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POSITIVISM, REALISM, NATURALISM (Lesson 15)
The Chart for Lesson 15:
Cultural-historical framework:
The ideology of Positivism arrives from France (Auguste Comte).
Stress on "order and progress".
Economic expansion in many Latin American nations using the Positivist
model.
Use of Naturalism to focus on social problems and then attempt to correct
them.
Rational and "scientific" progress based on Positivism.
Approximate
dates: Late 19th Century.
Historical landmarks:
Porfirio Díaz in power in Mexico, 1877-1911.
Brazil removes Pedro II and becomes a Republic, 1889 (with the words
"order and progress" in the new flag).
Invention of the photographic camera.
Literature:
Realism: objective, "photographic" representation of
reality, with no distortions. Focus equally on bad and good.
No emotional, philosophical or political distortions.
Naturalism: focus on the ugly, sordid detail with the political and
social purpose of bringing change.
Influenced by Emile Zola (France), Alexis Gorki (Russia).
Baldomero Lillo (1867-1923).
The Arts:
Mainly in painting: "photographic" Realism and Naturalism
focusing on the ills of society.
Popular art is neglected and rejected by the elites.
Academic painting continues (portraits, landscapes), with use of Positivist
symbols (railways, progress).
Lesson 15: Positivism, Realism, Naturalism
I. Positivism: Order and Progress
By the last quarter of the 19th Century, once national identities were
consolidated and the age of the early post-Independence caudillos had begun
to wane, Latin America came under the influence of another set of European
ideas which were to have profound social, economic and cultural implications.
The philosophical current was Positivism, which had originated in France
under Auguste Comte.
The Positivists argued that humans and nature are subject to certain
natural laws which determine not only the functioning of the physical world,
but also humanity's destiny. If humanity goes against these laws the result
will be disorder, anarchy and disaster. The function of science, literature,
art and philosophy is to discover these natural laws and transmit them to
everyone so that fundamental problems can be rationally analyzed, and logical
solutions worked out.
To a great many people Positivism had an attractive scientific foundation,
was linked to best intellects of the Enlightenment, and seemed consistent
with the most advanced thinking of the day by people such as Charles Darwin
and Herbert Spencer. However, some European Positivists (and their elitist
Latin American followers) carried these ideas to extremes such as Social
Darwinism and Spencerianism. These argued that geography and ethnic origin
played a key role in determining humanity's destiny and that mid-latitude
Caucasian cultures such as the European were inherently superior to the
non-Caucasian cultures of much of the rest of the world. These ideas appealed
to the European-oriented white elites in Latin America, who saw the material
progress of Europe and the United States towards the end of the 19th Century
and credited Positivist thinking and laws for their successes.
Positivism was also very consistent with capitalist entrepreneurism,
which regarded the ownership of property and private wealth as sacred and
relegated the state's role to imposing the order and stability that would
allow technical and material progress. The shining example of that progress
was seen in the European and US industrial revolutions, which were increasingly
demanding both raw materials and international markets in which to place
the output of their industrial machinery. Latin America was to supply both,
and in this process underwent a profound transformation.
The transformation involved inserting many of the Latin American nations
in the world economy in a center-periphery dependency relationship in which
the "center" (industrialized Europe and the United States) provided
the industrial base and exported machinery and manufactured goods. The "periphery"
of Latin America, and what would later come to be called the underdeveloped
third world, would provide raw materials for the center, as well as markets
for much of the center's manufactured goods.
To extract and move the raw materials out of the periphery it was necessary
to develop Latin America's infrastructure, especially transportation, agriculture,
mines, and other extractive pursuits. The years 1880-1910 saw a great boom
of European investment in Latin America aimed at this extraction of raw
materials and foodstuffs. British (and to a lesser extent US and other European)
investors poured large sums into the construction of railways in Latin America
for the purpose of moving raw materials to the ports where they could be
trans-shipped to Europe. The railway became the symbol of this late 19th
Century progress, and of Positivism itself.
Positivism was especially strong in the larger and richer countries
of Latin America. In Mexico it formed the intellectual and ideological base
of the 34 year long dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz, who neglected
his own lower classes and provided all kinds of facilities to the foreign
investors, thus setting the stage for the 1910 Mexican Revolution. In Brazil
Positivism was a key element in bringing down the Empire and in creating
a Republic led by technocrats and military officers; when their leaders
designed the Brazilian flag they placed in its center the Positivist slogan
of "order and progress". In Chile Positivism was the driving force
behind the development of the mining industry, especially copper and nitrates.
In Argentina British-financed railways fanned out from Buenos Aires into
the fertile pampas, extracting the bountiful grain and beef.
From the perspective of the landowners, the capitalists and the technologically
inclined elites in Latin America, Positivism was good and was equated to
material and social progress. But the larger masses saw little benefit from
this progress and frequently felt the negative effects of authoritarian
governments determined to impose the order and stability required by the
foreign investor.
II Realism and Naturalism
In the world of culture, still dominated by the elites, Positivism was
associated with Realism and Naturalism. These replaced the emotional and
dramatic excesses of Romanticism, and the quaint country ways of "Costumbrismo",
which to the elites seemed to be hopelessly old-fashioned and detrimental
to the scientific and technological progress offered by Positivism. Popular
and folk art, as one might imagine, were looked on with disdain by the Positivists,
who saw them as the product of inferior, or at least backward, ethnical
groups.
Realism can most simply be described as a straight photographic representation
of the world, with no particular axe to grind and no special emphasis on
any one theme, or service to a particular ideology or purpose. It is just
the world as it is, without the emotion or drama of romanticism. It sought
to present a honest and direct portrayal of life and nature as it really
was.
Naturalism, on the other hand, had a social and political purpose, and
came to Latin America linked to the Positivist philosophy which stressed
that there were natural laws which had to be discovered and respected. These
natural laws governed passions and emotions and presented humans with limits
within which progress must be sought through order and discipline. One of
the functions of Naturalist literature in Latin America was to focus on
the sordid, the bad, and the violations of natural laws so that appropriate
steps could be taken to correct these situations. Just as Latin American
Positivism was shaped by a French philosopher (Auguste Comte), so too was
Naturalism, which took many of its ideas from the French Naturalist Emile
Zola, and Russian authors such as Alexis Gorki.
Latin American Naturalist writers found fertile ground and many themes
in the exploitation of workers and their families in cities, the countryside,
and the mines. Although this literature is grounded in Positivism, it also
belongs to the current of social protest literature in Latin America, which
goes back to the Conquest writings of Father Las Casas, and continued through
the literature of Echeverría's "Slaughterhouse". This protest
current of literature (and art) was later to take revolutionary overtones
in the 20th Century.
Art in this period included an academic current which continued to follow
the European models, stressing carefully rendered portraits (mainly of high
society women), as well as technically perfect landscape painting. The latter
frequently included symbols of Positivist progress, such as railroads, bridges,
and transportation facilities. Popular art was officially neglected, especially
by the elites, but continued its traditional focus.
III. A Naturalist author: Baldomero Lillo (Chile, 1867-1923)
Social protest was the main theme of the best of the Naturalist writers,
the Chilean Baldomero Lillo. Lillo's father had gone to California to participate
in the Gold Rush, but he returned with no fortune. He did learn much about
mining, and he moved to northern Chile to work the nitrate mines. Baldomero
Lillo grew up in these mining communities and worked the mines himself.
He was exposed to the writings of the French author Emile Zola, who used
the philosophy of Positivism and the literary current of Naturalism to try
to change the terrible conditions of French coal miners. Lillo was able
to observe similar conditions in the Chilean mines and set out to improve
the conditions of the workers by dramatizing their plight. Lillo wrote many
short stories (collected in two major books, Sub Sole and Sub Terra) which
sparked the interest of social activists who were appalled by the conditions
in the mines. The story that follows is typical of his efforts.
In "The Devil's Tunnel" the miners are seemingly trapped by
their destiny to live out their squalid and exploited lives, which are dominated
by the need for raw materials and the machinery of the Europeans. At the
story's end there is a strong contrast between the clean, pure and benevolent
sky, and the underground monster that devours the humans who dare to penetrate
its dark lair.
"The Devil's Tunnel" by Baldomero Lillo
In a low and narrow room the foreman on duty sat at a work table facing
the registry book, checking off the workers as they descended into the mine
shaft that cold winter morning. Through the open door could be seen the
elevator with its human cargo, which, once full, would disappear, silent
and quick, through the damp entrance of the pit. The miners arrived in small
groups and as they took their lanterns off the hooks on the wall the foreman
checked their names off in his registry. Suddenly, he spoke to two workers
who were moving quickly toward the elevator: "You two, stay here."
The pair turned, surprised, and a vague feeling of unease ran across
their pale faces. The youngest, barely twenty years old, freckled, with
abundant red locks that earned him the nickname "Copperhead",
was short, strong and chunky. The other, taller, a little thin and bony,
was already old and had a weak and sickly appearance. Each held a lamp in
their right hand, and in their left a handful of short pieces of cord with
buttons and bits of glass of distinctive colors: these were the markers
which the miners placed in the wagons of coal to indicate their origin and
receive credit for their work.
The clock on the wall slowly rang out the six bells of the hour. From
time to time a sweaty miner would burst through the door, grab his lamp
and head toward the elevator, glancing timidly at the foreman who, without
moving his lips would mark the latecomer's name in the book with a large
"X".
After a few minutes of silent waiting the foreman gestured to the two
miners and said:
"You two are miners from La Alta, right?" "Yes, sir",
they replied.
"I'm sorry to have to tell you that there is no work for you. I
have orders to cut back the work force in this shaft."
The workers did not answer and there was a profound silence for a while.
Finally the older one said: "But will there be work for us somewhere
else?"
The boss closed the book firmly, and leaning back in his chair, replied
in a grave voice: "It doesn't look good, we have too many people in
all of the mines".
The worker kept at it: "We would take anything you give us; we'd
work as maintenance, shorers, whatever".
The foreman shook his head: "I've just told you, there are too
many workers and if the demand for coal doesn't increase, we will have to
slow down production in some other mines as well".
A bitter and ironic smile pulled back the miner's lips as he cried out:
"Come on, Don Pedro, level with us, and tell us straight out that you
want to force us to work in the Devil's Tunnel".
"No one forces anyone here. Just as you are free to turn down any
work you don't like, the Company has the right to take whatever measures
are good for it".
During his explanation, the two miners listened quietly with downcast
eyes. Seeing their humble demeanor the foreman softened his tone: "Look,
even though I have strict orders I'll try to help you two out. In the New
Tunnel, or the Devil's Tunnel as you call it, there are two openings for
miners, but you had better take them now. Tomorrow will be too late."
...
The deal was made. The workers accepted their new assignments without
objection and a moment later were in the cage, hurtling down the depths
of the mine like lead weights.
The shaft of the Devil's Tunnel had a sinister reputation. It had been
opened to give access to a new seam of coal, and in the beginning the shoring
had been done correctly. But as the shaft penetrated, the rock grew more
porous and unpredictable. The percolating water, which had been minimal
at the beginning, increased to the point that the stability of the ceiling
was precarious and could be made safe only with much wooden shoring. As
the digging progressed the immense amount of wooden beams required for the
shoring increased the cost of the mined coal considerably, and management
began to take shortcuts. The shoring continued, but it was inadequate and
sloppy as they tried to economize as much as possible.
The results were predictable: there were frequent accidents. Injured
and even dead miners were a common occurrence as the ceiling would break
away due to the lack of support and the treacherous action of the unseen
waters. This constant threat to the lives of the workers took its toll,
and more and more of them refused to work in the fatal corridor. But the
Company very soon overcame their resistance with the bait of a few centavos
more in salaries, and the work continued. Later, however, the pay raises
were cancelled and the Company resorted to the kind of tactic the foreman
had just used on the two miners.
Copperhead returned home much later than usual that night. He was silent
and taciturn, answering with monosyllables the gentle questions his mother
asked him about the day's work. In that humble home there was a certain
decency and cleanliness, rare qualities in those hovels where men, women
and children, in repugnant promiscuity, were all thrown together along with
the company of so many animals that they suggested a vision of Noah's Arc.
The miner's mother was a tall, thin woman, with white hair. Her pale
face had a resigned and sweet expression which softened the brightness of
her eyes, where tears seemed always ready to spring out. Her name was María
de los Angeles. Daughter and mother of miners, she had aged prematurely
under the strain of terrible disasters. Her husband and two sons had been
killed one after the other by mine collapses and gas explosions. These were
the tributes that her loved ones had paid to the insatiable voracity of
the mine. All she had left was that young man for whom her heart always
ached. Always fearful of an accident, her imagination never for an instant
left the misty coal seam that was possessing the only thing she had left,
the only thing she lived for....
Copperhead went to work the next day without telling his mother of his
new assignment in the Devil's Tunnel. There would be plenty of time to give
her the bad news. With the indifference so typical of those his age he gave
little thought to the dangers or the fears of the old woman. A fatalist,
like all his comrades, he believed that it was useless to try to change
the fate which each human had been assigned as his destiny.
...
As the noon hour approached the women in their hovels prepared their
men's lunches. Suddenly the shrill sound of the alarm bell made them drop
their tasks and desperately leave their rooms and run to the pit entrance.
....
A strong wooden barrier surrounded the mouth of the shaft, and the multitude
of running women crashed against it in their desperate efforts to reach
their men. On the other side of the fence a few grim miners, silent and
taciturn, held back the women who screamed and shouted, pleading for news
of their loved ones, of the number of dead and the site of the disaster.
One of the engineers peered out of the doorway of the machinery room.
He was a fat Englishman, with a pipe in his teeth, red sideburns, and an
air of indifference as he surveyed the scene. Upon seeing him, a hundred
voices wailed: "Murderers, murderers!"
The women raised their arms and shook their fists, insane with rage.
The engineer who had provoked that explosion of fury blew a few puffs of
smoke, turned his back, and left.
The news coming from the miners slowly calmed the throng. The event
was not as bad as past catastrophes: there were only three dead, names yet
unknown. It was almost not necessary to mention that the roof collapse had
taken place in the Devil's Tunnel, where for two hours rescue teams were
trying to get the dead out. Any moment now the signal would be given for
the machinery to turn and bring up the bodies. This information gave hope
in many hearts devoured by uncertainty. María de los Angeles, leaning
against the barrier, felt the vise which had gripped her innards relax a
little. She no longer needed to hope; she was now certain it could not be
Copperhead. And with that fierce egocentrism of mothers, she listened almost
indifferently to the hysterical cries of the other women as they expressed
their anguish and despair.
Suddenly the crying of the women ceased: a single bell followed by three
rings resonated slowly and vibrantly: it was the signal to raise the elevator.
A shudder moved through the multitude who avidly followed the vibrations
of the rising cable, knowing that at the other end of the wire was the terrible
unknown which all feared and hoped to decipher.
A grim silence, interrupted by one or two sobs, reigned on the platform.
The cries slowly rolled over the plain and into the air, wounding hearts
as a presage of death. Some minutes passed, and soon the great iron ring
which connected the elevator cage to the cable appeared. The elevator shuddered
for an instant and then came to a halt. Inside the cage a small group of
bareheaded workers surrounded a black cart dirty with mud and coal dust.
An immense cry greeted the appearance of this funeral car, and the multitude
desperately rushing the pit entrance made it difficult to move the bodies
off. The first body they saw was covered with blankets and they could only
see bare feet, stiff and covered with mud.
The second body, which followed immediately, was bareheaded: he was
an old man with gray beard and hair. Then the third and last corpse appeared.
Between the folds of the blanket which enveloped him could be seen some
tufts of reddish hair which shone like recently melted copper in the golden
sunlight. Several voices cried out in shock: "It's Copperhead!"
The body was lifted by the shoulders and feet and was laboriously placed
in the waiting stretcher. María de los Angeles, upon seeing that
ruddy face and that hair which now seemed drenched in blood, made a superhuman
effort to throw herself on the body of her son. But pressed up against the
barrier she could only move her arms as an inarticulate soundless cry burst
from her throat. Then her muscles relaxed, her arms fell to her side and
she stood motionless as if hit by a lightning bolt. The group parted and
many faces turned toward the woman who, with her head on her chest, deep
in an absolute trance, seemed absorbed in contemplating the abyss open at
her feet.
No one ever understood how she managed to jump over the barrier or the
retaining cables. But many saw her for an instant as her bare legs dangled
over empty space and she disappeared, without a sound, into the abyss. A
few seconds later, a low and distant sound, almost imperceptible, erupted
from the hungry mouth of the pit along with a few puffs of thin vapor: it
was the breath of the monster gorged with blood in the depths of his lair.