Modernity, Identity, and Utopia in Latin America Author(s): Anbal Quijano Reviewed work(s): Source: boundary 2, Vol.

20, No. 3, The Postmodernism Debate in Latin America (Autumn, 1993), pp. 140-155 Published by: Duke University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/303346 . Accessed: 25/09/2012 23:04
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Modernity,Identity,and Utopia in LatinAmerica

Anibal Quijano debate in rePerhapsfor many,to take up the modern/postmodern is immediately America is notsomething whose importance lationto Latin evident. Forothers,the topic is moreof a fashionthan a serious way of itseems to me of ourmodernity. aboutthe problems Nevertheless, thinking thatthis questionis notso simpleor banal.Itis notonlya European-North of a topicforeignto American discussionor a snobbish,vulgarimposition involvespower the questionof modernity On the contrary, LatinAmerica. were an even if modernity on its most extensive,globalscale. Therefore, inconit would not be American phenomenon, exclusivelyEuropean-North sequentialforus. or in North In the Europeanconcernwiththe "endof modernity" it is impossiblenot to detect the peculiarodor American "antimodernity," the of certainareas of the European zeitgeistthatpreceded(ordirected?) that the that incubated areas Second World War, sought ideological germs anddemocracy to destroythe seeds of liberty, produced solidarity, equality, Perand modernity. of rationality as partof the original, promises liberating was no less darkwhen,at the facingJohannesHuizinga haps the horizon
Press. CCC0190-3659/93/$1.50. boundary 2 20:3, 1993. Copyright? 1993 by Duke University

inLatin America141 / Modernity, andUtopia Identity, Quijano hisworried of the 1930s, he decidedto publish reflections withthe beginning titleInthe Shadowof Tomorrow. Ourpresenthorizon does not cautionary wars, necessarilyhave to darkenwithnew fascisms,nazisms,Stalinisms, in ovens, famines,andtrials.Allof this is notnecessary,butit is implicated the debate. America. Notonly because the enNone of this is foreignto Latin butalso because, forus, the debateaboutmodernity tireworldis involved, impliesseeing ourselvesfroma new pointof view whose perspectivecan in a new way.A to ourownhistory ourambiguous reconstitute relationship never of to what we have been. be way ceasing LatinAmericaand the Productionof Modernity We stillhave notliberated ourselvesfroma failedor deficient"modin War.Thatexernization," operation especiallysince the Second World it perienceblocked,in manypeople, any otherconceptof modernization; made us see ourselvesas littlemorethan belatedand passive recipients of modernization and could not preventa skepticismabout its promises, because of whichmanyof us nowfindourselvesahead of the presentdebate. Nevertheless,althoughLatinAmericamay have been, in fact, a latecomer itwas, on the to, and almostpassivevictim of, "modernization," otherhand,an activeparticipant inthe production of modernity. The history of modernity itselfbeganwiththe violentencounterbetween Europeand America at the end of the fifteenth century.Fromthen reconstitution of the image of on, there followed,in bothworlds,a radical the universe.It is not necessary to insisthere on the implications of the for the Ptolemaic of the universe. What was at Conquest image important the timewas the recognition of the imperative to study,explain,doubt,discuss, and investigateall that exists and happensin the universe,and to is, to reconmodifyideas, images,and experiencescorrespondingly-that stituteon a new, experimental basis the relations betweenhumanbeings and the universe,andtheirrelations withthemselves. The secularization of authority inthe production andcommunication of experience and knowledgewas legitimized and consolidated withthe encounterbetweenEurope andAmerica. all knowledge would Henceforth, owe its production and legitimacy to the employment of the characteristic humanaptitudesfor makingexperiencescommonproperty, announcing and developingcognitiveframeworks. discoveries,translating, This new
culturalimperative,and the resources and procedures destined for its sat-

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isfactioninthe Europe of thattime,was reason,or rationality. Andthe new it brought in its wakewas whatwe are accustomed social intersubjectivity to callingmodernity. The primordial moment of thisvast mutation of intersubjectivity, without whichit wouldhave no meaning,occurs in the social image of time: The past is replacedby the futureas the privileged seat of the hopes of Untilthen, all previousimages of the universelay in the past, humanity. because they came fromit. Allexplanations, indeed all legitimacy, were associated withthis past. Hopewas an insistenceon a return to a golden itwas nostalgia. age. Moreaccurately, Whatcharacterizes the European of the fourteenth and fiflabyrinth teenthcenturies was notonlythe erosionofthe central of society institutions and culture and the exacerbated violenceof theirconflicts butalso, or pereven more the loss of control or confusion abouthistorical haps decisively, alternatives. Absent a historical sense of the future,no perspectivewas able to give meaningto events norto the constitution of a social project thatenvisioneda timeyet to come, as opposedto the mereprolongation of the past. of the European The production of the sixutopiasat the beginning teenth centurygives testimony thatthis labyrinth begins to be left behind or chargedwith,the future, and that history toward, beginsto be projected withmeaning. Those first formsof a new historical consciousness,inwhich of European the beginnings reasonand modernity weresituated,were not own a of their Their most new elaboration only past. powerful images,those that gave the utopiastheirimmensemotivating force and theirlongevity, of Andeanrationality were dependentabove allon the seminalcontribution to the new European that was Andeansocial constituted. imaginary being institutions and formsof thought, established around reciprocity, solidarity, work the control of chance,andthe joyousintersubjectivity of collective and of the tree of withthe world communion terms,bythe unity (or,inEuropean modelsforthe utopias.Noneof thiscame fromthe European life)provided and all hope of it hadto be locatedinthe future. past, of modernity This copresence of LatinAmericain the production the periodof not only continuedbut became moreconscious throughout the eighteenthand the of modernity, the crystallization especiallyduring centuries.Ifone considersthe characteristic beginningof the nineteenth inthe scientific of the traitsof the Enlightenment-theinterest investigation universeand the resulting discoveries;the acceptanceof the often radical intellectual risks implied in this behavior;the critiqueof existing social

inLatin America143 / Modernity, andUtopia Identity, Quijano to andthe completeacceptanceofthe ideaof change;the disposition reality and social work forreforms, despotism, arbitrary power, prejudices, against featuresof the movement of moderobscurantism-if these are the initial the incolonial America as in Europe during nity,they are as documentable eighteenthcentury. Onbothsides of the Atlantic, groupssuchas the Societiesof Friends to pursuethese goals.These intellectual and of the Nation, wereorganized on similar circlesformulated the same questions,worked projects, political and publishedand discussed common matters.That is precisely what wouldfind, withoutbeing able to conceal his surprise,in the Humboldt were America. The fruitsof Enlightenment course of his journeythrough tasted at the same time in Europe andAmerica. A to America. of ideas simplyfromEurope Norwas the movement fromPeruby the colonial Pablode Olavide,forcedto emigrate Peruvian, befriended Voltaire, authorities, encyclopedists, joinedthe groupof French and playedan activepartinthe political experiencesof the SpanishreformOlavide was defendedby ers of thatperiod.Persecutedby the Inquisition, himall of the European circlesof the Enlightenment, and it was Diderot who published the firstbibliography of self, also Olavide's personalfriend, his works. inother of the Enlightenment, Theintellectual andpolitical movement inEurope andpracticed andAmerica. words,was produced simultaneously In both worlds,a battlehad been mountedagainstthe religiousobscurantismthat blockedthe development of knowledge and personalfreedom of choice;againstthe arbitrariness and inequality of the relations of social in in power a context whichthe crisisof feudalsociety was stillnot overcome; againstthe despotismincorporated state;against by the monarchic that mightbe an obstacleto the reorganization of society on the anything basis of reason. Allof this was even moreprofoundly felt in America than in Europe the eighteenth because itscolonial situation reinforced desduring century, andobscurantism. Itis notsurprising, then, potism,arbitrariness, inequality, thatthe Societiesof Friends notonlyspreadthroughout allof Latin America but also frequently a more in intense there than enjoyed activity Europe. to the usual model of cultural in the narrative transmission of Contrary it is usefulto remember, forexample,thatintellectual and politimodernity, cal nationalism, one of the clearestconsequencesof the reformism of the and in morepolitically concreteformsin Enlightenment, developedearlier
America than in Europe, where it did not enter the arena of politicaldebate

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and conflictuntilalmosta centurylater,toward the end of the nineteenth century. The "Metamorphosis" of Modernity in LatinAmerica if modernity, of social intersubjectivity, as a movement couldoccur at the same timein Europe and Latin not this was due America, onlyto the communication butalso to the factthatthey existingbetweenbothworlds, were going throughthe same sociohistorical process:the apogee of the of the seventeenthandeighteenth mercantilism with centuries. Theproblem Latin was that when its to seemed enter America, however, just modernity the phase of the demarcation of its specificity withrespectto and maturity whenitbeganto defineitselfas a newsocialandcultural Europe, possibility, itfellvictim to itscolonial to Europe to a literandwas subjected relationship in to While started mercantilism Europe, allyKafkaesque "metamorphosis." from in transform itselfintoindustrial Latin America, capitalism, especially was the last thirdof the eighteenthcentury transformation on, the parallel halted,and the economy began to stagnate due to the double effect of the continuedrestrictions imposedby the political economyof the Iberian of and the economic displacement powerin favorof England. metropolis of society, was partof a radicalmutation So, while in Europemodernity in Latin by the emergenceof capitalism, feedingoffthe changes prepared was linked fromthe end of the eighteenth on, modernity America, century to an adversesocial context,in whichthe declineof the economyand the the social sectors most of the mercantilist breakdown system permitted of Latin to itto occupythe leadingpositionsinthe elaboration antagonistic fromEurope. America's independence thatremadein Europenot onlythe Inthis way,the same modernity social but the material, of relations also, increasingly, sphere intersubjective mode of a the as relationsthemselves, becoming, result, everydaylife in confined to the intersubjective America remained sphere, society, in Latin of society,and even of entering the materiality blockedfromits possibilities forcedto seek refugeinthe practiceof there itwas repressed,persecuted, minorities. enlightened Fora long a doubt,an authentic Thiswas, without "metamorphosis." for us wouldexist as pureintelligence, self-enclosed,intime, modernity could think The intellectuals and almost incommunicable. communicado, whiletheirsociety became less and less modwiththe tools of modernity

/ Modernity, andUtopia inLatin America145 Quijano Identity, This helps to explainwhythe liberal once ern, less rational. intelligentsia, was could not colonial liberate to itself from the manage subjugation ended, a revolution, chimeraof a modernization of societywithout and why many oftenthe mostbrilliant, endedupsimply themselves intellectuals, submitting to the servitudeof the new modelsof powerand society that were being and laterthe United States. Modernity ceased to be exportedfromEurope and from Latin American cultural soil. produced coproduced The InternalConflictof Modernity in Europe This "metamorphosis" of modernity in Latin Americais not a phenomenondisconnectedfromthe Europeanhistoryof that movement.It colonialrelationship resulted,to a decisive degree, fromLatinAmerica's to Europe,and its consolidation and prolonged duration (whichhas stillnot in with associated the fact that in Europe, were, turn, completelyended) domination could impose, in its own service,the almostcompleteinstrumentalization of reasonagainstliberation. Fromits verybeginnings, the European contained an Enlightenment unbridgeable split betweentendenciesthat saw reason as the historical of humanity fromits ownghosts, fromsocial injuspromiseof the liberation tice and the prisonsof power,and,on the otherhand,tendenciesthatsaw in instrumental of power,of domination. terms,as a mechanism rationality The firsttendencies were particularly in Mediterranean disseminated and LatinEurope; the second in NordicEuropeand especiallyin whattoday is GreatBritain. The splitbetweenthe two became clearerand sharperin the courseof the eighteenth itwas involved inthe conflict between century; andSpainand,later, betweenEngland andFrance overthe course England of the FrenchRevolution andcontrol ofthe Americas, andbecamedefinitive withthe imposition of Englishhegemonyover Europeand, subsequently, over mostof the restof the world inthe nineteenth century. Theimposition of English linked as itwas to the spectacuhegemony, lar expansionof British industrial consolidated the hegemony capitalism, of the tendencies in the movementof the Enlightenment that conceived of reason primarily in instrumental terms.The associationbetweenreason and liberation was occluded.Henceforth, wouldbe seen almost modernity the crookedmirror of domination. The age of "modernexclusively through insteadof modernity, hadbegun:thatis, the transformation ization," of the to the requirements of domination world,of society,according and control,

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of the domination of capital, of anypurposeotherthan specifically, stripped The ax thathadcutoffthe Moor's accumulation. head couldbe turnedin a different direction and allowedto prolong its pale efficiency. ForLatin thisinflection ofthe history of modernity was more America, of the instrumentalization than decisive-it was catastrophic. The victory of reason inthe serviceof domination was also a profound defeatforLatin of its modern because colonial had associated America,which, situation, morethananything else withliberation. Latin America wouldnot rationality exceptunderthe guise of "modernization." againencountermodernity imof the United The subsequentpredominance States in capitalist II not of World War the "Pax Americana" after and perialism imposition of instrumental reason consolidated and the (the globalized hegemony only over"historical reason" associationof reasonanddomination) (theassociait also exacerbated its consequences tion between reasonand liberation); of society it all instances For has been under this that empire immeasurably. to the demandsof capiand each of its elementshaveendedupsubjugated of its risethatLatin the period tal.Andithas been precisely America, during in particular, came to be one of the victimsof "modernization." and reason was even more profound The victoryof instrumental that it movements also involved ideas and social because emergedas tragic of the bearersofthe original onlyto succumb liberatory promises modernity, reason.Whatis worse,these ideas themselvesto the forceof instrumental notwithout success fora longtime,to present and movementsattempted, itself.Inthis less thanliberating reasonas nothing instrumental rationality between of the association occlusion to the further contributed way, they did to: I Socialism what am knows reasonand liberation. referring Everyone otherthan "actually not manage to be anything existingsocialism"--that in any of its localvariants. is, Stalinism that the Why,then, all things considered,shouldwe be surprised now appearsto designateonly "actually term modernity existingmoderreason? nity"-that is, the reignof instrumental Whose Modernity Is in Crisis? It is a historical irony,then, that the presentattackon modernity reason. I say this shouldcome preciselyfromthe bastionsof instrumental of a sectorof the Frenchintelligentsia because the postmodernism (some or hadto definethemselvesagainst,a Stalof whose memberscame from,
inist Left, others who did not discover in time that the mask and the face of

/ Modernity, andUtopia inLatin America147 Quijano Identity, werethe same thing)andthe antimodernism "actually existingmodernity" of a sector of the North American (nota few of whomare also intelligentsia formerleftists)are preciselydedicatedto destroying whatlittleremainsof the original associationbetweenreasonandsocial liberation. The postmodernists contendthatafternazismandStalinism, no one can still believe in the "masternarratives" of modernity or its promiseof The NorthAmerican liberation. fortheirpart,sustainthat antimodernists, these promiseswere never morethan chimeras,and that orderand auarethe onlyexpressionsof modernity. Bothof themproposethatthe thority of poweris the onlyaspect of modernity thatis worth technology defending anymore. If all effortsfor the liberation of men and womenfromdomination, social servitude, inequality, arbitrary authority, despotism,obscurantism, andthe like,are invain,ifall hopes of achieving the completerealization of individual facultiesand collective ifthey are onlysomejoy are chimerical, of impossible narratives" thingthat historyreducedto "master aspirations, then it shouldbe admitted thatthe promisesof modernity are not only not The only thingthat reallyremains, rational, they are decidedlyirrational. oneselfto it. Inthis then, is power.The rational thingwouldbe to surrender to modernity. way,the seductionof poweroffersitselfto us as an alternative Theeffectof historical that of a as forthe reason, is, rationality project liberation of society,is subjugated to a newandmoreinsidious siege. Social and political forces equivalent to those that,likenazismand Stalinism, produced the weakening-in truth,almostthe eclipse of historical reasondestruction of allprojects to liberate emergeagaininsearchof the definitive from the holders of society present power. This, in essence, is the natureof the presentcrisis of modernity. Nevertheless,itwouldbe pointlessand,worse,dangerousnotto see thatit is notonlya matter of the struggle betweeninstrumental reasonandhistorical reason. Ifthe liberating of modern were able to be promises rationality and subordinated to the necessities of marginalized power,firstunderthe and then laterNorth American and if the hegemonyof British imperialism, alternative the heirsandbearersof the promisesof modernity, movements, ended up converting these promisesinto"actually it is existingsocialism," that all of this shouldhappenonly because historical reason improbable is defended only by the weakest sectors of society. It is more likelythat in the constitution of modernrationality itselfin Europe, elementsthat not forceof rationality butalso madeitpossibleto onlyweakenedthe liberating
disguise and to substitute this force, have been present fromthe beginning.

148 boundary 2 / Fall 1993 It turnsout that liberating was not itselfconstitutionally rationality immuneto the seductionof power.This is because, as I noted, modern is connectedfromits Enlightenment of rationality originon to the relations reason powerbetween Europeand the rest of the world.Butif European could witherso quicklyintoinstrumental reason, perhapsthis is also bethe start,from cause ithadto nourish a treeof knowledge broken itself,from off fromthe tree of life preciselyas the priceof the associationbetween reason and domination. it is European idenInthis sense, inthe presentcrisisof modernity, in that is the constitution of modern itself, question. European rationality, tity betweeninstruof a confrontation This is not onlya matter, consequently, in It reason the abstract. more mentaland historical involves, profoundly, It is Euromodelof the constitution of liberating the European rationality. American, hegemonyover the historyof pean, and now European-North thatis nowin crisis. and rationality modernity and the Tension of Subjectivity "Metamorphosis" in LatinAmerica the sixties, we discussed morethan anything else in Latin During it. Americathe problemsof our society and how to change Now we are Whatis behind Thisis notsurprising. moreanxiousto establishouridentity. is incrisisis thatthe formaAmerica oursearchforidentity everytimeLatin have not lost theirtensionamongthemselves, tive elements of our reality sedimentation the process of historical thus slowingdown and impeding and firm, more dense that could makethe groundof oursocial existence less urgent or recurrent. andourneed to alwaysbe insearchof ouridentity of modernity The connectionof these questionswiththe trajectory that it wouldnot be in LatinAmericaopens a very extensiveproblematic at Let me take here to discuss up a few elements great length. pertinent before thatthe "metato me. Isuggested thatseem centraland exemplary in LatinAmerica,as one of the consequences of modernity morphosis" served to excessively prolonga system of power of colonialdomination, were social groupsthatembodiedthe most perverse whose beneficiaries thatwerethe leasttouchedby modernratioresultsof colonial domination, their to maintain with havemanaged that and "modernization," today, nality, hegemonicpositions. is notonlydue to American of Latin The problem however, culture,
the traumatic "metamorphosis"its modernitywas subjected to at the end

/ Modernity, andUtopia inLatin America149 Quijano Identity, of the eighteenthcenturybut also to the uninterrupted of its reproduction with to American domination. One of dependence respect European-North the most insistentexpressionsof the tensile character of LatinAmerican is a permanent note of dualismin ourintellectual our manner, subjectivity ourimaginary. Thisdualism cannotbe simplistically sensibility, explained by the opposition betweenthe modern andthe nonmodern, as the apologists of "modernization" to attempt to do. Rather, itderivesfrom continue the rich, of the elementsthat nourish this subjectivity, varied,and dense condition whose open contradictions also continue to fuse togetherin new meanings and consistenciesthat articulate themselvesin a new and different structureof intersubjective relations. Theslownessandperhapsprecariousness of this process of production of a new and autonomous cultural universe is not disconnectedfromthe very same factorsthat reproduced colonial domination and then the hegemonyof instrumental reason,and thathave been reinforced underthe pressuresof "modernization." the Perhaps best exampleof the presenceof this noteof dualismin the Latin American A Marxist, is Mariategui. considered intelligentsia today American was at the same Marxist, perhapsthe greatestLatin Mariategui time not a Marxist. He openlybelievedin God. He proclaimed that it was not possible to live without a metaphysical of conception existence; and he neverceased to feel close to Nietzsche.Hisdiscoveriesconcerning the of Latin American social reality couldnotbe understood specificcharacter outside of this tension in his thoughtand personalattitude,perhapsbecause outsideof it he probably wouldnot have madethem. (Inany case, those who were looking at the same reality at moreor less the same time witha methodology tiedto European rationalism managedto do littlemore thanfindthe reproduction in Latin of Europe America.) A similar tension runsthrough and almosteverybodyin everything Latin Itis notjustthatwe readEuropean America. booksand livein a comdifferent If it world. were we would be little morethan"exiled pletely onlythis, inthese savage plains," as some havedefinedus, or we would Europeans have as our mainaspiration to be acceptedas Europeans, or even better, as Yankees,whichis undoubtedly the dreamof manyothers.Wecouldnot, therefore, stop beingwhatwe neverwereand neverwillbe. One of the manymeanings thatis beginning to formLatin American is thathere, because of the "metamorphosis" of ourmodernity, the identity relation betweenhistory and time is completely different than in Europeor the UnitedStates. InLatin whatis a sequence in othercountries America, is a simultaneity. Itis also a sequence. Butin the firstplace, it is a simul-

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of capital, for example, taneity.Whatin Europewere stages of the history here constitute bothhistorical of and the structural stages present grounds for capital:Formsof the "primitive accumulation," competitive capitalism, beforethe Second World stilltiedto national imWar, monopoly capitalism andtransnational in are all a manifested active, perialisms, capitalism today structure of levels of domination than in rather a pyramid stages sequence. Butneithercouldone completely as stages. Timein denytheirdisposition this historyis simultaneity and sequence at the same time. It is a questionof a different historyof time, and of a time different fromhistory. This is whata linealperspectiveand, worse, a unilineal of history(such as the perspectiveof time, or a unidirectional perspective of the dominant versionof European-North American "masternarrative" cannot manage to incorporate into its own ways of producrationalism), within its cognitive matrix. we are ing or giving"reason" meaning Although made anxious the of its not been ableto we have presence, always by signs matrix or assume our own historical as a define completely identity cognitive ourselvesfromthe controlof because we have not successfullyliberated this rationalism. Formanyof us, this was the mostgenuinemeaning of oursearches and confusionduring the periodof the agitateddebates overdependency that we were able to get at the question theory.It is also true, however, Itwas no accidentthat it was not a sociof our identity only intermittently. who, by good fortuneor ologist but a novelist,GabrielGarciaM&rquez, the road to this for found coincidence, revelation, whichhe won the Nobel can an account be Prize. For by what mode, if not the aesthetic-mythic, of all historical times inthe same time?Andwhat given of this simultaneity thisstrangeway butmythic timecan be thistimeof alltimes?Paradoxically, of a history of revealing the untransferable identity provesto be a kindof Thatis, of thatuniverseintelligible. whichmakesthe specificity rationality, in Years does One Hundred what in my opinion, GarciaMarquez basically a NobelPrize. a doubt,is worth of Solitude.Andthat,without InLatin the presentina different the past runsthrough America, way in the premodern than is pictured not,that is, as the European imaginary: of innocence.Among fora goldenage thatis, orwas, the continent nostalgia a or can the be, personalexperienceof the present,not ourselves, past is, wisits nostalgicrecovery.Ourpast is not lost innocencebut integrated withthe tree of life,thatwhichthe dom, the unityof the tree of knowledge rationality againstthe inpast defends in us as the basis foran alternative is nota ourpresent.Here,rationality rationalism thatdominates strumental

/ Modernity, inLatin andUtopia America151 Quijano Identity, withthe world, disenchantment butrather the intelligibility of itstotality. The realis rational inasmuch as does not exclude its Juan only rationality magic. Rulfoand Jose Maria seats of the heritageof Arguedas,in the privileged the original of Latin narrated this fact. Butthe formula America, rationality thatnames this alternative forinternational rationality consumption, "magical realism," a contradiction intermsfor European rationalism, comes, not the most intellectual, or ifyou prefer the by chance, fromAlejoCarpentier, most European, of the Latin American narrators who hadthe audacity and the fortune to make(recalling one of his titles)"thetripto the seed," in the courseof whichhis European intellectual formation was takento the limit of allof its tensionsand reconstituted from the recognition of whathe calleda "marvelous real." Thistensile relation betweenpast and present,simultaneity and secould time, and the note of dualityin our sensibility, quence of historical not be explainedapartfromthe historyof domination of LatinAmerica of by Europe,the copresence of LatinAmericain the initialproduction the between and instrumental andthe modernity, split liberatory rationality, eventualhegemonyof instrumental rationality. Because of the uninterrupted of our dependence in reproduction this history,every time there is a crisis in European and, conrationality in the relations between the and the sequently, intersubjective European LatinAmerican, the process of the sedimentation of ourown identity also enters intocrisis,andwe once againleave insearchof ourabsentidentity. this problem is morepressingthanat othertimes:Whilethe CreoleToday, culture that of modernity oligarchical appearedafterthe "metamorphosis" has irrevocably lostthe social bases of its reproduction and is in advanced decay, it is notclearlyevidentyet whowillhavethe subsequenthegemony. Rationalityand Utopiain LatinAmerica The "unfinished" character of ourculture is a product of the way in whichthe elementsthatoriginate fromthis relationship of domination and conflictare reorganized and redirected whenthe bases and institutions of and partially dismantled the of the powerhave been corroded by eruption in the foreground dominated of the historical stage-in otherwords,when the basic elements of our universeof subjectivity become original again. The anxiousdemandfor identity is strongerin the countriesand among the groupswherethe pressuresof the transnationals to forma newversion
of Creole-oligarchicalculture(whichwas, it should be remembered, a neo-

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colonial culture) have not managed to displace culturalidentities produced by Indianand Africancultures. Withthis resistance, a new utopia is beginning to be formed, a new historicalmeaning, a proposal of an alternative rationality. Itshould not be surprisingthat this process is most notable in areas that have inherited sources of original culture that still survive and flow anew, as in Mexico-Mesoamerica and the Andean world. Is not the writing of Jose MariaArguedas an expression, an instance, of this utopia? He had to choose between Spanish, the dominant language, and Quechua, the dominated language, to express the needs of the dominated population to communicate. He chose to write in the dominantlanguage, contrivingin the process, however, to achieve the transmission of some of the expressive possibilities of the dominated language. His was a programof linguistic subversion, really something like the creation of a new literarylanguage. This method led Arguedas to another discovery. What sort of narrative structure would be the most effective for representing, as he wanted to, the magmatic constitutionof a new society, a new cultureon the sandy, coastal deserts where the masses of immigrantsfrom the sierra gathered in a world agitated by the tense dialogue between the dominantand dominated cultures? El zorro de arriba y el zorro de abajo, his posthumous novel, contains his answer. Once again he had to opt for a narrativestructure derived from the dominators,the novel, but with the condition that the world of the subaltern caught up in this somber conflict would be the real content of the product. This is a programof narrativesubversion, a subversion of paradigms of historicalbecoming and agency: the end point of a project of culturalsubversion initiatedby a linguisticsubversion. In this moment of our history, we must admit to ourselves irrevothat we have never been, and willnever be, just like European-North cably Americans, in the mode of the self-image sought after by the old Creoleoligarchicalcultureor the new version of it that some would like to simulate. The dominant culture was not imposed, nor will it be imposed, by the extinction of the dominated cultures. Nor,on the other hand, willthe liberation of the dominated cultures be the equivalent of some kind of resurrection. In this sense, Arguedas's proposal, implicitin all of his work, should be recognized, as Angel Rama already suggested, as the model of a historical project that it is necessary to realize consciously-that is, as nothing more nor less than the culturalutopia of LatinAmerica. Arguedas's utopia could not have been articulatedas such were it not for the prefigurationof other and greater subversions. Any utopia is,

/ Modernity, and Utopia in Latin America 153 Quijano Identity, after all, a project for the reconstitutionof the historicalmeaning of society. The fact that such a project was first lodged in the aesthetic or symbolicexpressive sphere does nothing other than indicate, as always, that it is within that sphere that the possible transformationsof the historic totality are prefigured.Is this not what was at issue in the debates of our European counterparts Lukacs, Adorno, Benjamin, and Brecht before the Second WorldWar?Was not aesthetic liberation seen as, in effect, the antechamber of a possible social liberation? The Latin American utopia as the proposal of an alternative rationality acquires all of its specificity when it is confronted by what has been perhaps the crucial question in the present debate about modernity,and not only in LatinAmerica:the question of the privateversus the state (or,as the currentslogan has it, of society versus the state). This question is, in my opinion, the result of a double process: on the one hand, the clustering of postmodernists and antimodernistsaround a kindof neoconservatism that sings paeans to the seductions of power;on the other hand, the discovery that the mask and the face, the dream and the reality,were the same in "actuallyexisting socialism." The result is an offensive based on the enchantments of the power of privatecapital and an unexpected confusion in the other camp that graduallygives in to these enchantments. The private versus state question has emerged as the axis around which not only the problems of the economic crisis are debated but also those which concern every other instance of social reality.The private is seen, from a politicaland culturalpoint of view, as supportiveof libertyand democracy because nationalization accompanied the despotic organization of bureaucracy under Stalinism;from the point of view of economic rationality,the private is celebrated because the bureaucraticsclerosis caused by nationalizationended up retardingthe growth of the economy. Despotism really exists under Stalinism, but it finds its match in the operations of the transnationalcorporations,which are also despotic. It is true that private capital is the source of the dynamic power and success of these corporations. Capitalism, as a system capable of producing a free and prosperous existence for the vast majorityof the world's peoples, and certainly for most of us in LatinAmerica, however, continues to be a chimera. For the exploited and dominated of the world, this confrontation between unrestricted capitalist propertyand absolute state propertycannot be recognized as the only alternative. In truth, it is a trap that ends in an impasse. Both are faces of the same instrumentalreason and lead to the same frustrationsof "modernization" and "populism" in our countries.

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Neither proposes anythingother than a poweralways hanging over the vast multitudeof the dominated. In LatinAmerica, the state sphere has ended up being efficient for the controllers of the state, the private sphere for the controllers of capital. Nevertheless, in our experience, there is not only one kind of private sphere. There is a privatesphere that effectively functioned, and functions today, for the direct producers involved in it, not because it is capitalist but precisely because it is not. I am thinking,of course, of what Mariategui pointed to: The experience of the Andean communities before their adaptation to mercantilismshows the possibilityof a communalformof the private, of "civilsociety," or institutionsoutside the state. This was what enabled Arguedas to learn to love in them the joy of collective work,the freedom of enterprises decided by all, and the effectiveness of reciprocity. No one should thinkthat I am proposing the returnto Andean communalism or to the systems of reciprocityof the ancient agrariansocieties of our continent. Neither willthey return,nor would they be able to satisfy the complex needs of contemporarysociety if they did. Nor do I mean to suggest the immediatedissolutionof all formsof social powerexcept the uncoerced association of free citizens that appears in some of the formidable utopias of the anarchist movement. Instead, what I propose is what Arguedas shows: that in the very center of LatinAmerican cities, the masses of the dominated are buildingnew social practices founded on reciprocity,on an assumption of equality,on collective solidarity,and at the same time on the freedom of individualchoice and on a democracy of collectively made decisions, against all external impositions. two cultural heriWhat is involved in this is a way of rearticulating a sense of reciprocityand solitages: from the originalAndean rationality, was still assowhen rationality darity;from the original modern rationality, ciated with social liberation,a sense of individuallibertyand of democracy as a collective decision-making process founded on the free choice of its constituent individuals.We do not have to remain prisoners of the alternative between the private or state forms of capitalism, nor of any of the faces of instrumental reason. LatinAmerica, because of its peculiar history, because of its place in the trajectoryof modernity,is the most apt historical territoryto produce the articulationof elements that up to now have been separated: the happiness of collective solidarity;the adventure We do not have to renounce either of of complete individualself-fulfillment. these elements because both are partof our heritage. Ifone looks at the UnitedStates, one finds that the ideology of social

in Latin / Modernity, and Utopia America 155 Quijano Identity, egalitarianism was more profoundlyestablished there than in any other known society. In general, all the others were hierarchicalsocieties, not advantage just in socioeconomic terms (the UnitedStates has no particular over them in that area) but also in intersubjectiverelations. Itdoes not seem an accident, however, that this ideology of social egalitarianism was the other face of the most exacerbated individualism, because the latter is not without the former. The North American possible utopia that is expressed in contemporary science fiction reveals that the only idea systematically absent in it is precisely the idea of social solidarity. I believe that this is also an expression of the exacerbated power of instrumentalreason in that culture. Latin America, by contrast, is beginning to constitute itself through new social practices of reciprocity,solidarity,equity, and democracy, in institutions that are formed outside or against the state and private capital and their respective bureaucracies. LatinAmerican identity,which cannot be defined in ontological terms, is a complex history of productionof new historical meanings that depart from legitimate and multiple heritages of rationality.It is the utopia of a new association between reason and liberation.