Blog Post Feb. 2nd

This week we read two chapters of Sarmiento’s book and honestly it confused me. In chapter 1 he talked about how bad the gauchos were and how lazy and uncivilized they were however, in the next chapter he wanted them to define Argentina’s cultural identity. When he was talking about the gauchos in the second chapter to me it didn’t sound like they were lazy at all as they traveled around performing incredible feats like tracking a criminal from just his footprints or knowing all of the trees that are in Argentina. Also, even life Sarmiento considers this way of life wouldn’t have it as the Argentinian literature encourage the children to follow this path? Also, the conflict between what the Argentinian culture should be was something I found interesting. Sarmiento and Bello were elites that had very different ideas for what the Argentinian culture should be. However, despite their different ideas they did have a few things in common, for example, their desire to separate their culture from European culture and the exclusion of the one thing that would cause this separation, the indigenous culture. 

Comments

  1. Linnea FrantzFebruary 4, 2022 at 12:03 PM

    Hi there Victoria! I was also quite confused about the contradictions in between the two chapters of Sarmiento. I think that while Sarmiento expresses his disdain for the gauchos, especially in chapter 1, I also think he somewhat appreciates that they have created another culture that is neither European nor indigenous. Therefore, while he may not hold the gauchos in high esteem, I think he may see their ability to separate themselves from others in Argentina as something to aspire to (just not necessarily their customs or traits).

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