Spain and America
Gustavo Bueno, trans. Beltrán Arellanes
Catauro, Havana 2001
1.
“America” is a geographically well-defined term, but culturally it is confusing and obscure. America encompasses not only Anglo-Saxon America but also “Latin America”; even the geographic denominations themselves (North America, Central America, South America) are not entirely neutral. The expression “South America” is defined both geographically and culturally in opposition to North America; but South and North are relative concepts, dependent on the parallel chosen as reference. “South America,” with respect to the 30th North parallel, is a geographical term that aims for ideological neutrality, though in fact it does not achieve it: one must always ask why the 30th parallel (or, more intuitively, the Rio Grande) is chosen. Nor are seemingly geographical terms like “Southern Cone” entirely neutral. Nevertheless, these supposed geographical neutralities seek to stand in contrast to denominations such as “Latin America,” “Ibero-America,” or “Hispano-America.” As is well known, each of these names has an ideologically determined origin that has been widely studied. “Latin America” was a term promoted, if not coined (Arturo Ardao traced it back to 1502), by France under the Second Empire, on the occasion of Emperor Maximilian’s installation in Mexico (who at the time did not speak Spanish). The term served to encompass the Spanish-, Portuguese-, and French-speaking countries, distinguishing them from the English-speaking ones. But “Latin America” was no longer a concept that could be overlapped with “South America,” because French-speaking Canada is part of geographical North America. “Ibero-America” fits “like a glove” to South America, as it includes Portuguese-speaking Brazil. But “Hispano-America” is not far from this fit either, especially if “Hispania” is understood in the way it was during the age of Camoens, to include Portugal.
The geographic designation raises the question of the unity and identity of this complex of peoples, ethnic nations, and political nations that live in America south of the 30th North parallel; that is, the unity and identity of the vast majority of the peoples and nations that make up Latin America—those peoples who, along with Spain, constitute the “Hispanic Community.”
2.
We must begin with the distinction between the ideas of unity and identity. Neither of these terms is univocal. “Unity” has two main acceptations: the isological sense (from isos = similar, analogous, though without mutual direct communication: the unity that holds among different carbon atoms throughout our galaxy) and the sinalogical sense (from synalaxo = to join, to marry: the unity that holds among the electrons, protons, neutrons, etc., of each of those carbon atoms). The class of “proletarians” in different capitalist countries during the 19th century enjoyed isological unity; the motto of the Communist Manifesto, “Workers of the world, unite!” aimed—one could say—to transform that isological unity into a sinalogical unity.
In any case, the idea of unity (of a multiplicity) intersects with the idea of totality. Attributive totalities involve sinalogical unities (though these may include moments of isological unity); distributive totalities can occur within isological unities that are not sinalogical.
“Identity” also has many modulations, but we will never use the term “identity” as if it had a standalone or substantialist meaning, as do those who use it in expressions such as those often seen on banners at public demonstrations: “Defend our identity.” “Identity” is a syncategorematic term, one that only acquires precise meaning when included in genitive constructions (“identity of religion,” “identity of race,” “identity of language,” “identity of culture,” “identity of project,” “identity of nation,” etc.). For this reason, identity always implies some type of unity (isological or sinalogical). In any case, we must particularly distinguish between “essential” identities (which correspond to the Greek isos) and “substantial” identities (which correspond to the Greek autos).
Isological unity, linked to essential identity, does not guarantee sinalogical unity (except for those who engage in homeopathic magic). But the sinalogical unity of a multiplicity can be expressed or manifested in very different material identities. The sinalogical unity of a “structure” composed of two parallel metal bars joined by transverse bars that are also parallel to one another and perpendicular to the main bars remains even if the identities that such a structure may assume vary greatly: if the bars are parallel to the ground and fixed to two posts, they take on the identity of a fence; if the bars are placed perpendicular or inclined to the ground, resting on a wall, the structure acquires the identity of a ladder. The connections between material identity and unity are intricate. For example, the sinalogical unity of a given multiplicity of terms can be accidental, even when they share an essential identity, and vice versa; but this is not the place to analyze such cases. We refer to our article “Predicables de la identidad” (El Basilisco, no. 25, 1999, pp. 3–30) and to our book España frente a Europa (Barcelona 1999).
3.
The great variety of ideological conceptions of “South America”—a variety that seems chaotic—can undoubtedly be classified according to different criteria.
It has seemed to us that one such criterion could be constituted precisely by some combinations of certain modulations of the ideas of sinalogical unity and identity just discussed. This criterion, despite its eminently logical-material nature, penetrates deeply into conceptions of South America that apparently have nothing to do with logical-material concepts.
Starting from the factual multiplicity of the peoples, nations, or states that constitute the class “South America” as a sinalogical unity, we can distinguish two major types of conceptions depending on whether the nature of that sinalogical unity is understood as either (A) an accidental superstructure of the unity itself or (B) a structural—or even infrastructural—component of the very terms of that multiplicity. Each of these types, according to the unity considered, admits different ways of understanding identity among the terms insofar as they maintain part-whole relationships, whether attributive or distributive.
4.
By combining the alternatives resulting from the composition of these logical-material criteria, we obtain a taxonomy whose general lines we will outline here in programmatic form. It is, in fact, a research program aimed at analyzing the abundant available material—not only institutional, economic, and political, but also literary—always seeking to frame or relate philosophical or literary works with the relevant economic and political events:
A. Conceptions of South America that presuppose the superstructural (accidental) nature of its unity
(1) The alternative of nationalist identity models
The constitutive characteristics of this alternative are manifested in institutions or processes such as the Constitutions of the American Republics that emerged after the dismemberment of the Hispanic Empire, insofar as they moved toward radical nationalism. Along these lines, one could also include, for example, the policy of expropriating foreign oil companies (Mexico, 1938); the nationalization of Argentine railways (1948). Among the thinkers that could be attributed to this first alternative, one might cite the Mexican Samuel Ramos (1897–1959), and even José Gaos (1900–1989), who, despite being Spanish (from Ablaña, Asturias), identified his thought with Mexican philosophy.
(2) The alternative of internationalist models (universalist or cosmopolitan, in regard to their terminus a quo) of identity
We distinguish four versions of this alternative:
a. Anarchist version. Latin American libertarianism of Plotino C. Rhodakanaty (1832–1885), “regeneración social” (El Combate, Mexico 1877). Also under this heading, one could include the Mexican Revolution of 1910 and its slogan “Land and Freedom.” The “La Cecilia” experiment (Argentina) would also fall here.
b. Traditional Marxist version. Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre (1895–1979) and the APRA (Peru); Eli de Gortari (Mexico); Juan Bosch (Dominican Republic); Cuban Marxism (Pablo Guadarrama, etc.).
c. Positivist or universalist version in general. Juan Bautista Alberdi (1810–1884, Argentina). Vaz Ferreira (1862–1958, Uruguay) and his Fermentario (Collected Works in 25 volumes); his “Saxonism” sets aside Spanish traditions.
d. Humanist, existentialist, or personalist version. Antonio Caso de Andrade (1883–1946) and La existencia como economía, como desinterés y como caridad (1919 and 1943); the Argentine Miguel Ángel Virasoro (1900–1966), with his opposition between anxiety and anguish; the Peruvian Alberto Wagner de Reina, with his Aristotelian–Catholic–Heideggerian eclecticism; Francisco Larroyo and his critical personalism, of neo-Kantian style. Alejandro Korn (1860–1936), who vacillated between being a lapsed Marxist and a Kantian socialist. One could also include here the current represented by Raúl Fornet-Betancourt, Intercultural Philosophy (Mexico 1994).
B. Conceptions of South America that presupposes the structural (essential) nature of its unity
B1. South America's identity is superimposed on its unity, insofar as it constitutes an attributive whole.
(3) South Americanist alternative
(Taken to the extreme, indigenist: “Indo-America,” Haya de la Torre, 1961). Among the institutions that, at least in effect, could be ascribed to this alternative are: Santiago Conference of 1959 (free trade area: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay); Montevideo Conference, 1959–60; Treaty of Asunción (Mercosur, 1994); III (Inter-American Indian Institute); CREFAL (Fundamental Education Center for the Development of Latin America), albeit the latter is sponsored by UNESCO and the OAS, which are more aligned with alternatives 2.d and 4 respectively.
Among the philosophical currents that could be associated with this alternative, we would first cite what is usually called “Bolivarianism,” insofar as it includes not only the project of an “Andean Confederation,” but also that of an “Amphictyony” of all Hispanic American countries. Also Enrique Rodó (1871–1917) for his Ariel (1900), a symbol of a new civilization with Greco-Latin and Christian roots, recovered and enriched by the totality of Latin American countries, set in opposition to Caliban, the symbol of the materialist civilization embodied by the United States of North America.
José Vasconcelos (1882–1959) and The Cosmic Race (1925): although universalist or “cosmic” in terms of its terminus ad quem (like the models of alternative 2), it differs from them in that the terminus a quo it proposes is not something prior to Ibero-American reality, but rather constituted from it, in a “Universópolis” located near the Amazon.
Leopoldo Zea (America as Consciousness, 1953; Discourse from Marginalization and Barbarism, 1968, emphasizing the collapse of Western values and a new autochthony, which is neither pre-Columbian nor Westernist), Félix Schwartmann, The Feeling of the Human in America (Santiago, 1953), etc. Also the so-called “Philosophy of Liberation”: Enrique Dussel, Philosophy of Liberation (Mexico 1977), Horacio Cerutti, Latin American Philosophy of Liberation (Mexico 1983), with his metaphor of the hummingbird versus the Hegelian owl; Josef Estermann, Andean Philosophy (Quito 1998) and his “pachasophy,” etc.
B2. South America's identity applies to its unity insofar as it is part of an “organic” attributive whole (a “Society,” a “Civilization,” etc.)
(4) Pan-Americanist alternative:
South America is a formal part of the American continent. George Washington in his Farewell Address (1797), where he sets Pan-American continentalism as the horizon of U.S. policy; James Monroe (1823) and his non-interference policy (from 1889–90 onward, the First Pan-American Conference gives form to Pan-Americanist ideology, according to which all countries of the continent are equal). American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance. This alternative gains strength after World War II: Rio Treaty (TRIAR) of 1947; Inter-American Conference of Bogotá (1947); PAN (1951); School of the Americas (Panama 1954); International Conference of Punta del Este (1961) and the OAS. The main philosophical current ascribable to this line would be Anglo-Saxon analytic philosophy, strongly rooted in Mexico and other countries.
(5) Westernist alternative:
South America is a formal part of the European “West.” Abundant historical foundations, starting from the Enlightenment or the French Revolution. This alternative is reflected in significant cultural institutions or commercial and academic relations of South America with France or Germany. Among the philosophical currents that could be assigned to this alternative, one could cite the “Saxonism” of Juan Bautista Alberdi; the ideology of the Argentine Sarmiento in his Facundo; the perspective of the Cuban Alejo Carpentier. Also many ideologies inspired largely by Ortega y Gasset (who also inspired many Americanist alternatives): including those led by Francisco Romero (Philosophy of the Person, 1944; Theory of Man, 1952) or Ernesto Mayz Vallenilla.
(6) Hispanist alternative:
South America is a formal part of the Hispanic Community. Abundant historical foundations, from the 16th century through the Spanish exile of 1939 and later years. The American nations, despite their nationalism, can be conceived as forming part of the same trunk whose roots are both Hispanic and Indigenous. Many institutions could be cited as reflections of this alternative, for example, the so-called “Ibero-American Summits,” initiated in Guadalajara (1991). One could include here many of Martí’s ideas (“Let the world be grafted onto our Republics; but the world must be that of our Republics”); his defense of the Spanish language as belonging to “Our America” in opposition to the English of “the beast,” etc. Also, as classics: Alonso de la Veracruz (1504–1584), Tomás de Mercado, and Antonio Rubio. Later, the Mexican Alfonso Reyes (1889–1959); Eduardo Nicol (The Problem of Hispanic Philosophy, 1961); Octavio Paz; Juan Carlos Onetti and Mario Benedetti... Also Sandino’s idea of “Indo-Hispanic America.” Our own project Philosophy in Spanish (filosofia.org) is inscribed within this alternative.
5.
The taxonomy of conceptions of America south of the 30th parallel North, as we have just outlined, is only a research program that urgently requires development—both in terms of the conceptualization of the various alternatives it includes (and in this conceptualization, mutual confrontations will be decisive) and in terms of the “materials” (institutions, political, academic, and commercial relations, literary, artistic, or philosophical works) that can be situated within them. Each of these materials requires special analysis and discussion (for instance, the debates surrounding Rodó’s Ariel, among “Arielists” and “anti-Arielists”); but in any case, it is the alignment of each material with others in its alternative—or its confrontation with materials assigned to other alternatives—that will allow us to deepen our understanding of the more or less hidden affinities among the disjecta membra or the more or less explicit distances among many other materials.
In any case, it is worth emphasizing that the importance of the proposed taxonomy, if it has any, resides in the exhaustive character of its alternatives—in the fact that anyone who wishes to form a philosophical concept of Latin America will necessarily have to choose among some of the proposed alternatives, and will not be free to invent a new one, no matter how much creative power we may ascribe to their understanding.
25 June 2001
{ Catauro. Cuban Journal of Anthropology, Fernando Ortiz Foundation, Havana, Year 3, No. 4, July–December 2001, pp. 116–123. }
Original article: https://www.filosofia.org/aut/gbm/2001eya.htm