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I can't see it any other way. An act of faith, not a cognitive
problem.
IS:
Changing the subject: violence seems to be the predominant
theme in your works, a violence that permeates every level oflife,
that seems to devastate everything and grow greater. That kind of
vision would seem to reflect a sceptical attitude about our possi–
bilities for survival on this planet.
MVL:
We live in a world of terrible violence, and if we find ourselves
these days able to talk about an "end of the world," it is because
violence has not diminished. On the contrary. Because of techno–
logical and scientific developments , violence today has actually
reached the point where it can annihilate mankind . I'll say it
again , there has been no progress in this area . In fact, we've gone
backwards. I think violence continues to permeate all human rela–
tionships, to the point that it even coexists with the highest forms
of art and culture. The Nazis were a flagrant manifestation of this
phenomenon that has come to be ubiquitous. Violence has an in–
disputable place in life and holds an attraction that culture is in–
capable of neutralizing. The young people who kill, assassinate,
and bomb in the developed nations do not spring from the unedu–
cated classes; they are usually from the most intellectually privi–
leged groups . In Latin America it is the intellectuals who are the
greatest inciters to violence - they certainly don't combat it. Why,
today there are groups within the Church itself that justify vio–
lence. That for me is terrible . It's one of the reasons why it is so
difficult to be optimistic.
If
you take a good look around you,
well .. ..
IS:
Continuing with this theme, there would seem to be few dangers
as serious for human survival as those that derive from radical
ideologies-what Octavio Paz has called the plague of our time.
MVL:
It is a very real, very serious problem - the age-old problem
of fanaticism. It was a problem of a religious nature in the past,
while today it tends to be political. But it's all the same: a vision of
the world from a valid, exclusive point of view, with more or less
prefabricated answers for all questions. Curiously enough, it oc–
curs even among intellectuals. In this sense, I think the Latin
American intellectual milieu is so backward in comparison with
the European intellectual milieu, where a thoughtful review of
ideological attitudes and positions does take place . I'm thinking
particularly about the Left. In Latin America that flexible attitude
about reviewing and reconsidering doctrines disproved or ren-
