This article was originally published in Discourse Magazine.
In his prologue to Carlos Rangel’s 1977 classic essay “From the Noble Savage to the Noble Revolutionary” (published in English as “The Latin Americans: Their Love-Hate Relationship With the United States”), French philosopher Jean-François Revel argued that Latin Americans are not innocent of “making up and propagating their own myths.” The problem is greatly magnified, however, because they are “enormously encouraged in such counterfeiting when the figments of their imagination and their illusions about themselves are sent back to them duly authenticated, bearing the stamp of recognition bestowed by the high priests of the European intelligentsia.”
