Interesting Comparison between Countries

As an American educator, I noticed too many times to count that American high school and college students tend to have a knee-jerk negative response to "high culture," older culture, and unfamiliar culture. This is simply not true in Mexico. If I play classical music or opera or silent film for my students here, they don't jeer, they don't get fidgety or act bored; they don't ever complain that something is old or old-fashioned or out-of-date. They are respectful, they are interested, and they make good discussion. In this European-based culture, high culture is something to be valued. (The same is true in East Asia.) I had two sessions today of my art history / literature course, and since it's the first week, I'm dealing with basic theory. In a section on abstract painting, I used examples by Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, and, for the first time, Barnett Newman:

My students are always interested in Pollock, but what really surprised me was how they latched onto Newman. They were open to his "zip" paintings and interested to discuss what they might "mean." (I raised one of the standard interpretations, which is that the zips represent a kind of super-stylized vertical human figure. Newman himself kept mum about whether he had that in mind.) One quick student pointed out that Tony Stark / Iron Man owns a Newman, and sure enough, in Iron Man 2, Newman is shouted out at some length.

The students were equally responsive to such subjects as symbolism - I put the question into play, what does the One Ring in The Lord of the Rings stand for, if anything? - and high culture-pop culture hybrids. They quickened noticeably at the analysis I offered that a song such as The Verve's "Bitter Sweet Symphony" is really more of a modern orchestral pop song than a rock song, the proof of that pudding being that it would be much easier to approximate the sound of the recording in a live symphony concert (all those strings!) than in a rock band concert. They really like such topics.

Teaching culture in the United States, an instructor has to spend half her time persuading students that it would be worth their while to pay attention, and even then, receptiveness often fails to take hold. In Mexico, no such problems. The attitude towards culture is pronouncedly more open and less insular, and, it strikes me, much healthier. It is quite possible to be a pop culture aficionado (as most of my students are) without inhabiting a defensive silo. This seems worthy of notice.

POSTSCRIPT: A friend wondered whether the difference I describe might primarily be due to my students in Mexico being mostly upper-middle and upper class. There is definitely some question of social status involved, but I do not think that in itself it is determinative.

I have taught U.S. students at many more strata - charter schools, suburban schools, inner city schools, prep and boarding schools, community colleges, etc. - than I have Mexican students. But I never encountered the cultural openness that I find among my undoubtedly privileged Mexican students at any "level" of U.S. students whatsoever. Nothing remotely close to it. And correspondents who teach in more purely middle class Mexican schools tell me that their students are more respectful and attentive than the privileged ones. 

My impression based on my first-hand experience of Mexico, and my second-hand reading knowledge of the rest of Latin America, is that Latin America is far more like Europe, in this and other ways, than it is like the United States. More like Asia, too. Respect for "higher" things, respect for intellectual life, respect for the past.

Americans, even from the upper socio-economic levels, are terrified to seem to be "putting on airs," which is one reason why politicians are practically required to play "I'm just an ordinary guy" card, or meet the voter's "I'd like to have a beer with him" test. None of that seems especially relevant to my international experiences so far. There are other problems, sure, but not THAT problem.