Three weeks ago I wrote a column in Chile that provoked all sorts of reactions. I pointed out that Peso Pluma is invited to the main event in Chile, the Viña del Mar festival. And I believe that this invitation and this contract should be revoked and that Peso Pluma should not be introduced. I think it is important to explain the reason for my judgment and to respond to the columnist Dahlia de la Cerda, who said in 4,000 words that Peso Pluma should be defended because it is the voice of young people and that criticism of him is class criticism (high), that my suggestion is the typical ban of a countercultural artistic movement, that if Peso Pluma is banned, García Márquez must also be banned (I almost fell off my chair reading it, I add), that Narco Corridos are stories of personal improvement, which are rebellious songs against the state.
I intend to provide enough background information to discredit all of these criticisms. And by the way, I would like to make it clear that Dahlia has not read what I have published because she is attacking a measure that is not in line with the proposal. It seemed important to me (not an obvious problem) to address the banalities noted in the above column.
I will explain as briefly as possible that the argument about the countercultural nature of Peso Pluma's work is absurd. And I will take on the problem of unfulfilled hopes and the state as a problem or an opportunity.
Let's start with the path of the answer.
First: the original argument from my January 8, 2024 column.
A cultural movement is based on the productive generation of content whose values contradict the dominant culture. That's what happened with punk or the hippie movement. The punk movement denounced mass society, the hippie movement wanted the end of the war and class society. Feminism is countercultural because it wants to fight patriarchy. The labor movement was countercultural because it debated how to interpret the legitimacy of economic success.
What is countercultural about drug culture?
Narco culture accepts all the values of today's society, the 21st century. We live in a time that believes that power lies in money, that loves disruptive processes, that believes in quick success, in a life full of pleasure and frenzy, that values hedonism, that, beyond squeamishness, continues to believe that a woman sexual is objection that consumption is the best way to integrate into society, that wealth is the most important power. And it is also fashionable to have a critical discourse towards institutions and the state. The idea that individuals are responsible for their fate and that the state has no reason to be there if they fail to take responsibility has also grown significantly. It is Social Darwinism in its everyday practice, meaning that it is the prevailing values. That's what our society says. And what does the narco culture say? What do the war corridors say?
What you see there is exactly the same thing our society says. There is a bit of ultra-liberal business culture (anarcho-capitalism), another part of hard machismo, another part of the valorization of weapons and violence, a lot of consumer culture, a lot of fantasy ideology about social advancement and the cult of money.
What's the countercultural part of it?
Dahlia can't explain it in her 4,000 words. It simply confuses counterculture with illegality. And that's just because he likes it and it makes sense to him. And he says if that makes sense to young people, they need to be listened to. But of course you have to listen to them! Of course, states need to understand what happened to rural and urban design in areas that were first slowly and then quickly gripped by the drug trade. But listening to them does not mean applauding them. A conversation has opened up that, I promise you, Dahlia, is very worthwhile. Young people should think about the following. What are the five fundamental problems facing the pharmaceutical industry?
Drug trafficking is a type of business that operates in a high-risk area and needs to solve these main problems.
He uses young people to transport drugs. But these young people, when imprisoned, become a problem because they can provide relevant information. So young people are indispensable, but only in two ways: very motivated and willing to take risks (very alive) or very quiet and quiet (very dead). The drug trade needs companies that launder money. And the state must be as powerful as possible, the most defenseless, the most delegitimized and the most underfunded.
I'll just say it. Narcocorridos are functional in all aspects of this industry.
And they are even more functional because they solve the cartel's personnel problem by maintaining troop morale; and since they are huge, they are also used to showcase new drugs (that is, it is an advertising tool).
I still don't see the countercultural thing.
The narco culture wants more war, more young deaths (it needs them, wounded or prisoners are useless) and cartel labor is very close to slavery.
The countercultural movements were fundamentally a movement for freedom. What freedom does one gain by entering the world of drug trafficking?
The narco-cultural movement is completely mainstream and completely connected to the dominant culture. What he rejects is an effective state to stop them, but he also needs a drug ban, but not in practice. And what is needed is a society that ignores this problem, lets the matter rest and assumes that the state must find a solution without cooperating with the rest.
Finally, I will explain what I said in my first column.
The Viña del Mar Festival is the Latin American music festival with the greatest global impact. And the festival, through the municipality of Viña del Mar, is owned by the State of Chile, the entity that licenses the television broadcast of this event. The concessionaires have decided that Peso Pluma will be the star artist of the festival. His enormous success undoubtedly precedes him. But there is an issue that I raised in the original column: the Viña del Mar festival, as I pointed out, belongs to the state. In 2023, Chile officially announced the need to increase the security budget to an unprecedented extent. Well, how can the state fight drug trafficking by significantly increasing its public spending while inviting an artist who promotes drug trafficking? And beyond the stories and rumors about Peso Pluma, there are clear problems: a significant percentage of Peso Pluma's songs clearly justify the lifestyle of drug trafficking soldiers, highlight their advantages, judge and evaluate without consideration. in favor and even made In his texts and presentations, he specifically pays tribute to a specific drug dealer. The rest are rumors and I bear no responsibility, although they are rumors of such importance that they should lead us to demand that at least the artist deny them. But what must not happen is that someone uses public resources to promote drug culture. And the state cannot take on the task of doing one thing and the opposite at the same time. It cannot fight and promote drug trafficking. This is not a theoretical problem. On October 4, 2022, the following news was published in this newspaper: “El Chapo returned to Culiacán (he was residing there) for a few minutes and controversy arose. Mexican singer Peso Pluma (…) projected an image of drug trafficker Joaquín El Chapo Guzmán during his performance at the 8 Music Fest, a festival that is part of the celebration of the 491st anniversary of the City Council of Culiacán, a municipality in the state of Sinaloa, the “last October 1st”.
That's right, the image of Chapo Guzmán was projected by Peso Pluma while he sang “Siempre Pendientes” (in reference to the work of the soldiers). It is true that young people have grown up with this epic, that of the narco world. And we live in a time where economic success is everything. Chapo Guzmán was also referred to as 701 in the Forbes ranking due to his appearance at this place. Is there anything more decadent and at the same time more pro-cultural? The drug trafficker wants to appear in Forbes. Well, that's what drug trafficking culture says. With all due respect, can we really say that a narcocorrido is countercultural?
Narcoculture is not counterculture. It is a challenge to the state in the name of the values of the consumer society.
Alberto Mayol He is a Chilean sociologist and writer.
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