In Conjunctions and Disjunctions, Octavio Paz offers what he calls his
"rough draft" for a history of man, which is a history of human nature
rather than of men or of cultures and civilizations. For Paz, this
history is grounded in the polarity of being and the flux and balance of
life. It can be read in the dualities by which we live, the pairs of
contrasting concepts or signs by which all cultures organize
themselves--body and soul or mind, life and death, eros and thanatos,
the sex organs and the face. His book is an exploration of those
dualities over time and across traditions, brought together with
provocative erudition and a poet's scintillating insight.
Ranging through Eastern and Western religions, ancient and contemporary
civilizations, and subjects as diverse as history, politics, science,
and literature, Paz cites saints, philosophers, anthropologists, and
psychoanalysts as he teases out the correspondences and contrasts that
comprise this history. The final section of his book seeks to assess not
only what this world of contrasting signs represents, but where it is
headed--what energies in man will help ensure our future.