utopias: a la americana peru and venezuela

University of Northern Iowa

Utopias: A la Americana Peru and VenezuelaAuthor(s): Hugh FoxSource: The North American Review, Vol. 252, No. 5 (Sep., 1967), pp. 26-31Published by: University of Northern IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25116664 .

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As Lewis Mumford points out in his fine if some what outdated The Story of Utopias (1921) all pre Renaissance Utopias from Plato through More were

homocentric, concerned with content not form, the hu

man, the personal, the "spiritual," not the mechanical. Since the Renaissance, though, the dreamers have not dreamt of man but of technology. Up through the nine teenth century most of these technocentric idealizations of how the world could (should) be were optimistic. Like Bellamy in Looking Backward they saw the ma chine as the answer to the world's ills. In the twentieth

century, on the other hand, as fact has caught up to and passed fancy, technology has been increasingly viewed as dehumanizing and restrictive. The Renais sance (Bacon's New Atlantis and/or Campanula's City of the Sun) dream of a world controlled by a machine has become a nightmare. Witness Huxley's Brave New

World, Orwell's 1984, Bradbury's Farhenheit 451.

Passing through stages of "undercontrol," through "control" to "overcontrol," the more advanced nations have completely dominated their physical environment and find that in order to keep their economies expand

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ing they must produce and consume more and more machines. Like the proverbial sorcerer's apprentice, they are trapped by their own misuse of "magic." A state of "undercontrol" exists when the total physical and psychological environment has not been tamed. "Control" exists when all basic needs are met. "Over

control" exists when all physical needs have been met but goods are still being produced which the economy cannot comfortably absorb. It also may mean that

"power" begins to be exerted in the psychological spheres. In a country like Bolivia "undercontrol" means

much more individual mobility and latitude. In the U.S. "overcontrol" seems to imply a restriction of mo

bility. B. F. Skinner in Waiden Two, of course, sees total "overcontrol" as the answer to man's ills.

As Alejo Carpentier illustrates so well in Los Pasos

Perdidos, time is not all of one piece, and the United States as the most technologically developed of all

modern nations (6% of the world's population, 40% of the world's goods and services) is considered the

model of "progress" by most nations moving out of the pre-industrial into the industrial era. Without con

sidering the totality of what they are imitating or why, developing nations throughout the world ape the U.S. without the slightest consideration of the contemporary prophets of doom like Huxley, Orwell and Bradbury who scream at the top of their lungs to beware of the

technological trap. Most of Latin America is in a stage of "undercon

trol." Production does not meet consumption, there are serious deficits in basic needs, and the population has not been "uniformized." This is true of Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Paraguay and all of the Central American republics except Costa Rica. Argentina is

moving slowly from a state of "control" to "undercon

HUGH FOX teaches at Loyola University in Cos Angeles. He was

Tulbright professor in Mexico in 1961 and in Venezuela from 1964

to 1966. He has lectured for 1AS1A in Jrinidad, Venezuela, Peru,

Ecuador, Bolivia, and Chile. He is the author of America Hoy, Problemas de Nuestro Tiempo. His Latin American Report will

begin appearing regularly in NAR starting with the November Issue.

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trol;" Uruguay is precariously maintaining a state of

"control;" and Chile, Venezuela, and Peru are moving quickly toward a state of "control." Venezuela will

probably reach the control stage first, followed by Chile which in turn may (if things continue on as they are now going) be followed by Peru.

Chile is a very special case in Latin America. Guided

by a philosophy of "Christian democracy," Eduardo Frei's Christian Democrats are trying to combine tech

nological development with spiritual "content." They are almost pre-Renaissance in their aims and like

More's Utopians are primarily concerned with living according to "Nature," developing to the maximum the "total man."

Both Peru and Venezuela, on the other hand, repre sent attempts in Latin America to construct Utopian states along post-Renaissance technological lines. Both countries have master plans that outline an overall de

velopmental process that should bring them techno

logically into the twentieth century within a short span of years. Both concentrate on electrical power, steel

production, and agricultural reform; and both are aimed at creating independent economies that should at least supply their own overall needs and perhaps eventually will develop sufficiently to enter into the

export market.

Although both the Peruvian and Venezuelan national

plans have a similar fundamental structure, they vary

greatly in emphasis, detail, "flavor." Peru, after all, has an Indian problem that Venezuela doesn't have to

cope with. Peru was the center of the Inca empire and one of the two centers (the other was Mexico) of the Spanish colonial empire. Venezuela, without this historical burden, never was more than a "Capitania" during colonial times, and although during a short pe riod prior to, during and after the Independence it

produced an amazing galaxy of intellectuals and mili

tary leaders (Miranda, Bolivar, Sucre, Simon Rod

riguez, Andres Bello), it was relatively unimportant culturally and economically until the twentieth century

when its oil suddenly turned it into one of the richest countries in the world.

26 The North American Review



Venezuela actually is much more mobile than Peru.

Peru, in order to move into the twentieth century, not

only has to industrialize, but also overcome the basic

sociological problem of having two distinct cultures for the most part isolated from each other since the Con

quest. The total isolation of the Indian from the mainstream

of Peruvian life has been the major paralyzing factor

operating against change in Peru. Spanish culture did not replace Inca culture in the sixteenth century. What

happened was that the socio-economic structure of the Inca empire was destroyed, and nothing was put in its

place. The Indians did not learn to speak Spanish, they neither bought nor sold within the empire, they never were converted to Catholicism ? whatever con tact there was was completely on the surface. "Span ish" culture was concentrated in Lima, one of the most

sumptuous cities in the world during colonial times ?

and the rest of the country was ignored. Peruvians, in

spite of pro-Indian writers like Gonzales Prada, Maria

tegui, Ricardo Palma and Haya de la Torre) were ashamed of their Indian heritage. The whole interior of Peru was condemned to centuries of neglect, isola tion and poverty. In Peru I have experienced the "miracle" of walking into villages that had remained

substantially unchanged for a thousand years. The Inca super-structure had been removed, but the sub structure had gone plodding on as it had since before the Norman Conquest of England

? the same clothes, the same stone houses with their thatched roofs . . .

nothing really had changed. Belaunde Terry, the president of Peru and the brains

behind Peru's national plan of development, is an architect who has specialized in Peru's Inca past. He has made the kelson of his whole national plan a real

synthesis of the Indian and non-Indian elements in Peruvian culture.

He rejects at least in part the entire current mone

tary structure that equates capital with development. In one of his key works, Pueblo por Pueblo (1960), he stresses the fact that the Incas built their empire before the Import-Export bank existed. Capital in

itself, he says, is not the solution. There has to be "a

wedding between money and the strength of a man's arm." During Inca times "international credit did not

exist, but things were built. Which conclusively proves that the ancient Peruvians were able to develop the

country without submitting themselves to the tyranny of money."

Certain things can be constructed, he points out, with little or no capital outlay: bridges, roads, houses, churches. The materials are available ? all that is

necessary is their right use.

Recognizing that after the Spanish Conquest "while in Europe the cities were being transformed by the industrial revolution," Peru was involved in all kinds of "political revolutions," Belaunde without rejecting the tenets of occidental industrial progress, at the same time tends to look admiringly back on the past

? back to the work of the Incas.

During Inca times, he points out, the whole country

was much more united because it was concentrated in the mountains. Lima did not become an important city until colonial times. The coast, during Inca times,

was of very minor importance, but with the coming of

the Spaniards, the whole internal network of commu

nications that the Incas had set up, was ignored and the lines of communications between the mountains and the coast (the Spaniard's point of contact with his

world) were emphasized at the expense of the mountain world.

Still, though, physically, geographically, "Peru is the cordillera/' and in order to regain national unity,

which he defines as "the sum of regional unities," Belaunde then proposes to re-define Peru, see it as a

total unit, not as a gigantic head (Lima) with an im mense and flaccid body.

In La Conquista del Per? por los Peruanos (1959), another book of basic importance to the understanding of Belaunde's ideas, Belaunde points out that the an

cient unifying routes of the Inca empire ran between Tumbes and Talca and Quito, Cuzco and Talco, and he includes a map that shows how in modern times 30 provincial capitals were without substantial con

necting roads between themselves and/or connecting them to the "outside" world.

Belaunde stresses the importance of looking back to the Inca past in order to help solve even "contempo rary" technological problems like irrigation. Not only did the Incas have a magnificent system of roads, they also had as equally fine a system of irrigation. In Pueblo por Pueblo Belaunde discusses at some length the ancient system of irrigation. The Incan triumph in the "epic of the earth" has been "the most beauti ful epic in history and its inspiration must guide the course of Peru's future."

In La Conquista del Per? por los Peruanos, looking back to the Incas again he discusses at some length the Inca sociological organization units of the chunca

(ten families), the pachaca (100 families) and wa ranca (1,000 families), and points out that although the basic system in itself is good, the demographic ex

plosion has bypassed it and that no matter how fine a sociological organization it may be it is rendered ineffectual if crowded into too tight a space. The solu tion: "expansion of cultivatable areas."

This, then, is the theory, that Peru must be devel

oped internally, that new lands must be opened, that it must look inward instead of outward for help, that the Inca achievements in irrigation, agriculture and communication should serve as guideposts toward the

future, and that self-help can ease the problem of capi tal investment.

September, 1967 27



Belaunde's ideas in practical terms, as set down in the Plan nacional del desarrollo econ?mico y social del

Peru (1962-71), involve the following areas: 1. Agriculture

? Agrarian reform, colonization

of new areas on the "edge of the jungle," and irriga tion.

2. Transportation ?

Development of a work able system of roads, trains, ports and airports.

3. Electrification ? Dams, hydroelectric plants,

etc.

4. Social Programs ? Construction of private

homes, expansion of drainage and drinking water

facilities, expansion of public health programs. 5. Industry

? Expansion of the steel mills at

Chimb?te, production of fertilizers, a program of substitution of industrial importation whereby certain basic items will be manufactured in Peru itself instead of being imported. Peru at the beginning of this process of industrial

ization looked more grimly disastrous than ever. In

1965, after the fishing industry had practically wiped out the anchovies along the Peruvian coast, the starv

ing coastal pelicans came into Lima to die. I remem ber them getting hit by cars on Lima streets, standing dumb and helpless with hunger as they were attacked

by children and beat to death with sticks. In the North near Trujillo the patillos were dying too. The walls of the ancient ruins of Chan Chan are filled with reliefs of these birds. Now the Indian children would stone them to death because they were so weak they couldn't fly, eat them sometimes, most of the time just kill them for sport. The Indians had been migrating down from the mountains, ringing both Arequipa and Lima with barriadas (slums) made out of straw mats with no sanitary facilities whatsoever. The roads seemed just as bad as ever, "industry" was still a sad

joke, and to top it all off everyone was just waiting for Belaunde to be toppled by the oligarchy who

wanted anything but change. In 1966 the birds were all dead. Ecological imbal

ances take care of themselves rather quickly. But the substructural changes that had been operating even in the midst of this slaughter, were beginning to mani fest themselves. The Brute National Product had

moved from (figures in millions of soles) 68,000 soles in 1962 to 85,000 soles in 1964 (From El Peru Con stryue, Belaunde Terry's 1964 message to the National

Congress), by 1964 five hundred new industrial cen ters had been opened and two hydroelectric projects

were in operation, one in Canon del Pato and the other close to the ruins of Machu Picchu on the Urubamba river. The electrification of the Cuzco-Puno area will

supply power for all future industry and its first major project will be a fertilizer plant in Cuzco, the ancient capital of the Inca empire.

These basic changes, instead of immediately "im proving" appearances in Peruvian life, in fact made things more ugly than ever. The Indians were brought out into the open. The problems were exposed. But the first step in solving any problem is to recognize it exists. To the "few" on top the "indianization of

Peru" is distasteful, to the "many" on the bottom it is the first sign of real change in five hundred years.

When I participated in two seminars in Lima and Tacna in the summer of 1965 (sponsored by AID) I was extremely impressed by the attendance at these seminars by representatives of the provincial univer sities. The whole program of development of educa tion in the interior, trying to shift some emphasis away from San Marcos, has been extremely successful. Then too in Lima itself a number of new universities have been inaugurated that depart from the traditional legal istic bents of the usual Latin American universities and

concentrate on agriculture, economic planning, archi

tecture, etc. Perhaps the most impressive of these new

universities is the Agrarian University just outside of Lima ?

usually referred to as "La Molina" (The

Mill). Financed largely by Alliance for Progress funds, "La Molina" is the first university in Latin America set up more or less along North American lines. It is

technical, practical, down to earth, apolitical. Whether it can stay that way, of course, is another problem.

The new "marginal highway" is still under con

struction. New lands are being opened. The internal

systems of communications and irrigation are being improved. And more than anything statistical, any

thing measurable, along with the inevitable inflation, there is a new sense of national unity and purpose in the people. Because they have a plan. Because their Indian past has been recognized. Because they are at last on the move. Peruvian women have taken to

wearing Indian "ponchos" to gala occasions, the news

broadcasts on radio and TV are in both Quechua and

Spanish, scholars like Emilio Harth-terr? at the Uni versidad Virreal are studying Inca architecture in terms of its functional design. At the new universities (and old San Marcos) you see more Indian faces than any one could have even imagined twenty years ago. The Inca past is being recognized, and with its recognition a huge inferiority complex has been lifted off Peruvian shoulders.

It is not by accident that the Peruvian delegate to the Thirteenth International Congress of Iberoameri can Literature (Feb., 1967), Augusto Tamayo Vargas, an old friend from San Marcos in Lima, was the only poet who spoke with great optimism of his faith in

"my children and my children's children." The whole of Peru for the first time since the Conquest has begun to look with optimism toward the future.

Venezuela's national plan is much less "colorful" than that of Peru, although in the main it is con structed along much the same basic lines. Apart from




its "pastlessness," many of Venezuela's problems are the same as those of Peru. Agricultural production has been traditionally low. Corn has had to be im

ported from Mexico ? which has been the occasion of much graft and scandal. Venezuela has subsidized

primarily on the "tax" paid by U.S. and European pe troleum companies on each barrel of oil pumped out of the ground. It has been plagued by dictators who were interested in maintaining the status quo and build

ing magnificently showy monuments designed to re flect their greatness. It had remained atechnical while its enormous income built Caracas with its skyscrapers and super highways and no thought whatsoever was

given to any form of "overall" economic development. The mastermind behind Venezuela's economic mir

acle is Romulo Betancourt and the purpose of AD

(Acci?n Democr?tica), Betancourt's party, is, as Stan

ley J. Serxner so well expresses it in his Acci?n Demo cr?tica of Venezuela, its Origins and Development, "to

bring the industrial revolution of the twentieth century to Venezuela, and remove the economic and social traces of fuedalism."

In a lecture delivered in 1958 entitled "A General View of the Social and Economic Problems of Ven ezuela" (contained in Betancourt's Posici?n y Doc

trina), he gives a very profound and sweeping view of the real problems of Venezuela, pushing aside false

conceptions and paper plans, and trying to see Ven ezuela as it is.

Venezuela, like most Latin American countries is

top heavy. Like Peru Venezuela suffers from overcen tralization at the cost of the rest of the country.

Caracas, to Betancourt, is the overdeveloped capital of a chronically underdeveloped country. The rest of the

country outside the "pale" is pitifully lacking in live stock and agricultural growth. The "campesino" lives like a vegetable. The cultural backwardness is a na tional disgrace. There is a dramatic need for more

housing, irrigation, a complete agrarian reform and a thorough overhauling of the entire governmental "machinery."

While trying to see the toal needs of Venzuela, still Betancourt inevitably returns to the prime source of Venezuelan wealth?petroleum. In his 1951 Pol?tica

y Petr?leo, he had already seen how the rest of the

economy must necessarily revolve around the petroleum industry, and how Venezuela itself must not merely export petroleum, but build its own petro-chemical in

dustry. Economic independence is always at the back of Betancourt's mind?independence from the com

mercial giants of both Europe and North America. In Pol?tica y Petr?leo he set down the basic "stages" of

development: The first stage was to stimulate basic industries:

electricity, without which development of industry is impossible; and those related to human welfare, such as foodstuffs, clothing, fuel and housing.

In this first stage, it was proposed to increase and improve the technology of extractive industries other than petroleum, and stimulate certain in dustries related to industrial chemistry.

In the second stage were included industries

complementary to those already named; in the third stage, medium heavy industries were to be

pushed and in the fourth step the production of

machines, heavy industry. But there was no rigid formula, only a working guide to be carried out

with flexibility. Although there was no "rigid formula" set up by

Betancourt in Pol?tica y Petr?leo, still the basic general guidelines have never changed. The purpose was (and is) to develop an industrial Utopia along U.S. lines.

Venezuela's problem, in Betancourt's eyes, is especi

ally "difficult" because within fifteen or twenty years its

primary source of income, its petroleum, will be ex hausted. "We are engaged," he says in another 1958

speech entitled "El Petr?leo en la Economia Vene zolana" (also included in Posici?n y Doctrina) "in a dramatic battle against time." If Venezuela does not construct a viable balanced economy before its petro leum reserves run out, it could get to be like Manaos, once the thriving center of the Brazilian rubber in

dustry:

. . . there they constructed even an elegant marble municipal palace where the most famous divas of Europe at one time sang. It was an

opulent city, a kind of contemporary version of the El Dorado that the conquistadores dreamt about. Then the price of rubber dropped and nothing was left of Manaos except a few tumble down buildings, some marble trunks and a completely improvished

population. This could happen to us as a nation ... if we aren't capable of investing what this

transitory wealth gives us . . .

In the last few years, of course, Venezuela's oil

producing time has been extended not only by new finds but by new methods of getting more out of older de

posits, but the basic problem has remained the same.

Venezuela, having already gained some degree of the kind of sociological unity and contemporaneousness that Peru still aspires to, is in danger of reaching a dead end that could impede any real future progress?unless a strong and diversified economy can be developed.

If Venezuela's oil income were cut off tomorrow, Caracas would be well on the way to becoming a ruin like Manaos within a few short years. But if the oil holds up for a few more years, Venezuela might very well have created a strong enough overall economy to continue on without its petroleum income.

The rule of the "adecos," as members of the Acci?n Democr?tica party are known in Venezuela, is presently being carried on by Raul Leoni. Leoni, a bit awkward, a bit slow-moving, certainly is one of the least inspired orators in Latin American history. He lacks Betan court's spark and fire, but?and this is really the only thing that counts?he shares Betancourt's vision. He is stable, an old pro who knows how to reconcile diverging points of view when he has to, and be violent (as his recent "invasion" of the hitherto autonomous Univer sidad Central in Caracas shows) when there is no other choice.

September, 1967 29



Under his administration the progress of the Betan court "master plan" has been steady and certain. The slums of shacks that cover the hills of Caracas are still an eyesore and a national shame, but they are being im

proved and, what is more important, the conditions that

produced them in the first place (mass migration to Caracas because of the underdeveloped state of the rest of the country) are being corrected. The internal con dition of Venezuela is experiencing a rapid upgrading. You see construction everywhere?construction in all areas.

Leoni is constantly on the move, out of Caracas into the provinces, touring the whole coutry, dedicating new

public works as they are finished, always with the same basic ideas of the master plan in mind. In a typical

month he flies throughout the country dedicating roads,

bridges, dams, hospitals, housing projects. He gives deeds to farmers, and he keeps pushing the idea of national unity, solidarity, progress. He is the first presi dent in the history of Venezuela peacefully and legally to succeed another president into office, and hope fully he represents a radical break with this long and onerous tradition of golpes.

May, 1964 was a typical month in the Leoni adminis tration. He started out the month in Caracas talking to a group of workers in the plaza in El Silencio. On the sixteenth he went to the "Satellite City" of Guarenas and gave 600 property deeds to new homeowners whose homes had just been finished by the Banco Obrero

(Worker's Bank). On the seventeenth he was at the Hotel Macuto Sheraton to address the First Annual Convention of the Graphic Industry on the "constant and permanent dialogue between the governmental and

private enterprise sectors of the national economy." On the twenty-second he was in Ciudad Bolivar talking to a solemn session of the Municipal Council of the district on the importance of the Guayana in Vene zuela's future. On the twenty-third he was at San F?lix to give out more property titles for recently built rural

houses and spoke on the Venezuelan's need for aware ness of his "historical and political conscience." Five

days later on the twenty-eighth on the occasion of giving out yet more deeds to houses, he stressed once again the need for strong and vital "private initiative." The next day he was back in Caracas again to address the First Congress of Mining, Metallurgical and Mechanical

Workers. In this speech Leoni stresses the importance of Venezuela in terms of total Latin American develop

ment, and says "America has its eyes fixed on us . . .

we are working for the triumph of social democracy, but we want to triumph while carefully maintaining the

liberty and dignity of every Venezuelan." The following day he was off to the provinces again (this time to

Birauquita) to give land titles to farmers as part of the overall plan of the Agrarian Reform. And so ended the month of May.

In his presidential message of March 11, 1965, Leoni re-evaluates the whole national plan and discusses at some length just how far along it has gone and how far it still has to go. Without going into the growth per

centages, suffice it to say that in all areas there was an

appdeciable growth, especially in those areas related to

farming, steel production, electricity, and the buildup of the CVP (Corporaci?n Venezolano de Petr?leo), the national petroleum company.

The Orinoco Steel Mills produce 323,500 tons of cast iron and 360,000 tons of steel and began making tubes,

wires and cables. This in itself is of basic importance. As Rostow has pointed out steel is the basic commodity needed for a country to pass once and for all from a

pre-industrial into and industrial economy. The fact that the Orinoco mills are in the interior of the country in an area which has for the most part been neglected over the years, is also of prime importance because it

points the way toward the utilization of lands and re sources that so far have hardly been touched.

Another government enterprise (El Instituto Vene zolano de Petroqu?mica?the Venezuelan Petrochemical

Institute) produced 133,000 Metric tons (TM) of fertilizers. At the same time much new land (most of it in the interior) was opened up by the construction of extensive systems of irrigation.

Work progressed on the huge Guri Dam on the Coroni river which, when it is put into operation this

year will have a capacity of 525,000 kilowatts, and when it is working at full capacity will produce more than six

million kilowatts. In terms of petroleum politics, new explorations were




made, new finds encountered, and the CVP was on the

whole bolstered and strengthened?although not, per

haps, as much as the government would have liked.

The great difficulty has been that the CVP is filled with "extra" workers without technical experience?padding the payroll to get all the aunts and uncles of the em

ployees into the show. Venezuela still does not have

enough qualified petroleum technicians, and it has a

long way to go in the establishing not only of refineries but of worldwide shipping and marketing facilities. All

these multiple aspects of creating a totally self-subsistent

petroleum production, though, are planned for the

future. The change will not be, can not be, sudden, but the hope is eventually to get the foreign enterprises out

and replace them with a national company. The reason

that Venezuela has not already nationalized (as Mexico

did) is that too much of the current Venezuelan

economy is dependent on petroleum to afford any drastic changes.

More important than any single housing project, dam or irrigation project, is the new spirit of national unity and pride that Acci?n Democr?tica is instilling in the

Venezuelan people. Not mentioned in the 1965 presi dential message, nevertheless the psychological cam

paign being waged by Leoni's government is of great

importance. Every speech, every dedication of every school, hospital or road, every new dam or irrigation ditch is being used by Leoni to prove to the Venezuelan

people that democracy is working. On the radio, TV, in the movies, newspapers and magazines, governmental propaganda is constant?and well done, dramatic. A people used to dictatorships, unfamiliar with what

exactly democracy means, has to be trained in civics. After literally centuries without any vital democratic institutions in the country, a tremendous effort has to be

made and is being made to create a sense of national

participation in a united national effort. Both Peru and Venezuela have national cultural

programs. Both have national cultural magazines, Peru the Revista Peruana de Cultura and Venezuela the

Revista Nacional de Cultura. Both have impressive national universities and overall educational programs. But still the national concentration is not on the person within the technological Utopia, but more on the techno

logical Utopia itself. This has been the primary fault of most post

Renaissance Utopian thinking?a presupposition that

enlightened gadgetry will automatically form an en

lightened populace. The United States has developed a very high degree

of mass technology, but this very technology is being used to "idiotize" the American people, especially in the area of communications. TV, radio, movies, the mass

magazines, the newspapers?practically all channels of

communication are clogged with moronic fare designed to turn the thinking individual into a non-thinking blob of smiling jelly.

In Venezuela, where the television industry is already highly developed, most of the TV programs come from the U.S. and are dubbed in in Spanish. The Canaima theater in Caracas is the largest Cinerama theater in

Latin America and there Venezuelans can see U.S.

"cultural" masterpices such as Mad, Mad World and

The Battle of the Bulge. The rest of the movie houses are filled with U.S. films and Life En Espa?ol and Selecciones (The Reader's Digest in Spanish) are the

best selling magazines in the whole country. "Culture" in Peru is repeating the Venezuelan pattern. Who can

blame Peru and Venezuela when Great Britian is fol

lowing the same pattern too. Nothing seems easier to

spread around than hitch culture. Venezuela and Peru, basing their national plans of

development on the U.S. success story, though, should not be taken in by the great North American Utopian lie. Utopia is not technology, nor is it gadgetry, but a "controlled" setting in which the individual is able to

develop his total human potentiality. Ideally, along with the big industrial push that both Peru and Venezuela are

making there should be a concomitant intellectual and cultural push so that when and if technological "control" has been achieved, cultural "control" will have reached the same level.

Such thinking, of course, will require a total trans formation in their (and our) way of viewing the state

?and the state of things in general. It is much easier to set up steel-production quotas and decide that within 10 years an X number of acres must be distributed to the "campesinos." Such goals are fixed, set and de finable. The difficulty with adding on to them the goal of total human development is that no one seems to be able to agree what the total human is.

Then too the American Dream comes in a kind of

package deal. You don't get the technical know-how without the cultural know-nothingness. Our mechanical

technological advancements have far outstripped our advancements in the field of the "human sciences."

We have decided more or less what it takes to make a nation technologically "successful"?we are only now

beginning to explore what "success" means on a more

human, personal plane. At the same time, though, we can't really wait for the

"human sciences" to catch up. The best we can do is install a general "cultural" plan to go along with the industrial plan, thereby at least expanding as much as

possible the awareness of the general population. A populace conditioned from childhood on to the

appreciation of the profoundest and most provocative expressions of world culture, unlike a populace numbed from birth by junk being shoved in on it from all sides,

would at least be discontent in a dehumanized world. The greatest failure of U.S. culture is that cultural "undercontrol" is accepted as mutely as "overcontrol" in all other areas. In a country moving from overall "undercontrol" to "control," an articulate rejection of

junk could conceivably force technological and cultural

development to progress at an equal rate, and once a state of "control" has been reached, it might even

maintain development at the "control" point and not move on to the restrictive paralysis of "overcontrol."

1964-1967

Caracas-Los Angeles

September, 1967 31



utopias: a la americana peru and venezuela

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