Suchergebnisse

The longest continuous expression of the revolu tion of aspirations that dominates political and social thought in Latin America today is the university reform movement. The reforms have been administrative, rather than pedagogical, with particular emphasis on the democratization of the univer sity leading to more substantial student control. Its dominant characteristic has been an attempt to define a national and, ultimately, continental culture, a process that has fostered a generally distrustful attitude toward this country. The reform movement has put forward the political university as an alterna tive and contrast to the professional university of the United States. The movement has been most influential in the large national universities. It is least prominent in universities founded or reorganized since World War II or in new faculties of older universities. The attitudes fostered by this movement must be understood by the scholarly community in the United States if it is to respond intelligently to the challenge of rapid social change in Latin America. The academic community of the United States responds typically by attention to a particu lar situation, working through the pattern of a professional discipline. The Communist response is horizontal rather than vertical, being devoted to stimulating attention to an all-per vading national problem rather than concern for its solution. The response of United States universities needs to be aug mented. It could be strengthened greatly by a continuity of concern that demands a considered long-term commitment to an institution and an area.

The Cuban Revolution, led by the charismatic Fidel Castro, is remarkably complex. Its causes were varied: the long overshadowing by the United States, social and eco nomic imbalances, and others. Castro, himself a complex per sonality, has led it along an erratic path of development, but probably much constructive reform has been accomplished. The Revolution has been chiefly social and economic, not politi cal. Fidel Castro, his brother Raul, and Dr. Ernesto Guevara have quite different personalities, but Fidel alone dominates the Revolution. In recent months, the movement has shifted far to the left, due to both positive and negative factors; Rus sian and Chinese Communist influence is now considerable. The major defects of the Revolution include its failure to de velop institutional apparatus other than the Communist party, its cavalier attitude toward freedom of expression, and the abandonment by masses of the people of any wish to think for themselves. The Revolution has had an enormous impact on Latin America and, hence, naturally, on the United States as well.