Jorge: So it says on your profile that you live too much according to the Protestant Ethic, what are you too Protestant?
S*****: Haha, no it’s to say that I’ve been raised essentially to work, not live. For example, Latin America is much less concerned when it comes to work. You believe that with work should come the enjoyment of life…like this beer here.
Jorge: Yea but this beer is like the Budweiser of Chile.
S*****: No trust me, that’s not the truth.
Jorge: But you know the Protestant Ethic isn’t all that bad, to work hard and accomplish goals aren’t necessarily to be looked down upon.
S*****: Yea but when those goals are set to always put you in competition with your peers from the day you enter grade school it doesn’t help your self-confidence or stress.
Jorge: Ok, in Chile at the moment there are two major subject of debate right now: one is the issue of abortion; the other is what type of economic model we want to follow. Do we want to follow the path of the US and have a more free-market strategy, or take the welfare state model like Europe. I’m a socialist but I still believe that it’s good for people to work for what they will earn. Take my brother for example, he’s younger than I and doesn’t remember the days of the dictatorship. While I was very young when we voted on the referendum to make Chile democratic I remember it on the news and how important the concept of voting was. I vote today and my brother doesn’t. This then carries over to his working habits as he always asks my father for money but never has the intention of paying him back. It’s just that he doesn’t understand the importance of accomplishing things for himself and that’s a problem I see with the welfare state.
S*****: How interesting. So what about Chile’s educational system? Where is it going?
Jorge: Well you see there are kind of 3 types of upper education. State, private, and private but sponsored by the state. There aren’t too many full state schools so there are a lot of private schools. The private schools that are supported by the state are kind of interesting. The state supports them mainly because they bring prestige to a city or they have a heritage that the state wants to keep up. So the University of Chile in Santiago is actually a private institution and the state supports it because it wants this university to look good. Its kind of like Chile wouldn’t exist without this university. It would look bad if it ran out of money and didn’t exist. Hey let’s get some empanadas, that’s something we always do after drinking.
S*****: Sounds good to me.
