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- emerging U.S.
Question SA-6. Here is the text reference (p. 166/1 & 164/3):
One imitates that which one believes to be superior and prestigious.
And thus there floats through the dreams of many of our people who are concerned
with our future, a sort of vision of a "de-latinized" America
imitating the image of the archetype from the North. This happens without
the extortion of conquest, but rather through our own free will. We are
inspired by the desire to bring to fruition the most suggestive of parallels
with the North, which show up in constant proposals for renewal and reform.
We have our nordomania. It is necessary to confront this consumption
of nordomania with the limits which reason and sentiment indicate.
Rodó was not criticizing the United States as much as warning
the Latins that their "Latinity" was endangered by an excessive
and unquestioning acceptance of foreign values, especially those he labeled
as "nordomania". Rodó felt that Latin America had a tendency
to drift toward chaos, and that an excessive emphasis on unbridled liberty
would exacerbate this trend. Caliban's materialism, he said, posed grave
dangers to Ariel's core values of spirituality, idealism, free will and
beauty, with the end result being a "de-Latinization" of Latin
America.