Nelson, I taught my daughters that there is one world, inhabited by the human family and shared with other life forms. I tried to instill in them a sense of wonder in the face of nature, including people and their creations, which are part of nature. As a native of northern Michigan living in central Mexico, and being married to a woman raised in a traditional Otomi community, it wasn't hard for them to understand that there are different ways to live with dignity, and to respectfully relate with people from distinct cultural traditions.

Dear Nelson

A very important but difficult question to answer. People may be biased by their origin, religious beliefs and knowledge.

Here is a quick version of that representing Asia. “The sculpture of Asia has been seen to represent the place where the world's major religions began, with the serene tiger as a depiction of the dominating power of religion on even the most wild creatures. Giving his perspective, Cass wrote, "In the lap of the central figure is the idol, symbol of false worship, while above the right shoulder of the figure is seen the rising luminous cross of Christianity, symbol of hope, which found its birth place on the continent of Asia”.

Bogart, M. (1989). Public sculpture and the civic ideal in New York City, 1890-1930. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

As can be seen from this sculpture the view the artist or perhaps the people of that time had only a limited knowledge and predominantly looking from their perspective rather than reality. I am not familiar with all of the views, but mostly dealing with Indian culture and history. Most of the western interaction with India is extremely limited either with its literature, religion, history or culture and the same stereo typical representation goes on even today. A real and in depth interaction without any prejudice would actually provide much richer perspective. An example can be seen from Max Mueller’s teachings about India such as “INDIA: WHAT CAN IT TEACH US?” which is readily available from Gutenberg project. But how many people in the western society are even aware of it? Until and unless you start looking at things with open mind it will be difficult to understand particularly the Indian civilization which is more than 5000 year old. People rarely have that kind of time now-a-days.

http://www.blueofthesky.com/publicart/works/fourcontinents.htm

http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=4651

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_M%C3%BCller

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/20847/20847-h/20847-h.htm

All cultures have evolved simultaneously from the early modern human culture that gradually emerged in Africa around a hundred thousand years ago. There is an underlying biological unity to our cultural diversity. I guess that is why I was able to find true friends in Marquette (on the northern frontier of the United States) as a child and a young man, in Kimpese (then part of Zaire, tody the Democratic Republic of the Congo) at the age of 17, in Barcelona (then -and still, for now- part of Spain) at 17 and 18, in the Lerma River Basin and the Mezquital Valley (regions of Mexico since 1821) at 20-22, and in the rest of this benevolent, beautiful, and battered world since then. I believe that we are on a more solid footing when conceptualizing the Earth (at the macro level) and its many diverse geographic and cultural regions (at the immediate, daily, perceptual level), and that we are skating on thin ice when we insist on social constructions that are intermediate between these two basic levels or reality.

The word culture itself has diverse meaning in different part of the world.  It is quite natural that most of us would love to teach our children the culture in which we live.

Yes, Asmat, this is essential, and the culture in which we live is that which we experience, which is what makes it so vital to our conscious existence.

I have been at times an activist for freedom of expression, but, Nelson, I think those four statues might be more appropriate today in a museum, accompanied by some open questions to provoke meaningful analysis in the minds of vistors, especially considering that the building that they visually introduce is today the George Gustav Heye Center of the National Museum of the American Indian, as Nageswara helpfully pointed out. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Gustav_Heye_Center .)

Adding to what respected David Charles Wright-Carr  and Prof. Kamal said, geographical locations also contribute to cultural differences.

As a scientist, I would simply compare the sculptures from 

1) Asia made by people born and raised in Asia,

2) America made by people born and raised in America

3) Europe made by people born and raised in Europe

4) Africa made by people born and raised in Africa

and in addition, I would compare different time periods, such as more than 2000 years ago, 1000 years ago, etc... today.

I think it will be obvious there will be a geography*time interaction in the shape, size and material of the sculptures produced. 

What about people who are born in for example Asia but are raised in America?

I would teach children, dear Nelson, that there is ONE central human culture on which all other cultures build! And that there is a culture rather than cultures!

“Worldview” refers to the manner in which a culture sees and expresses

its relation to the world around it.

“Objective reality actually varies widely according to the viewer’s means of perceiving it. Often those means are affected by cultural and linguistic factors that have been so deeply engrained in the mind that they have actually become a method of thinking

which includes a logical system and a set of evaluative assumptions.

For example, a UCLA research team working on the Hopi reservation found by

brainwave analysis that Hopi children use the right hemisphere of the brain

for speaking and hearing the Hopi language and the left hemisphere for

English”

Using the above we may divide the perception of objective reality, in to two big categories: Analytical-elementwise (left hemisphere is dominant) perception and holistic structural (right hemisphere is dominant)

The roots of analytical-elementwise perception and its capture is ancient Greece. This culture extended to west world view and culture, which include west Europe and Anglo-Saxon world.

The holistic perception on the other hand, gave the eastern culture, philosophy and religion.

There are a lot of other cultures (Latin Amarica, Africa, etc.) which is difficult to classify, and should be treated case by case.

Unesco World Heritage 2009-2010: A list

http://whc.unesco.org/uploads/activities/documents/activity-554-20.pdf

“Cultural Worldview”

http://hsp.org/sites/default/files/legacy_files/migrated/dynamicsoffolklorereading.pdf

Dear Nelson,

When I was in primary and in high school, great attention was paid to both the European and world history. I come from a country with fatal geographical location, which accumulates historical trauma and the effects of the early twentieth century totalitarian regimes (Nazi occupation and its consequences) and then Soviet occupation and its effects. I think these remarks become somewhat relevant in the face of Russian aggression in Ukraine.

Thus, Europe is not only culture, what I was taught, but also the trauma of wars and lot of Polish disappointment historically perceived.  

French influences in Poland  in contrast to what France did in Africa, were not so much exploiting. In Poland the French influences are noticed in the early nineteenth century, in the dominant culture and customs. Speaking in a rich, Polish homes in French was the responsibility of the rich nobility and gentry. French teachers often were "imported" from France. The father of our great composer, Frederic Chopin was French and music teacher. Time of Napoleonic expedition to Russia were also marked in the customs of our culture, fashion and cuisine. I want to say that I'm from Pomerania, where also prevailed German influences, which are particularly manifested in a general "order" (Ordnung muss sein) and knowledge of language, especially in older citizens. 

Dear  @Nelson, I must say that I grew up also among foreign influences. My stereotypes about different continents gradually I could verify. Too idealistic perception of democracy and human rights in North America, I verified also by learninng about the history of slavery in the United States, or the process of naturalization of Indians in Canada, where the government tried brutally detribalize and destroy the culture of the native citizens by using education system (boarding schools). The same, I learned about  the Aborigines in Australia. Africa and Asia, from what I remember from school were shown as rich continents  in natural and geographical sense but heavily exploited. The operational effects of colonization, genocides I learned in later tmes, during the college studies. I must conclude, that, school manuals during my primary school up to  June 1981, were slightly idealistically constructed, there were much censored. What I larned later ? - I learned about huge trauma of mankind around the world as well as of amazing cultures and it's artifacts. 

Dear @Nelson, what to communicate to the children about the other continents?

I think it is necessary to teach them primary of respect to the all human beings and then of uniqueness of their culture artifacts. My own adolescents respect otherness and cultural diversity and I think my biggest failure would be, if they had some cultural bias, racial, ethnic, etc. Fortunately they have not. Such teaching should be understood as moral obligations of nations and as part of LLL. Teaching children about the cultures, need to build pictures on the background of cultural and chronological context  I did not intended to sound so pathetic. In next comments I'll try to be more specific. 

Very interesting question, dear Nelson. But I think there is a problem from the start. I do not know how far we can still identify Europe, Asia, Africa and America (and Oceania) with the geographical areas that we call the same way. I think there are many "Europes, Asias..." and are not necessarily in those continents. The globality of world has moved people, cultures, religions, economic models etc. that in times of French could be well localized, but today... If we apply the old stereotypes, we would have to say that the United States and Argentina are more "European" than some European countries, or that Egypt is more Asian than African. And that could be transferred to regions, cities and neighbourhoods anywhere in the world ... But to answer your question, I think my "part of the world," Europe is, above all, a matron in decline who is unable to realize that their children and grandchildren have far surpassed her, proud of her values but unable to defend them. She has kept her jewels under the bed and is scared to death thinking someone can steal them while her house is falling apart. It is not the picture I would like to teach my children but I think it is the real one.

Dear Respondents:

First I will express my own embarrassment and later answer each of your magnificent responses one by one.

I was embarrassed to ask this question, and erased its initial version. To think that this nightmare of the four continents was the worldview being taught in the finest secondary schools of the U.S. from 1900 to 1965!  To reduce the world to four continents with only two heroines--  America and Europe-- is monstrous. 

To see America as essentially the U.S., land of liberty and subjugation of indigenous peoples, is contradictory and pernicious. Canada and Latin America are excluded. To view Europe as enlightenment and imperialism is to enthrone a world (dis)order which helps explain the chaos of today´s world scene. Europe here is essentially Great Britain and possibly Germany. Russia and Eastern Europe are excluded. 

To define Asia as past religion and opium is to forget positive Asian contributions to culture-- even religious culture-- and to omit China, India, Japan, and whatever else in the Near, Middle, and Far East has a chance to bear cultural fruits.  South America and Australia are omitted.  The vision of Africa as a dark, sleeping giantess does not resist analysis.  Yet this worldview dominated official Washington well into the 20th century and motivated G. W. Bush´s quest to democratize Afghanistan, an idealism now being criticized by Henry Kissinger.     

My comment on given issue is extremely short, because I have found nothing better during years.

"I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world."

(Socrates as quoted by Plutarch).

Now I will respond to your profound answers one by one.

Marcel, "The Four Continents" is a sculpture made by a U. S. citizen living in Theodor Roosevelt´s imperialistic era. French´s vision of America is hopelessly skewed, Yet, too many Westerners live by this vision even today, I regret to say.

Kamal, thank you for quoting William Fulbright, whose establishment of the Fulbright Foundation to sponsor U.S. research abroad and non-U.S. research in the U.S. has had an incalculable impact on U.S.-world relations.  Thanks for your appreciation of my question, which caused me pain to write, but sprung from a need to explain many otherwise incomprehensible American policy actions.

David, thank you for your naturalistic view of humanity.  I raised my children to be racially color-blind, as they are even today, 4 decades later. Humanity´s African birthplace is of course one cultural construction more, But it seems to be the most convincing construct in 2014, although we can´t easily dismiss Kamal´s assertion that Asia is where mankind was born (religiously, legally, ethically).

Asmat, yes, it is inevitable that we teach our teacher our own received cultural constructs.

Uchendu, yours is one of the most comprehensive and dynamic conceptions of culture that I have seen.

David, after graduating high school and entering Dartmouth, I have opposed D.C: French´s worldview with every fiber of my being and every action.  The darkest corner of the dingiest Washington museum would be a good place for those statues.

Nageswara, yes, cultural prejudices are in operation today, pulling the triggers on all  battlefields of the present world. I love Max Müller´s works in the linguistic area and plan to restudy his vision of Asia.

Tomy, I congratulate you on being a citizen of the world.

Fermín, YES. The continents as geographic entities do not precisely coincide with the cultures situated upon them. Another prejudice "bites the dust," as we say in the U.S. Your vision of Europe as a matron In decline would give European Union loyalists room for thought.

Venkata, I hope you do have children so you can teach them the lesson of tolerance (and experience the other joys of raising kids and eventually grandkids).

Beata, no apologies needed, the high emotion in your voice was deeply appreciated. Poland as the victim of European history is a vision that needs to be remembered. True, some of the Western European influence was beneficial, not only to Poland but to other nations as well. The whole world profited from French cultural hegemony in the 18th century and from English cultural hegemony in the 19th.   

Costas, thanks for providing the voice of Greek culture, exemplary for its universality. 

Marwan, are we unicultural?  Certainly in the electronic age more than ever!

Have I neglected to respond to anyone?  The pursuit of debunking cultural prejudices is important, so please let me know.  

Nelson, I think it is important to remember that stratified, urban cultures with complex systems of graphic notation (traditionally called "civilizations") are just one way of being human, and account for only a small percentage of the story of our experience on this planet.

It is pertinent to this thread that an urban, literate society developed in a region of Africa (Egypt) around the same time as it emerged in Asia (Mesopotamia), that is, in the late fourth millennium B. C.

But when I spoke of "early modern human culture" I was using the anthropological sense of the word "modern", which implies cognitive developments including the creation of coherent, patterned symbolic systems that gave rise to what we now call "the arts," in the widest sense of this phrase. For a quick peek into some early manifestations of early modern human culture, see the Wikipedia page on the Blombos Cave, located on the southern tip of Africa; for more information I recommend the articles available through the links at the bottom of the same page.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blombos_Cave

If you follow the genetic trail back to the homeland of the common ancestors of all living humans, it takes you to Africa, as a glance at the map provided by the Genographic project clearly indicates.

https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/human-journey/

If what you say is true on the Blombos Cave, David, about Africa being the origin of civilization at so early a period, how wrongheaded D.C. French was in his depiction of African dormancy and untapped potential!  How to forget about the thriving ancient Egyptian civilization, so vividly documented in the Bible?  Fermín was right to suggest that geographic and cultural divisions by no means coincide. Victor Hugo emoted, "Mesopotamie! Ah, la civilisation!" Only a half-truth.

Just a clarification: the Blombos Cave material shows signs of early modern human behaviour, as manifested in material culture, around 100,000-70,000 B. C., but what we usually call "civilization" came much later, around 3200 B. C., in both Egypt and Mesopotamia (and around the same time, in support of Kamal's claim to Asian prominence in the genesis of complex society and culture, in the Indus Valley, which I neglected to mention earlier). I am using the emergence of writing systems as an indicator of "civilization" here, although there are other aspects of culture that could be considered.

David, the alphabet is supposedly a Phoenician invention, if not that of a "wandering tribe" as I have read. They found it useful for their mercantile interests.

I learn a lot in this open-access world 

Nelson, Egyptian hieroglyphs, Mesopotamian Cuneiform, and the undeciphered script of the Indus Valley, as I mentioned above, date from the late fourth millennium, B. C. The first two are mixed systems, combining semasiographic signs (representing ideas) with glottographic signs (representing linguistic elements: words, morphemes, syllables, or phonemes). Early Semitic scripts (with glottographic signs representing consonants, a type of phoneme) emerged during the second millennium B. C. and a late variety was diffused throughout the eastern Mediterranean region by Phoenician traders in the first half of the first millennium. In the eighth century B. C. the Greeks adopted Phoenician consonantal writing as a basis for their alphabet, adapting some of the signs to represent vowels (vowel contrasts are more significant in Indo-European languages than in Semitic tongues, so this innovation was essential for writting Greek).

The traditional idea of the alphabet as an indicator of cultural superiority, as the culmination of a long process of evolution from motivated (pictorial) semasiographic signs to arbitrary (abstract) phonographic signs, has been discarded by specialists in the field of the study of writing systems, as a relic of colonial and post-colonial Eurocentric cultural bias. We now understand that the earliest systems combined semasiographic and glottographic signs, and that there are complex and functional mixed systems still in use today (Chinese writing, for example).

Contemporary world society is increasingly relying on semasiographic signs, in digital interfaces (icons), controls for technology (analyze a television remote control device carefully for a complex example), and road signs, among other uses. These work better for many puposes in a multilingual society. Whether or not semasiography is considered as a type of writing depends on one's working definition of the concept of writing.

Our contemporary system of graphic communication is also mixed. The graphs on this web page include semasiographic signs. The little house at the top of the page, representing the idea of a "home page" and pronounceable in any language, is a clear example. The Arabic numerals interspersed with the alphabetic graphs are also semasiography, communicating ideas (quanitites) without being necessarily tied to sounds in a particular language. This page also includes many glottographic signs, specifically alphabetic graphs representing phonemes. The punctuation signs are another matter, communicating non-phonetic information that aids in making the communication intelligible to the reader.

Alphabetic writing gives us a good (but not complete) representation of spoken discourse. Its main disadvantage, compared to semasiography, is that the reader must know the language of the writer to understand the message.

(;o  )

All this is new information to me, David. Thanks for keeping us apprised of data we need to have on ancient history of writing. It stands to reason that the alphabet is the simplification of combined semasiographic and glottographic systems. The overestimation of the alphabet as the product of a Eurocentric vision (so compatible with D. C. French´s pernicious "thinking") is worthy of further comment.  If biblical texts, long supposed the word of God, used alphabetical systems (Hebrew and Greek), this supposition could also explain high opinions of the alphabet long before Eurocentrism entered the picture.  Exodus 31, 18: "And He gave to Moses, when He had made an end of speaking with him upon Mount Sinai, the two tables of the testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God."  Medieval Gregorian chant subordinates melody to the (liturgical) words out of reverence for the holy text.

It should be noted also, David, that the names of the letters in Semitic alphabets are semasiographic. In Hebrew, aleph (in Arabic alif) means ox, beth is house, gimel is camel. So the shapes of the letters are somehow simplified pictographs of the objects they stand for.  These letter names pass, modified, to ancient Greek: alpha, beta, gamma, but not to Latin: A, B, C. Hence the word alpha-bet.

Yes, Nelson. That introduces another concept in the theory of writing systems, arbitrary vs. motivated graphs, which is independent of their semasiographic or glottographic values. Semasiographic signs can be arbitrary (abstract), as in Arabic numerals, or motivated (pictorially representing objects as we visually perceive them). Glottographic signs may also be either arbitrary or motivated. In some writing systems motivated graphs are used to represent sounds that are semantically unrelated to the objects they represent, through homophonic or quasi-homophonic play, as in modern rebus puzzles, thus acquiring glottographic values.

An example from America, more specifically central Mexico, may be found in early colonial period codices (reflecting the pre-Hispanic system of pictorial writing shared by the speakers of several languages), where a motivated graph representing two incisor teeth with their gums represents (in Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs) a postposition (a sort of relational suffix with a role similar to that of our prepositions), pronounced -tlan, and meaning "next to/near/with/under/in/between." The "teeth" graph means -tlan because of a homophonic play between the postposition -tlan and the nominal root tlan, meaning "tooth." An example of a word with this postposition is the place name Tepetitlan, "between the mountains," which is composed of the nominal root tepe, "mountain," the semantically neutral ligature -ti-, and the postposition -tlan. This place name was painted in native codices as a "mountain" graph with the "teeth" graph superimposed on it. The resulting compound logograph includes a semasiographic sign (the "mountain" graph) and a glottographic sign (the "teeth" graph), and can only be read in Nahuatl, since in other native languages of this region there is no homophonic relation between the morphemes for "tooth" and "between." I am attaching the pictorial sign (source: http://oldweb.geog.berkeley.edu/ProjectsResources/Glyphs/Plate27/Tepetitlan.html ).

David,

As I was reading your informative ideas about postpositions, I was thinking about some of the postings in here claiming that all culture is one.  Classical Latin usage of the ablative case (by, with, in, from) attaches the ablative ending to the base of the noun (for instance, "homine" means by, with, in, or from the man).  German attaches prepositions to the end of relative pronouns (for instance, "wovon," wherefrom, or "wofern," insofar as).  Finally, in Spanish and Portuguese you have doubling of prepositions, with one form of Latin "cum," with,  coming before, and another form afterwards:  "conmigo," "comigo" with me, "contigo" with you.

In his dissertation for doctor of letters, David Diringer (no relation to me) wrote that all alphabets derived from a single alphabet. See "The Alphabet, A Key to the History of Mankind," David Diringer, D. Litt., © 1948.  I think that our David Charles Wright-Carr has provided enough evidence on writing origins to cast doubt on that assertion as well as on the title of this dissertation. 

Comparative linguistics is a fascinating field, Nelson, as is the history of writing systems. There are now lively and fascinating discussions going on in both fields. In my previous posts I have been following the terminology of Geoffrey Sampson, which I chose for my dissertation fifteen years ago, as it gave me the theoretical and conceptual framework I needed to explore the inner workings of Mesoamerican writing systems. I am providing a minimal bibliography on the writing systems of the world, that goes beyond the largely outdated works by authors like Ignace Gelb and David Diringer, which were very influential throughout the second half of the 20th century.

Coulmas, Florian, Writing systems: An introduction to their linguistic analysis, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003.

Coulmas, Florian, The writing systems of the world, Oxford & Cambridge, Blackwell Publishers, 1989.

Harris, Roy, Rethinking writing, Bloomington/Indianapolis, Indiana University Press, 2000.

Harris, Roy, Signs of writing, London & NewYork, Routledge, 1995.

The origins of writing, Wayne M. Senner, editor, Lincoln & London, University of Nebraska Press, 1989.

Rogers, Henry, Writing systems: A linguistic approach, Malden, Oxford, & Carlton, Blackwell Publishing, 2005.

Sampson, Geoffrey, Writing systems: A linguistic introduction, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1985.

The world’s writing systems, Peter T. Daniels & William Bright, editors, New York & Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1996

I won't go into studies on Mesoamerican writing systems here. If anybody is interested, there are some articles, chapters, and a dissertation on my ReseachGate profile (mostly in Castilian -the language that is usually called Spanish-, although there is one paper in English, beginning with the name of an Otomí king, Cloud Serpent). Please excuse the apparent self-promotion, but this strategy is more efficient than repeating information here.

If my wife had been on this thread, she would have warned you: "Don't mention writing systems! You'll never get him to shut up!"

You can tell your wife for all of us on this thread, "We don´t want him to shut up." Thanks for the bibliography, David.  Comparative linguistics is very useful on the present thread because it offers arguments both for and against Eurocentrism.

Right now on television they are broadcasting in the U.S. an excellent weeklong series documentary,  "The Roosevelts. An Intimate History," concerning the Roosevelt family, particularly the Presidents Theodor and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Theodor Roosevelt was President when D. C. French sculpted "The Four Continents."  French transmuted into metal T. R.´s ideals: imperialism, aspiration to American supremacy, freedom of opportunity (for whites, not for the colored races).  One strong point of this T.V. series is that it never idolizes the Roosevelts, but presents both their strengths and their weaknesses.  

You are welcome, Nelson, and I am most grateful for your vote of confidence. Nevertheless, all concerned should heed my wife's sage advice, without which I would have gotten myself into a lot more trouble than has been the case (as very often happens in our sexually dimorphic species).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_differences_in_psychology

Nelson, I know you are familiar with Mexican muralist José Clemente Orozco's frescoes in the Baker Library at Dartmouth College (painted 1932-1934). Do you think he was pictorially referring to ex-president F. D. Roosevelt when he painted the man in the hat on the bag of gold in the panel representing Anglo-America, which is next to the panel representing Hispano-America?

Orozco was an uncompromisingly frank painter. This is evident in all of his work, including his murals in the Supreme Court building in Mexico City (1941), where justice is depicted as a sleeping prostitute, while criminals flourish at the foot of her pedestal; she appears again as a masked criminal, cavorting with the rest of the thieves.

Image sources: screenshot from http://www.dartmouth.edu/digitalorozco/app/ (fresco by Orozco in the Baker Library; click on the image for a closer look); http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:FDR_in_1933.jpg (photgraph of F. D. Roosevelt); http://ciudadanosenred.com.mx/arte-y-justicia_suprema-corte-de-justicia/ (fresco by Orozco in the Supreme Court building).

A clear sign of the vitality of social criticism (an essential ingredient for the unattainable ideal of democracy) in contemporary American art (in this case art from Mexico, in southern North America) may be seen in the mural paintings by Rafael Cauduro, inaugurated five years ago in the Supreme Court building in Mexico City. Seven crimes, echoing the seven cardinal sins defined by the Catholic church, are depicted: unfair trials, rape, homicide, torture, kidnapping, jail, and repression. Like Orozco, Cauduro points out that some of these crimes are committed by those in power.

(Attached images are screenshots from http://www.cauduro.com/obra/murales/SCJ/scj.html ).

Dear David, Thanks for reproducing all those murals and for interpreting them with your usual acumen. Personally I can´t see any physical resemblance between F.D.R. and the man topping the gold, himself topped by a bevy of corrupt Latin American generals. Maybe Orozco is simply saying that in Latin America, business wealth in general supports military corruption. Orozco´s symbolism often stays obscure for me. I see a clear division between North America and Latin America in that mural.  By the way there is an evident attack on U.S. conformism, which has everything to do with the present thread.   

Thank you Nelson, for your thoughts. I've always wondered about the man in the hat. He is indeed on the Latin American side of the vertical dividing axis, although in these murals sometimes panels intermingle, as in the adjacent section where the mass of dead flesh seems to have been victimized by both Hernán Cortés and the industrial machines. (The illustration below is from the web site mentioned in my previous post.)

The zombie-like Anglo-Americans do seem conformist; at the same time their orderly town meeting and school scene contrasts, in Orozco's vision, with the violent chaos of post-revolutionary Mexico.

Yes, a violent contrast arises in those murals between excessive order in Anglo-America and anarchy in Spanish-America.  In D. C. French´s "Four Continents," there is a neo-classic orderliness, certainly excessive for the realities depicted.  The representation of abstractions like the continents is a classical convention (for instance for the Romans Fame was a trumpet-blowing woman, Justice a blinded woman etc.), and the seated posture of three of the four (the fourth, Africa, is reclining out of racism) also typifies Roman matrons in statuary. As to the uniformity of the school children in Orozco´s mural of North America-- all are blond, all are blue-eyed, and all stare blankly ahead--, the muralist himself, a mestizo, must have found in Hanover, New Hampshire (U.S.A.), where he was painting, a predominance of blue-eyed blonds with restrained gestures or none.  You know when we speak Spanish we have to employ gestures.

Getting back to José Clemente Orozco's frescoes at Dartmouth College, and the enigmatic man with the hat on the bag of gold, I just located a text written by the artist's widow, Margarita Valladares, as an addenda to his autobography. She tells us that a high-level administrative official at Dartmouth thought that the man in the hat was a caricature of ex-president Woodrow Wilson. The adminstrator had worked for Wilson as his personal secretary, and was shocked and disgusted that a foreigner would dare to portray an ex-president of the United States as a villain. He insisted that the artist be sternly rebuked and that the mural be destroyed; he would resign if his demands were not met. The president of Darmouth had signed an agreement giving the artist absolute creative freedom, so he let the administrator go. Orozco's widow writes: "Freedom won. Democracy won. The resignation was accepted. Orozco, who knew nothing of this matter, was informed later."

Wilson would make sense here, given the Mexican revolutionary presiding over this scene, since he was president from 1913 to 1921, and the Mexican revolution raged from 1910 to the signing of the Constitution in 1917, and for several years after. Wilson, in fact, ordered the bloody military ocupation of the Mexican port of Veracruz in 1914.

Source of the quote: Margarita Valladares de Orozco, "Testimonios," in José Clemente Orozco, Autobiografía, Mexico City, Ediciones Era, 1970, pp. 114-115.

Source of the photograph of Woodrow Wilson: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:President_Woodrow_Wilson_portrait_December_2_1912.jpg

Source of the detail of Orozco's fresco: http://www.dartmouth.edu/digitalorozco/app/

Then I accept your vision of that greedy moneybags as Wilson, David, although I must say that the resemblance is not there. It reminds me of what someone said to Gertrude Stein on seeing Picasso´s cubist portrait of her: "But it doesn´t look like you!" She responded, "Oh, but it will!"

I don't know if the former Woodrow Wilson aid had accurately interpreted Orozco's man in the hat as Wilson, although he certainly was in a privileged position to express his opinion. Orozco didn't usually have much to say about his paintings, beyond "Look at it."

Maybe the resemblance would be clearer if we were to dig beyond the official propaganda portrait and look at some less contrived images. The second of the three posted below seems to be a fairly good match, and as a magazine cover it was widely available in pre-Internet times. In the third he wears a hat similar to the one on the man depicted in the fresco.

Image sources:

http://www.doctorzebra.com/prez/z_x28teeth_g.htm

http://andrew1011o.edublogs.org/files/2011/02/7953c53144040763_large-1m58jfr.jpg

http://www.startribune.com/opinion/commentaries/184496691.html

YES, I can see the resemblance in the lowest of the photos you uploaded, David. That certainly is proof positive. Official photos really are posed and often touched up. On the Roosevelt documentary recently shown on TV, the narrators emphasized that photographers were prevented from reproducing Franklin D. Roosevelt´s leg braces or anything to do with his physical disability produced by polio.  The fear was that spectators might attribute weakness to him.  Good psychology!