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Bailey W. Diffie
THE IDEOLOGY O F H I S P A N I D A D
Ramiro cle RIaezta, Defensa de la Zlispaniilad (Buenos Aires, 1941), pp. 93-
97. The first edition as published in 1934 and v a s the chief force in popular-
izing the term Hispanidad.
THE IDEOLOGY O F H I S P r l S I n A D 46 5
sponsible for that crisis. Culture, when diffused, loses its solidarity.
And an encyclopedic culture has produced an encyclopedic ignorance.
The more people read the less they know. They learn more science
and have less wisdom. . . .22
The Modern Age has wished to popularize culture, spread it, in
order to put it within the reach of the people. This is impossible.
Culture cannot be popular. . . . Cultnre loses its essential value when
.
placed within the reach of the weak. . . The attempt to devitalize
and enervate culture is a deliberate attack by inferior beings on the
forces that have made mall a thinking being. . . .23
I t was believed that the eradication of illiteracy would signify
the end of ignorance. Never has there been such a large nunlber of
people possessing such a large measure of lrnowledge. Nevertheless,
this has not produced a greater sanity in the world. . . . The excess
of science has produced an ignorant humanity which .aspires to a
spiritual leveling. . .. Science has not elevated the general level of
culture; it has not produced a better man.24
The only remedy for the destructive forces of democracy
and equalitarianism is ail hierarchical society. "God has
created the people to work . . . the clergy for the ministration
of the Faith . . . the nobility to assure virtue and administer
justice. " 2 5
I n order to build the "Ne-tv Spaill" the liberal, democratic
principles must be eradicated, and one way to achieve this is
to discredit the men who represent these ideals in Spanish
history. Such eighteenth-century liberals as Aranda, Cam-
pomanes, Jovellanos and the \vliole group of "afrancesados "
are subjected to severe attacks. The Falange abhors all that
the Constitution of 1812 represents, while Ferdinaiid VII,
who is called by Carleton J. H. Hayes "rancorous, cruel,
ungrateful and unscrupulous" and who, according to the
same author, restored the old r6gime in Spain in 1814 "~vitll
all its inequalities and injustices," is the hero." General
R'iego, who led the liberal revolt of 1820, is anathematized,
as is every liberal of the nineteenth century. Joaquin Costa
receives the most +itriolic abnse, probably because his eco-
2a Maria de Maeztu, G'?~ltztraeuropeo, pp. 9-10. " Ibid., pp. 22-25.
" Ibid., pp. 37-38. a 6 Ibid., p. 57.
48 0 ~ ~ 6 s i ? n
Redondo,
o
p. 140.
472 THE HISPANIC AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW
Pemarth, Lo Nltevo, p. 7.
T H E I D E O L O G Y OF H I S P A K I D A D 473
World expansion will not be nearly so difficult as would
at first appear. It will be accomplished by the German-
Spaaish Empire already mentioned; history m7ill not only
repeat but magnify itself.
A new Middle Ages-which transcendental spirits divine-must begin
again. . . . Germany must acquire a new impetus of formidable ex-
pansion. On one side she will throw the Mongolian muscovite horde
to the limits of Asia. . . . On the other she will conquer Europe
again, invade anew the Roman Empire. . . . On the ruins of apostate
Europe . . . will be reconstructed a new and powerful Latinidadh5
67 Iliid.) p. 328.
meat. Spain's former empire will furnish the model since its
success came from its tlieocratic character. " T h e efficacy,
naturally, of this civilixijzg action depezzded on the perfect
blendirzg of the two powem: temporal arzd spiritual, there
being no similar example in history, and which is the original
characteristic of Spain before the world."69 The Augustinian,
P. VBlez, in speaking of the nature of the Spanish State-
Church relationship, remarks :
To justify and evaluate adequately the Spanish Inquisitioii it is
necessary to take into account, above everything else, its national
character, especially the intimate union of the Church and the State
in Spain during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, to the point
where the State was theocratic, orthodoxy being the duty and the
lam of every citizen like any other civil obligation.'O
IV. I J T ~ aHispalzidnd
r RIEA~-s
TO AMERICA