Working Class Hero

Well, I've already found out that I enjoy blogging and tweeting for my Latin American Humanities class much, much more than I was expecting. It's actually fun. Yes, fun.

"The modern worker lacks individuality. The class is stronger than the individual and his personality dissolves in the generic. That is the first and gravest mutilation a man suffers when he transforms himself into and industrial wage earner. Capitalism deprives him of his human nature...by reducing him to an element of the work process, i.e., to an object. And like any object in the business world, he can be bought and sold." (Octavio Paz, The Labyrinth of Solitude, 67)

Ok, I read this and I could not help but think of John Lennon's song, Working Class Hero. I'm including a link to the song but WARNING, the lyrics include some "bad words, the only living language in a world of anemic vocables," as Paz says. "Poetry within the reach of everyone." And Lennon uses a strong one twice. Just giving you a heads up!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsmQhbd1KWE

In The Sons of La Malinche Paz delves deeply into exploring what creates identity. And when I say deeply, I mean DEEEEEEEPly. He demonstrates how the history of the Mexican creates his, mm, non-identity. Not his identity, because he may choose to deny his descent and recreate himself as just a man, whoever he wants to be, freed of any baggage that would come with his heritage. 

I think this quote demonstrates the risk that the Mexican still faces of having his humanity, his personality, dissolved by society...specifically by being an industrial wage earner.

So anyways, I thought of John Lennon's song because it expresses exactly the same thing that Paz's quote says. The song shows that the risk of having your humanity blurred by being in the working class is not only a problem that is limited to Mexicans. I think it is part of all societies. When the machine begins to take over, it kind of pushes itself along and bulldozes over individuals, turning them into objects. It's a weird world. 

But I think that if Paz has one thing right, it is that we are always capable of determining the way we view our identity. We are not objects at all, but beings that have resiliency and determination and are capable of overcoming any obstacles in our path. Period.