Outwitting Manic Depression: Surpassing All Understanding
Because I was not seeking to fit these people into my northern European pigeonholes, I was able to observe them in their unfettered natural habitat. In addition to my plain ignorance, I did not have my perception swayed by rose-colored literature about this society by certain influential American and European sources. Some contemporary Western academics and writers who have had any interest in this society often begin from their “Enlightenment” and Marxist thinking that misinterprets Mexico’s complicated thirty centuries of cultural, racial and religious interactions. Today the philosophy of these sages has evolved to the point where all truth is relative. Of course, there is one truth above all: that there is no good or evil… and no questioning the progressive march of history. And there is no Mexican who can be figured out. Salvador Dali complained that the country was more surreal than his paintings.
In the American academy, for example, critics argue that the Latin American Studies pipeline produces and maintains a steady stream of artists and scholars who share contempt for historical and social forces that obstruct their version of cultural “progress” such as their understanding of American economic and political imperialism, the Catholic Church (meaning the Vatican and its hierarchy) and any other traditionalist forces.
One measure of the unanimity of opinion in these quarters is to ask if the dictatorships of General Franco in Spain or General Pinochet in Chile had any redeeming qualities comparable to that of President Fidel Castro in Cuba or President Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua. What does not make sense is how these judgments square with their purported relativism. How can there be good guys or bad guys on their standard-less scorecard?
For nearly a century, virtually all Mexican artists, intellectuals, policy makers and politicians who have been trained abroad and to please a foreign audience subscribe to these alien parameters. The Rockefeller family patronized them and imported their artwork to New York high society and Dartmouth College in the basement of its Baker Library. These are the primary and unchallenged sources for representations of Mexican society and, indeed, all human activity, in literature, film, the theatre, media and, up until recently, all textbooks.
In the 90s, as the ruling party began loosening its vice-like grip on corporate media, Mexicans have been subjected to a tsunami of “yellow journalism.” Sensationalism is the flavor of every day as the different entities compete for survival that was previously guaranteed by governmental subsidy. Among its principal sources are CNN and The New York Times. Given these ideological venues, it is no surprise that the elite and general populace share a trickle-down leftist perspective on goings-on in the world and their northern neighbor. Some opinions take hold that border on the absurd, such as the widespread suspicion that President George W. Bush micro-managed the 911 attacks.
Just as in the United States, the ebb and flow of ink and vibration appears to whirl without control like a dancing hurricane, the gyrations reflecting a common conviction that all ideas, persons and institutions are open to brutal and instantaneous an unrepentant analysis. No authority on earth may dare limit this imperative. And the mass media bears virtually no responsibility for the consequences of its actions.
The arrogance of the media unbound is based upon the rationalist and materialist philosophy that everything stands to reason, sooner or later. In his Discourse on Method (1637), the French philosopher René Descartes taught, “The first precept was never to accept a thing as true until I knew it as such without a single doubt.” The problem with that way of thinking is that, among other topics of scrutiny, Mexico and Mexicans do not make sense. They cannot be known without a doubt. Rather than being rationalized into something that they are not, Mexicans prefer to be appreciated for the mystery that they are.
But why should all thought be trapped within the limitations of Descartes’ mind or anyone else’s? This intellectual disposition has affected other disciplines such as the study of history.
In his seminal work The Whig Interpretation of History (1931), the English historian Herbert Butterfield argued against pre-ordained history as:
“…the tendency of many historians to write on the side of Protestants and Whigs, to praise revolutions provided they have been successful, to emphasize certain principles of progress in the past and to produce a story which is the ratification if not the glorification of the present.”
In a similar vein, Napoleon Bonaparte cynically claimed that “history is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon.” Which people? Why, the people who won, of course. When historiography becomes a connect-the-dots puzzle vindicating a victorious worldview, it is no longer scholarship, but propaganda. The fall of the Roman Empire due to wimpy Christians is as real as the “Black Legend” of the zenith of Catholic Spain, the inexorable defeat of Republican Robber Barons to the New Deal and “Camelot,” Richard M. Nixon as the devil incarnate or the single-handed running out of town of Soviet Communism by a “Lone Ranger” Californian.
Certain historians of our day argue that time should not be measured according to the birth of Jesus Christ, undeniably the most important human being in recorded history. They propose to change our time designation to “Before Common Era” and “Common Era” (B.C.E. and C.E.). If we are, therefore, to seriously confront ideological or religious prejudices, why should the academy maintain the pompous delusions of Enlightenment categories such as the “Dark Ages” along with “medieval” and “Middle Ages”? Middle Ages on the way to what? The end of history? Viewed from his exalted “com” in the 23rd century, Captain James T. Kirk would not see things that way. Why do we allow pejorative terminology to cloud how we study the past, especially that of the Age of Christendom that proudly created the university system and most charitable works in the first place?
For hundreds of years, philosophy was known as the queen of the sciences. Today it would seem to be the water-boy of academic activity. Is it possible that the reason why we no longer formally study philosophy is because we are already completely indoctrinated into one of its schools? To paraphrase Nixon, could it be that we are all “secular humanists” now? We never dare to challenge the first principles of this philosophy for fear of being outcast from civilized discourse? Such sanctions would apply in particular to the most educated people in our society. Have these anti-spiritual teachings become dogma? Maybe we should consider a broader definition of religion as any belief system that holds together a person or a people (religare: to tie, to bind).
Perhaps this insight might serve as a useful response to pamphleteer Thomas Paine who strenuously argued for the separation of church and state (an argument that does not appear in any of our founding documents). If Paine means only to prevent the state exclusively promoting Anglicanism, well, that is understandable. Nevertheless, would Paine allow for the state to proselytize for secular humanism as it has done for half a century? One good example would be the dogmas of the necessity of climate change prevention and global population control.
In the case of Mexico, even though the ruling intelligentsia expects its citizenry and foreign observers to follow a Masonic-brick Road, they cannot continue to sacrifice reality to escape the limelight of free inquiry indefinitely. Despite the many majestic Marxist-inspired murals depicting the country’s history, the general populace has not fully cooperated with the marching orders of the dialectic. As the country becomes more and more free and democratic, paint chips are peeling off these venerable works of art portraying Mexico’s irreversible march towards a capitalist Armageddon and utopian socialism. However, just because Mexicans are not dyed-in-the-wool Marxists, this does not mean that they want to be stagehands for the “I Want to Be a Billionaire” series of Latino trickle-down capitalism.
Now that the dictatorship of the past century has fallen, Mexicans and foreigners are able to discuss and investigate without fear many forbidden topics such as the religious civil war of the 20s and 30s as well as government purges of university students and rebels in the 60s and 70s. Suddenly, the media inside and out of the country are referring to past political killings and specific stolen elections without batting an eyelash. As someone who lived there twenty years ago, I can attest to the fact that these subjects were taboo both in the domestic and foreign press with the rare exception of publications such as Proceso and eventually Reforma. The reason was as simple as that no one wanted their access to sources or to newsprint cut off by the omnipotent regime.
In the era of the supposedly benign dictatorships of the 1980s, opposition leaders would have fatal traffic accidents in the mountains or simply disappear if they became an inconvenience to the government. That was happening only twenty-five years ago. All of this changed dramatically during the mid-to-late 90s as the ascendant Ivy League-trained technocrats of the ruling party lost control of the economy and then the political order. Having been shamed into creating an independent electoral commission and allowing for a free press, the ruling party began to lose their grip on the country by means of a few governorships, then their majority in Congress and then the presidency itself.
Subsequent elections have alternated between three parties of the PAN (center-right), PRI and Morena (left-wing, previously known as PRD). The internet-driven overwhelming election of both socialist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) in 2018 and Claudia Sheinbaum in 2024 and their complete ticket have sent shock waves through the entire country and hemisphere, particularly among foreign investors. Most of my Mexican friends support Morena. Since 2019, foreign direct investment has remained unchanged at $33 billion annually.
With the advent of supermajorities in the Congress in early September, a lame-duck AMLO hopes to ramrod numerous constitutional reforms that have hampered his agenda in the past, for example, changing the mostly independent judiciary to a party organ. In contrast to the early days of Lopez Obrador, Sheinbaum will begin her tenure on October 1st with a much more compromised economy and public debt. Should Sheinbaum augment public debt above the current 50% of GDP, Mexico may experience a recession in the near future, according to top economist Professor Rafael Ramirez de Alba of the IPADE business school.
Given President Biden’s “open border” policy, Mexicans in the United States have doubled their remittances to the home country from 2019 through 2023 to over $60,000,000,000. Behind non-oil exports, remittances are now a leading source of foreign income, surpassing tourism, oil income and manufacturing income! This walloping shot in the arm augers well for the continued prosperity of the Mexican economy that currently has the best currency exchange rate since 2016. No one expected this to happen upon the arrival to power of a committed and spend free Socialist leader.
Now that the Biden Administration has announced a sweeping new amnesty and work-visa program that will affect at least 500,000 immigrants and foreigners, surely the number and size of remittances will increase as beneficiaries obtain better-paying legitimate jobs.
With the upcoming review of the USMCA trade agreement in 2026, all eyes will be on the desires of potentially new administrations in each country (ironically similar to the creation of the NAFTA agreement in 1992). Potential constitutional reforms may violate the terms of the accord. In the event that the updated trade agreement promotes mutual prosperity, Mexico stands to gain the most proportionally as the leading trade partner with the United States.