no longer preaches the Christian virtues. The upper clergy have been generally allied to the oligarchy; the lower clergy are as poverty-stricken and almost as ignorant as their fellow poor in lay society. Moreover, both levels of clergy have come to accept the outlook and values of the society in which they live. The message of Christ itself, a positive message of action, has been lost in the negative messages of the Catholic clergy reacting within a corrupt society drenched in the non-Christian outlook that dominates the oligarchy as a whole.

Only in recent years has there been much change in this situation. In most of Latin America, the Church’s failure is recorded in the fact that the great mass of Latin American people, especially those below the level of the oligarchy itself, ignore it or reject it, just as they do in Spain. And especially the dominant males have rejected it, except as a social necessity, or an antirevolutionary force, or as a refuge for their martyr-obsessed women. But the advent of Pope John XXIII has had a profound influence on the Church by recalling it from its interests and crass power relationships to the content of Christ’s message. The degree to which this can change the clergy’s negative injunctions against adultery, Communism, and criminal acts into positive exhortations to acts of social benefit, help, and love is problematical. And even more dubious is the question if it is not going to be too little and too late. This is, indeed, the great question with which all talk of reform in Latin America must end: “Is there still time?”

There was time enough in 1940, when the demands of war in Europe began to push away the acute problems and controversies that had arisen from the world depression, the rise of Fascism, and the Spanish Civil War of the 1930’s. World War II, by increasing the demand for Latin America’s mineral and agricultural products, pushed starvation and controversy away from the immediate present and into the more remote future. Unfortunately, nothing constructive was done with the time thus gained, and, almost equally tragic, little constructive use was made of the wealth brought to Latin America by the demands of war elsewhere on the globe. Latin America boomed: the rich became richer; the poor had more children. A few poor, or at least not rich, became rich, or at least richer. But nothing was done to modify the basic pattern of Latin American power, wealth, and outlook.

The wars of independence that ended Latin America’s political connection with Spain and Portugal did not destroy the power of the upper-class oligarchies or change their outlooks, except to make them somewhat more local. It was about a century, say from 1830 to 1930, before the oligarchic alliance of army, landlords, bankers, and upper clergy was seriously challenged in their exploitation of their peasant subjects or the natural resources of their local areas.

This challenge, which first appeared in Mexico in 1910, was a consequence of the commercialization and, much later, the incipient industrialization of Latin American society. The same influences, reinforced by other developments, such as growing literacy, population increase, and the introduction of new ideas of European and North American origin, served to weaken the union of the older oligarchic groups so that the solidarity of the military with the other three groups was much reduced.

This process of commercialization and incipient industrialization of Latin American society was largely a consequence of foreign investments, which introduced railroads, tram lines, faster communications, large-scale mining, some processing of raw materials, the introduction of electricity, waterworks, telephones, and other public utilities, and the beginnings of efforts to produce supplies for these new activities. These efforts served to create two new and quite divergent social classes which began to fill the gap between the older rural dichotomy of oligarchy and peasantry. The new classes, both largely urban, were labor and bourgeoisie. Both were infected by the class-struggle ideologies of European Socialist groups, so that the new laboring masses sought to be unionized and radical. Both groups were much more political than the old peasant class had ever been. A chief consequence of the whole development was the urbanization and radicalization of Latin American society.