National identity and chaos rituals
Introduction
Carlos Monsiváis in his book "The Rituals of Chaos" invites the reader to enter the world of popular masses in Mexico. In his introductory narrative, the writer presents photographs of different events that have the purpose of conglling in crowds and in which Monsiváis states that Chaos inhabits. The writer says that basically one of the most constant characterizations of Mexican life is linked, which points to his “fierce disorder.". The description of the capital and sporting events are two initial examples of this type of conglomeration in which the masses of people mix and share an identity, an idiosyncrasy, and a nationalism that does not discriminate against races or social classes.
Developing
The term "masses" is considered by the author as a term used to belittle those people who lack education and economic media. All the mentioned synonyms are words that perspire contempt for a coppery race and a social class that is seen as inferior;totally stripped of a social friction that allows it only a close relationship with the vulgar and the ordinary. However, the elite does not underestimate its multiplicative power.
The same that threatens to invade their space to the point of making them lose sight of the imminent submersion in a forced uniformity. Mexico City is a spotlight on populated by twenty million people;"The crowd surrounding the crowd". The landscapes are described with such a variety of words and with such a well -executed syntax that causes the reader a certain suffocation that transports it to the center of the urban chaos that dominates the capital city. In that urban promiscuity of traffic of people and cars, races and classes are lost and melted becoming part of a whole that is the soul behind the capital’s identity.
Sporting events such as the boxing fight of Julio César Chávez and the opponent Greg Hugen arouse a nationalist identity that is pronounced through the colors of the Mexican flag. "Inside and outside everything is tricolor". The tricolor mood invades the streets with their nationalist demonstrations between the attendees and the surrounding environment.
The Mexican boxer makes a luxury garments in a manner considered appropriate, instead the dancers who open the show receive the rejection of most of the audience that does not even consider them artists, but rather a show of cheap lights. The Mexican mockery is heard when Don King appears and shouts "that combs, who combs". Events like this, says the author, does not serve to promote the one who is already famous but to who can afford to pay a show of this magnitude because he gives economic prestige to those who do not possess it.
Although boxing is associated with poverty for the humble origin of boxers, it is a sport that manages to amalgamate and unify the Mexican audience for a few hours, while the fight between Chávez and its rival, in which emotion is the feeling is the feelingcommon that invades the nation. "These are hours when the country enters us through our eyes and ears and we get out of our throat.". That same brio is also experienced when there is a football match in which Mexico participates. Collective excite.
conclusion
In conclusion, "the rituals of chaos" through its narrative, evokes images and feelings that belong to the Mexican nation, but that undisputedly do not belong exclusively. The rest of the Hispanic countries can find a link with these suffocating and overwhelming experiences in their capital cities full of traffic and streetsses, in those coppery faces, and in a minority elite that ignores the apocalyptic chaos that surrounds it and pretends that everything is finebecause he does not conceive the idea of abandoning the city and its rites.
Also the rest of Hispanics can identify with that nationalist passion that invades the physical and emotional atmosphere of countries every time there is an international sporting event. Demographic barriers are deleted and social classes are blurred in order to send a vigorizing nationalist vibrates to the team or the representative and thus not leave the slightest ritual without executing. In this way the fans will know that they did everything humanly as possible to ensure their triumph. Although they are called chaos rituals by Carlos Monsiváis, it is impossible not to perceive that in the middle of that chaos there is a social identity and beats a nationalist heart.
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