THE INFLUENCE OF RELIGIOUS ELEMENTS ON THE LATIN AMERICAN POLITICAL CULTURE. THE CASE OF THE BINARY EXCLUDING OPPOSITIONS

Abstract

The popular religiosity of the baroque period in Latin America contributed to casting a mentality which is formed by elementary binary oppositions like friend / enemy. These oppositions are very spread in indigenous, telluric, populist, and socialist ideologies and also in intellectual creations like Liberation Theology and Philosophy. Their practical result lies in the consolidation of authoritarianism and in the justification of the elite paternalism and the ingenuity of the masses. Otherwise, these oppositions simplify the reality and avoid an adequate understanding of the complex modern order.