Latin American Immigration Unlikely to Spark A New Renaissance
The recent movie
A Day Without A Mexican asks the interesting
question: What would happen if California`s twelve
million Hispanics
suddenly disappeared?
Some slapstick satire ensues as the
state`s remaining whites, blacks, and Asians try (and
fail) to pick their own
oranges,
wash their own cars, and care for their
own children.
Yet the plot makes the unintended
point that Hispanics have contributed far more drudgery
than creativity to California. Although the media
regularly blither about the "vibrant
contributions of Latin-American culture," the
plain truth is that California`s main creative
industries—Hollywood
and
Silicon Valley—employ few Latinos above the
technician level.
But, then, has creativity ever been
the strong suit of the Hispanic world? Can we really
expect to find much scientific or artistic talent among
immigrants from Latin America?
To investigate these questions, I
crunched some numbers from
Charles Murray`s recent gift to data nerds
everywhere, his
book
Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the
Arts and Sciences, 800 B.C. to 1950.
(Here`s my
interview with Murray about his book and my
review of it in
The American Conservative.)
Murray ranked objectively history`s most important
creators and discoverers based on their representation
in leading histories and encyclopedias.
For example, to determine the most significant Western
visual artists, Murray assembled 14 leading
comprehensive works by art historians such as
Gombrich and
Janson. For each name in each book`s index, he typed
into his computer basic measures of importance such as
the number of pages mentioning the artist. (No surprise:
Michelangelo came out on top.) It`s important to
note that Murray`s own opinions played no role in his
process.
This sounds simple, perhaps even simple-minded. But
these kinds of metrics of eminence have been repeatedly
validated over a century of use,
beginning with
Francis Galton.
The hundreds of scholars upon whom Murray relies have
their personal and professional biases. But, ultimately,
their need to create coherent narratives explaining who
influenced whom means that their books aren`t primarily
based on their own tastes, but instead on those of their
subjects.
For example, the best single confirmation of the
greatness of Beethoven (who ties with Mozart as the most
eminent composer in Murray`s tables) might be
Brahms`s explanation of why he spent decades fussing
before finally unveiling his own First Symphony: “You
have no idea how it feels for someone like me to hear
behind him the tramp of a giant like Beethoven.”
Thus, no musical scholar could leave out Beethoven
without also
leaving out Brahms, Schumann, Berlioz, Wagner,
Mahler, and other composers influenced by Beethoven.
Murray found 4,002 "significant figures" who
qualified for inclusion in his database because they
were mentioned in at least half the top reference books
in their field. He reserved eight of his
twenty categories for Asian subjects such as Japanese
Painting and Indian Philosophy. That leaves 3,404
significant figures in the twelve fields open to
Westerners.
So how did Latin Americans do?
Not terribly well at all: just half of one percent of
the most famous scientists and Western artists came from
Latin America.
|
|
|
||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Latin Americans |
|
Spaniards |
||
|
|
3404 |
|
18 |
0.5% |
|
69 |
2.0% |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
124 |
|
– |
– |
|
1 |
0.8% |
|
|
193 |
|
– |
– |
|
1 |
0.5% |
|
|
204 |
|
– |
– |
|
1 |
0.5% |
|
|
85 |
|
– |
– |
|
– |
– |
|
|
218 |
|
– |
– |
|
– |
– |
|
|
191 |
|
– |
– |
|
– |
– |
|
|
160 |
|
– |
– |
|
– |
– |
|
|
239 |
|
– |
– |
|
1 |
0.4% |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
479 |
|
3 |
0.6% |
|
15 |
3.1% |
|
|
835 |
|
13 |
1.6% |
|
33 |
4.0% |
|
|
522 |
|
2 |
0.4% |
|
13 |
2.5% |
|
|
154 |
|
– |
– |
|
4 |
2.6% |
None of the 1,414 scientists who made the cut was a
Latin American. That`s not too surprising because the
mother country,
Spain, contributed only four scientists … and even
one of those four was the medieval Muslim astronomer
Al-Zarqali!
Latin America did a little better in the sphere of high
culture, accounting for 18 (or 0.9%) of the 1,990 top
artists, composers, writers, and philosophers in the
history of Western Civilization. (I`m including among
the Latin Americans the only
Brazilian in the database, composer
Villa-Lobos.)
Spain has given the world a fair-to-middling 65 cultural
creators—3.3% of all significant figures in the history
of Western arts and philosophy. But Spain has been in a
bit of a creative slump since its brilliant Golden Age
of
roughly 1550 to about 1660. There have been only 25
Spanish key creators since 1700. In contrast, the small
country of the Netherlands developed 46 significant
figures just during the 17th Century.
The Hispanic world`s strong suit has been literature,
with 13 significant Latin American writers (or 1.6% of
the 835 most eminent Western writers). Top Latin
American authors include
Borges and
Neruda. Among the 33 significant Spanish writers
(4.0%) are
Cervantes,
Lope de Vega, and
Garcia Lorca.
Presumably individual genius is more likely to reach
fruition in the field of literature because in the
sciences or some of the other, more expensive arts, a
high degree of social support for achievement is a
precondition.
The three great Mexican muralists of the 20th Century,
Rivera,
Siqueiros, and
Orozco, are the only Latin Americans (0.6%) among
the 479 most famous painters and sculptors.
In contrast, fifteen Spaniards (3.1%) made the list,
most coming from either Spain`s Golden Age (for
instance, Velasquez, Zubaran, de Ribera, and the
Crete-born
El Greco) or from the 20th Century (such as Picasso,
Miro, and Dali). The titanic Goya was the only
significant Spanish painter to flourish between the
middle of the 17th Century and the beginning of the 20th
Century.
Of the 522 best-known classical composers, only two
(0.4%) were Latin Americans (Villa-Lobos and the Mexican
Carlos Chavez y Ramirez) and thirteen (2.5%) were
Spaniards, but most of them were late medieval figures.
De Falla is probably the best-known (and perhaps only
well-known) Spanish composer. (However, there have been
many great Spanish performers, such as Casals and
Segovia.)
Among the 154 significant Western philosophers, there
are no Latin Americans and four Spaniards. Of these
four, however, two were Muslim Moors (Averroes
and
Avicebron), one the famous Jewish philosopher of the
Muslim world,
Maimonides, and the fourth was Santayana, who
emigrated to the U.S. as a child. On the other hand,
two well-known Spanish philosophers arguably should have
qualified:
Ortega y Gasset and
Unamuno (who showed up on the table of top writers
instead).
In summary, Spain was a leading European nation up until
the middle of the 17th Century, after which it fell into
the third rank.
Latin America has always been a backwater of Western
Civilization, except in literature.
Murray didn`t cover the last half of the 20th Century,
but the long-term trends seem to be continuing. Latin
Americans have won a grand total of only
three Nobel Prizes in the sciences and Spain only
one. In contrast,
Denmark has won eight, and the U.S. 206.
Latin America remains more productive in literature than
in other fields, with dazzling novelists such as Garcia
Marquez and Vargas Llosa. Over the last half century,
classical composition, art, and philosophy appear to
have been in general decline across the Western world,
so Latin America`s lack of innovation in those fields no
longer stands out as embarrassingly.
In the realm of popular culture, the last half of the
20th Century witnessed the overwhelming triumph of the
U.S.A. Latin American pop music was vastly outgunned by
American rock and roll. But even little English-speaking
Jamaica wound up having more
influence on music than did Cuba, which had been the
most musically dynamic Spanish-speaking country. Perhaps
Castro`s (hopefully imminent) demise should free up
Cuba`s tremendous musical talent.
The more insidious
Mexican ruling party bribed its artists into
comfortable submission, which may account for the
lack of Mexican creativity over the last 50 years. As
the PRI fell apart over the last decade, several
exciting Mexican movie directors have emerged.
Nonetheless, the bottom line: Latin America has been the
least creative outpost of the West. And that probably
won`t change much.
America is unlikely to find many creative geniuses among
Hispanic immigrants—especially among illegal ones.
[Steve Sailer [email
him] is founder of the Human Biodiversity Institute and
movie critic for
The American Conservative.
His website
www.iSteve.blogspot.com features his daily
blog.]


