Latin American Paradox: Growing Diversity Based on Unique Unity

Latin America and the Caribbean plays a special role in the modern world for a number of reasons. The common ground in this region is much stronger and more impactful than that in other regions of the world. Latin America and the Caribbean is also unique since it acts as a kind of a global laboratory of historical trial and error, where all types of historical existence and all the stages of socioeconomic evolution are present simultaneously. It absorbs different civilizational and cultural flows, processes them and provides a fruitful synthesis, which José Vasconcelos, Mexican philosopher and politician, dubbed mestizaje in the broad sense of the word. However, alongside the surprising dominance of common features, Latin America and the Caribbean has a number of significant divergences. The mechanics of mestizaje in the broad sense shows that there are several major components of historical synthesis in the region. The initial set of these components dating back to the Spanish conquest of America is the same for different countries, yet their combination and proportion is different. In addition, Latin America has a special dual identity, which is both national and regional. It is useful to analyze Latin America through the lens of a civilizational matrix, a special combination of factors contributing to civilizational maturation; this concept is close to the term archetype. From a civilizational point of view, there are several key archetypes in Latin America, and in the course of historical development, there has been an overlap of civilizational matrices in the region.