On November 16th, 2023, Carlos J. Rangel participated in an event sponsored by Istituto Bruno Leoni, in Milan, Italy, to officially launch a new edition of "From Noble Savage to Noble Revolutionary: Myths and Realities in Latin America" (The Latin Americans: Their Love Hate Relationship with the United States"). The event was led by Alberto Mingardi, Director of the institute, and included as panelists Drs. Carmine Pinto, Serena Sileoni and Loris Zanata.
This is a transcript, edited for readability and clarity, of Carlos J. Rangel's presentation:
Drawing: G. T. Aveledo C.
Auguri a tutti e buonasera. Mi dispiace non poter articolare
il mio discorso stasera in italiano. Molti anni fa ho studiato nella Università
per Stranieri alla preziosa Perugia, ma
a causa della mancanza di pratica, le mie competenze oggi non sono sufficienti
per poter parlare con voi questa sera nella vostra bellissima lingua. Allora…
I will talk with
you in English. But, before I do talk about Carlos Rangel, I want to thank you,
the audience here, throughout the country and the world, for joining us in the launch
of a new Italian language edition of my father’s book, “From Noble Savage to
Noble Revolutionary: Myths and Realities in Latin America.”
I wish to thank
Dr. Filippo Cavazzoni, Editorial Director of Bruno Leoni Institute Libri, and
whose initiative to publish this work has brought us here tonight. Many thanks
are owed to the translator and my liaison at IBL Libri for this project, Carlos
di Bonifacio, as well as to Maria Lucioni Diemoz, and to all others who worked
on making this book possible, including, of course, the craft and art of Nicola
Giacobbo and Timothy Wilkinson, and the energy behind making this event work as
close as possible to clockwork, Veronica Cancelliere. We equally are all
grateful to the Bruno Leoni Institute and its Director General, Dr. Alberto
Mingardi, for their work in promoting free markets and liberal ideas throughout
Europe. Of course, special thanks to my
fellow presenters tonight, Dr. Loris Zanatta, writer of a new introduction to
this edition, and Drs. Carmine Pinto and Serena Sileoni.
Russ had lived many years in Venezuela where he had been owner and director of the main local English language paper, The Daily Journal. While living there he picked up a book everyone told him he should read to better understand the country he was in. But Russ was very surprised to discover that this highly recommended book was the same book that had influenced him in his college days in New York and which had contributed to his interest in understanding the region. You see, the book’s title in English was not “From Noble Savage to Noble Revolutionary: Myths and Realities in Latin America.” The title of the English language edition first published in 1977 and in its second, revised edition in 1987, was “The Latin Americans: Their Love-Hate Relationship with the United States,” leading to Russ’ understandable confusion.
My own experience
is that authors have control of the content of their book, but not necessarily
of its marketing. I did ask my father at the time about why the title was so
different, especially given the fact that in all other languages into which the
book was translated, Italian, Portuguese, French and German, the title of the
book had remained the same. He told me it had been an editorial decision by the
New York publishing house, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. At that time, it seemed
to me that he was not particularly happy about that renaming decision. Upon
further reflection, I may have been mistaken in my impression, or I am wrong in
my recollection. E possibile che io sia sbagliato.
Of course, life
and ideas are complicated, so I agree and disagree at the same time with Russ,
and I am empathetic to my father’s cryptic reaction to my question. That is
because this book is multidimensional, and each rereading finds us exploring various
ones, such as Rangel’s thoughts on Simon Bolivar, the Latin American hero; a
factual analysis of Allende’s Chile; or the cold war’s hegemonic clash in the
region. But its two major dimensions are reflected in those two seemingly
disparate titles.
The book IS
about the dysfunctional relationship between Latin America and the United
States. The book searches for an answer to a key question posited in its introduction:
why did two regions which started their path towards development, so to speak,
at the same time turn out so different? Why is it, in Rangel’s words, that…
“If we propose to
characterize the almost five centuries of Latin-American history in the most
succinct manner, leaving behind analyses, anecdotes, controversies, and
inferences, the most certain, true and all-encompassing fact that can be said
about the history of Latin America, is that, up until today, it has
been the history of a failure.” (author’s italics).
Rangel endeavors
to understand this vexing question, to understand why a region which had
thriving cities and established universities long before any struggling refugee
pilgrims settled in the largely inhospitable regions to the north is now
undoubtedly behind that region by any reasonable measure of progress and
wellbeing that can be objectively quantified. A failure. This is the dimension
of the book that focuses on that Love-Hate Relationship of the Latin Americans
with the United States.
The other
dimension of the book, the one that Russ wanted to broadcast, is the answer
that Rangel proposes to that vexing question; and that answer is the embrace of
liberal democracy, the anti-myth. The key difference between the two regions is
this: the United States embraced liberal democracy as an ideal of governance for
most of its 400 years of history and 250 as an independent nation, while Latin
America has not done so during most of its own 500 years and 200 as an independent
region. The difference resides between embracing leadership renewal and wealth creation
as an economic model and living with entrenched leadership and wealth
distribution as the driving economic model.
To build his case,
Rangel explores the mythology that created an idea of Latin America which
has nothing to do with its realities; the mythology which has led to that
cleavage in the development of the hemisphere. Myths that feed notions of
misguided nationalism, central control, and strongman rule as the best way to
fulfill the destiny of nations. The
antithesis of liberal democracy.
[Writers of the introductions to the book] Dr. Loris Zanatta,
present here tonight, my recently passed friend Carlos Alberto Montaner, Jean Francois
Revel, whom I never met, and many, many others have the absolute right to vent
and be frustrated by the relentless failure of the region and its coddling of
ideologies and leaders egregiously leading their nations to poverty and
ruin. But the myth of the Noble
Revolutionary is powerfully embedded in Latin America’s psyche; its roots are intertwined
with those of the plundering conquest and the evangelizing missions, core
objectives radically dissimilar to the objectives of the settlers to the north,
settlers focused on the struggle to make a living. Those roots have brought forth
authoritarians always promising to restore order and renew the people’s lot in
life, relieve them of that struggle, continuously taking advantage of that
myth, sometimes from the left, sometimes from the right.
Demagogues and
populists throughout the world latch onto any ideology of redemption, be it
Marxism, Christianity, Islam, or others, seeking to make their nation into a
fundamentalist state modeled after their ideology; and often that promise of redemption
is used to satisfy long held grievances by fueling their so-called revolutions.
Preferably a “permanent” revolution.
Not just by
happenstance is the book we are talking about tonight, read in this dimension, subtitled
“Myths and Realities in Latin America.”
While Jean Francois Revel in his introduction points out that Europe has
been the greatest creator of myths about Latin America, the underlying myth of
Paradise Lost and Found drives not only a distorted view of what Latin America
was and is but, truly, what democracy is anywhere. This dimension of the book is
universal. The book’s primary and first name, “From Noble Savage to Noble
Revolutionary” directly refers us to the archetypal myth of paradise lost, the constant
valley of tears we trod through daily, and our aspiration of Paradise, of
Heaven on Earth. The “Golden Age,”
longed for in times of the Renaissance, Shangri-La, the land of the Amazons, the
Garden of Eden, the innocence robbed from us by the serpent, all these
illusions, they all belong and are part of this myth. The myth of a distant land
discovered by daring explorers, and described by Montaigne in 1580, as Rangel
cites him, like…
“…a country of so
exceeding pleasant and temperate situation that… it is very rare to see a sick
body amongst them… Their language is a kind of pleasant speech [with] some affinities
to Greek terminations…”
Montaigne refers to
the inhabitants of this heavenly land as savages, but not in the sense of
Huxley, a savage rebel claiming his rights to be an individual with liberty
and freedom, against oppressive intrusion and control; no, Montaigne clearly
says that he uses the term savage as it is used when referring to wild fruits
or flowers, unspoiled by civilization. He laments that such untainted paradise
will be ruined by the Europeans. He even uses rhetorical gymnastics to justify
reports of cannibalism among these “savages.”
If all this sounds
somehow familiar it’s because it is also the Marxist myth. Karl Marx in 1875,
in his Critique of Gotha, tells us that when communism finally prevails, at the
end of history and of class struggle, we will all live in a place where it will
be “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” There
was a time in the past, described by more contemporary Marxists such as Heinz
Dieterich Steffan, the prophet of 21st Century Socialism writing in
2003, there was a time, says Dieterich, in which no money existed, property, or
selfishness. All this happiness, they tell us, will return when communism
finally prevails throughout the whole world. It is then that the lion shall lay
with the lamb.
This is a popular myth.
It has been used, told and retold in many ways by intellectualistic social
philosophers, novelists, movies, religious leaders, and politicians alike. Today
we see it at the core of many a “Make Our Nation Great Again” movement that so
many populists embrace; authoritarian leaders and politicians that claim to be
the ones who will deliver us to a paradise on earth, a reign of the worthy and deserving
that will last one thousand years, or until they die—whichever comes first.
This is a
universal myth. Rangel uses the history of Latin America, in contrast to that
of the United States, to demonstrate the toxic nature of this myth and how in
fact the structured messiness of democracy, limited government and free markets
delivers greater prosperity and wellbeing to society through its constant
renewal and what Schumpeter called creative destruction. An outcome contrasted
to that unattainable paradise promised by autocracy, repressive government, and
command economies, with their underlying arbitrary nature used to support an entrenched
ruling elite and its cronies. Liberal democracy has reliably provided and
sustained better outcomes for society than the multiple variations of
autocratic rule that we see around the world.
But Rangel had no
illusions about the fact that too often a promised situation of perceived order
and rules is preferred by many over an actual situation of overt messiness,
which is what democracy is in practice, after all. That is why democracy is
always in danger and needs to be permanently defended from that illusion of
order promised by autocracy; and Rangel did so. Throughout his public life, in every
opportunity that he had or was granted, that is what he did, defend democracy; His
personal mission was to help us see and distinguish authoritarians, their
myths, their lies, and their false promises. That is because he lived in a time
where, for those who wanted to see, the need to defend democracy was
clear. And yet, today we hear…
“Democracy is in
danger.” “Is democracy dying?” “Democracy is under attack.” These and similar statements
are commonplace nowadays. I was recently invited to attend an event called “The
Death of Democracy.” I am sure that many of you have been invited to many such
an event or have read a recent book based on this dire prognostication. Did Rangel fail in his mission or are we witnessing another case of the boy that
cried wolf? Will we be deaf to the real dangers facing democracy? Are we already
deaf? The problem is, you know, that the wolf is always real. Democracy by its
very own nature, because of what it is, is always under attack. Always.
The life and times
of Carlos Rangel were complicated, but there are no simple times. Perhaps in that
Lost Paradise. Perhaps that ancient Chinese curse about interesting times is
perennial. In his lifetime, as I recount in one of the previous introductions included in
this edition, he witnessed attacks on democracy from its many enemies. His life and
those times made Carlos Rangel an advocate, defender, and fighter for liberal
democracy. He wrote this book because he wanted us to recognize autocrats and
their lies, and to reject them; because he believed we could do better, we
could all do better. His book is not just a reflection of his time, but a
perspective into our own time and what we want to be. As he says in those words
I read before, when he succinctly characterizes the history of Latin America as
a failure, he says: “...up until today.” “…fino ai nostri giorni.” Deliberate words, emphasized in italics, written
within a carefully crafted statement. That was his legacy, that’s in this book.
This book, Carlos
Rangel’s subsequent works and his life itself, are a stand for democracy.
Detractors of democracy there are many, defenders not so much. Such is the nature
of democracy itself, and the case for it has to be made over and over again. That
millennial paradise myth permanently at odds with its anti-myth, democracy, permeates
us all, our culture, our books, and, for sure, many political parties which claim
they will restore national pride and moral values. It was Carlos Rangel’s time
to defend democracy then. It is our time to do so now.
This book in its new edition in Italian is available right here, right now, and on Amazon. All of Carlos Rangel major published works will soon be available in Spanish in print from Fundación para el Progreso, in Chile, and are currently available on-line from CEDICE Libertad, Venezuela. If I ever get the time and resources, I will publish a new English language translation. It is unfortunate that that same lack of time and resources has not allowed the gathering, editing and compilation of more material, languishing unpublished, in Rangel’s home in Caracas. Even his perhaps misguided, perhaps brilliant attempts at fiction. We’ll never know.
Thanks to you all and buona sera.
.jpg)
No hay comentarios.:
Publicar un comentario