“Revision of the Golden Rule”: John Cage, Latin America, and the Poetics of Non-Interventionism

Non-interventionism was a guiding principle in Cold War era debates about the United States’ proper role in Latin American affairs, and it also serves as a paradigm for understanding inter-American cultural exchange during the period. The Latin American travels of composer, poet, and multimedia artist John Cage provide a means of exploring this. Cage’s writings about his visits to São Paulo and San Juan, as well as his correspondence with Latin American colleagues like Brazilian Poet Augusto de Campos, point to the ways in which Cage’s aesthetics of indeterminacy became a model for non-interventionist cultural diplomacy. This idealistic vision of hemispheric relations stands in stark contrast with the aggressive Cold War cultural policy initiatives that the US carried out throughout Latin America. However, as Cage’s reception at the 1985 Bienal de São Paulo indicates, non-interventionism’s manifestation as cultural practice became fraught in similar ways to its implementation as policy.