Man’s Fate, Part VII (Personal Commentary)

The Paradox:

“ ‘A civilization becomes transformed, when its most oppressed element […] suddenly becomes a value, when the oppressed ceases to attempt to escape t[his] humiliation, and seeks his salvation in it, when the worker ceases to attempt to escape this work, and seeks in it his reason for being’ ” (294).

I am still debating how to contextualize or interpret this profound statement, (because it operates on many levels) from one of Old Gisors lectures, attended by Hemmelrich, who has escaped China and is employed as a “mounter in an electric plant.” Influenced and motivated by the professor’s theory, Hemmelrich vows to “return to China as an agitator.”

Oppression seemingly is a double-edge sword: It convicts as well as reveals the constituent qualities of man.

Edith