Quote of the Week

But what is really meant is Anglo-American culture as the heir to some grand European tradition. Anglo-American culture? That would have been a good laugh to José Enrique Rodó. The influential fin-de-siècle Uruguayan essayist, soul brother in spite of himself to today’s gringo neo-cons doing righteous battle for the values of the West, argued in his Ariel that Latin-American culture was the heir to the grand European tradition and that the natural enemies of these values were the Anglo Americans. Rodó’s argument had history on its side: Latins, after all are descended from Rome; the Anglos, as everyone knows, were barbarians. Chauvinistic nonsense? You betcha.
--Enrique Fernandez, “P.C. Rider,” The Village Voice, June 18, 1991, vol. 36, no 25