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PAR.TISAN R.EVIEW
styles as explanations for economic structure to begin with. Perhaps it is
the other way around. Perhaps culture emerges from economic systems
or from specific historical events. For instance, in the situation of Iberian
America and the economic structure which never developed there, why
have we considered intellectual or cultural phenomena such as the
Reformation or the Counter-Reformation, and not more material or
tangible events such as the
Reconquista,
to be the chief source of expla–
nation? The experience of the reconquest of the Iberian peninsula from
the Moors led to a very strong centralization and a reliance on charis–
matic authority or personal authority, to the conscience of the king, as
it was referred to earlier.
In
many ways that experience was replicated in
America in the encounter with the Native American civilizations. The
Spanish people, like the Conquistadors, came and encountered huge
pockets of populations and saw themselves in some ways as reenacting
the
Reconquista.
If you look at the situation on the Western frontiers of
Brazil or in Guatemala, you see in some ways that this conquest is still
occurring. Sixty or one hundred years ago, in the wake of Marx, many
intellectuals perceived culture as more determined by economics than
most do today. I am wondering if economics and material history don't
deserve greater consideration than we are giving them now.
Conversely, within the United States, that part of the country where
we have had an economy which resembles that of Latin America's
monoculture, the economy of the South or Southeast, I think you see a
lot of these same values we have been talking about, which you may call
hedgehog values. That is, values of loyalty, tradition, or central author–
ity. I am wondering why the Counter-Reformation is the most signifi–
cant event in our discussion here, and not some of the military or eco–
nomic aspects of the Latin American experience. This may be a chicken–
and-egg question, but if you are going to make a determinist argument
about the role of culture, these questions naturally arise.
Claudio Veliz:
What I find most interesting about the
Reconquista
is
that seven hundred years of intermittent warfare, culminating with the
conquest of Granada, did not result in the formation of a military state
either in Spain or in the Indies. Of course the conquest and early settle–
ment of America brought about an influx of armed men who fought
and won a few decisive encounters, but this was followed by the deliber–
ate establishment of a civilian colonial administration that remained in
place for the next three centuries. Save for a handful of Caribbean ports
garrisoned against pirate incursions, and the troops facing the
Araucanians in the southern frontier of Chile, the Indies had no regular
