I just thought I would warn you that I’m not an English or literature major. So hopefully you’ll not be too critical of the mediocre rambling that has already began and which will continue on for the next 28 or so minutes. If it’s not to late I would actually recommend looking at the next persons blog. But If you are committed to hearing what I have to say, then there is no sense in stalling any longer.
At the start of chapter one Sarmiento describes how in Argentina it can be hard for one to see where the sky meets the earth. The boundary is obstructed by forest. I feel like he is saying in Argentina it is unclear to see how progression can take place. The transition from earth to the sky might be clear in other places, but here it is tricky and one cannot quite make out how it happens. And I think all of chapter one can be seen as an account or explanation of why this transition is difficult in this place.
The reason why this place is not civilized is a characteristic of it’s geography. The immense open and inhabitable space makes it unnecessary to form communities. Sarmiento suggest that the gathering of people to work to solve problems is the foundation of civilization. But in this place we do not get that. When people gather here, the purpose is to compete and triumph over one another. And it seems a different kind of civilization will arise from these types of gatherings, that will perhaps possess the savage nature of their origin.
The pastoral way of life described seems to remind me of Hobbes’s state of nature where life is “nasty broodish and short”(something like that). Sarmiento says that here people expect violent death, and they are in constant fear. Hobbes state of nature seems to describe the paradigm of backwardness. When he published the leviathan I think he was actually questioned as to whether such a state could ever really exist. But here it is, in Argentina.
The strange thing is that in this state of nature, contrary to what Hobbes described, the people weren’t compelled to enter into a contract and create government. (There was government and law, I just mean, there wasn’t really any ultimate sovereign. When it came down to it, people answered to the authority of caravan drivers, or to their own authority, but not fundamentally to the law).
