Slavoj Žižek & Mr. Kežiž
fragment {Feb 22, 2013}
Slavoj Žižek's idea revolves around the negative disavowal. His thought turns on the negative disavowal.
You say, Sometimes I feel life is going on somewhere else without me; I think that life is elsewhere.
Slavoj Žižek says, Life is not elsewhere; life is not not here: the very feelings and thoughts you attribute to its not being here are the conditions under which life is present, they are immanent to it. The disappointment, dissatisfaction and frustrations you experience do not announce its departure but are signs of its arrival.
If it appears that life is not quite here yet it is because you have imposed a fantasy, he continues. You are like the driver dispatched to the airport to pick up a passenger whose name he has incorrectly transcribed onto a placard which he now holds above his head. He watches the flow of life as it passes, every so often believing he catches a glint of recognition in the faces of one of the passers-by; he senses a pause in the endless flow, as someone looks at his placard and the misspelled name on it and slows down for an moment, and he thinks this must be the one, this must be the one life I've been sent to the airport to retrieve. But sadly the one is never that one whose name is clearly if incorrectly displayed on his sign.
"As communists once did, today's capitalists blame any failures on their system being 'impurely' applied" from the linked article, quoted by its author:
"It may not feel like it, but 2012 has been the greatest year in the history of the world. That sounds like an extravagant claim, but it is borne out by evidence. Never has there been less hunger, less disease or more prosperity. The west remains in the economic doldrums, but most developing countries are charging ahead, and people are being lifted out of poverty at the fastest rate ever recorded. The death toll inflicted by war and natural disasters is also mercifully low. We are living in a golden age."
