The Problem of "Misplaced Ideas" Revisited: Beyond the "History of Ideas" in Latin America

Abstract

The change that has come over this branch historiography in the past two decades may be characterized as a movement away from emphasizing thought (and even more sharply, of ideas) toward emphasizing something rather different, for which history speech or history discourse, if not unproblematic or irreproachable, may be the best terminology so far foundJ.G.A. Pocock, Virtue, Commerce, and History1In 1973, Roberto Schwarz published a paper that profoundly marked a generation thinkers in Latin America: ideias fora do lugar (Misplaced Ideas).2 It was originally intended to provide a theoretical framework for progressivist authors to counter the influence nationalistic tendencies that, in the 1960s and 1970s, were particularly noticeable among the leftist political organizations.1 Yet, the concept misplaced soon proved especially productive for theorizing the problematic development ideas in Latin American history. Schwarz's text thus became the fundamental point reference for those in the field who intended to question the hitherto predominant paradigms in cultural and literary critique, which were mostly inspired by the Romantic-nationalistic tradition. Notwithstanding, a quarter a century later, Schwarz's original contribution in this regard needs to be reassessed. In the course the last twentyfive years, the apparent loss the national states' centrality helped to reveal the inherent complexity the processes cultural exchange hidden behind a perspective that still tended to conceive them exclusively in terms inter-national relationships. Furthermore, a series new developments in the disciplines specifically dedicated to analyzing those kinds exchange processes compels us to reconsider some the implicit assumptions in Schwarz's concept and reformulate it.The object this paper is to explore, in the light the new realities the last fin-de-siecle, new perspectives regarding the dynamic ideas and cultural exchange in peripheral areas (of which Latin American is only a particular case), utilizing the new conceptual tools provided by the recently developed disciplines and theories in the field. Ultimately, the present work intends to raise a broader, epistemological, issue, whose relevance exceeds the local context. As it shows, the shortcomings in Schwarz's theory spring from a crude linguistic view, which is inherent in the history ideas, that reduces language exclusively to its referential function. A more precise distinction the different levels language will thus help to reveal aspects and problems that Schwarz's perspective obliterates. Yet, as this paper also intends to demonstrate, Schwarz's original intellectual project may be disentangled from its linguistic premises and recovered for cultural critique. Applied in a new way, it can still provide a theoretical framework to comprehend the intricacies the processes cultural exchange, and, more specifically, the problematic dynamics ideas in Latin America that Schwarz intended to analyze.ON PLACES AND NON-PLACES OF IDEASIn order to understand the sense Schwarz's notion misplaced we must place it within the conceptual framework in which it emerged. With it, Schwarz aimed to translate into a cultural key the postulates the so-called theory, the core which took shape in the Seminar on Marx, organized in Sao Paulo in the early 1960s (and in which Schwarz participated). As is well known, that theory intended to refute the dualistic approaches that viewed the peripheral areas as vestiges a precapitalistic world that tends historically to disappear. The nations in this area would thus replicate the same pattern linear development central countries. On the contrary, dependency theory postulated the existence a complex dynamic between the center and the periphery, the two representing instances inherent in capitalist development, thus forming a single, interconnected system. …