Last February 23 I published in this blog the following note, and perhaps it is appropriate to bring it to the forefront for reflection, because in our town there are many who cannot stand the success of others, and as they can, they will try to discredit it.

As Rogelio Umaña proposes in his blog, it is our turn to move from destructive belligerence to coincidence. This is much more constructive. We can leave aside the garbage can

Following are the paragraphs published last February.

THE DARK SIDE OF THE TICO

Culture of half-measures, sawing floors, soft, it looks good, mocking, throwing stones and hiding hands, zero confrontational, smile in front and dagger in the hand, back talkers, envious, jokers. And I do not say it myself, obviously, because as a good Tico I must say that someone else said it and not me, so that maybe it looks good, avoid confrontation and escape from the hypocritical knife of cowardice.

Opinions of Ticos by Foreigners

Look what they say about us: “Two personality traits of the Costa Rican people are choteo (mockery) and the quedar bien (remaining of everybody’s good side). Choteo is in reference to how the general Costa Rican handles a somewhat difficult situation; sarcasm and mockery is the general reaction to certain uncomfortable situations. This is a characteristic that Ticos are accustomed to throughout life. Also, the Tico exercises quedar bien: avoiding a problem at all costs in order to remain on everybody’s good side”.

And in another version, a rather coincidental opinion: “Most Ticos tend to be cynical about their government and the future of the country, so they use lots of irony when talking, this is known as the choteo. Most of them are politically and socially passive and avoid confrontations; this practice is the quedar bien. They would rather lie to someone’s face rather than confront them and cause problems in order to stay within quedar bien.”

However, if two paragraphs were not enough, let’s just listen to our surroundings and open our eyes. We would rather talk bad about people behind their backs than confront them bravely and look them in the eye. When I have had the pleasure of a polemic or a direct confrontation, although in few occasions, it has been with foreigners or some Tico exception who learned the value of being confrontational.

Opinion of a Costa Rican

I found this article by a writer that I think adds a lot, and I publish it without his authorization but with the license that today the network gives us. What is marked in color is from my keyboard, you should not miss some valuable contributions from this assertive and profound pen.

Complete article

By Adriano Corrales Arias*
“To opine is not a crime; let’s defend the regime of opinion”.
Joaquín García Monge.

On the other hand, it happens that it is hard for us Ticos and Ticas to “listen” or “read” the opinions of others. We have not read the third sentence of an article, essay or opinion of someone, or listened to two or three sentences of our closest interlocutor, when we are already judging him or her. We are aprioristic and truly “deaf” and “illiterate” in that sense. We do not take the necessary time to analyze objectively, with our heads and not with our guts, what is intended to be said from the other side of the sidewalk. Prejudice has taken root in us as a deadly weapon, so we attack from it and not from what is exposed by the otherness.

Generally we tend to fall into the trap of subjective discourse (of course, subjectivity will always be present, we are individualities expressing ourselves, but that subjectivity must be based on reasoning, on a clear exposition of ideas) and on personal dispute. From there we derive to the absurd “fight” where elements of our mentality are wielded and not arguments coming from reflection and pondered analysis. The opponent becomes the enemy to be defeated and not the necessary adversary that historical dialectics will always provide us with to submit our ideology and our way of seeing and interpreting the world to judgment. We move from polemics to disqualification.

This Costa Rican way of approaching, or rather of personalizing, pejoratively, the discussion, has deep roots in the Costa Rican being and in the construction of its identity. The great writer and polemicist Yolanda Oreamuno (she had to emigrate from Costa Rica to Mexico, where she died abandoned) had already raised this issue more sharply. She pointed to a kind of immobility, lack of character, in the Tico and the Tica, product of a history where the fighting spirit, with heroic exceptions, especially in the popular sectors where they are always “fighting it”, has almost disappeared.

That is why whoever pretends to unleash the controversy “putting his finger on the sore spot”, must be suppressed, but not by physically eliminating him, but by “putting the trowel in its place”. As Yolanda Oreamuno says, “Those who try to raise their heads too high above the general level are not cut off. No!…. They gently lower the ground he treads on, and slowly, without violence, he is placed at the convenient height” (although this assertion has been brutally disproved by the murder of Parmenio Medina). And if they do not saw off the floor, national sport par excellence, then the “choteo” appears on the scene, that subtle and cowardly way of making the conflict invisible and discrediting the other (“The “choteo” is a white weapon, as white as a camellia, which can be carried without a license and can be wielded without responsibility. It has very fine lyrical edges, of sharp wit; it serves to demonstrate ability, to appear expert, to be opportune, philosophical and erudite”, says Yola).

Discrediting is the preferred weapon in tiquicia to disavow the opinion of others. If to this we add influence peddling and the payment of favors for silence or complicity, so much in vogue nowadays, especially in the partisan-political spheres, we already have a brief diagnosis of our environment. That environment is the one we must study, analyze and ponder, so as not to fall into its unpleasant traps, that is to say, into our historical way of deceiving ourselves with a vaunted democratic tolerance.
*Writer.

We cannot go on like this. We have to go straight ahead, even if it is not very tico, to eradicate the sarcasm, the humiliating word, the degradation and constant joking behind the backs of others. Nothing good can come out of a country whose mockery is constant, especially in double entendre, whose hypocrisy is epidemic, whose morals are double to say the least and envy runs like poison in the veins.

Let us not be trapped by these terrible cultural legacies, let us cut them off before we perpetuate them by passing them on to the next generations.