Much of Latin American literature is about the conflict between civilization and barbarity. If you go to college to study Hispanic literature, you will have it drilled into your head for years that, in this confrontation, barbarity is yippee-doodle, hey-ho fantastic while civilization is evil and oppressive. That this is taught by college professors of literature, whose entire existence is only possible under conditions of an extremely developed civilization, at no point strikes the proponents of the theory as paradoxical.
Cultures that have not achieved as much as others on the civilizational path are going to devalue civilization as boring, oppressive, and unnatural. That’s not in the least unusual or unexpected. What’s bizarre is that high achievers on the civilizational journey allow themselves to be duped into being ashamed of their great achievements.
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