— Hispanic/Latino Issues in Philosophy —

— APA Newsletter, Spring 2006, Volume 05, Number 2 —

APA NEWSLETTER ON

Hispanic/Latino Issues in Philosophy

Arleen L. F. Salles, Editor Spring 2006 Volume 05, Number 2

— 2 —

— 3 —

FROM THE EDITOR

Arleen L. F. Salles

St. John’s University

This issue of the Newsletter presents the article winner of the 2005 APA Prize in Latin American Thought. In the article “The American Challenge: The Tension between the Values of the Anglo and the Hispanic World,” Gregory Pappas raises a wonderful series of issues regarding the possibility and desirability of integrating and balancing diverse cultural values that appear to pull in different directions. Pappas takes as a starting point the widely held view that there are two cultures, one Hispanic/Latino and the other Anglo/Saxon, that each embraces specific values, and that their respective values are in tension. The question is, what follows from this? On one view, represented by Samuel Huntington, the existing tension between values is to be avoided by protecting typically Anglo/Saxon values and promoting the assimilation of Hispanics. Pappas rejects this view after careful examination of the arguments used to defend it. Instead, he draws from the work of the Cuban philosopher Jorge Mañach and the American philosopher John Dewey to show the advantages of an alternative view, according to which the existence of conflicting values plays an instrumental role in that it allows for mutual modification, transformation, and learning. In his article, Pappas identifies the philosophical issues involved and discusses how a good understanding of the notion of balance can make a difference in our analysis and approach to the issue of cultural differences.

This issue of the Newsletter also includes a comprehensive interview with Linda Martín Alcoff that gives an excellent glimpse of her central ideas and an overview of her work.

I would like to encourage our readers to send along papers, letters, announcements, and suggestions that might help toward creating a more diversified newsletter. We want to continue to offer issues filled with thought-provoking contributions, so please send us your work and thoughts. Articles that address recent developments in Hispanic/Latino thought and reflections on topics of interest to the philosophical community are welcome. Please submit two copies of essays. References should follow The Chicago Manual of Style.

If you have published a book that is appropriate for review in the Newsletter on Hispanic/Latino Issues in Philosophy send us a copy of your book. Consider volunteering a book review. All items and inquiries should be sent to Arleen L. F. Salles at Division of Humanities, College of Professional Studies, St. John’s University. sallesa@stjohns.edu

REPORT FROM THE CHAIR

Susana Nuccetelli

University of Texas–Pan American

As the chair of the Committee on Hispanics, I am happy to report that our committee this year has aggressively pursued its goals of promoting the teaching of Latin American philosophy and raising the profile of Hispanics in the profession. For one thing, we had a central role in the successful application for an NEH Summer Institute on Latin American philosophy. In this, our aim was to make a contribution to the field so that topics from Latin American thought, broadly construed, begin to be incorporated into the curriculum. The grant was approved by the NEH, and this is a unique event in the history of the discipline in the United States. Thanks to that grant, Jorge Gracia and I were able to conduct the Summer Institute at SUNY/Buffalo in June 2005, gathering four invited scholars and twenty-five college instructors for a period of four weeks. The experience was fruitful and encouraging. I hope that this is just the first in a series of activities aimed at establishing Latin American philosophy in the profession.

This year the Committee also welcomed a new editor of the Newsletter, Arleen Salles. She brings to the Newsletter her experience as an editor of several collections of essays, and her interest in Latin American philosophy and ethics. She has formed an editorial board, which will soon bring about improvements in our Newsletter.

Furthermore, in December 2004 the Committee granted the first APA prize to essays in Latin American philosophy. Bernie Cantens’s and Manuel Vargas’s essays shared this prize. In addition, the Committee offered sessions at the three APA Divisional meetings, attracting considerable interest among participants of these conferences. Many stayed after the sessions to make inquiries about our committee and to show their support for other activities we may undertake at Division meetings in the future. As a result, we have broadened our reach.

Clearly, the moment is favorable for teaching and research in Latin American thought. I look forward to suggestions about how to accelerate this trend—and also welcome input regarding plans for possible panels, special sessions, and other events that we might sponsor at future Divisional meetings. The Committee will discuss these and other issues at its annual gathering in December 2005.

ARTICLES

The American Challenge: The Tension between the Values of the Anglo and the Hispanic World

Gregory Fernando Pappas

Texas A & M University

In 1975, the Cuban philosopher Jorge Mañach claimed that the “Americans of the North and of the South...have very different ways of feeling, of thinking, and of acting.”¹ He shared with the North American philosopher John Dewey² the belief that in the Hispanic/Latin and in the Anglo-Saxon worlds different values are emphasized. These differences are so acute that they lead to opposition or tension. In his notes on Mexico, Dewey said: “The contact of a people having an industrialized, Anglo-Saxon psychology with a people of Latin psychology is charged with high explosives.”³ In comparing the “Anglo-Americans” with the “Spanish-Latin temper,” he said, “The two mix no better than oil and water.”⁴ For Mañach to live in the “frontier,” as the place of contact between these two cultures, is to live in tension, instability, ambiguity, and perhaps anxiety.

For those of us who live in between these two cultures, there is much truth in these remarks. If many Hispanic-Americans live in between cultures that make implicit but conflicting demands about values, then perhaps there is more to the problematic and ambiguous character of their existence than just trying to make sense of their hybrid identity. But this issue is of importance not just to Hispanic-Americans. Today more than ever the contact between these two cultures is inevitable in and outside of North America. In “The Hispanic Challenge” and in a new book,⁵ Samuel P. Huntington, a respected public intellectual, alerts us about a brewing tension that may undermine the values that he identifies with the United States. Hispanic culture is a threat not just to national identity and to the English language but to the “Anglo-Protestant values” derived “from the founding settlers and include the work ethic and individualism.”⁶ Among the “irreconcilable differences” that tend to generate a “cultural clash” are differences regarding work, self-reliance (individuality), “the concept of time epitomized in the mañana syndrome, the ability to achieve results quickly, and attitudes toward history, expressed in the cliché that Mexicans are obsessed with history, Americans with the future.”⁷

Since the publication of Huntington’s “Hispanic Challenge,” there have been many refutations of Huntington’s views but none that confronts his claims about value from a philosophical or ethical point of view. This is what I intend to do in this paper. I carry on this sort of refutation by reconstructing the shared view of Mañach and Dewey, two philosophers (from the two cultures that concern Huntington) who seem to agree with Huntington about the tension of values but who derived a very different conclusion. They concluded that the tension between cultures regarding values is an unprecedented opportunity and is not a cause for alarm, fear, and protectionism. One can find in their philosophies an argument that would support welcoming the challenge posed by Hispanic immigration or, in general, the “Hispanization of America.”⁸ Mañach goes as far as to claim that this would not be good only for America but for the world. In spite of the tension among the values emphasized by these two cultures, they are compatible and integral to an ideal life where balance is the key notion. “The ideal would be for both cultures to perfect themselves through each emulating what the other has of positive worth. This would be the balance, the synthesis to which the cultural frontier invites us.”⁹

In sum, Dewey and Mañach seem to share with Huntington the following controversial tenets:

(1) There is a Hispanic/Latino culture and an Anglo-Saxon culture.

(2) In these two cultures different values are emphasized.

(3) There is a tension between the values of each culture.

From these premises Huntington concludes that:

(4a) This tension must be avoided. The values in tension are irreconcilable and will undermine the “Anglo-protestant” values.

But Mañach and Dewey conclude that:

(4b) This tension can be an opportunity to maintain an ideal relation of balance.

In this paper, I will be mostly concerned with how (4a) and (4b) can follow from (1), (2), and (3), but first, I must briefly address tenets (1), (2), and (3). Needless to say, there is much here that needs to be questioned. More importantly, it is worth noting that the agreement between Huntington and Dewey-Mañach regarding (1), (2), and (3) is superficial. Dewey and Mañach do not assume the simplistic and homogenizing view of cultures evident in Huntington’s view. To refute Huntington on this issue from a philosophical perspective, one would benefit from recent scholarship in multiculturalism about the heterogeneous nature of cultures.¹⁰ I am not interested in carrying this refutation here. It may be objected that by focusing on (4a) I am granting too much to Huntington. But Huntington must be refuted at all levels. Moreover, underlying his support of (1), (2), and (3) are assumptions easy to refute. But it is necessary to confront his inferences regarding values.

I. The Mañach-Dewey Thesis Reconsidered

Are Mañach and Dewey, however, equally vulnerable in regard to (1), (2), and (3)? Is there any plausible way in which one can hold these premises without the need to abandon a pluralistic view of culture and their values? The difficulties here are similar to comparisons often made between “Western” and “Oriental” culture. We may doubt that there is any empirical basis for claiming even the vaguest of similarities among the many Hispanic cultures. Tenet (1) seems to homogenize what is in reality heterogeneous. One can also object that (1) is “stretching” the concept of a “culture” or of “identity.” Jorge Gracia, for example, has a strong fear of homogenization and a very strict view of “identity.”¹¹ I have no doubt he would question (1). But, recently, Jose Medina, Iris Young, and I have provided a more relational or functional view of identity where identity does not preclude differences and is relative to context.¹² I am not going to settle the issue here, but it is clear that even if controversial, (1) is not totally implausible. There may be a way to qualify (1) that avoids the problem of homogenization. The vague resemblance between Hispanic cultures in comparison to other world cultures may be a good reason to lump them together under one name, even if one acknowledges the cultural diversity of the Hispanic world.

However, even if we grant (1), (2) is also problematic. What empirical evidence is there for the claim that each culture emphasizes different values? How can Dewey and Mañach, two empirically minded and careful philosophers, dare to make such vague generalizations about cultures and their values?

We must be critical of the Mañach-Dewey thesis but not by assuming a “straw man” version of their view. The above tenets need to be understood in the context of their overall philosophies. First, there is no assumption here of a Latin or Anglo “essence” necessarily and exclusively tied to certain values. Tenet (2) simply assumes a comparative judgment about values that are no more than emphases, dependent on historical conditions. We are comparing accents of temperament and of conduct, and not exclusive modalities. For example, Mañach explains that “the fact that Anglo-Saxons are mainly volitional does not prevent them from harboring sentimentalism, even though they may try to hide it. Neither does the predominance of sensibility in Hispanic people signify a purely emotional aptitude.”¹³ However, this still raises some difficult epistemological questions about how to determine the “emphasis,” “accents,” or “predominance” of some values over others in a culture.

Scientific studies in the form of polls or any quantifiable method may be used to examine and support the Mañach-Dewey thesis. For example, plenty of studies done in the last decade support the generalization that work is highly valued in Anglo-Saxon cultures.¹⁴ The importance of relationships over the individual in Hispanic cultures can be supported by studies that show the role of the family in all rituals and daily activities. However, neither Mañach nor Dewey appealed to these methods. The basis for their claims was their personal experiences.¹⁵ But they did not find these experiences, therefore, subjective or irrelevant.

Dewey once wrote that “every culture has its own collective individuality.”¹⁶ Not every Hispanic individual has (or needs to have to count as a Hispanic) the “collective individuality” of the group or culture as a whole. Nor can we assume that acquaintance with a certain number of individuals (i.e., the majority) will be sufficient to experience what is a “predominant” value in a culture. First-hand experience with works of art and habitual forms of association may be important. We experience the predominant tendencies or general values emphasized in a culture in a qualitative and immediate way.¹⁷ We do this before we inquire into the usual empirical data that would support our judgments. Different ways of life have distinctive rhythms, accents, and patterns that can be discerned and compared by those who have the sensitivity to experience them. These personal experiences must be subject to criticism and to further inquiry in any of the academically recognized ways to prove and verify hypotheses about cultures, but there is no good reason to dismiss them a priori.

But one may object that there is no way to determine whether the personal and direct experiences of cultures are nothing more than problematic cultural stereotypes. How do we know that Dewey’s experience of Hispanic cultures was not distorted by the common prejudices of his time? Furthermore, it could be argued that polling as a corrective of cultural misinterpretations in people’s personal experiences does not work; the polling may still be capturing widely held stereotypes. Dewey’s answer to these skeptical challenges is straightforward, but I am aware it is not going to convince those who want theoretical certainty. We start where we are, in the midst of the pre-reflective personal immediate qualitative experiences we have of cultures. In open-minded people (an important condition!), these experiences change and are transformed by inquiry, but we must return to them as our guide. If we have prejudices or stereotypes that distort our immediate experience of other cultures then, hopefully, we will find out through inquiry and further experiences. There is no privilege-theoretical-objective (“God’s eye view”) standpoint in which we must come to know a culture. There is, of course, a lot more work to be done if one is to defend (1) and (2) from the empirical and pluralistic perspective of Mañach and Dewey. My aim here is merely to suggest that even with regard to these premises these philosophers have a more defensible view than Huntington.

Tenet (3) makes a very specific claim about the “tension” between two particular cultures. What does this “tension” come to? It seems impossible to determine this without having at least some vague notion of the particular values in tension. We encounter a similar problem in trying to understand (4). Tenet (4) is a normative claim that prescribes “balance.” We will shortly consider what this could mean, but without some examples of the particular values that are the subject matter of the Mañach-Dewey thesis, we are left with a very abstract, empty, and dubious analysis. What particular tension of values did Mañach and Dewey have in mind? I do not think it is all that difficult to come up with a tentative and incomplete list of values. They have been assumed countless times in the writings of philosophers and in personal accounts. Huntington’s recent remarks are also helpful in this regard. Let us then assume, for the sake of argument and content, that the following list represents a roughly adequate description of the traits or values that are emphasized in each of the cultures in comparison.¹⁸

Anglo-Saxon Hispanic/Latin

Traits or Values:

- Success - Tranquility

- Quantity, time - Quality

- Technique, information - Emotions

- Action, organization, control - Appreciation, patience,

- Individualism, merit, privacy resignation

- Fast, efficiency - Relationships, loyalty,

- Classifications, rankings, community

rules - Slow-tempo

- Work - Continuities, unity

- Future, change, novelty - Play, celebration

- Planning, prevention - Present, past, tradition

- Precise, concise - Spontaneity, intuition

- Flowery, metaphors, rituals

This is not the place for a detailed comparison between items in this list. We must, however, make sense of the claim that there can be a “tension,” and later a “balance,” between these values. We should be able to evaluate these claims even if we have serious doubts about the connection of these values with the two particular cultures. (In other words, tenets (3) and (4) may be defensible even if (1) and (2) are false).

Whether they are in a culture, a person, or a concrete relationship, the above traits do seem to be in some sort of tension. For example, organization and efficiency are many times the number-one enemy of the spontaneity required to enjoy and appreciate present experience. Emotional involvement and play often prevent one from adequate planning, prevention, and work. The tension between the importance of relationships and the values of individualism and privacy is, in fact, the basis of debates in contemporary political theory.

Notice that the “tension” here is not between what is contrary or opposite in meaning. From a moral point of view, the tension is not between good and evil but between goods (values) that “pull us” in a different direction in situations. The perfect scenario would be one in which all these values are maximized, but each can be a threat to the other if overemphasized. We can, for example, play while we work, but too much play tends to undermine work. Too much emphasis on community (relationships) is a threat to individuality. Moreover, some of these traits tend to degenerate (as values) if there is a total neglect or under emphasis of some other traits. For example, work without some play results in drudgery; individuality without community results in isolated selves and the problems we associate with an excessive individualism. This gives us a clue as to how to understand the relation among these values according to the Mañach-Dewey thesis and, in particular, their prescription about “balance” ((4b) above). We must conceive our list of values as taking place between extreme poles. These poles are the result of excesses of the above values.

Vices:

- Over-organization - Disorganization

- Stress - Levity (Lack of

- Mechanization seriousness)

- Impersonality - Over-relaxed

- Impatience - Inefficiency

- Unrest, hurry, breathlessness - Suffocating common

- Undervaluing of tradition bonds

- Over-prevention of risk - Laziness

- Drudgery, boredom, routine - Overvaluing of tradition

- Quantification - Over-enjoyment of the

- Standardization present

- Instrumentalism - No planning

- Loneliness - Idle playfulness

- Social status is solely - Reality is mystical

determined by individual - Social status is solely

effort and dollars determined by history and relationships

There is a sense in which this second list is prior to the list of values. When members of the two cultures we are comparing seek to criticize the other, they usually appeal to one or more of these “vices.” The basis for the insults, prejudices, and stereotypes that people from these two worlds have of each other are based on the exaggerated manifestations of the traits valued by each culture. All cultures have their own possible excesses, but behind them are values. This is what is seldom recognized. Dewey notes how much easier it is for one culture to appreciate the vices of the other:

The Anglo-Saxon races have the habit of scoffing at the Latin races for what they regard as their levity and lack of seriousness in their moral attitude towards the world. It is a good thing to turn matters around and look at ourselves. The judgment which the Latin races pass upon the Anglo-Saxon is that they are hard, angular, and without the delicate susceptibility to attend to the needs of others; that they set up their mark and go at it roughshod, regardless of the feelings of others. If we call them light and frivolous, they call us hard, and coarse, and brutal.¹⁹

In the last section of this paper, I use this framework about values/vices to evaluate Huntington’s recent warnings about Hispanics (and his conclusion, (4a) above), but we can already begin to appreciate some crucial differences. From the standpoint of Mañach and Dewey, what Huntington seems afraid of are not the values emphasized in Hispanic culture but the excesses of these values that could occur with the increasing “Hispanization” of the United States. This and the fact that he is mostly silent about the possible “vices” of Anglo-Saxon culture seem to commit Huntington to a good/evil dichotomy (or rhetoric) where the Anglo-Saxon values are good and the Hispanic ones are antithetical or a threat to what is good. This is very different from the above Mañach-Dewey framework where there is the possibility of evil (as excesses) at both sides of the cultural divide. To guard against excesses on both sides is the ideal task. This is the task of balance, a task that can unite the Hispanic and the Anglo-Saxon world. But what is “balance”? Can this be accomplished while these cultures preserve their distinctive emphasis on certain values? And is this nothing more than another utopian dream of philosophers out of touch with historical reality?

II. Balance as the Ideal

Mañach claimed that the two cultures in question “have no reason to exclude one another, but on the contrary they are called to complement and enrich one another” in a relation of “balance.”²⁰ “It is of great importance for America and for the whole world—above all for the world of Western values—that these two great areas of culture not only comprehend each other but that they establish real mutuality. It is important that each of them preserve its particular values and emulate the universal values of the other.”²¹

If there is a tenet in the Mañach-Dewey thesis that requires philosophical clarification it is (4), since it is a normative claim. There are different traditional philosophical conceptions of “balance.” Which one is assumed and worthy of our aspirations in the confrontation between Hispanic and Anglo culture? There is a quantitative notion of balance as the maintenance of a certain measurable proportion between things. Usually the proportion is one of equality (i.e., same in magnitude, quantity, degree, or worth). There are at least two versions of this quantitative notion of balance. Neither one can be the ideal sort of relation prescribed by the Mañach-Dewey thesis.

First, there is balance as compensation. This notion of balance is assumed by ancient religious doctrines, according to which there is a law in nature by which events tend eventually to be balanced out. If in this life we engaged in too much pleasure, our next life will bring much pain. Notice that in this sense, the notion of balance does not entail that the elements to be balanced out must interact or affect each other in any significant way. In fact, it does not even require that the elements in question coexist. One can achieve balance by a compensation that takes place across time. An excess of x at time t could be balanced by procuring deficiency of x (and perhaps excess of y) at some other time. For example, one might say, “I will spend three days engaging in excessive play, to compensate for the last three days of drudgery.” Is this what Mañach and Dewey had in mind? This view would entail that a balanced life could be one of a continuous alternation (i.e., compensation) between the excesses of Latin and Anglo culture. Yet this is hardly worthy of aspiration.

There is also the quantitative notion of balance as moderation (or as the mean between extremes). In this interpretation balance is simply an equidistant midpoint between the extremes of each culture (i.e., between the vices I have presented). Excesses and deficiencies can be measured and can be corrected by simply adding or subtracting accordingly. So, for example, there is in principle a measurable mean between the two poles of being too organized and being totally disorganized. To maintain moderation is to avoid moving beyond that mean. The problems with this view should be obvious. How does one determine equal amount or distance relative to the extremes? Does the mean fall inside the Anglo side or the Hispanic side? But even if we could find some exact equidistant midpoint, is it worthy of aspiration?

This conception of the ideal has undesirable consequences. It discourages the particular cultures from excelling in any one-value dimension for the sake of moderation. Is it desirable that the plurality of distinctive cultures in North and South America should aim at the same mean, so that the whole hemisphere becomes one balanced but homogenous culture in regard to values? Does this mean, for example, that people in the Anglo world for the sake of moderation must not continue to be encouraged to excel in what they are particularly good at, for example, planning and organizing events? If this is what balance means, then many would rather live in a world where excess is the norm. Furthermore, this interpretation just fails to capture an important aspect of the Mañach-Dewey vision: the notion that the tension between the values of these cultures is something to be embraced and not superseded.

Is there in the philosophies of Mañach or Dewey a different conception of balance than the ones we have considered? There is in Dewey, though he was not always explicit about it.²² Here are, in concise form, its main tenets:

a. Balance is a relation between forces in opposition or tension.

b. Balance is an interactive process where these forces are transformed in a tensive but reinforcing relation.

c. Balance is a relation between elements of an organic whole that avoid excess and deficiency.

The notion of balance as the opposition between contrary elements can be traced as far back as pre-Hispanic Latin America. According to Alfredo Lopez Austin it was essential to the worldview of the Anahuacs, the inhabitants of Mesoamerica in the central plateau of Mexico.²³ Dewey’s notion of balance arose from his interest in biological and artistic models.

Balance in the life of an organism is something temporal and dynamic. It is achieved by a counteraction of forces that is not achieved for all time. Rather, it is like riding a bicycle; individuals continuously correct tendencies to tilt excessively in one direction or the other. The restoration of balance is not a return to a prior state of balance. In fact, no particular balance is ever strictly speaking the same balance. In the shift from imbalance to balance, there is a transformation of the factors in opposition. Moreover, this transformation is not one in which the factors are dissolved into an undifferentiated new unity (i.e., where there is no longer tension). There is instead an “organic unity,” which “must be interpreted in terms of the interaction, of actual reinforcement between the parts, and not in terms of any one thing which somehow includes all others.”²⁴

The notion of balance as a unity where tension is preserved is present in art. In art, “equilibrium comes about not mechanically and inertly but out of, and because of, tension.”²⁵ In the balance of an organic whole, the parts are interdependent in that what happens to one affects the other. When there is an excess of one of the parts (too much), there is also a deficiency (not enough) of some other part. Dewey explains this in works of art. “There is no such thing as a force strong or weak, great or pretty, in itself...To say that one part of a painting, drama, or novel is too weak, means that some related part is too strong—and vice versa.”²⁶ This is important from the point of view of someone who seeks cues from experience as to when a balance might be threatened, or how it is to be maintained. The artist becomes aware that he has introduced too much variation only when he experiences not enough order. Not enough stability or order might be a sign that we are being too flexible. What is sometimes referred to as the excessive individualism of our American society is, in fact, experienced as a deficiency in our communal bonds.

There are many possible relations between the elements that make up an organic whole. One reason for preferring a one-sided, unbalanced relation is that it is often assumed to be a sign of strength. There are works of art that succeed in getting noticed because of an “effort to get strength by exaggeration of some one element,” but Dewey believes that “such works do not wear...no real strength is displayed, the counteracting energies being only pasteboard and plaster figures. The seeming strength of one element is at the expense of weakness in other elements.”²⁷ The problem with excesses is that they usually are accompanied by, or lead to, deficiencies. Painters and writers have the problem of “keeping down” a part so that other parts can be “kept up.” This does not mean that all parts must remain equal, as required by the quantitative notion of balance. In Dewey’s organic conception, a relative predominance of one element over another is compatible with balance. But the strength or excellence of this element must significantly take into account and be affected and reinforced by the other parts that make up the whole (even if they are downplayed and in tension with it). An “excess” or a “deficiency” is a problem that results from the relative seclusion, confinement, oppression, and suppression of one element over another in an organic whole. Therefore, if balance is the mean between extremes, it is not a fixed equidistant midpoint that we either attain or we are out of balance. There is an indefinite number of ways in which one can stay within the mean without falling into an extreme. The balance of a bicycle rider is such that, at different times, he can tilt to one side more than to the other without falling down (i.e., off balance). In art this is done on purpose. The artist might add a “touch of disorder” to add emphasis without falling out of balance. She takes advantage of the “room” she has between extremes.

This is the conception of balance presupposed by the Mañach-Dewey thesis. It describes adequately the sort of relation explained earlier between our two columns of values. The values are in tension, but they are interdependent. How could this view be used today to answer to Huntington and his concern for the values that are threatened by the “Hispanic challenge”? What are the skeptical challenges this normative thesis faces today?

III. Balance and the “Hispanic Challenge”

The above analysis of balance conceives the “clash” of values that worries Huntington in a very dynamic, open, and interactive way. The Hispanic and the Anglo values do “pull” in opposing directions, but their effect on each other and their tension can be positive as part of the “counteracting of energies” required for balance. Huntington perceives Hispanic culture as a threat, but perhaps he confuses the values with their possible excesses, or he just fails to appreciate the importance these other values can have in keeping the Anglo-Saxon values from moving in an exaggerated and stagnant direction. According to the Mañach-Dewey framework, the best safeguard that the traits Huntington considers as values will continue to be valuable is that they remain in balance. They must hold a tensive relation with the values that happen to be emphasized in Hispanic culture. There is, therefore, at least a prima facie reason to consider the “Hispanization” of America as a possible good thing.

Huntington wishes instead that Hispanics (and their culture) assimilate to the Anglo-Saxon “melting pot,” but this would lack the differences and tension that could benefit both. Perhaps an analogy with marriage can help. My wife and I value work and play, but she “tends” more toward work and I more toward play. This is a source of tension, and sometimes there is no easy way to solve our conflicts, but the tension is also an opportunity to keep each other in balance, and with a marriage that has enough variation (rhythm) to keep it interesting.

The problem with Huntington is that, for him, tension is something that leads to fracture. He assumes that the only other alternative to assimilation is a divided (or culturally schizophrenic) society in which the United States loses its distinctive cultural values. Mañach and Dewey provide an alternative to this simplistic either/or. Neither homogeneity nor the sort of heterogeneity in which there is no interaction among cultures (and their values) is the ideal condition for the flourishing of cultures. These are, in fact, the most common conditions in which cultures, people, and relationships are prone to excesses in what they value.

Huntington is opposed to multicultural policies at home and abroad because they lead to an undesirable kind of fragmentation. He assumes, however, the same simplistic either/or of his opponents: either there is one homogeneous whole (a “melting pot”), or we are left with a pluralism of radically separated parts. What the Mañach-Dewey thesis proposes is the possibility of unity among diversity. This kind of unity, though applied in a more political context, was what thinkers like Simon Bolivar, Jose Marti, and Alain Locke hoped for.²⁸ It is the possibility of a unity that confronts and relies on the tension created by our differences.

In so far as multiculturalism is a move away from monistic and hierarchical ways of conceiving the status of cultural differences in our society, it is well-intended. The problem is that in extreme forms it assumes a pluralistic ideal that is also separatist. According to such views, a multicultural society is preserved by protecting, sheltering, and separating all cultures. Sometimes this is necessary and justified, but Dewey would not see this as ideal (i.e., as the best we can hope for). The best we can hope for is a society that maintains the relation of balance I have described, where cultural interchange goes well beyond mere cultural tolerance.

To be fair to Huntington, he is not against pluralism. In fact, he is against the imperialistic notion that the Anglo values must be spread across the globe. Instead of trying to spread our values across the world, Huntington thinks Americans should be concerned with their own house. There is a need to “reassert pride in our core values” because these values are being weakened or diluted by a multiculturalism that has accommodated other cultures. But he thinks this is especially worrisome in regard to Hispanic culture because of the present demographic, political, and geographical circumstances. More importantly, it is a strong culture with very different (almost opposing) values. It is hard to predict what will happen as a consequence of the Hispanization of the United States. We may end up in fracture, war, and moral decline even if we were to try what Mañach and Dewey propose. They would, however, argue that we are not doomed to fracture into two opposing ethnic parts solely on the basis that the values of these two cultures are antithetical or in tension. In fact, in their view, this would be a reason for optimism.

Huntington may reply that even if he were to agree with Mañach and Dewey about what would be ideal, there are way too many obstacles for this ideal to be applicable to this particular confrontation between cultures. In theory, the values in tension can be reconciled, but the ideal requires a willingness on both sides to be open and affected by the other. This is not what we can expect of Hispanic culture. According to Huntington, unlike other cultures that have been part of the history of America, Hispanics are very resilient and they resist assimilation. The problem with his view is that the evidence points elsewhere. One could make the case that if there is a culture in the world that has been open to change and to interactions with other world cultures it is the Hispanic culture. What characterizes the history of Hispanic culture is an evolving “mestizaje,” which is almost the opposite of any tendency to remain pure or homogeneous. Hispanics may resist assimilation, but this is not necessarily because they are close-minded or ethnocentric. Openness does not require a willingness to assimilate; it just requires a willingness to be affected.

According to Mañach and Dewey, a United States that lives in tension between these two cultures (regarding what it values) is ideal provided balance is maintained through mutual interaction. There is no doubt that as a result of this transaction a transformation will occur. This does not mean, as Huntington fears, that these cultures must abandon the emphasis on those values that have made them distinctive and unique. For what is crucial to Dewey’s notion of balance is that the “parts” in tension have a supporting-adjusted relation and not that they have equal weight. When the display of strength and excellence of one factor is achieved by taking into account (or being affected by) other counteracting factors, there is the kind of reinforcement required for balance.

It is not clear why Huntington wishes the United States to remain a place where “Anglo Protestant” culture and values predominate. But even if we were to agree, his view that this predominance is better achieved by protecting the Anglo culture or expecting the assimilation of Hispanics is questionable. The values that Huntington cares about can predominate in the United States even if it is affected by and it affects the Hispanic culture that it coexists with. In fact, there is an indeterminate plurality of ways in which the balance between Latin and Anglo values can be achieved or maintained (i.e., an indefinite amount of possibilities that are still within balance). The ideal America could be comprised of a variety of cultures, each having a different proportion of the values presented (e.g., some “tilted” more toward play [and less work] than others). There is no reason to think, as Huntington does, that the collision between these two cultures will result in the United States losing its distinctive concern for certain values. What can give America genuine unity and strength is embracing its unity in tension. This is the best way to reassert and safeguard the values that Huntington thinks are in peril. The Anglo culture may need the Hispanic one to guard against its own excesses.

I return to my analogy. In the tension I experience with my wife (because of differences in character), the fact that we are able to keep each other in balance does not mean that we each have the same balance. We have not sacrificed our individuality to the unity that we have established. She remains the person in our relationship in whom “work” predominates; that is her character excellence even though in an indirect way I contribute to it. The marriages in which there are no differences (regarding our list of values), and the ones in which there are differences but there is no mutual transformation, are the most vulnerable to excess (vice).

Huntington can reply that my marriage analogy is misguided and reveals what is wrong and naïve about the view I have defended. The unity of a marriage implies a special commitment and loyalty, and this is precisely what is in danger of disappearing in the United States because of the differences between the two cultures that are coming into contact. I would first remind Huntington how important loyalty is in the