Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

May 4, 2007 By Fausta

The return of the perfect Latin American idiot

Time for more porch blogging:
Foreign Policy has an article by Alvaro Vargas Llosa titled The Return of the Idiot that’s today’s must-read:

Ten years ago, Colombian writer Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza, Cuban writer Carlos Alberto Montaner, and I wrote Guide to the Perfect Latin American Idiot, a book criticizing opinion and political leaders who clung to ill-conceived political myths despite evidence to the contrary. The “Idiot” species, we suggested, bore responsibility for Latin America’s underdevelopment. Its beliefs—revolution, economic nationalism, hatred of the United States, faith in the government as an agent of social justice, a passion for strongman rule over the rule of law—derived, in our opinion, from an inferiority complex. In the late 1990s, it seemed as if the Idiot were finally retreating. But the retreat was short lived. Today, the species is back in force in the form of populist heads of state who are reenacting the failed policies of the past, opinion leaders from around the world who are lending new credence to them, and supporters who are giving new life to ideas that seemed extinct.

Alvaro knows the landscape like the palm of his hand:

…todays’ young Latin American Idiots prefer Shakira’s pop ballads to Pérez Prado’s mambos and no longer sing leftist anthems like “The Internationale” or “Until Always Comandante.” But they are still descendants of rural migrants, middle class, and deeply resentful of the frivolous lives of the wealthy displayed in the glossy magazines they discreetly leaf through on street corners. State-run universities provide them with a class-based view of society that argues that wealth is something that needs to be retaken from those who have stolen it. For these young Idiots, Latin America’s condition is the result of Spanish and Portuguese colonialism, followed by U.S. imperialism. These basic beliefs provide a safety valve for their grievances against a society that offers scant opportunity for social mobility.
…
The Idiot’s worldview, in turn, finds an echo among distinguished intellectuals in Europe and the United States. These pontificators assuage their troubled consciences by espousing exotic causes in developing nations. Their opinions attract fans among First-World youngsters for whom globalization phobia provides the perfect opportunity to find spiritual satisfaction in the populist jeremiad of the Latin American Idiot against the wicked West.

Vargas Llosa coins a great term: the vegetarian left

Even in Latin America, part of the left is making its transition away from Idiocy—similar to the kind of mental transition that the European left, from Spain to Scandinavia, went through a few decades ago when it grudgingly embraced liberal democracy and a market economy. In Latin America, one can speak of a “vegetarian left” and a “carnivorous left.” The vegetarian left is represented by leaders such as Brazilian President Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva, Uruguayan President Tabare Vázquez, and Costa Rican President Oscar Arias. Despite the occasional meaty rhetoric, these leaders have avoided the mistakes of the old left, such as raucous confrontations with the developed world and monetary and fiscal profligacy. They have settled into social-democratic conformity and are proving unwilling to engage in major reform—which is why Brazil’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth is not expected to top 3.6 percent this year—but they signify a positive development in the struggle for modernizing the left.

By contrast, the “carnivorous” left is represented by Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales, and Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa. They cling to a Marxist view of society and a Cold War mentality that separates North from South, and they seek to exploit ethnic tensions, particularly in the Andean region. The oil windfall obtained by Hugo Chávez is funding a great deal of this effort.

And don’t miss the list of Nobel Prize winning idiots.

(h/t Babalu
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Filed Under: Bolivia, Brazil, Cuba, economics, Latin America, Peru, politics, Venezuela

Comments

  1. JMK2006 says

    May 5, 2007 at 4:41 pm

    You can’t hug your child with organic farms.

  2. Jorge says

    July 1, 2007 at 10:08 pm

    The Importance of Being Called an Idiot

    By Jorge Majfud

    click here for related stories: Human Rights
    5-29-07, 9:11 am

    A few days ago a gentleman recommended that I read a new book about idiocy. I believe it was called The Return of the Idiot, The Idiot Returns, or something like that. I told him that I had read a similar book ten years ago, titled Manual for the Perfect Latinamerican Idiot.

    “What did you think?” the man asked me narrowing his eyes, kind of scrutinizing my reaction, kind of measuring the time it took me to respond. I always take a few seconds to respond. I also like to observe the things around me, take a healthy distance, control the temptation to exercise my freedom and, kindly, go after the guy.

    “What did I think? Entertaining. A famous writer who uses his fists against his colleagues as his principal dialectical weapon when he has them within reach, said that it was a book with a lot of humor, edifying… I would not say so much. Entertaining is sufficient. Clearly there are better books.”

    “Yes, that was the father of one of the authors, the Nobel Vargas Llosa.”

    “Mario, he is still called Mario.”

    “Fine, but what did you think about the book?” he insisted anxiously.

    Perhaps he was not so interested in my opinion as he was in his own.

    “Someone asked me the same question ten years ago”, I recalled. “I thought it deserved to be a best seller.”

    “That’s what I said. And it was, it was; in effect, it was a best seller. You realized that pretty quick, like me.

    “It wasn’t so difficult. In the first place, it was written by experts on the topic.”

    “Undoubtedly”, he interrupted, with contagious enthusiasm.

    “Who better to write about idiocy, am I right? Second, the authors are staunch defenders of the market, above all else. I sell, I consume, therefore I am. What other merit could they have but to turn a book into a sales success? If it were an excellent book with limited sales it would be a contradiction. I suppose that for the publisher it’s also not a contradiction that they have sold so many books on the Idiot Continent, right? In the intelligent and successful countries it did not have the same reception.”

    For some reason the man in the red tie sensed some doubts on my part about the virtues of his favorite books. That meant, for him, a declaration of war or something of the kind. I made a friendly gesture to bid farewell, but he did not allow me to place my hand on his shoulder.

    “You must be one of those who defend those idiotic ideas of which those books speak. It is incredible that a cultured and educated man like yourself could uphold those stupidities.”

    “Could it be that too much studying and researching cause damage?” I asked.

    “No, studying doesn’t do damage, of course not. The problem is that you are separated from reality, you don’t know what it is to live like a construction worker or business manager, like us.”

    “Nonetheless, there are construction workers and business managers who think radically differently from you. Might there not be another factor? That is, for example, could it be that those who have ideas like yours are more intelligent?”

    “Ah, yes, that must be…”

    His euphoria had reached climax. I was going to leave him with that little vanity, but I couldn’t contain myself. I thought out loud:

    “It’s quite strange. The most intelligent people don’t need idiots like me to realize such obvious things, no?”

    “Negative, sir. Negative.”

    –Translated by Bruce Campbell.

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