THE NEW WOltLD OF THE COTHIC FOX
219
analysis. The work of people like D' Arcy Ribeiro, for example, needs to
be recognized as an alternative to C laudio Veliz's kind of ana lysis. That
is, we need to be aware that people working within the same general
traditions of cu ltural determination may arrive at profoundly different
judgments as to the past and future, no less than present. For at issue is
not simply a pleasant dichotomy of advanced and stagnant cultures, but
how to stimu late growth and hence advance parity between nations and
peoples.
We may be dealing with more than a problem of capitalism. We
may be dealing with more than a problem of urbanism. Yet I do not see
that sensibility of national structures emphasized in
The Nell; World
oj
the
Gothic Fox.
Between the nations of Latin America there are tremendous
contradictions between wealthy and poor states. And within eac h of
these nations, there are likewise large -scale contradictions between
modernity and folklorism; between the images of mythology in the
interior, and the sense of the whole nation characterist ic of capital
regions. Somehow these factors have to be balanced and accounted for if
an ana lysis on the scale Claudio proposes can be made to work. I think
it can be done, and I think C laudi o is very much on the right track.
Finally, I am concerned about a set of distinctions that I feel should
have been addressed in greater depth in
The New World of The Gothic
Fox.
We too often talk about civilian ism and democracy as if they were
similar. I have grave doubts that civi li anism and democracy are identical.
We have many civilian governments in Latin America; regimes that
profess a commitment to modern, free enterp rise economies. But we
have far fewer democratic societies; societies in which the rule of law
prevails. C laudio's book would have been sharpened tremendously by
making the distinction between democratic orders and civilian orders.
Civilianism does not imply democratic order; only that forms of
coercion are subdued and wait in the wings as a threat of worse
conditions to come .
There is also a question which has been roiling throughout the
hemisphere: whether there even is such an entity as "nationalism." To
what degree is nationalism a more powerful force in Latin American
culture and thought than we perceive it to be? How many people feel
"Latin" in Paraguay? It goes without saying that Brazilians have a quite
different sense of the Latin complex by vi rtue of their Portuguese
inheritance. How many people in Ecuador are kindly disposed to Peru -
especiall y in an era of constant border warfare between the two - and
wou ld dare to cite Bolivarism as a common thread? Even two nations
inhabitating the same island, Haiti and the Dominican Republic , are so
