The cosmic race

The Cosmic Race and the Muralist Movement

Roman Torres
m-w 10:00am

It is impossible to ignore the fact that our world is becoming smaller every day. Globalization is breaking down barriersbetween continents in a way never seen before and this is starting to shape things on a global scale. Communication is so available across the planet that distances are becoming less of an obstacle forany kind of human relation, either on a personal level as well as in a societies’ level. People from different cultures are now more than ever exposed to each other and for the first time in thehistory of our species we feel like all co-exist in this world and not just in a local community.
If I had to trace the beginning of this majestic phenomenon, I would say that the birth of globalizationhappened the day that Europe and America first came to contact. The discovery of the new world marks the kick start to a new phase in the history of humanity, the phase of human integration.
JoseVasconcelo’s “The Cosmic Race” makes some very intuitive predictions about the fate of human culture. He is predicting the birth of a new global perspective, where the “mixed race” is going to lead theway towards the collectivity and unification of cultures. He comes to this conclusion based on the Latin American “advantage of our tradition for having greater facility of sympathy towards strangers”(Vasconcelos), versus the Anglo-Saxon tendency of isolating its kind from other cultures. He points out the difference between the mind-set of the Latin American independence heroes, who intended forthe nations of the continent to unite under one banner of progress, including ex-slaves, whites, Indians and mestizos, versus the divisive, oppressive and segregationist ways of the whites in thenorth. The Latin tendency is that of tolerance and warmness even to those who are not like them. Because of this Vasconcelos concludes that it is in Latin America that this new universal race is going...