The imagined community of a nation needs a story of itself that is positive and inspiring. Look at the American story. The Pilgrims, the frontiersmen, the Wild West. We achieved, we built, we overcame. That’s a great, positive story. And look at the results. Excellent results.
Unfortunately, Latin American countries locked into a miserable narrative of themselves. We were conquered, genocided, victimized. The results match the narrative. And it’s dumb because the Latin American “we” is not the indigenous “we.” It’s the mestizo “we”. Latin American “we” of necessity includes Spaniards because Latin America speaks Spanish. But that is not reflected in the national narratives where the “we” is always an utterly vanquished, robbed and immiserated victim suffering at the hands of Spaniards first and Americans forever after.
This is why it’s important to have good, high-quality elites. Who else is going to create the shared story of the nation, which is always a complicated process involving many people and occupying a long stretch of time? The Latin American elites have failed abysmally. They continue failing because they are still pursuing the victimhood angle.
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