Octavio Paz and modernity: An avant-gardist criticism from the suburbs of civilization

Abstract

Since the fifties of the last century, a Latin American voice began to call attention to the need to think about the meaning of modernity in general and, specifically, how we could give it a new meaning in remote regions, far from the metropolis – and, by doing so and recovering our specificity, find our own ways to reach our own, specific destination. It was the voice of a poet, not of a social scientist or a philosopher. Since few decades, reflection on modernity has become a topic within the academic and cultural world; it is surprising that those deep and avant-gardist digressions are unknown or just denied by the hegemonic centers and discourses of knowledge. The author of this rich, deep, inspiring, avant-gardist and well-written reflection on modernity was the Mexican poet Octavio Paz.