TomG
Jun 24, 2004, 7:11 AM
Post #4 of 5
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The responses to your post so far are applauding small extremes of Social Darwinism as a thrill and a root type of freedom. Moreover, they imply that most gringos have become have gotten survival flabby on tiny everyday details. This all fits in with my observation that part of gringo living in Mexico is the thrill of being teasingly close to danger and escaping. The danger may be arbitrary administrative practices, constant little encounters with physical danger in daily life, playing roulette with street food and diarrhea, etc., etc. Successfully maneuvered these things really are thrilling to the moderately fit; and they are little constant reminders that your are made of good stuff and still have the zip. It is only when you loose that these things become problems. However, when you loose, you loose alone – because you were the only one who fell, got bit by a street dog, landed in jail innocently, or got skinned for a bribe. That is personal, too; only it is you personally alone on the frying pan. This mechanism permits bad practices to be able to survive so easily.
These things are less threatening to the rich, and to short and long term visitors who carry an outside point of view (and passport) and can escape readily should things deteriorate radically and get problematic. The local poor and lower middle class don’t benefit much from these features of live. My next door neighbor (unemployed business contract writer) didn’t like it at all when the nasty German Shepard on the corner knocked his wife down. Weeks later she was still out of commission with brain damage from her head hitting a rock. She had more appointments with a neurologist, had CAT scans to pay for, no medical answers, hadn’t worked at her chicken vending stall at the local market since, etc. etc. At this point we moved, and I don’t know the rest of the story.
Screwy design results from a marriage between ignorance, poverty and bad economics. It is not the Mexico does not have an army of unemployed architects and designers who could do better; they do. Many good people in Mexico know better, they care, and they want to do better; but they do not get an opportunity. Sometimes they talk about it frankly. My educated, offended neighbor didn't know that in some other countries people are held responsible for letting there dog roam and injure other people. (This particular dog had been a menace to numerous others in the past, and was out in the next days again.)
People should not romanticize danger and corruption. It can lead to chaos and nihilism. Latin America is not that far away from Africa and the Arab Middle East in political possibility.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/24/international/americas/24PERU.html
As Solzhenitsyn points out, when the finger taps you on the shoulder personally, it is a whole different feeling…..lonely and isolated you drop to the other side.
Educated, mature foreigners ought to be a beneficial influence on Mexico, not by living and thinking like colonials; but by demonstrating responsible points of view regarding the things around them. As in any trade, the trade is better when both parties (cultures) benefit. As the USA may benefit and be changed by the infusion of Mexican immigrant culture, Mexico ought to be changed by, and benefit positively from the parts of USA culture brought by Americans who live in Mexico. The hope is the best is augmented by improvements of deficits. Who really thinks that a greater presence of disease in a country positive value because it is an important marker less intrusive government intervention in private lives? Actually, some do think that…..they tend to be well insulated from the problem by money. They don’t believe that that particular finger will every tap them on the shoulder – thus, the condition can be view with true perspective, abstractly, from above, as it should be……”the poor will always be with us.” They are like carp, they provide a social service – cleaning the environment by picking trash and eating garbage. God will reward them. Of course, God will reward the rich and powerful first - for their management skills….Stewardship. Boy, the responsibility! It’s overwhelming! It is no wonder rank has it privileges, otherwise who take the job? Egad!
P.S. Two bits the elderly lady was much younger than you thought, she just looks a hundred years old - 60 bad years can look rough. Engaging these kind of people in personal conversation is the way to learn the truth of the matter. How old is she? Why is she so fit? How many children does she have? Do they help her? Do they send her money from California?
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