What Benn Thinks
Hey hey. This is a weekly journal I have to post online for my GSI and Professor to read for my Mexican culture class. Keep in mind that my GSI is from Peru and is writing his dissertation on the Inca. :)
I guess I’ll try to run through the highlights of his points as I saw them. First, it seemed like he wanted to say that the indigenous ways of life are marginalized in the Mexican society but haven’t totally disappeared, which he thinks is a bad (?) thing. Then he skips chronologically backwards a little bit and says that the Spanish took native Mexican ruralites and turned them into colonial peasants, which is also a bad (?) thing. And now the United States, is making Mexico conform to its ideals of free trade and competition, which is again a bad (?) thing.
To me, this sounds like every argument denouncing cultural or linguistic imperialism ever. However interesting the documentation and analysis of the cultural transitions, the value assignments that go with them are totally illogical. I aim my most severe criticism at his romantic, but muddy concept that is the crux of the whole piece, “indigenous.” What does that even mean? How long does a culture have to be installed before it becomes titled as “indigenous”? Does he mean pre-revolution? or pre-colonization? or pre-historic? This is a totally conceptual idea which he never makes clear. It’s just so hypocritical. I don’t know this for sure, but I would imagine that he’s the type of person who would openly worship the antique architecture of ancient cities, and the beauty of the sciences of the ancient peoples, but doesn’t he see the irony in that? What would he have said about the Aztecs conquering another smaller tribe which was a necessary step to create those very miracles. Right along with that, does he really want EVERYTHING from ancient cultures? It really seems like he does but is it really a logical claim that “native culture is always better”? Does he really think that human sacrifices are the correct path for modern Mexican culture simply because those ideas were there first? I would also assume that he wouldn’t say that his logic holds up on the small scale. I bet he wouldn’t want to say that George Bush’s ideas were better than Bill Clinton’s, and that Bill Clinton’s are better than George W. Bush’s simply because they were “indigenous” at the time, but yet through some miracle the same logic applies over thousands of years which doesn’t apply over ten. In my opinion, he is just dropping romantically ideal fantasies and calling them intellectual discourse. His analytic skills are tremendous, and sadly tremendously wasted on this piece.
I also need to bring back a classic Benn's Horribly Insensitive Joke of the Day
What do you call a man with no arms or legs in a pile of leaves?
... Russel