Reality in Movement

Octavio Paz as Essayist and Public Intellectual

Maarten van Delden

• Editorial: Vanderbilt University Press
• Año: 2021
• ISBN:
  9780826501509
• Categoría: Literatura
• Categoría: Crítica literaria latinoamericana y caribeña

In the last couple of decades there has been a surge of interest in Octavio Paz's life and work, and a number of important books have been published on Paz. However, most of these books are of a biographical nature, or they examine Paz's role in the various intellectual initiatives he headed in Mexico, specifically the journals he founded. Reality in Movement looks at a wide range of topics of interest in Paz's career, including his engagement with the subversive, adversary strain in Western culture; his meditations on questions of cultural identity and intercultural contact; his dialogue with both leftist and conservative ideological traditions; his interest in feminism and psychoanalysis, and his theory of poetry. It concludes with a chapter on Octavio Paz as a literary character—a kind of reception study. Offering a complex and nuanced portrait of Paz as a writer and thinker—as well as an understanding of the era in which he lived— Reality in Movement will appeal to students of Octavio Paz and of Mexican literature more generally, and to readers with an interest in the many significant literary, cultural, political, and historical topics Paz wrote about over the course of his long career.

CHAPTER 1

The Rebel

Octavio Paz has often been portrayed as a conservative thinker, and one cannot deny that significant elements of cultural and political conservatism influenced his thought. However, to claim that Paz was a conservative tout court amounts to a grave distortion of his work, for if there is one thing that stands out in the Mexican poet’s career it is his lifelong fascination with the themes of rebellion and revolution. Consider the fact that one of his most widely read essays is “Rebelión, revuelta, revolución” from Corriente alterna (1967; Alternating Current).¹ It is surely also significant that when Paz decided in the early 1990s to tell the story of his itinerary as an intellectual, he organized his recollections around the theme of revolution and his changing views of the topic.² And what to say of the circumstance that the author’s account of modern poetry centers on the idea of “the tradition of rupture,” that is, on the idea of poetic modernity as a long series of breaks or rebellions within the poetic tradition?³ Any reading of Paz’s intellectual profile that overlooks his insistent concern with different modes of dissidence in the modern world will fail to do justice to the poet’s thinking. Paz had a complex and often conflictive relationship with the political and cultural Left, but for most of his career he was a participant (albeit an often critical one) in the rebellious, adversary culture of his era.⁴

In the exploration that follows of Paz’s engagement with the idea of rebellion, I begin with a discussion of the pachuco, as Paz describes him in the opening chapter of El laberinto. The pachuco is surely the most noteworthy representative in Paz’s oeuvre of the figure of the rebel.⁵ I will argue that the portrait of the pachuco in El laberinto is not degrading and disparaging, as many critics believe. A detailed reading of Paz’s portrayal of this character will reveal that the author of El laberinto felt a great deal of sympathy for the pachuco, and even identified with him, a sense of empathy rooted to a great extent in the link the author sees between the pachuco and the figure of the rebel. After my discussion of El laberinto, I will explore Paz’s approach to the theme of rebellion in his later work, principally from the 1960s and 1970s, the era of the counterculture, with which Paz also identified.

Paz’s portrait of the pachuco has generated a great deal of negative commentary. Critics complain that Paz’s depiction of the pachuco is hostile and disdainful. They accuse the author of El laberinto of adopting a snobbish and superior attitude toward the young Mexican Americans he describes in the opening pages of his famous meditation on the Mexican character. Instead of trying to understand the pachuco, Paz allegedly repudiates him. Rather than sympathizing with him, he looks down on him. Some commentators argue that by depicting the pachuco as someone who behaves in an instinctive fashion, without self-awareness, Paz deprives his actions of the political dimension they might otherwise possess. Critics also accuse the author of El laberinto of removing the pachuco from his immediate social and historical context, and of transforming him into a mythical—and not very plausible—character. Finally, the disparagement of the pachuco is taken to constitute a disparagement of the Mexican American community as a whole.⁶

A close reading of the four or five pages Paz devotes to the pachuco reveals a much more complicated picture than his critics have recognized. Clearly, there are negative elements to the description of the pachuco. When Paz speaks of him as “un clown impasible y siniestro” (18; an impassive and sinister clown),⁷ or when he describes the pachuco’s behavior as “enfermiza” (21; unhealthy), it is impossible not to recognize the disapproval in the author’s tone. But in Paz things are rarely black and white. The pejorative elements in the portrait of the pachuco are combined with a tone of understanding, sympathy, and even admiration. We will see that deep down Paz is on the pachuco’s side. This is clear not only from the portrait of the pachuco itself, but also from the larger context in which we must place this portrait. When we examine the overall thematic structure of El laberinto, the cultural milieu in which the book was written, and Paz’s enduring interest in the figure of the rebel, we realize how wrong critics have been to accuse Paz of disparaging the pachucos.⁸

“El pachuco y otros extremos” (“The Pachuco and Other Extremes”), the opening chapter of El laberinto, outlines a series of analogies linking the pachuco to other figures in the text. One cannot properly understand Paz’s vision of the pachuco without recognizing these links. Consider the fact that Paz begins the chapter not with the pachuco, but with the image of an adolescent discovering the uniqueness of his own existence: “A todos, en algún momento, se nos ha revelado nuestra existencia como algo particular, intransferible y precioso. Casi siempre esta revelación se sitúa en la adolescencia” (11; All of us, at some point, have had a vision of our existence as something unique, untransferable, and precious. Almost always, this revelation takes place during our adolescence). What is the significance of this beginning? Why start a work on the Mexican character with these reflections on the figure of the adolescent? And how do we get from the adolescent of the essay’s opening lines to the pachuco of a few pages further on? In short, who is this adolescent and what does he represent?

The reader soon learns that the adolescent shares with the pachuco an anguished questioning of his own identity. But Paz links the adolescent of his opening paragraph not only with the pachuco, but also with Paz himself, with the Mexican nation and, in the end, to all human beings who struggle to understand who they are. The parallel between the adolescent and Mexico is stated explicitly in the chapter’s second paragraph. Having concluded his description of the adolescent’s discovery of his own identity, Paz remarks that “A los pueblos en trance de crecimiento les ocurre algo parecido” (11; Something similar happens to nations going through a growth process). In other words, nations are like individuals. They are born, they grow up, they reach maturity, and eventually they age and go into decline. Mexico, Paz proposes, is like the adolescent of the opening lines of his essay. Using a biological metaphor, the author suggests that Mexico is a young country seeking to define its identity. “¿Qué somos y cómo realizaremos eso que somos?” (11; What are we and how will we fulfill what we are?), Mexico asks itself, hoping to grasp its own unique character, like a young person standing on the brink of adulthood.

Paz also suggests that there is a resemblance between the adolescent of the opening paragraph of his essay and himself. Note, to begin with, the image he uses to depict the adolescent’s interrogation of his own identity: “inclinado sobre el río de su conciencia se pregunta si ese rostro que aflora lentamente del fondo, deformado por el agua, es el suyo” (11; as he leans over the river of his consciousness, he wonders whether the face that rises up slowly from the bottom, deformed by the water, is his own). And now observe how, a few pages later, Paz uses a similar image to describe his experiences as a Mexican living in the United States: “Recuerdo que cada vez que me inclinaba sobre la vida norteamericana, deseoso de encontrarle sentido, me encontraba con mi imagen interrogante” (14; I remember that whenever I leaned forward and gazed into North American life, hoping to discover its meaning, I would encounter my own questioning image). The image of Paz looking into North American life only to encounter his own reflection explicitly recalls—through the repetition of the verb inclinar (to lean)—the image of the adolescent looking into the stream of his own consciousness in search of his own features. Both Paz and the adolescent are Narcissus figures, absorbed in the contemplation of their own reflections. The adolescent becomes aware of his difference from other people and as a result begins to wonder who he is. Paz discovers his difference from the Americans and so becomes conscious of his identity as a Mexican. For both Paz and the adolescent, their identity is a problem, a question mark, something unresolved and uncertain.

At the end of the opening paragraph of “El pachuco y otros extremos,” Paz states that in the adolescent “La singularidad de ser—pura sensación en el niño—se transforma en problema y pregunta, en conciencia interrogante” (11; the singularity of existence—pure sensation in the child—becomes a problem and a question, an interrogating consciousness). The ideas that Paz introduces here foreshadow the themes he develops a few pages later in his portrait of the pachuco. Let us begin with the notion of identity as a problem. Paz’s adolescent discovers that he has an identity, but at the same time he is unsure as to the nature of that identity. When Paz shifts his focus from the adolescent to the Mexican, he depicts a similar psychological configuration. Like the adolescent, some Mexicans (not all) have entered a phase in their existence of being conscious of their own Mexicanness (13). But the Mexican, too, experiences this identity not as something he securely possesses, but as a conundrum.⁹ Paz’s desire to highlight the idea of identity as a problem explains the subsequent transition in his essay to the figure of the pachuco. For Paz, the pachuco represents first and foremost that person for whom his Mexican identity is “un problema de verdad vital, un problema de vida o muerte” (15; a truly vital problem, a problem of life and death). Insofar as for Paz being a Mexican means being unsure of who one is, the pachuco, who experiences this uncertainty more sharply than anyone else, is the most Mexican of all Mexicans.¹⁰

Why is their Mexicanness a problem for the pachucos? Paz describes the situation of people of Mexican descent in the United States as that of being trapped between two worlds, neither of which will accept them, and to neither of which they wish to belong. Mainstream American society rejects the pachuco, but at the same time the pachuco rejects that society. Yet even as he spurns the United States, the pachuco refuses to return to his Mexican roots: “El ‘pachuco’ no quiere volver a su origen mexicano; tampoco—al menos en apariencia—desea fundirse a la vida norteamericana” (16; the pachuco does not wish to return to his Mexican roots, nor—apparently—does he wish to become a part of North American life). Here, in a nutshell, we have the “problem” of pachuco identity. Like the adolescent, the pachuco has acquired an awareness of his own self, but he has not succeeded in defining that self. He knows that he has an identity, but he does not know what that identity is. He floats in an in-between state, unable to find a home for himself in the world he inhabits.

How does the pachuco respond to this situation? In answering this question, Paz returns repeatedly to the notion of a kind of stubborn self-affirmation on the part of these young Mexican Americans. Consider some of the phrases he uses to capture the pachuco’s spirit: “obstinada y casi fanática voluntad de ser” (16; obstinate and almost fanatical will-to-be); “exasperada afirmación de su personalidad” (16; exasperated affirmation of his own personality); “obstinado querer ser distinto” (17; obstinate wish to be different); “no afirma nada, no defiende nada, excepto su exasperada voluntad de no-ser” (20; he does not affirm or defend anything, except for his exasperated desire not-to-be). A persistent paradox runs through Paz’s description: even though the pachuco has a powerful will-to-be, he has no being. Again and again he affirms his identity, in spite of the fact that he has no identity to affirm. The one thing he possesses is a sense of his singularity. Paz tells us that the pachucos “se singularizan tanto por su vestimenta como por su conducta y su lenguaje” (16; stand out through their clothing as well as their behavior and speech). He also notes that “su peligrosidad brota de su singularidad” (19; their menace arises from their singularity). The notion of the pachuco as someone unmistakably different from the rest of society takes us back to the solitary adolescent of the opening page of El laberinto. We begin to understand, then, that the pachuco is the concrete expression of a universal human condition. After all, Paz emphasizes in his essay’s opening sentence that everyone experiences their identity as “particular, intransferible y precioso” (11; unique, untransferable, and precious). The pachuco is different from everyone else, but for that same reason he is like everyone else. For this sharp sense of difference is part of the experience of every single human being. In short, Paz’s message is that, in some way, we are all pachucos.¹¹

There is another manner in which Paz connects the concrete experiences of the pachuco to an all-encompassing narrative about the human condition. Toward the end of his discussion of the pachuco, Paz introduces the concepts of sin and redemption, thereby linking the pachuco to a Christian world-view. But how does Paz arrive at a Christian reading of the pachuco’s trajectory? What is the pachuco’s sin and how does he hope to achieve redemption? In order to answer these questions we need to recognize that the key to pachuco psychology is the way in which he relates to mainstream American society. As we saw earlier, Paz claims that the pachuco does not want to become a part of that society. Now, it is clear that the pachucos refuse to assimilate into American society not only because they are “rebeldes instintivos” (16; instinctive rebels), but also because they are the victims of racial discrimination. Paz notes that Mexican Americans live surrounded by “hostilidad” (16; hostility) and “intolerancia” (17; intolerance). The interesting thing about the pachucos is that they respond to this lack of acceptance on the part of the dominant society by underlining their “voluntad personal de seguir siendo distintos” (17; personal desire to persist in being different). This lack of interest in adapting to American society is expressed above all through their extravagant outfits, which serve to set them apart and draw attention to themselves. Paz describes the pachucos’ style of dress as “deliberadamente estético” (deliberately aesthetic) and adds that such a style is strikingly at odds with American preferences in matters of clothing, which stress comfort above all (17–18). For Paz, this desire to stand out rather than blend in is a sign of the pachuco’s blatant rejection of American society.

At this point, however, Paz’s argument takes a different turn. Underneath the pachuco’s defiant stance, Paz uncovers an additional layer of meaning: the pachuco seeks not only to negate American society, but also to pay homage to it. The author of El laberinto draws attention to the ambiguity of the style of dress of the pachucos: “por una parte, su ropa los aísla y distingue; por otra parte, esa misma ropa constituye un homenaje a la sociedad que pretenden negar” (18; on the one hand, their clothing sets them apart and makes them appear different; on the other hand, that same clothing amounts to an homage to the society they presume to reject). For Paz, every aspect of the pachuco’s behavior turns out to have a double meaning. The pachuco challenges American society in order to attract its attention. He attacks it in order to join it. To oppose mainstream society turns out to be a way of establishing a relationship with it. In the end, the pachuco’s rebellion is only the first step on the path to a symbolical reintegration with American society. It is at this point that Paz inserts the pachuco’s trajectory within a Christian framework. The two stages in the narrative that Paz has sketched—the rejection of American society, on the one hand, and the longing for integration with that society, on the other—correspond to the two key stages in the Christian narrative about salvation. The pachuco’s association with the realm of the forbidden makes him a sinner in society’s eyes, but the persecution that is subsequently unleashed upon him paves the way for his ultimate redemption. Paz speaks of a cycle that begins with the pachuco representing “el pecado y el escándalo” (sinfulness and scandal) and ends with him being ripe “para la redención, para el ingreso a la sociedad que lo rechazaba” (19; for redemption, for rejoining the society that rejected him). The pachuco is saved because he is persecuted: “La persecución lo redime y rompe su soledad: su salvación depende del acceso a esa misma sociedad que aparenta negar” (20; Persecution redeems him and allows him to break out of his solitude: his salvation depends on his access to the very society he appears to be negating). But what is the effect of resorting to Christian concepts in the account of the pachuco’s behavior? Ultimately, it is to link him to a narrative with universalizing pretensions, to a story that is, in a sense, everyone’s story. From a Christian perspective, we are all sinners and we all have the opportunity of finding salvation. Once we see how Paz relates the pachuco to one of the most deeply ingra...