In all these cases, with only slight variations, it is plain that Latin America does not exist except, at the very most, as a resistance that must be overcome in order to implant true culture, that of ‘ ‘the modern peoples who gratify themselves with the epithet of civilized.”72 Pareto’s words here recall so well those of Marti, who wrote in 1883 of civilization as “the vulgar name under which contemporary European man operates.” In the face of what the conquistadores, the Creole oligarchs, and the imperialists and their flunkies have attempted, our culture —taking this term in its broad historical and anthropological sense—has been in a constant process of formation: our authentic culture, the culture created by the mestizo populace, those descendants of Indians and blacks and Europeans whom Bolivar and Artigas led so well; the culture of the exploited classes, of the radical petite bourgeoisie of Jose Marti, of the poor peasantry of Emiliano Zapata, of the working class of Luis Emilio Recabarren and Jesus Menendez; the culture “of the hungry Indian masses, of the landless peasants, of the exploited workers”
