WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.879 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today we are clearing 00:00:02.879 --> 00:00:05.960 off the desk, pushing aside the clutter, and 00:00:05.960 --> 00:00:10.720 focusing on a singular massive figure. And when 00:00:10.720 --> 00:00:12.820 I say massive, I don't just mean he wrote a lot 00:00:12.820 --> 00:00:14.560 of books, though. I mean, he certainly did that. 00:00:14.660 --> 00:00:16.620 Oh, he did. We are talking about someone who, 00:00:16.699 --> 00:00:19.059 well, who stands like a colossus over the intellectual 00:00:19.059 --> 00:00:22.239 landscape of the entire 20th century. It is a 00:00:22.239 --> 00:00:24.739 pleasure to be here. And colossus is absolutely 00:00:24.739 --> 00:00:27.239 the right word. We're talking about Octavio Paz. 00:00:27.480 --> 00:00:32.880 Yes. You know, to simply call him a writer feels 00:00:32.880 --> 00:00:35.060 like a drastic underselling of what he actually 00:00:35.060 --> 00:00:37.359 was. Right. Because when I started digging into 00:00:37.359 --> 00:00:40.039 this stack of research, you know, the biographies 00:00:40.039 --> 00:00:42.240 and Nobel citations, the literary criticism, 00:00:42.439 --> 00:00:45.799 it felt less like reading about a man and more 00:00:45.799 --> 00:00:48.759 like reading a history of the world from 1914 00:00:48.759 --> 00:00:51.359 to 1998. That's a great way to put it. He wasn't 00:00:51.359 --> 00:00:53.060 just an observer. He was in the room where it 00:00:53.060 --> 00:00:54.719 happened again and again. He was a participant. 00:00:55.240 --> 00:00:58.460 Exactly. He is the prism through which we can 00:00:58.460 --> 00:01:00.619 view the Mexican Revolution, the Spanish Civil 00:01:00.619 --> 00:01:05.319 War, the rise of surrealism in Paris, the post 00:01:05.319 --> 00:01:07.620 -colonial shifts in India, and of course, the 00:01:07.620 --> 00:01:10.620 fall of Soviet communism. He's a poet, a diplomat, 00:01:10.620 --> 00:01:13.019 a philosopher, and a political polemicist who... 00:01:13.390 --> 00:01:15.909 and this is key, managed to irritate just about 00:01:15.909 --> 00:01:18.049 everyone at some point. He really did. Because 00:01:18.049 --> 00:01:20.829 he refused to stay in a neat little box. That's 00:01:20.829 --> 00:01:23.189 the hook for me, too. I think the mission of 00:01:23.189 --> 00:01:26.150 this deep dive isn't just to, you know, list 00:01:26.150 --> 00:01:29.030 his books or his awards. It's to try and figure 00:01:29.030 --> 00:01:32.310 out how one human brain managed to synthesize 00:01:32.310 --> 00:01:34.730 things that seem totally contradictory. I mean, 00:01:34.750 --> 00:01:36.689 we're talking about a guy who blended Marxist 00:01:36.689 --> 00:01:39.189 revolution with Aztec circular time and then 00:01:39.189 --> 00:01:42.250 mixed in French surrealism with Buddhist silence. 00:01:42.700 --> 00:01:45.099 Right. How do you even begin to mix those ingredients? 00:01:45.140 --> 00:01:47.459 It sounds like a recipe for, well, for chaos, 00:01:47.599 --> 00:01:50.319 doesn't it? It does. But in Paz, it became this 00:01:50.319 --> 00:01:53.260 singular, powerful voice. It did. And as the 00:01:53.260 --> 00:01:55.659 sources point out, his life's work was essentially 00:01:55.659 --> 00:01:58.719 a dual project, explaining Mexico to the world 00:01:58.719 --> 00:02:01.180 and the world to Mexico. Which is a tall order, 00:02:01.299 --> 00:02:04.819 a very tall order. It is. The critic Ilan Stavins, 00:02:04.879 --> 00:02:07.519 his biography is excellent, referred to Paz as 00:02:07.519 --> 00:02:11.479 the quintessential surveyor. I like that. And 00:02:11.479 --> 00:02:14.719 also a Dante's Virgil. He was a guide. He was 00:02:14.719 --> 00:02:17.479 a Renaissance man in an era of specialists. While 00:02:17.479 --> 00:02:19.840 everyone else was narrowing their focus, Paz 00:02:19.840 --> 00:02:22.930 was just constantly widening his. So we have 00:02:22.930 --> 00:02:24.750 a long road ahead of us today. We're going to 00:02:24.750 --> 00:02:27.090 map this out chronologically because his life 00:02:27.090 --> 00:02:29.550 really does build on itself, kind of like layers 00:02:29.550 --> 00:02:31.650 of sediment. That's the only way to do it. We'll 00:02:31.650 --> 00:02:34.509 start with his origins, which, spoiler alert, 00:02:34.629 --> 00:02:38.090 are incredibly dramatic, then move to his awakening 00:02:38.090 --> 00:02:40.689 as a young radical. Right. Then we'll cover his 00:02:40.689 --> 00:02:42.669 time as a diplomat in Paris, and that's when 00:02:42.669 --> 00:02:45.389 he writes his masterpiece, The Labyrinth of Solitude. 00:02:45.710 --> 00:02:47.849 Then we have to go east. We'll talk about his 00:02:47.849 --> 00:02:50.870 transformative years in India, which leads directly 00:02:50.870 --> 00:02:55.189 to the trauma of 1968 and his resignation from 00:02:55.189 --> 00:02:58.009 the diplomatic corps. A huge moment. And finally, 00:02:58.050 --> 00:03:00.189 we have to wade into the messy, heated waters 00:03:00.189 --> 00:03:02.569 of his political life, where he made enemies 00:03:02.569 --> 00:03:04.830 on both the left and the right before we can 00:03:04.830 --> 00:03:07.009 even get to his Nobel legacy. It's a journey 00:03:07.009 --> 00:03:10.270 from the library to the battlefield and, in many 00:03:10.270 --> 00:03:13.830 ways, back again. So where do we start? Let's 00:03:13.830 --> 00:03:16.289 jump right into part one. The Visigoth and the 00:03:16.289 --> 00:03:19.090 Revolution. When I was reading about his childhood, 00:03:19.189 --> 00:03:21.530 I just kept thinking, this house must have been 00:03:21.530 --> 00:03:24.090 the most tense place on earth for a holiday dinner. 00:03:24.289 --> 00:03:27.349 You are probably not wrong. To understand Paz, 00:03:27.430 --> 00:03:29.629 you have to understand that he was born literally 00:03:29.629 --> 00:03:33.509 into the fire. 1914. Exactly. The Mexican Revolution 00:03:33.509 --> 00:03:36.729 is tearing the country apart. But the conflict 00:03:36.729 --> 00:03:39.409 wasn't just outside his window. It was, you know, 00:03:39.409 --> 00:03:41.289 inside his living room. It was in his blood. 00:03:41.629 --> 00:03:43.530 Let's break down the family tree, because this 00:03:43.530 --> 00:03:45.750 is just fascinating. You have these two dominant 00:03:45.750 --> 00:03:47.969 male figures in his life, and they represent 00:03:47.969 --> 00:03:50.569 completely opposing versions of Mexico. Precisely. 00:03:50.569 --> 00:03:53.150 On one side, you have the grandfather, Irenio 00:03:53.150 --> 00:03:55.509 Paz. A patriarch. The patriarch of the household 00:03:55.509 --> 00:03:58.210 where Octavio grew up. Irenio was a formidable 00:03:58.210 --> 00:04:00.889 man, a journalist, a liberal intellectual, a 00:04:00.889 --> 00:04:03.409 novelist. He had fought against the French intervention 00:04:03.409 --> 00:04:06.710 in the mid -19th century. A real liberal hero 00:04:06.710 --> 00:04:09.530 of his time. But by the time Octavio is born, 00:04:09.810 --> 00:04:13.469 Irenio has sort of... He's become a staunch supporter 00:04:13.469 --> 00:04:16.069 of the establishment. And specifically, he was 00:04:16.069 --> 00:04:19.350 a supporter of Porfirio Diaz. Okay, so for the 00:04:19.350 --> 00:04:22.009 listener who might need a quick refresher, Porfirio 00:04:22.009 --> 00:04:24.810 Diaz was the president, and I'm using air quotes 00:04:24.810 --> 00:04:27.529 here, basically the dictator who ruled Mexico 00:04:27.529 --> 00:04:31.389 for over 30 years. The Porfiriato. Right. His 00:04:31.389 --> 00:04:34.850 regime was all about order, progress, European 00:04:34.850 --> 00:04:37.610 -style modernization. And keeping the indigenous 00:04:37.610 --> 00:04:41.019 population firmly under control. He represented 00:04:41.019 --> 00:04:44.540 the European civilized face of Mexico. So the 00:04:44.540 --> 00:04:47.120 grandfather stands for order, tradition, and 00:04:47.120 --> 00:04:50.199 the Eurocentric elite. Correct. Now you contrast 00:04:50.199 --> 00:04:53.459 that with Octavio's father. Octavio Paz Solorzano. 00:04:53.620 --> 00:04:55.459 Who goes in the complete opposite direction. 00:04:55.740 --> 00:04:57.879 Radically opposite. The father wasn't just a 00:04:57.879 --> 00:04:59.980 sympathizer with the revolution. No, he was in 00:04:59.980 --> 00:05:02.360 it. He was an active agent for Emiliano Zapata. 00:05:02.579 --> 00:05:04.660 Zapata. I mean, that's the legendary revolutionary 00:05:04.660 --> 00:05:06.879 of the South. The man fighting for land and liberty, 00:05:07.079 --> 00:05:09.560 fighting specifically against the class of people 00:05:09.560 --> 00:05:12.560 that the grandfather supported. Exactly. The 00:05:12.560 --> 00:05:14.800 father was a lawyer for the Zapatistas. He was 00:05:14.800 --> 00:05:17.420 involved in agrarian reform, trying to get land 00:05:17.420 --> 00:05:20.370 back to the peasants. He was often absent. Riding 00:05:20.370 --> 00:05:22.269 with the revolutionaries, drinking, fighting. 00:05:22.550 --> 00:05:25.310 A chaotic figure. A very chaotic figure. His 00:05:25.310 --> 00:05:27.569 life was turbulent and violent, and he eventually 00:05:27.569 --> 00:05:30.550 died a violent death. He was run over by a train, 00:05:30.689 --> 00:05:34.029 heavily influenced by alcohol. A tragic, chaotic 00:05:34.029 --> 00:05:37.550 end. So you have the grandfather, order, books, 00:05:37.829 --> 00:05:41.069 European culture, and the father. Revolution, 00:05:41.290 --> 00:05:44.529 guns, indigenous rights, chaos. Young Octavio 00:05:44.529 --> 00:05:46.529 is stuck right in the middle of that. Literally. 00:05:46.569 --> 00:05:49.189 He is the synthesis of that conflict. He's living 00:05:49.189 --> 00:05:51.410 in his grandfather's house in Mixcoac, which 00:05:51.410 --> 00:05:53.290 was just a village then. Now it's a bustling 00:05:53.290 --> 00:05:56.089 part of Mexico City. And the house itself is 00:05:56.089 --> 00:05:58.589 this crumbling mansion, almost a symbol of the 00:05:58.589 --> 00:06:00.990 old order falling apart. And because the father 00:06:00.990 --> 00:06:03.230 was away so much fighting the revolution. The 00:06:03.230 --> 00:06:05.269 grandfather became the primary father figure. 00:06:05.370 --> 00:06:07.509 He was the one who was there day in and day out. 00:06:07.790 --> 00:06:09.930 There is a story in Enrique Krauss' biography 00:06:09.930 --> 00:06:11.850 that I think we have to tell because it just 00:06:11.850 --> 00:06:14.209 visualizes this identity crisis so perfectly. 00:06:14.610 --> 00:06:17.589 It's the Visigoth story. It's a classic anecdote. 00:06:17.670 --> 00:06:19.910 It tells you everything you need to know. So 00:06:19.910 --> 00:06:22.230 set the scene for us. Okay, so imagine the scene. 00:06:22.589 --> 00:06:25.370 The father, the Zapatista, comes home for a visit. 00:06:25.870 --> 00:06:28.310 And he brings some of his revolutionary comrades 00:06:28.310 --> 00:06:30.850 with him. These are not the grandfather's friends. 00:06:31.050 --> 00:06:35.199 Not at all. These are hardened men. wearing sombreros, 00:06:35.199 --> 00:06:37.639 carrying rifles. They're, you know, the true 00:06:37.639 --> 00:06:39.980 face of the Mexican earth. They're dusty, they're 00:06:39.980 --> 00:06:43.220 weathered. And then runs in little Octavio. Yes. 00:06:43.480 --> 00:06:46.920 And Octavio, interestingly, took after his mother's 00:06:46.920 --> 00:06:49.000 side of the family physically. He had light skin, 00:06:49.300 --> 00:06:52.100 fair hair, and piercing blue eyes. He didn't 00:06:52.100 --> 00:06:53.939 look like the revolutionaries his father was 00:06:53.939 --> 00:06:55.680 with. He looked like the landowners they were 00:06:55.680 --> 00:06:57.970 fighting against. So one of the revolutionaries, 00:06:57.990 --> 00:07:00.269 a man named Antonio Diaz Soto -Igama, who is 00:07:00.269 --> 00:07:02.670 a serious intellectual of the movement, not just 00:07:02.670 --> 00:07:05.910 some random soldier, he sees this blue -eyed 00:07:05.910 --> 00:07:08.829 kid and is just shocked. What does he say? He 00:07:08.829 --> 00:07:11.170 looks at Octavio's father and shouts, Caramba, 00:07:11.310 --> 00:07:13.569 you didn't tell me you had a Visigoth for a son. 00:07:13.730 --> 00:07:17.490 A Visigoth. Wow. That is such a loaded word. 00:07:17.730 --> 00:07:19.670 It's incredibly heavy. I mean, think about it. 00:07:19.730 --> 00:07:22.769 The Visigoths were the Germanic tribes that invaded 00:07:22.769 --> 00:07:25.779 Spain. So in the Mexican context, calling someone 00:07:25.779 --> 00:07:28.519 a Visigoth is emphasizing their whiteness, their 00:07:28.519 --> 00:07:31.000 foreignness. Their role as the conqueror. It's 00:07:31.000 --> 00:07:33.680 saying, you are not one of us. You are the other. 00:07:33.720 --> 00:07:36.100 You are the invader. Imagine hearing that as 00:07:36.100 --> 00:07:38.839 a child. Your dad is fighting for the people, 00:07:38.939 --> 00:07:41.459 but the people look at you and see the enemy. 00:07:41.740 --> 00:07:44.920 It must have left a deep, deep scar. It did. 00:07:45.779 --> 00:07:47.819 Paz later wrote about this feeling of exclusion. 00:07:48.439 --> 00:07:50.939 He said, And this is a quote that's just heartbreaking. 00:07:51.579 --> 00:07:54.240 I felt myself Mexican, but they wouldn't let 00:07:54.240 --> 00:07:58.279 me be one. Wow. That one sentence. It sets up 00:07:58.279 --> 00:08:00.699 a lifelong struggle. How can I be Mexican if 00:08:00.699 --> 00:08:02.579 I don't look Mexican? What does it even mean 00:08:02.579 --> 00:08:06.120 to be Mexican? Is it blood? Is it culture? Is 00:08:06.120 --> 00:08:09.300 it a choice? Is it history? And since he couldn't 00:08:09.300 --> 00:08:11.339 find a sense of belonging in the faces of the 00:08:11.339 --> 00:08:13.860 people around him, he went looking for it somewhere 00:08:13.860 --> 00:08:16.399 else. He went to the library. The grandfather's 00:08:16.399 --> 00:08:19.899 library. Yes. This is really the third character 00:08:19.899 --> 00:08:22.920 in his childhood. His grandfather, his father, 00:08:23.040 --> 00:08:25.459 and the library. It was this massive room filled 00:08:25.459 --> 00:08:28.420 with thousands of books, classic Mexican history, 00:08:28.639 --> 00:08:32.370 French novels, Spanish poetry, everything. I 00:08:32.370 --> 00:08:34.070 love the image of this kid while the country 00:08:34.070 --> 00:08:36.690 is literally exploding in revolution outside 00:08:36.690 --> 00:08:39.830 the walls, just sitting there in the dust, devouring 00:08:39.830 --> 00:08:42.549 books. It's a complete refuge. It was his cave. 00:08:42.690 --> 00:08:44.490 It was the one place that made sense. And it's 00:08:44.490 --> 00:08:46.090 important to note what he was reading. It wasn't 00:08:46.090 --> 00:08:48.230 just random stuff. No, he was very deliberate. 00:08:48.370 --> 00:08:51.570 In the 1920s, as a teenager, he discovered the 00:08:51.570 --> 00:08:54.529 Spanish poets of the generation of 27 and the 00:08:54.529 --> 00:08:57.269 generation of 98. Writers like Gerardo Diego, 00:08:57.529 --> 00:09:00.610 Juan Ramon Jimenez, Antonio Machado. Yes. And 00:09:00.610 --> 00:09:03.450 why were they so important to him? Tell us. Because 00:09:03.450 --> 00:09:06.070 these were writers who were reinventing the Spanish 00:09:06.070 --> 00:09:08.629 language. They were modernists. They were trying 00:09:08.629 --> 00:09:11.490 to strip away the flowery, pompous 19th century 00:09:11.490 --> 00:09:14.230 style. They wanted to find a pure poetry. A pure 00:09:14.230 --> 00:09:17.669 poetry. They were showing him that language could 00:09:17.669 --> 00:09:20.669 be a tool to explore reality, to cut through 00:09:20.669 --> 00:09:23.710 the noise, not just to decorate it. And for a 00:09:23.710 --> 00:09:26.250 boy trying to figure out his own reality, that 00:09:26.250 --> 00:09:28.769 was a powerful idea. And he didn't wait around 00:09:28.769 --> 00:09:30.909 for permission to join the conversation. I mean, 00:09:30.909 --> 00:09:33.610 he started publishing incredibly young. Extremely 00:09:33.610 --> 00:09:37.169 young. Almost unnervingly so. He published his 00:09:37.169 --> 00:09:40.490 first poem, Caballera, in 1931 when he was 17. 00:09:40.789 --> 00:09:44.190 17. By 18, he founded a literary review called 00:09:44.190 --> 00:09:47.610 Brandel. At 19, he published his first collection 00:09:47.610 --> 00:09:51.509 of poems, Luna Silvestre, Wild Noon. 19. At 19, 00:09:51.590 --> 00:09:53.909 I was primarily concerned with where to get pizza. 00:09:54.090 --> 00:09:56.370 He's founding literary journals. It's a different 00:09:56.370 --> 00:09:58.750 level of precociousness. But there's a specific 00:09:58.750 --> 00:10:01.590 essay he wrote even earlier at 16 called Ethics 00:10:01.590 --> 00:10:03.789 of the Artist that really caught my eye. It sounds 00:10:03.789 --> 00:10:06.470 way too mature for a teenager. Right. What's 00:10:06.470 --> 00:10:09.110 he grappling with in that? He's already exploring 00:10:09.110 --> 00:10:11.330 the central tension of his life. The tension 00:10:11.330 --> 00:10:14.250 between pure art, art for beauty's sake, and 00:10:14.250 --> 00:10:16.889 social art. Art that serves a political purpose. 00:10:16.970 --> 00:10:20.190 Part of thesis. Art of thesis, exactly. And what's 00:10:20.190 --> 00:10:23.350 fascinating is the language he uses. It's a strange 00:10:23.350 --> 00:10:26.370 mix of religious and Marxist vocabulary. He's 00:10:26.370 --> 00:10:29.350 already asking, does the poet have a duty to 00:10:29.350 --> 00:10:32.529 the revolution or is his only duty to the poem 00:10:32.529 --> 00:10:34.830 itself? A question he would spend the next 60 00:10:34.830 --> 00:10:37.049 years trying to answer. And that is the perfect 00:10:37.049 --> 00:10:40.029 segue to part two, awakening and disillusionment. 00:10:40.620 --> 00:10:43.159 Because that theoretical question, what is the 00:10:43.159 --> 00:10:45.779 duty of the artist, was about to get very, very 00:10:45.779 --> 00:10:47.799 practical for him. Okay, so the timeline here 00:10:47.799 --> 00:10:51.860 is the mid -1930s. Indeed. It's 1936. Paz is 00:10:51.860 --> 00:10:53.720 studying law at the National University of Mexico. 00:10:54.159 --> 00:10:56.480 He's on the track to be a typical member of the 00:10:56.480 --> 00:10:59.659 elite, a bureaucrat, or a politician. But he 00:10:59.659 --> 00:11:02.539 feels this pull. The pull of his father's world. 00:11:02.620 --> 00:11:05.309 To do something real. to connect with the Mexico 00:11:05.309 --> 00:11:07.210 that he was told he didn't belong to. He felt 00:11:07.210 --> 00:11:09.230 like a fraud, studying law while the country 00:11:09.230 --> 00:11:10.850 was still dealing with the fallout of the revolution. 00:11:11.210 --> 00:11:13.409 So he drops out. He abandons his studies and 00:11:13.409 --> 00:11:15.990 moves to the Yucatan, specifically to the city 00:11:15.990 --> 00:11:18.850 of Merida. He takes a job at a school founded 00:11:18.850 --> 00:11:21.450 by President Lazaro Cardenas for the Sons of 00:11:21.450 --> 00:11:24.549 Workers and Peasants. The Yucatan in the 1930s 00:11:24.549 --> 00:11:26.710 was not a tourist destination. I mean, it was 00:11:26.710 --> 00:11:29.409 rough. It was a different world, a different 00:11:29.409 --> 00:11:32.289 country almost. The economy there was driven 00:11:32.289 --> 00:11:35.059 by Henneken Seisel. the fiber used for rope. 00:11:35.120 --> 00:11:38.179 And it was a brutal industry. Brutal. The indigenous 00:11:38.179 --> 00:11:41.059 Maya workers were living in conditions that were 00:11:41.059 --> 00:11:44.200 barely a step up from slavery. They were beholden 00:11:44.200 --> 00:11:46.679 to the landowners, trapped in a system of debt 00:11:46.679 --> 00:11:49.460 peonage. They were born in debt. They died in 00:11:49.460 --> 00:11:52.639 debt. So Paz, the bookish, blue -eyed poet from 00:11:52.639 --> 00:11:55.059 the capital, is suddenly confronted with the 00:11:55.059 --> 00:11:58.559 raw, grinding poverty of the rural South. And 00:11:58.559 --> 00:12:01.200 it shocks him to his core. It radicalizes him, 00:12:01.279 --> 00:12:03.860 but it also inspires him poetically. It gives 00:12:03.860 --> 00:12:05.980 him a subject. This is where he writes a long 00:12:05.980 --> 00:12:08.360 poem called Entre la piedra y la flor. Between 00:12:08.360 --> 00:12:10.220 the Stone and the Flower, yes. I've seen this 00:12:10.220 --> 00:12:13.759 poem described as his first major work. What's 00:12:13.759 --> 00:12:15.720 going on in it? Why is it so important? It's 00:12:15.720 --> 00:12:17.639 fascinating because you see the influence of 00:12:17.639 --> 00:12:21.220 T .S. Eliot. Paz had read The Wasteland, and 00:12:21.220 --> 00:12:23.440 it just blew him away. He takes Eliot's modernist 00:12:23.440 --> 00:12:26.289 techniques. The fragmentation, the shifting voices, 00:12:26.429 --> 00:12:29.409 the bleak imagery, the despair. And he applies 00:12:29.409 --> 00:12:31.789 them to the Mexican -Henneken fields. So he's 00:12:31.789 --> 00:12:34.889 not writing a folk ballad. No, not at all. He's 00:12:34.889 --> 00:12:37.090 describing the peasant's life not with romantic 00:12:37.090 --> 00:12:40.250 folk songs, but with jagged, difficult, high 00:12:40.250 --> 00:12:43.570 modernist imagery. He's basically saying this 00:12:43.570 --> 00:12:46.250 suffering is not some quaint, timeless thing. 00:12:46.289 --> 00:12:48.549 This is modern. This is part of the 20th century 00:12:48.549 --> 00:12:51.769 wasteland. So he's finding his voice. He's blending 00:12:51.769 --> 00:12:54.129 the social concern of his father with the high 00:12:54.129 --> 00:12:56.509 literary culture of his grandfather. He's forging 00:12:56.509 --> 00:12:59.190 the synthesis. And then just as he's doing that, 00:12:59.269 --> 00:13:01.950 the world calls. The Spanish Civil War breaks 00:13:01.950 --> 00:13:05.509 out. 1937. This is the defining moment for his 00:13:05.509 --> 00:13:08.169 generation of intellectuals globally. It was 00:13:08.169 --> 00:13:10.570 the last great cause. It was a clear cut battle. 00:13:10.879 --> 00:13:13.460 Or so it seemed. The democratically elected Republican 00:13:13.460 --> 00:13:15.820 government of Spain was being attacked by General 00:13:15.820 --> 00:13:18.360 Franco's fascists. Who were being openly backed 00:13:18.360 --> 00:13:20.779 by Hitler and Mussolini. So the line seemed very 00:13:20.779 --> 00:13:23.820 clear. It was democracy versus fascism. And the 00:13:23.820 --> 00:13:25.919 intellectuals of the world flocked to Spain to 00:13:25.919 --> 00:13:28.299 support the Republic. It becomes this romantic, 00:13:28.539 --> 00:13:32.059 heroic cause. It does. And Paz goes to Spain 00:13:32.059 --> 00:13:34.059 for the second International Writers' Congress. 00:13:35.019 --> 00:13:37.940 And the roster of attendees is just insane. Just 00:13:37.940 --> 00:13:40.669 a who's who. Andre Malraux. Ernest Hemingway, 00:13:40.809 --> 00:13:44.289 Pablo Neruda, Langston Hughes, Stephen Spender. 00:13:44.350 --> 00:13:46.309 They're all there. It sounds like the most intimidating 00:13:46.309 --> 00:13:48.350 cocktail party in history. And it's happening 00:13:48.350 --> 00:13:51.389 in a war zone. It was incredibly heady. Paz was 00:13:51.389 --> 00:13:54.009 the youngest delegate. He was treated as a sort 00:13:54.009 --> 00:13:56.570 of mascot or a little brother by people like 00:13:56.570 --> 00:13:59.210 Neruda. He was swept up in the romanticism of 00:13:59.210 --> 00:14:01.809 it all. But while the public face of the Congress 00:14:01.809 --> 00:14:05.809 was all about unity against fascism. The reality 00:14:05.809 --> 00:14:08.370 on the ground was much, much darker. And this 00:14:08.370 --> 00:14:10.169 is where the disillusionment part of this chapter 00:14:10.169 --> 00:14:12.610 hits hard. Yes. The Republican side was a very 00:14:12.610 --> 00:14:16.049 fragile coalition. Democrats, socialists, anarchists, 00:14:16.049 --> 00:14:18.730 and communists. But the Soviet Union was the 00:14:18.730 --> 00:14:20.730 only major power sending weapons to the Republic. 00:14:21.009 --> 00:14:23.690 So the Stalinist communists were gaining more 00:14:23.690 --> 00:14:25.370 and more control. And they weren't just fighting 00:14:25.370 --> 00:14:28.669 fascists. No. They were purging their own allies. 00:14:29.129 --> 00:14:32.669 Anyone who didn't tow the Moscow line anarchists, 00:14:32.769 --> 00:14:36.690 Trotskyists, independent leftists was a target. 00:14:36.809 --> 00:14:39.889 A friendly fire. Or not so friendly fire. And 00:14:39.889 --> 00:14:42.429 Paz experienced this personally. He discovered 00:14:42.429 --> 00:14:45.009 that a friend of his, Jose Robles, had disappeared. 00:14:45.350 --> 00:14:48.110 He was a leftist, right? Absolutely. Robles wasn't 00:14:48.110 --> 00:14:50.549 a fascist. He was a leftist academic. But he 00:14:50.549 --> 00:14:53.169 had disagreed with the Soviet advisers. Paz started 00:14:53.169 --> 00:14:55.070 asking questions and he learned the horrifying 00:14:55.070 --> 00:14:58.019 truth. Robleses have been murdered, executed 00:14:58.019 --> 00:15:00.940 by the Stalinist secret police. That moment seems 00:15:00.940 --> 00:15:03.019 to be the pivot point for his entire political 00:15:03.019 --> 00:15:05.659 life. It's the original sin for him. It is the 00:15:05.659 --> 00:15:07.919 absolute key. It's the moment he realized that 00:15:07.919 --> 00:15:11.139 a regime could claim to be for the people, could 00:15:11.139 --> 00:15:13.299 use the language of the left, and still be a 00:15:13.299 --> 00:15:15.659 murderous totalitarian state. And evil wasn't 00:15:15.659 --> 00:15:18.460 exclusive to the right. Exactly. He saw that 00:15:18.460 --> 00:15:20.639 the dogma of communism could be just as repressive, 00:15:20.759 --> 00:15:22.919 just as violent as the dogma of the church or 00:15:22.919 --> 00:15:25.549 the fascists. He didn't stop being a man of the 00:15:25.549 --> 00:15:28.429 left immediately, not by a long shot, but he 00:15:28.429 --> 00:15:30.909 lost his faith in the party. He realized that 00:15:30.909 --> 00:15:33.169 the revolution could eat its own children. He 00:15:33.169 --> 00:15:35.309 keeps that doubt tucked away, though, for a while. 00:15:35.409 --> 00:15:38.090 And on his way back to Mexico, he stops in Paris. 00:15:38.350 --> 00:15:41.450 Yes. And if Spain gave him a dose of hard, ugly 00:15:41.450 --> 00:15:44.029 reality, Paris gave him a dose of the unreal. 00:15:44.429 --> 00:15:47.110 Surrealism. He meets the surrealists, Andre Bretto 00:15:47.110 --> 00:15:49.889 and the others, and this just changes his aesthetic 00:15:49.889 --> 00:15:52.529 DNA. Completely. So for the listener who might 00:15:52.529 --> 00:15:54.710 just think surrealism equals melting clocks. 00:15:55.450 --> 00:15:58.210 What did it mean to Paz? Why was it so important? 00:15:58.490 --> 00:16:00.590 It wasn't just an art style for them. It was 00:16:00.590 --> 00:16:03.350 a moral philosophy. It was a way of life. The 00:16:03.350 --> 00:16:05.850 Surrealists believed that Western rationalism... 00:16:06.110 --> 00:16:09.690 Logic, capitalism, rigid order had led the world 00:16:09.690 --> 00:16:12.210 directly into the slaughter of World War I. They 00:16:12.210 --> 00:16:15.250 saw reason as a trap. As a death trap. They wanted 00:16:15.250 --> 00:16:17.389 to liberate the human mind. They wanted to access 00:16:17.389 --> 00:16:19.850 the subconscious, the dream state, the irrational, 00:16:20.110 --> 00:16:22.629 the marvelous. They saw poetry in the chance 00:16:22.629 --> 00:16:25.330 encounter, in the absurd. So for Paz, surrealism 00:16:25.330 --> 00:16:27.809 was a form of freedom, a different kind of revolution. 00:16:28.210 --> 00:16:30.529 Precisely. It was a tool to break the masks of 00:16:30.529 --> 00:16:33.389 society, to get to a deeper reality. When he 00:16:33.389 --> 00:16:35.669 returned to Mexico in 1938, he co -founded a 00:16:35.669 --> 00:16:37.629 journal called Taller, which means workshop. 00:16:37.970 --> 00:16:41.190 And what was the goal of Taller? He wanted to 00:16:41.190 --> 00:16:43.269 bring this new vitality to Mexican literature. 00:16:43.570 --> 00:16:46.129 He wanted to merge the political revolution, 00:16:46.309 --> 00:16:49.110 the fight for social justice, with this surrealist 00:16:49.110 --> 00:16:51.690 revolution, the fight for spiritual and psychological 00:16:51.690 --> 00:16:54.389 freedom. And we should mention his personal life 00:16:54.389 --> 00:16:56.370 here because he wasn't alone in this journey. 00:16:56.450 --> 00:17:00.110 He married Elena Garo in 1937, right before they 00:17:00.110 --> 00:17:02.870 went to Spain. Yes. Elena Garo. We could do a 00:17:02.870 --> 00:17:05.869 whole separate deep dive on her. She is arguably 00:17:05.869 --> 00:17:09.109 Mexico's greatest female novelist of the century, 00:17:09.250 --> 00:17:11.769 a genius in her own right. They met at university. 00:17:12.150 --> 00:17:14.490 Yes. They went to Spain together. Yeah. But their 00:17:14.490 --> 00:17:17.630 marriage was, let's call it combustible. Two 00:17:17.630 --> 00:17:19.670 geniuses in a small house? That sounds like a 00:17:19.670 --> 00:17:21.970 recipe for drama. It was. It was fraught with 00:17:21.970 --> 00:17:25.349 professional jealousy, infidelity, and intense 00:17:25.349 --> 00:17:28.210 passion. They had a daughter, Helena, but the 00:17:28.210 --> 00:17:29.910 marriage eventually collapsed under the weight 00:17:29.910 --> 00:17:32.730 of their two massive intellects and egos. They 00:17:32.730 --> 00:17:35.430 divorced in 1959. But in these early years, they 00:17:35.430 --> 00:17:38.130 were a real power couple. Intellectually inseparable, 00:17:38.269 --> 00:17:40.150 even if they were emotionally volatile. Absolutely. 00:17:40.269 --> 00:17:42.789 Okay, let's move to part three. The Diplomat 00:17:42.789 --> 00:17:45.910 and the Labyrinth. Because now Paz enters the 00:17:45.910 --> 00:17:49.269 phase where he becomes, for many, the national 00:17:49.269 --> 00:17:53.109 voice. Right. The story moves forward. In 1943, 00:17:53.410 --> 00:17:55.690 he gets a Guggenheim Fellowship and goes to the 00:17:55.690 --> 00:17:59.069 U .S., specifically to UC Berkeley. This is his 00:17:59.069 --> 00:18:01.970 first real immersion in the United States. And 00:18:01.970 --> 00:18:04.329 like so many exiles and writers, being away from 00:18:04.329 --> 00:18:06.450 home allowed him to see his home more clearly. 00:18:06.910 --> 00:18:08.549 He gives you perspective. He's looking at the 00:18:08.549 --> 00:18:11.609 Puchos, the Mexican -American youths in Los Angeles, 00:18:11.690 --> 00:18:13.990 with their zoot suits and their defiant slang, 00:18:14.210 --> 00:18:16.369 their unique culture. He's fascinated by them. 00:18:16.430 --> 00:18:18.210 They're not quite Mexican, not quite American. 00:18:18.289 --> 00:18:20.150 There's something new. Another identity crisis. 00:18:20.369 --> 00:18:23.190 Another identity crisis, exactly. And then, in 00:18:23.190 --> 00:18:26.369 1945, a major career shift. He joins the Mexican 00:18:26.369 --> 00:18:28.849 diplomatic service. He gets posted to Paris. 00:18:29.529 --> 00:18:31.869 And it's there, sitting in a cafe in post -war 00:18:31.869 --> 00:18:35.109 Paris, surrounded by existentialists and surrealists, 00:18:35.210 --> 00:18:37.430 that he writes the book that defines him. The 00:18:37.430 --> 00:18:40.130 Labyrinth of Solitude. If you read only one book 00:18:40.130 --> 00:18:42.710 by Paz, this is it. This is the one. Published 00:18:42.710 --> 00:18:45.509 in 1950, it is a collection of essays, but really 00:18:45.509 --> 00:18:47.730 it is a psychoanalysis of the entire Mexican 00:18:47.730 --> 00:18:50.410 nation. That is such a bold, almost arrogant 00:18:50.410 --> 00:18:53.990 concept, to psychoanalyze a whole country. What 00:18:53.990 --> 00:18:56.529 was his diagnosis? He starts with a simple question. 00:18:57.019 --> 00:18:59.700 Why is the Mexican character defined by solitude? 00:19:00.000 --> 00:19:02.839 Why is there this wall, this distance? And he 00:19:02.839 --> 00:19:06.079 introduces the central concept of the mask. Let's 00:19:06.079 --> 00:19:08.539 unpack the mask. What is it? Paz argues that 00:19:08.539 --> 00:19:11.940 the Mexican is an instinctive nihilist who hides 00:19:11.940 --> 00:19:14.519 behind a mask of indifference and ceremoniousness, 00:19:14.619 --> 00:19:17.700 a mask of stoicism. Okay. He says that in Mexican 00:19:17.700 --> 00:19:20.420 culture, to open up, to show your true feelings, 00:19:20.440 --> 00:19:23.480 is to be weak, to be vulnerable. The ideal of 00:19:23.480 --> 00:19:26.279 manliness, machismo, is to be closed, invulnerable, 00:19:26.359 --> 00:19:28.799 impenetrable, never crack. And where does this 00:19:28.799 --> 00:19:31.079 come from? He traces it all the way back to the 00:19:31.079 --> 00:19:33.759 conquest, and he uses a very specific, very vulgar 00:19:33.759 --> 00:19:35.759 verb to explain this history, doesn't he? He 00:19:35.759 --> 00:19:38.259 does. The verb. Chingar. Chingar. It implies 00:19:38.259 --> 00:19:39.920 violence, violation, aggression, domination. 00:19:40.720 --> 00:19:43.119 He says the entire history of Mexico can be understood 00:19:43.119 --> 00:19:45.519 through this one word. And he connects it directly 00:19:45.519 --> 00:19:48.740 to the foundational story of Mexico. Yes. He 00:19:48.740 --> 00:19:51.200 talks about Lama Lynch, the indigenous woman 00:19:51.200 --> 00:19:53.920 who's Hernan Cortez's translator and mistress. 00:19:54.460 --> 00:19:57.980 For centuries, she was seen as a traitor. But 00:19:57.980 --> 00:20:01.599 Paz sees her as the symbolic mother of Mexico. 00:20:01.680 --> 00:20:05.259 He calls her La Chingada. the violated one, the 00:20:05.259 --> 00:20:07.500 opened one. This is heavy, heavy stuff. He's 00:20:07.500 --> 00:20:09.440 saying that the modern Mexican is the product 00:20:09.440 --> 00:20:12.180 of a historical violation. The Spanish father, 00:20:12.299 --> 00:20:14.799 who is El Chingon, the violator, and the indigenous 00:20:14.799 --> 00:20:17.579 mother, who is La Chingada. Exactly. And because 00:20:17.579 --> 00:20:20.279 of that foundational trauma, the Mexican feels 00:20:20.279 --> 00:20:23.279 illegitimate. He's an orphan. He rejects the 00:20:23.279 --> 00:20:25.859 Spanish father, the invader, but he also feels 00:20:25.859 --> 00:20:28.180 a kind of shame for the indigenous mother, the 00:20:28.180 --> 00:20:30.680 one who was violated. So he is left alone, suspended 00:20:30.680 --> 00:20:33.019 between two worlds belonging to neither. And 00:20:33.019 --> 00:20:42.279 so he... Wow. That is such a powerful, if incredibly 00:20:42.279 --> 00:20:45.019 bleak, way to look at a national identity. It 00:20:45.019 --> 00:20:47.680 was seismic. It was a bombshell. It gave Mexicans 00:20:47.680 --> 00:20:49.500 a language to talk about their own history that 00:20:49.500 --> 00:20:51.940 wasn't just dates and battles. It was psychological. 00:20:52.039 --> 00:20:54.640 It was poetic. And it influenced everyone who 00:20:54.640 --> 00:20:56.890 came after him. Everyone. Carlos Fuentes, for 00:20:56.890 --> 00:20:59.690 example. You can't understand the Latin American 00:20:59.690 --> 00:21:02.549 literary boom of the 60s without understanding 00:21:02.549 --> 00:21:05.750 that Labyrinth of Solitude laid the intellectual 00:21:05.750 --> 00:21:08.910 groundwork. It became the handbook for understanding 00:21:08.910 --> 00:21:11.650 Mexico. But Paz wasn't just writing essays. His 00:21:11.650 --> 00:21:14.309 poetry was becoming just as ambitious. In the 00:21:14.309 --> 00:21:17.089 mid -50s, he travels to India and Japan as a 00:21:17.089 --> 00:21:20.690 diplomat and then returns to Mexico City in 1954. 00:21:21.170 --> 00:21:24.460 And this is when he writes, Piedra de Sol. Sunstone. 00:21:24.700 --> 00:21:27.500 His poetic masterpiece. If Labyrinth is his great 00:21:27.500 --> 00:21:29.960 work of prose, Sunstone is his great work of 00:21:29.960 --> 00:21:33.859 poetry. Published in 1957, it is one single long 00:21:33.859 --> 00:21:38.599 poem, 584 lines. And that number, 584, is not 00:21:38.599 --> 00:21:41.480 random. Not at all. It is precise. It corresponds 00:21:41.480 --> 00:21:43.880 to the synodic period of the planet Venus in 00:21:43.880 --> 00:21:46.400 the Aztec calendar. Venus, the morning and evening 00:21:46.400 --> 00:21:48.480 star, was incredibly important to them. So the 00:21:48.480 --> 00:21:50.880 structure of the poem itself is rooted in pre 00:21:50.880 --> 00:21:53.539 -Columbian cosmology. Deeply. And the poem is 00:21:53.539 --> 00:21:56.019 circular. The last six lines of the poem are 00:21:56.019 --> 00:21:58.099 identical to the first six lines. So the poem 00:21:58.099 --> 00:22:01.400 is a loop. It never ends. Exactly. It mimics 00:22:01.400 --> 00:22:04.079 the Aztec concept of time, which is syphical, 00:22:04.160 --> 00:22:06.779 not linear like Western time. A snake eating 00:22:06.779 --> 00:22:09.380 its own tail. But the content of the poem isn't 00:22:09.380 --> 00:22:13.019 about Aztec gods. No, the content is pure surrealism. 00:22:13.059 --> 00:22:16.339 It's a torrent of images about memory, eroticism, 00:22:16.440 --> 00:22:19.740 the female body, the Spanish Civil War. modern 00:22:19.740 --> 00:22:22.700 life. He's fusing the ancient Aztec structure 00:22:22.700 --> 00:22:26.160 with a modern European surrealist consciousness. 00:22:26.559 --> 00:22:28.460 It's the ultimate expression of that Renaissance 00:22:28.460 --> 00:22:30.299 man synthesis we talked about at the beginning. 00:22:30.480 --> 00:22:33.500 It truly is. So by the late 50s, he is an undisputed 00:22:33.500 --> 00:22:35.900 star. He has written the definitive essay on 00:22:35.900 --> 00:22:38.539 Mexico and the definitive poem, but his career 00:22:38.539 --> 00:22:40.819 as a diplomat is about to take him to a place 00:22:40.819 --> 00:22:43.000 that will change his soul. And that brings us 00:22:43.000 --> 00:22:46.940 to part four, the Eastern Slope. In 1962, Paz 00:22:46.940 --> 00:22:49.059 is appointed the Mexican ambassador to India. 00:22:49.279 --> 00:22:50.940 And this wasn't just another posting for him, 00:22:50.960 --> 00:22:53.240 another cushy job. Yeah. He fell in love with 00:22:53.240 --> 00:22:56.259 India. He stayed for six years. And this period 00:22:56.259 --> 00:22:58.380 marks a distinct shift in his thinking and his 00:22:58.380 --> 00:23:01.680 poetry. How so? If Paris was about surrealism 00:23:01.680 --> 00:23:04.059 and the anxiety of history. India was about Buddhism 00:23:04.059 --> 00:23:06.519 and the search for presence. For the now. How 00:23:06.519 --> 00:23:08.740 did that show up in his writing? He began to 00:23:08.740 --> 00:23:10.880 move away from the obsession with history and 00:23:10.880 --> 00:23:13.990 identity that defined Labyrinth. In Buddhist 00:23:13.990 --> 00:23:17.309 philosophy, the self is an illusion. History 00:23:17.309 --> 00:23:20.029 is an illusion. The only thing that is real is 00:23:20.029 --> 00:23:22.690 the present moment, this instant. So he's letting 00:23:22.690 --> 00:23:26.569 go of that past trauma? He's trying to. He wrote 00:23:26.569 --> 00:23:28.569 books like The Monkey Grammarian and the poetry 00:23:28.569 --> 00:23:31.849 collection Ladera Este, Eastern Slope. His poetry 00:23:31.849 --> 00:23:34.549 became more visual, more contemplative, less 00:23:34.549 --> 00:23:37.509 frantic than his surrealist work. More about 00:23:37.509 --> 00:23:39.670 silence. He also found a new community there, 00:23:39.750 --> 00:23:41.890 right? He did. He connected with the hungry generation 00:23:41.890 --> 00:23:45.009 of writers in India. These were young anti -establishment 00:23:45.009 --> 00:23:47.529 poets in Bengal who were challenging the caste 00:23:47.529 --> 00:23:50.130 system and the literary elite. So even as an 00:23:50.130 --> 00:23:52.289 ambassador in a suit, he still had that revolutionary 00:23:52.289 --> 00:23:55.069 spark. He felt a kinship with these rebels. He 00:23:55.069 --> 00:23:58.029 saw them as doing in India what the surrealists 00:23:58.029 --> 00:24:00.730 had tried to do in Paris. And crucially, on a 00:24:00.730 --> 00:24:02.809 personal level, he met his second wife there. 00:24:03.170 --> 00:24:06.339 Marie -José Tremény, a French artist. They met 00:24:06.339 --> 00:24:09.079 in 1965. This was the great love of his life. 00:24:09.279 --> 00:24:12.200 She was his partner until his death. Yes. He 00:24:12.200 --> 00:24:15.680 wrote incredible, luminous, erotic poetry for 00:24:15.680 --> 00:24:18.220 her. She gave him a stability and a happiness 00:24:18.220 --> 00:24:20.680 that he hadn't really known before. Their partnership 00:24:20.680 --> 00:24:23.279 was central to the second half of his life. So 00:24:23.279 --> 00:24:26.200 he's happy. He's highly respected. He's the ambassador. 00:24:26.339 --> 00:24:28.799 He's found love and a new spiritual path. Things 00:24:28.799 --> 00:24:33.380 are good. But then comes 1968. The year the world 00:24:33.380 --> 00:24:35.900 caught fire. It's hard to overstate how intense 00:24:35.900 --> 00:24:39.259 1968 was globally. You have the student riots 00:24:39.259 --> 00:24:41.900 in Paris, the Prague Spring, the assassinations 00:24:41.900 --> 00:24:44.160 of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy 00:24:44.160 --> 00:24:46.640 in the U .S. And in Mexico City, the Olympics 00:24:46.640 --> 00:24:48.980 are about to begin. Right. The government of 00:24:48.980 --> 00:24:51.240 Mexico, which for decades had been ruled by the 00:24:51.240 --> 00:24:53.680 single party state of the PRI. The Institutional 00:24:53.680 --> 00:24:56.539 Revolutionary Party, a perfect oxymoron. They 00:24:56.539 --> 00:24:58.339 wanted to use the Olympics to show the world 00:24:58.339 --> 00:25:01.059 that Mexico is a modern, stable, first world 00:25:01.059 --> 00:25:03.799 country. A success story. The Mexican students 00:25:03.799 --> 00:25:06.200 were in the streets. They were part of that global 00:25:06.200 --> 00:25:09.000 68 movement. They were protesting the authoritarian 00:25:09.000 --> 00:25:11.720 nature of the government. They wanted real democracy, 00:25:11.960 --> 00:25:15.519 not the PRI's facade. The government was terrified 00:25:15.519 --> 00:25:17.980 of being embarrassed on the global stage. So 00:25:17.980 --> 00:25:20.799 on October 2nd, just 10 days before the opening 00:25:20.799 --> 00:25:23.640 ceremonies, they made a horrific decision. The 00:25:23.640 --> 00:25:27.599 Tlatelolco Massacre. The army surrounded a massive, 00:25:27.680 --> 00:25:30.519 peaceful student demonstration at the Plaza de 00:25:30.519 --> 00:25:33.960 las Tres Culturas. The open fire, snipers on 00:25:33.960 --> 00:25:37.059 the rooftops, soldiers on the ground. We still 00:25:37.059 --> 00:25:38.960 don't know the exact death toll, but it was in 00:25:38.960 --> 00:25:42.259 the hundreds. Men, women, children. And the government 00:25:42.259 --> 00:25:44.619 immediately tried to cover it up, claiming the 00:25:44.619 --> 00:25:47.799 students fired first. But everyone knew it was 00:25:47.799 --> 00:25:50.519 a lie. It was a state -sponsored slaughter. Paz 00:25:50.519 --> 00:25:52.900 is in New Delhi. He hears about this. He is the 00:25:52.900 --> 00:25:55.259 official representative of that government. Imagine 00:25:55.259 --> 00:25:57.819 the moral dilemma. He has reached the pinnacle 00:25:57.819 --> 00:26:00.559 of his career. He's an ambassador. But the government 00:26:00.559 --> 00:26:02.859 paying his salary has just slaughtered its own 00:26:02.859 --> 00:26:05.839 children. The very people, the students, that 00:26:05.839 --> 00:26:08.539 Paz had championed in his youth. So he does something 00:26:08.539 --> 00:26:10.380 that almost no one in the Mexican system ever 00:26:10.380 --> 00:26:13.650 did. He quits. He resigns in protests. And you 00:26:13.650 --> 00:26:16.029 have to understand, in the PRI system of the 00:26:16.029 --> 00:26:19.910 time, loyalty was everything. Resigning wasn't 00:26:19.910 --> 00:26:22.630 just quitting a job. It was a profound political 00:26:22.630 --> 00:26:25.509 act of defiance. It was burning a bridge that 00:26:25.509 --> 00:26:28.390 could never be rebuilt. He was blacklisted. He 00:26:28.390 --> 00:26:31.029 saved his moral integrity, but he lost his position, 00:26:31.109 --> 00:26:33.430 his status. He became a hero to the students 00:26:33.430 --> 00:26:35.910 in the intellectual class. He proved, when it 00:26:35.910 --> 00:26:38.380 counted, that he wasn't a sellout. So he leaves 00:26:38.380 --> 00:26:41.140 India, he spends some time teaching at Cambridge 00:26:41.140 --> 00:26:43.680 and Harvard and other places in the U .S., and 00:26:43.680 --> 00:26:46.839 then he returns to Mexico in 1969. But he can't 00:26:46.839 --> 00:26:48.859 go back to being a diplomat. He can't work for 00:26:48.859 --> 00:26:50.880 the government. He needs a new vehicle for his 00:26:50.880 --> 00:26:54.660 ideas. This begins the magazine era. Yes. He 00:26:54.660 --> 00:26:56.720 realized that if he couldn't shape politics from 00:26:56.720 --> 00:26:59.039 the inside, he would shape culture from the outside. 00:26:59.099 --> 00:27:02.980 He founded the magazine Plural in 1970. And when 00:27:02.980 --> 00:27:05.700 the government... in a roundabout way, shut that 00:27:05.700 --> 00:27:08.460 down. He wasn't deterred. He immediately founded 00:27:08.460 --> 00:27:12.180 Vuelta in 1976. And Vuelta became the most important 00:27:12.180 --> 00:27:14.339 intellectual magazine in the entire Spanish -speaking 00:27:14.339 --> 00:27:16.779 world for the next 20 years. It was his fortress, 00:27:17.000 --> 00:27:19.920 his platform. But this fortress is where he started 00:27:19.920 --> 00:27:22.299 launching attacks that confused and angered a 00:27:22.299 --> 00:27:24.480 lot of people. Which brings us to part five, 00:27:24.720 --> 00:27:28.720 political thought. The slippery ideology. Slippery 00:27:28.720 --> 00:27:31.539 is the perfect word. The critic Yvonne Grenier 00:27:31.539 --> 00:27:35.180 said Paz was very slippery for anyone thinking 00:27:35.180 --> 00:27:38.019 in rigid ideological categories. And as he got 00:27:38.019 --> 00:27:40.839 older, he just refused to fit into the binary 00:27:40.839 --> 00:27:43.440 of left versus right. OK, so let's explain the 00:27:43.440 --> 00:27:46.059 context. In the 1970s and 80s, the Latin American 00:27:46.059 --> 00:27:49.220 left was surging. You had Fidel Castro firmly 00:27:49.220 --> 00:27:52.759 in power in Cuba. You had the Sandinistas overthrowing 00:27:52.759 --> 00:27:55.490 the Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua. And the 00:27:55.490 --> 00:27:57.670 intellectual class in Mexico and across Latin 00:27:57.670 --> 00:27:59.910 America was largely united in supporting these 00:27:59.910 --> 00:28:01.930 revolutions. They were seen as the great hope 00:28:01.930 --> 00:28:04.690 against U .S. imperialism. And Paz, the man who 00:28:04.690 --> 00:28:06.710 resigned to protest a right -wing government's 00:28:06.710 --> 00:28:09.430 massacre, stood up and said, wait a minute. Because 00:28:09.430 --> 00:28:12.799 he remembered Spain. He never forgot Spain. He 00:28:12.799 --> 00:28:15.240 saw the seeds of Stalinism in these new revolutions. 00:28:15.440 --> 00:28:18.180 He started publishing articles in Volta, criticizing 00:28:18.180 --> 00:28:20.779 Castro's human rights record, the lack of free 00:28:20.779 --> 00:28:23.619 speech, the political prisoners. He exposed the 00:28:23.619 --> 00:28:25.720 dark side of the Cuban Revolution when it was 00:28:25.720 --> 00:28:29.039 very unfashionable to do so. Very. And he did 00:28:29.039 --> 00:28:31.119 the same with Nicaragua. While everyone else 00:28:31.119 --> 00:28:33.480 was cheering the Sandinistas, he was criticizing 00:28:33.480 --> 00:28:35.880 their censorship of the press and their growing 00:28:35.880 --> 00:28:38.539 authoritarianism. And the reaction from the left 00:28:38.539 --> 00:28:42.349 was... Not polite. It was vitriolic. You have 00:28:42.349 --> 00:28:44.329 to understand, criticizing Fidel Castro in a 00:28:44.329 --> 00:28:47.089 Mexican university in the 1970s was like swearing 00:28:47.089 --> 00:28:49.309 in church. It was heresy. So what did they call 00:28:49.309 --> 00:28:52.630 him? A traitor. A reactionary. A friend of Ronald 00:28:52.630 --> 00:28:56.470 Reagan. A CIA agent. A sellout. Students who 00:28:56.470 --> 00:28:59.190 had cheered him in 68 were now burning effigies 00:28:59.190 --> 00:29:01.630 of him outside the U .S. Embassy. And this political 00:29:01.630 --> 00:29:04.559 rift destroyed his most famous friendship. The 00:29:04.559 --> 00:29:07.640 feud with Carlos Fuentes. A true tragedy. Carlos 00:29:07.640 --> 00:29:10.180 Fuentes and Octavio Paz were the two towers of 00:29:10.180 --> 00:29:12.240 Mexican literature. They were best friends for 00:29:12.240 --> 00:29:14.319 decades. But Fuentes was a staunch supporter 00:29:14.319 --> 00:29:17.339 of the Sandinistas. A passionate supporter. Paz 00:29:17.339 --> 00:29:20.059 saw the Sandinistas as budding totalitarians. 00:29:20.119 --> 00:29:23.220 The rift grew and grew, and then the final straw. 00:29:23.559 --> 00:29:26.140 Paz allowed a brutal critique of Fuentes to be 00:29:26.140 --> 00:29:28.640 published in Vuelta. Written by his protege Enrique 00:29:28.640 --> 00:29:33.000 Kraus. Yes. The article tore Fuentes apart, calling 00:29:33.000 --> 00:29:35.809 him a guerrilla dandy. Basically accusing him 00:29:35.809 --> 00:29:38.230 of being a champagne socialist who romanticized 00:29:38.230 --> 00:29:40.589 revolutions from his comfortable apartment. And 00:29:40.589 --> 00:29:44.309 Fuentes felt betrayed that Paz, his friend, would 00:29:44.309 --> 00:29:47.470 publish something so personal and vicious. He 00:29:47.470 --> 00:29:49.940 did. They stop speaking. They never reconcile. 00:29:50.039 --> 00:29:52.119 It's one of the great tragedies of literature 00:29:52.119 --> 00:29:55.019 to giants who let politics kill their friendship. 00:29:55.140 --> 00:29:57.759 But Paz's core point was consistent, right? He 00:29:57.759 --> 00:30:00.599 was simply anti -totalitarian from any direction. 00:30:00.839 --> 00:30:02.680 Consistent to a fault. Yeah. He was influenced 00:30:02.680 --> 00:30:05.579 by people like Albert Camus and George Orwell. 00:30:05.680 --> 00:30:08.000 He believed that a dictatorship is a dictatorship. 00:30:08.509 --> 00:30:10.430 Whether the dictator wears a right -wing military 00:30:10.430 --> 00:30:12.930 uniform or a left -wing Che Guevara t -shirt. 00:30:13.089 --> 00:30:16.130 He valued freedom above revolution. And for many 00:30:16.130 --> 00:30:18.490 on the left, that was an unforgivable sin. He 00:30:18.490 --> 00:30:20.750 also took a nuanced and for many a controversial 00:30:20.750 --> 00:30:23.609 stance on the Spanish conquest that angered people. 00:30:23.789 --> 00:30:26.170 Yes. He pushed back against the black legend, 00:30:26.210 --> 00:30:28.509 the idea that the Spanish were just evil monsters 00:30:28.509 --> 00:30:30.869 who destroyed a paradise. He didn't deny the 00:30:30.869 --> 00:30:33.509 violence. Not at all. He acknowledged the brutality, 00:30:33.869 --> 00:30:35.809 but he argued that the conquest also brought 00:30:35.809 --> 00:30:37.890 things like the rule of law, the Spanish language, 00:30:38.089 --> 00:30:40.450 and a connection to Western culture that, for 00:30:40.450 --> 00:30:43.029 better or worse, unify the disparate peoples 00:30:43.029 --> 00:30:45.569 of the region. He said that without the Spanish 00:30:45.569 --> 00:30:47.990 influence, Mexico would just be a fractured collection 00:30:47.990 --> 00:30:50.710 of warring tribes. which many on the left felt 00:30:50.710 --> 00:30:53.589 was an apology for colonialism. They saw it as 00:30:53.589 --> 00:30:55.849 him siding with the conquerors. And then the 00:30:55.849 --> 00:31:00.750 final painful irony, 1994, the Zapatista uprising 00:31:00.750 --> 00:31:04.690 in Chiapas, the EZLN. History rhymes, doesn't 00:31:04.690 --> 00:31:08.420 it? Paz is an old man now. In his 80s, suddenly 00:31:08.420 --> 00:31:10.839 an army of indigenous peasants rises up in the 00:31:10.839 --> 00:31:13.740 South, led by a charismatic pipe -smoking figure, 00:31:14.000 --> 00:31:16.940 subcomandante Marcos, demanding land and rights. 00:31:17.180 --> 00:31:19.339 And they call themselves Zapatistas. His father 00:31:19.339 --> 00:31:22.099 was a Zapatista. You'd think Paz, of all people, 00:31:22.140 --> 00:31:24.559 would be thrilled. But he wasn't. He criticized 00:31:24.559 --> 00:31:27.099 the uprising. He felt that in a modern democracy, 00:31:27.359 --> 00:31:29.779 which Mexico was, however, imperfectly trying 00:31:29.779 --> 00:31:32.920 to become, violence was not the answer. He believed 00:31:32.920 --> 00:31:35.559 in ballots, not bullets. By that point, yes. 00:31:36.159 --> 00:31:38.240 He even signed an open letter supporting the 00:31:38.240 --> 00:31:40.099 government's use of military force to restore 00:31:40.099 --> 00:31:43.000 order. The son of the Zapatistas supporting the 00:31:43.000 --> 00:31:45.680 army against the new Zapatistas. That is a complicated 00:31:45.680 --> 00:31:48.539 legacy. It is. Many people never forgave him 00:31:48.539 --> 00:31:51.240 for that. They saw it as the final proof that 00:31:51.240 --> 00:31:54.160 he had become a conservative old man. But Paz 00:31:54.160 --> 00:31:56.319 would argue he was defending the fragile institution 00:31:56.319 --> 00:31:58.960 of democracy against the chaos of armed rebellion. 00:31:59.339 --> 00:32:01.559 He did get one moment of pure vindication, though. 00:32:01.660 --> 00:32:05.329 The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Yes. In 00:32:05.329 --> 00:32:07.789 1990, just after communism collapsed in Eastern 00:32:07.789 --> 00:32:10.490 Europe, he organized a massive conference in 00:32:10.490 --> 00:32:12.990 Mexico City called the Experience of Freedom. 00:32:13.190 --> 00:32:16.009 He invited intellectuals from all over the world. 00:32:16.250 --> 00:32:19.529 Casio Mios, Mario Vargas Llosa, dissidents from 00:32:19.529 --> 00:32:22.250 the former Soviet bloc. It was his victory lap. 00:32:22.490 --> 00:32:24.910 He'd been warning about Soviet totalitarianism 00:32:24.910 --> 00:32:27.890 for 50 years while his critics called him a reactionary, 00:32:27.890 --> 00:32:30.069 and he lived to see it crumble. It's a powerful 00:32:30.069 --> 00:32:32.279 moment. But before we close the book on him, 00:32:32.339 --> 00:32:34.440 we need to remember that underneath all the political 00:32:34.440 --> 00:32:37.200 fighting, he was an artist. We can't lose sight 00:32:37.200 --> 00:32:40.299 of the poetry. Part six, aesthetics, poetry, 00:32:40.579 --> 00:32:44.200 and themes. The critic Ramon Girard said, Paz's 00:32:44.200 --> 00:32:47.480 poetry leads into the realm of silence where 00:32:47.480 --> 00:32:50.059 true language lives. Okay, that sounds beautiful, 00:32:50.240 --> 00:32:52.539 but what does it mean? It means that for Paz, 00:32:53.119 --> 00:32:55.299 Poetry wasn't just about stringing together pretty 00:32:55.299 --> 00:32:58.420 words. It was about creating a space, a moment 00:32:58.420 --> 00:33:01.039 of intensity, where the reader could experience 00:33:01.039 --> 00:33:03.799 otherness, the other person, the other time, 00:33:03.960 --> 00:33:06.420 the other reality. And what were his big recurring 00:33:06.420 --> 00:33:09.359 themes? Love and eroticism were absolutely paramount. 00:33:09.940 --> 00:33:12.819 Paz believed that the erotic act, true union 00:33:12.819 --> 00:33:15.779 with another person, was the one moment where 00:33:15.779 --> 00:33:18.380 humans could step outside of time, outside of 00:33:18.380 --> 00:33:20.299 history. It's a rebellion. It's a revolutionary 00:33:20.299 --> 00:33:23.019 act against the machine of society. When you 00:33:23.019 --> 00:33:26.000 are truly in love, time stops. You aren't a worker 00:33:26.000 --> 00:33:28.579 or a voter or a citizen. You are just a being 00:33:28.579 --> 00:33:30.660 in the present moment. He was also obsessed with 00:33:30.660 --> 00:33:33.099 the visual arts. A huge fan of modern art. He 00:33:33.099 --> 00:33:35.140 wrote brilliant essays on Marcel Duchamp and 00:33:35.140 --> 00:33:37.460 Joan Moreau. He saw a deep connection between 00:33:37.460 --> 00:33:40.619 the visual image and the written word. He treated 00:33:40.619 --> 00:33:42.940 poems almost like verbal sculptures. And we have 00:33:42.940 --> 00:33:45.740 to mention his huge work on Sor Juana, The Traps 00:33:45.740 --> 00:33:48.680 of Faith. A monumental biography, a masterpiece 00:33:48.680 --> 00:33:51.480 of historical scholarship. So Juana Ines de la 00:33:51.480 --> 00:33:54.339 Cruz was a 17th century nun in colonial Mexico. 00:33:54.579 --> 00:33:57.420 And she was a genius. An absolute genius. A mathematician, 00:33:57.680 --> 00:34:00.160 a theologian, a playwright, a poet, a feminist 00:34:00.160 --> 00:34:03.240 before the word even existed. But the Inquisition 00:34:03.240 --> 00:34:06.359 and the church silenced her. They saw her intelligence 00:34:06.359 --> 00:34:08.880 as a threat and forced her to give up her books 00:34:08.880 --> 00:34:11.619 and her studies. And Paz saw his own reflection 00:34:11.619 --> 00:34:13.909 in her. Completely. She was the intellectual 00:34:13.909 --> 00:34:16.650 trying to survive and create in an authoritarian 00:34:16.650 --> 00:34:20.250 dogmatic world. Writing that book was his way 00:34:20.250 --> 00:34:23.090 of honoring the long lineage of Mexican thought 00:34:23.090 --> 00:34:26.269 and resistance. And finally, part seven. Recognition 00:34:26.269 --> 00:34:28.670 and legacy. After decades of being a controversial 00:34:28.670 --> 00:34:31.489 figure, the world finally gave him his due. The 00:34:31.489 --> 00:34:33.510 awards started piling up in the 80s. The Miguel 00:34:33.510 --> 00:34:36.030 de Cervantes Prize in 1981, which is like the 00:34:36.030 --> 00:34:38.590 Nobel for the Spanish -speaking world. The Neustadt 00:34:38.590 --> 00:34:41.730 International Prize in 1982. And then the big 00:34:41.730 --> 00:34:44.909 one. 1990. The Nobel Prize in Literature. The 00:34:44.909 --> 00:34:47.510 first and still the only Mexican writer to win 00:34:47.510 --> 00:34:49.730 it. In his acceptance speech, he spoke beautifully 00:34:49.730 --> 00:34:53.039 about his lifelong search for the present. It 00:34:53.039 --> 00:34:55.639 was the perfect culmination of a life spent bridging 00:34:55.639 --> 00:34:58.300 gaps between Mexico and the world, between East 00:34:58.300 --> 00:35:00.800 and West, between the pre -Columbian past and 00:35:00.800 --> 00:35:03.980 the modern future. He died in 1998 in Mexico 00:35:03.980 --> 00:35:06.000 City. From cancer. He was given a state funeral. 00:35:06.320 --> 00:35:09.119 His ashes are kept at the Coligio de San Ildefonso, 00:35:09.179 --> 00:35:10.639 the very building where he went to high school, 00:35:10.760 --> 00:35:12.980 and the birthplace of the Mexican muralist movement. 00:35:13.440 --> 00:35:15.820 In the end, he returned to the center. So let's 00:35:15.820 --> 00:35:18.269 wrap this up. We've unpacked the busy goth. The 00:35:18.269 --> 00:35:20.989 Zapatista's son, the surrealist, the diplomat, 00:35:20.989 --> 00:35:23.690 the critic. What does this all mean for us? Why 00:35:23.690 --> 00:35:26.110 should a listener today care about Octavio Paz? 00:35:26.250 --> 00:35:28.989 I think for me it comes back to the mask. From 00:35:28.989 --> 00:35:31.630 the labyrinth of solitude. Yes. We are living 00:35:31.630 --> 00:35:35.010 in a time where identity is everything, yet we 00:35:35.010 --> 00:35:38.119 often feel more isolated than ever. We curate 00:35:38.119 --> 00:35:40.300 our lives on social media. We build our own digital 00:35:40.300 --> 00:35:44.099 masks. Paz teaches us that this feeling of solitude 00:35:44.099 --> 00:35:46.739 is part of the modern human condition. But he 00:35:46.739 --> 00:35:49.559 also shows us the way out. Connection, love, 00:35:49.800 --> 00:35:54.110 eroticism, but also conversation. And criticism. 00:35:54.369 --> 00:35:56.369 He teaches us that we don't have to be just one 00:35:56.369 --> 00:35:58.190 thing. You can be proud of your roots and be 00:35:58.190 --> 00:36:00.250 a citizen of the world. You can be a feared critic 00:36:00.250 --> 00:36:03.610 of your own side. You can and should change your 00:36:03.610 --> 00:36:06.250 mind. That intellectual flexibility, that willingness 00:36:06.250 --> 00:36:08.789 to be slippery, is something we are sorely missing 00:36:08.789 --> 00:36:11.329 today. Absolutely. He showed us that a society 00:36:11.329 --> 00:36:13.909 without criticism, especially self -criticism, 00:36:14.150 --> 00:36:17.530 is a society that is dying. He wasn't afraid 00:36:17.530 --> 00:36:19.789 to stand alone if he thought he was right, even 00:36:19.789 --> 00:36:21.769 if it cost him his friends. I want to leave the 00:36:21.769 --> 00:36:23.869 listener with a quote from Paz that really stuck 00:36:23.869 --> 00:36:25.989 with me during this research. He wrote, there 00:36:25.989 --> 00:36:28.110 can be no society without poetry, but society 00:36:28.110 --> 00:36:30.989 can never be realized as poetry. Sometimes the 00:36:30.989 --> 00:36:33.590 two terms seek to break apart. They cannot. That 00:36:33.590 --> 00:36:35.750 is the beautiful paradox of his life's work. 00:36:36.190 --> 00:36:38.730 Society is the structure, the rules, the prose. 00:36:39.289 --> 00:36:41.610 Poetry is the dream, the rebellion, the freedom. 00:36:41.989 --> 00:36:44.340 They are always intention. but they need each 00:36:44.340 --> 00:36:47.340 other to survive. So here is the question for 00:36:47.340 --> 00:36:50.019 you to mull over as you unplug today. In your 00:36:50.019 --> 00:36:52.800 own life, or in this fractured world we're all 00:36:52.800 --> 00:36:55.519 living in, what is the poetry that holds the 00:36:55.519 --> 00:36:57.619 structure together? What is the thing that keeps 00:36:57.619 --> 00:37:00.300 the machine from crushing the human spirit? That's 00:37:00.300 --> 00:37:02.219 the vital question. Thanks for diving deep with 00:37:02.219 --> 00:37:02.420 us.