T HE NEW WO R.LD OF T H E GOTHI C FOX
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room and board with incomes derived from th e adva nces of industri al
modernity elsewhere in Europe. T hat to urism can erode traditi onal so–
cial and cultural habits is beyond qu es ti on, but this erosion is nothing
compared to the o ne that wo uld result from the wholesale mode rniza–
tion of the country.
It
is true that in Latin Ameri ca, like in Spain, tradi–
tional communi ty has survived bette r than in the advanced countri es o f
the north ern hemisph ere. W e functi o n mo re in terms o f fri endship and
ki ns hip relati ons than otherw ise, and occasionally this takes us close to
the boundari es o f co rrupti on. H owever, I believe that these surviva ls are
largely unintended , th e consequ ence o f the failure to be embraced by the
Industrial R evoluti on.
T he Spanish Counter-Refo rmation was an integratin g, uni fy ing,
centrali zing, and immensely successful moment in our cultural hi story that
assigned to the " new monarchy" th e principle responsibility fo r th e well–
being o f th e realm. A good monarch wo uld dispense "an abundance o f
justi ce," and wo uld be intolerant o f injustices because these would weigh
foreve r on his conscience. The memory of such a moment casts a very
long shadow. W e have been slow to convince o urselves that its concep–
tual architecture is not com.patible w ith the requirements of modern in–
dustri alism . W e have spent much energy trying to bring it up to date,
but with discouraging res ults. Pro fesso r Scruto n has referred to the
commo n law of the English and its distance from the civil law tradition
that shaped the centralist legal institutions of the Spanish-speaking world.
But th ere is mo re to thi s than jurisprudence; the Spani sh-speaking
peoples also share a centralist re li gio us traditi o n , w hil e th e Engli sh–
speaking peoples have nurtured a multipli city of reli gious denominati ons.
The English language has no central authority; the Spanish language is
ordered by the
R eal Academia de la
leng~/a)
sitting in Madrid . These differ–
ences have no t been eno rmo usly attenuated by the passage of time. Five
hundred years from now, the United States will still have more in com–
mon wi th Canada, N ew Z ealand , Australia, and England than w ith any
other country. There is no doubt that C olombia and Argentina have
changed greatly since colonial days, but any visitor w ill observe that both
have more in common w ith Spain than with, say, France o r Italy, let
alone Russia or Indones ia. From thi s cultural vantage point, it can be
asse rted w ith confidence that the White Cliffs of Dover can be seen
clearly from C incinnati . That human history is both mirrored and shaped
by law, religio n, political and eco nomi c arrangements, and the like is as
evident , in my opinion , as th e primacy o f language among these deter–
minants.
