{"id":58,"date":"2010-08-19T15:15:18","date_gmt":"2010-08-19T18:15:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gregmichener.wordpress.com\/?p=58"},"modified":"2019-09-09T01:18:54","modified_gmt":"2019-09-09T01:18:54","slug":"brazil-culturally-self-possessed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregmichener.com\/blog\/brazil-culturally-self-possessed\/","title":{"rendered":"Brazil: Culturally Self-Possessed."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I admire Brazil most for its self-possession. Its culture is uniquely distinct and, as I will write about next entry, it even follows political and economic policy that is out-of-step with the dictates of first-world orthodoxy. For the most part, the country&#8217;s self-possession is accidental&#8211; it&#8217;s the sole Portuguese-speaking country in the Americas, and its large population and young median age allows its large market and wealth of human resources allows it to be more self-contained than other countries.<\/p>\n<p>One of the reasons Brazil is unique is that it does not have a role model to emulate, as do other countries in the region. The rest of Latin America is Spanish-speaking and looks for cultural references in the hispanic U.S., especially Florida, Texas, New York and California. Brazilians don&#8217;t look to the U.S. to the  same extent. Proportionately few Brazilians live there and it&#8217;s  relatively farther away than 80% of other Latin American countries. Spanish-speaking countries also look to Spain, a not insignificant country with a vibrant culture and sizable economy. Portugal&#8230;well, it&#8217;s no cultural or economic powerhouse.<\/p>\n<p>Thus Brazil is to some extent an island onto itself, self-generative, relying on its own wherewithal for its culture. It is little wonder that when most people think of Brazil they picture a culture of great vitality. It&#8217;s a country of self-creation.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_69\" style=\"width: 160px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/observingbrazil.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/wheelbarrow11.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-69\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-69\" title=\"Wheelbarrow\" src=\"http:\/\/observingbrazil.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/wheelbarrow11.jpg?w=150\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"112\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-69\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Brazil: Carrying its own <\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I admire Brazil most for its self-possession. Its culture is uniquely distinct and, as I will write about next entry, it even follows political and economic policy that is out-of-step with the dictates of first-world orthodoxy. For the most part, the country&#8217;s self-possession is accidental&#8211; it&#8217;s the sole Portuguese-speaking country in the Americas, and its <a href=\"https:\/\/gregmichener.com\/blog\/brazil-culturally-self-possessed\/\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"sr-only\">Read more about Brazil: Culturally Self-Possessed.<\/span>[&hellip;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[13,19,20,21],"class_list":["post-58","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-brazil","tag-culture","tag-latin-america","tag-u-s"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregmichener.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregmichener.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregmichener.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregmichener.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregmichener.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gregmichener.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1727,"href":"https:\/\/gregmichener.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58\/revisions\/1727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregmichener.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregmichener.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregmichener.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}