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Fitzgerald
Joined: 10 Aug 2010
Posts: 224
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 Posted: Mon Nov 25, 2013 5:29 pm Post subject: Three Questions |
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I ask these questions in a spirit of reasoned discussion.
1) Given all its numerous advantages, Mexico is a significantly underachieving nation. Why do you think this is so?
Among those advantages, I would include:
Large land area (world's 14th largest nation)
Large population (world's 11th most populous nation)
Significant natural resources, including oil
Very high biodiversity
Direct access to both Pacific and Atlantic/Caribbean worlds, with long coastlines
Proximity to U.S.
Year-round growing season
200 years as independent country
Linguistic compatibility with much of the Americas
2) Do you feel that Mexicans are complacent about corruption? Many of my students tell me that reform is an illusion, that Mexico has always BEEN corrupt, and Mexico will always BE corrupt. The attitude seems quite fatalistic, and is sometimes tinged with Catholicism (the belief that the way things are is God's will). One student told me disgustedly that some of his classmates talk openly, not about reforming corruption, but about looking forward to getting their piece of it, and that the only thing for people like him to do is to get out of the country, which is what he plans. What is your take on this?
3) I notice at my institution that people are VERY reluctant to speak up about issues. Rocking the boat is considered not only inadvisable, but suicidal. Is this actually a long-standing "cultural" trait, or is it recent learned behavior premised on the quite accurate idea that if you speak out on the wrong issues in Mexico today, you could get yourself and your family killed? |
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Phil_K
Joined: 25 Jan 2007
Posts: 2041
Location: A World of my Own
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| Posted: Mon Nov 25, 2013 5:38 pm Post subject: |
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| On that happy day that I ship out of Mexico, I'd like to write a book on this subject, (it's almost written in my head) but meanwhile I'm reluctant to put forward my theories here, for the reason you state above, and for fear of going against forum policy. |
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notamiss
Joined: 20 Jun 2007
Posts: 908
Location: El 5o pino del la CDMX
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| Posted: Mon Nov 25, 2013 6:29 pm Post subject: Re: Three Questions |
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| Fitzgerald wrote: |
I ask these questions in a spirit of reasoned discussion.
No answers but a few comments.
1) Given all its numerous advantages, Mexico is a significantly underachieving nation. Why do you think this is so?
Among those advantages, I would include:
Large land area (world's 14th largest nation)
Large population (world's 11th most populous nation)
Significant natural resources, including oil
Very high biodiversity
Direct access to both Pacific and Atlantic/Caribbean worlds, with long coastlines
Proximity to U.S.
Year-round growing season Actually not: only the rainy season is a natural growing season. Agriculture during the dry season requires intervention in the form of irrigation. Those of us from colder climates are used to the idea that temperature limits the growing season, but here it is water that does so.
This only came to my consciousness when I answered questions about our growing season, A Mexican: “When is the agricultural season in your country?” Me: “Summer.” Mexican: “Oh, right, because it doesn’t rain in winter.” and I realized that the idea of a growing season limited by temperature was outside their experience, just as the idea of a growing season limited by water availability was outside mine.
200 years as independent country
Linguistic compatibility with much of the Americas
Disadvantages: NAFTA; see, for example, http://mexfiles.net/2013/11/24/a-path-of-destruction/. OK, this is relatively recent, but it has been a significant force in the deterioration in last two decades.
2) Do you feel that Mexicans are complacent about corruption? Many of my students tell me that reform is an illusion, that Mexico has always BEEN corrupt, and Mexico will always BE corrupt. The attitude seems quite fatalistic, and is sometimes tinged with Catholicism (the belief that the way things are is God's will). One student told me disgustedly that some of his classmates talk openly, not about reforming corruption, but about looking forward to getting their piece of it, and that the only thing for people like him to do is to get out of the country, which is what he plans. What is your take on this?
Resigned and defeatist, (except for the opportunists), not complacent.
3) I notice at my institution that people are VERY reluctant to speak up about issues. Rocking the boat is considered not only inadvisable, but suicidal. Is this actually a long-standing "cultural" trait, or is it recent learned behavior premised on the quite accurate idea that if you speak out on the wrong issues in Mexico today, you could get yourself and your family killed?
Long-standing cultural trait. As a starting point (greatly simplifying the argument), caciquism and collectivism as cultural norms (in contrast to individualism). |
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Fitzgerald
Joined: 10 Aug 2010
Posts: 224
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| Posted: Mon Nov 25, 2013 7:33 pm Post subject: |
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| Phil_K wrote: |
| On that happy day that I ship out of Mexico, I'd like to write a book on this subject, (it's almost written in my head) but meanwhile I'm reluctant to put forward my theories here, for the reason you state above, and for fear of going against forum policy. |
I don't hate Mexico at all; in fact, I plan to stay here indefinitely, through my remaining working years and then for retirement. I like the climate, and parts of the lifestyle. But there are surely things that I want to understand better, even if I never quite make my peace with them.
Certainly not wishing to run afoul of the mods, which is why I specified reasoned discussion and posed my points as questions. I am more than open to instruction and correction. The topics are simply interesting to me, and seem worthy of airing.
There is, of course, the occasional critique of this kind from within the culture itself - Jorge G. Castaneda's recent book Manana Forever? Mexico and the Mexicans is an example.
Castaneda worries openly about the underachievement issue. When I teach my students in World History, I recite the long list of Mexico's advantages that I gave, but I haven't been sure how to address the question of why, then, Mexico hasn't taken its place among the formidable nations of the world. I put forward Brazil as an example of a similarly blessed country that has in notable ways made great strides in recent decades. It's my students, sadly, who are skeptical of that happening here.
Last edited by Fitzgerald on Mon Nov 25, 2013 8:26 pm; edited 3 times in total |
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Fitzgerald
Joined: 10 Aug 2010
Posts: 224
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| Posted: Mon Nov 25, 2013 8:00 pm Post subject: Re: Three Questions |
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| notamiss wrote: |
| Fitzgerald wrote: |
I ask these questions in a spirit of reasoned discussion.
No answers but a few comments.
1) Given all its numerous advantages, Mexico is a significantly underachieving nation. Why do you think this is so?
Among those advantages, I would include:
Large land area (world's 14th largest nation)
Large population (world's 11th most populous nation)
Significant natural resources, including oil
Very high biodiversity
Direct access to both Pacific and Atlantic/Caribbean worlds, with long coastlines
Proximity to U.S.
Year-round growing season Actually not: only the rainy season is a natural growing season. Agriculture during the dry season requires intervention in the form of irrigation. Those of us from colder climates are used to the idea that temperature limits the growing season, but here it is water that does so.
This only came to my consciousness when I answered questions about our growing season, A Mexican: “When is the agricultural season in your country?” Me: “Summer.” Mexican: “Oh, right, because it doesn’t rain in winter.” and I realized that the idea of a growing season limited by temperature was outside their experience, just as the idea of a growing season limited by water availability was outside mine.
200 years as independent country
Linguistic compatibility with much of the Americas
Disadvantages: NAFTA; see, for example, http://mexfiles.net/2013/11/24/a-path-of-destruction/. OK, this is relatively recent, but it has been a significant force in the deterioration in last two decades.
2) Do you feel that Mexicans are complacent about corruption? Many of my students tell me that reform is an illusion, that Mexico has always BEEN corrupt, and Mexico will always BE corrupt. The attitude seems quite fatalistic, and is sometimes tinged with Catholicism (the belief that the way things are is God's will). One student told me disgustedly that some of his classmates talk openly, not about reforming corruption, but about looking forward to getting their piece of it, and that the only thing for people like him to do is to get out of the country, which is what he plans. What is your take on this?
Resigned and defeatist, (except for the opportunists), not complacent.
3) I notice at my institution that people are VERY reluctant to speak up about issues. Rocking the boat is considered not only inadvisable, but suicidal. Is this actually a long-standing "cultural" trait, or is it recent learned behavior premised on the quite accurate idea that if you speak out on the wrong issues in Mexico today, you could get yourself and your family killed?
Long-standing cultural trait. As a starting point (greatly simplifying the argument), caciquism and collectivism as cultural norms (in contrast to individualism). |
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That's a good point about the growing season. although in my area (West Central), corn and tomatoes are big winter crops.
Collectivist thinking, which I also experienced in Korea, is easy to comprehend intellectually, easy to teach as a historic theme, but wicked difficult for many Americans to relate to emotionally. Although I don't particularly like histrionics and strident expressivity, I can relate to those much more easily than I can to a more repressed cultural style. The stereotype of cultures originally based in the Mediterranean is that they are expressive in that way, so I was surprised to discover that Mexico as I experience it is much more like Korea than I expected. In other words, super careful. I don't see people get visibly upset (of course, maybe I'm not looking in the right places). |
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notamiss
Joined: 20 Jun 2007
Posts: 908
Location: El 5o pino del la CDMX
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| Posted: Mon Nov 25, 2013 8:35 pm Post subject: |
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Some people posit that a great deal of Mexican culture (such as codes of behavior) is more Oriental than Western, and I think this idea has some truth – you observed this yourself in the similarity to Korea.
Re growing season, I come from a land where everything is frozen solid and covered with snow for 5 months, so the idea of outdoor winter crops is completely alien. |
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BadBeagleBad
Joined: 23 Aug 2010
Posts: 1186
Location: 24.18105,-103.25185
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| Posted: Mon Nov 25, 2013 9:11 pm Post subject: |
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| Phil_K wrote: |
| On that happy day that I ship out of Mexico, I'd like to write a book on this subject, (it's almost written in my head) but meanwhile I'm reluctant to put forward my theories here, for the reason you state above, and for fear of going against forum policy. |
Last I checked there are plenty of flights to the UK. I can't imagine living in a place that you hate as much and understand as little as you do Mexico. |
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