by
Slavoj Žižek
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[...] Many conservative (and not only conservative) political thinkers, from Blaise Pascal to Immanuel Kant and Joseph de Maistre, elaborated the notion of the illegitimate origins of power, of the ‘founding crime’ on which states are based, which is why one should offer ‘noble lies’ to people in the guise of heroic narratives of origin. With regard to such ideas, what was often said about Israel is quite true: the misfortune of Israel is that it was established as a nation-state a century or two too late, in conditions when such founding crimes are no longer acceptable. [...]
[...] what if what disturbs me is precisely that I find myself in a state which hasn’t yet obliterated the ‘founding violence’ of its ‘illegitimate’ origins, repressed them into a timeless past. In this sense, what the state of Israel confronts us with is merely the obliterated past of every state power.
[...] It is almost attractive to see the first-generation Israeli leaders openly confessing the fact that their claims to the land of Palestine cannot be grounded in universal justice, that we are dealing with a simple war of conquest between two groups between whom no mediation is possible.
Everyone can see the weight of the problems in the relations between Arabs and Jews. But no one sees that there is no solution to these problems. There is no solution! Here is an abyss, and nothing can link its two sides … We as a people want this land to be ours; the Arabs as a people want this land to be theirs.
The problem with this statement today is clear: such an exemption of ethnic conflicts for land from moral considerations is simply no longer acceptable. [...]
[...] To perceive the problem as one of the right measure between respect for the other versus our own freedom of expression is in itself a mystification. No wonder that upon closer analysis, the two opposing poles reveal their secret solidarity. The language of respect is the language of liberal tolerance: respect only has meaning as respect for those with whom I do not agree. When offended Muslims demand respect for their otherness, they are accepting the frame of the liberal-tolerant discourse. [...]
[...] Isn’t it time to restore the dignity of atheism, perhaps our only chance for peace? As a rule, where religiously inspired violence is concerned, we put the blame on violence itself: it is the violent or ‘terrorist’ political agent who ‘misuses’ a noble religion, so the goal becomes to retrieve the authentic core of a religion from its political instrumentalisation. What, however, if one should take the risk of inverting this relationship? What if what appears as a moderating force, compelling us to control our violence, is its secret instigator? What if, then, instead of renouncing violence, one were to renounce religion, including its secular reverberations such as Stalinist communism with its reliance on the historical big Other, and to pursue violence on its own, assuming full responsibility for it, without any cover-up in some figure of the big Other?
[...] after the outbreak of the First World War, some social Darwinians were pacifists on account of their anti-egalitarian Darwinism; Ernst Haeckel, the leading proponent of social Darwinism, opposed the war because in it, the wrong people were killed: ‘The stronger, healthier, more normal the young man is, the greater is the prospect for him to be murdered by the needle gun, cannons, and other similar instruments of culture.’ The problem was that the weak and sick were not allowed into the army. They were left free to have children and thus lead the nation into biological decline. One of the solutions envisaged was to force everyone to serve in the army and then, in battle, ruthlessly use the weak and sick as cannon fodder in suicidal attacks.
pretty reasonable tbh
[...] the lesson of today’s terrorism is that if there is a God, then everything, even blowing up hundreds of innocent bystanders, is permitted to those who claim to act directly on behalf of God, as the instruments of his will, since, clearly, a direct link to God justifies our violation of any ‘merely human’ constraints and considerations. The ‘godless’ Stalinist communists are the ultimate proof of it: everything was permitted to them since they perceived themselves as direct instruments of their divinity, the Historical Necessity of Progress towards Communism.
[...] Respect for others’ beliefs as the highest value can mean only one of two things: either we treat the other in a patronising way and avoid hurting him in order not to ruin his illusions, or we adopt the relativist stance of multiple ‘regimes of truth’, disqualifying as violent imposition any clear insistence on truth. What, however, about submitting Islam – together with all other religions – to a respectful, but for that reason no less ruthless, critical analysis? This, and only this, is the way to show true respect for Muslims: to treat them as serious adults responsible for their beliefs.
The basic opposition on which the entire liberal vision relies is that between those who are ruled by culture, totally determined by the lifeworld into which they are born, and those who merely ‘enjoy’ their culture, who are elevated above it, free to choose it. This brings us to the next paradox: the ultimate source of barbarism is culture itself, one’s direct identification with a particular culture which renders one intolerant towards other cultures. The basic opposition here is that between the collective and the individual: culture is by definition collective and particular, parochial, exclusive of other cultures, while – next paradox – it is the individual who is universal, the site of universality, insofar as she extricates herself from and elevates herself above her particular culture. Since, however, every individual has to be somehow particularised, has to dwell in a particular lifeworld, the only way to resolve this deadlock is to split the individual into universal and particular, public and private [...]
[...] Liberalism itself thus privileges a certain culture: the modern Western one. As to freedom of choice, liberalism is also marked by a strong bias. It is intolerant when individuals of other cultures are not given freedom of choice – as is evident in issues such as clitoridectomy, child brideship, infanticide, polygamy and incest. However, it ignores the tremendous pressure which, for example, compels women in our liberal society to undergo such procedures as plastic surgery, cosmetic implants and Botox injections in order to remain competitive in the sex market.
The liberal idea of a ‘free choice’ thus always gets caught in a deadlock. If the subject wants it, he or she can opt for the parochial tradition into which they were born, but they have first to be presented with alternatives and then make a free choice among them. Amish adolescents, on the other hand, are formally given a free choice, but the conditions they find themselves in while they are making the choice make the choice unfree. In order for them to have a genuine free choice, they would have to be properly informed on all the options and educated in them. But the only way to do this would be to extract them from their embeddedness in the Amish community and Americanise them.
[...] One should always bear in mind the hugely liberating aspect of this violence which makes us experience our own cultural background as contingent. Let us not forget that liberalism emerged in Europe after the catastrophe of the Thirty Years War between Catholics and Protestants. It was an answer to the pressing question of how people who differ in their fundamental religious allegiances could coexist. It demanded from citizens more than a condescending tolerance of diverging religions, more than tolerance as a temporary compromise. It demanded that we respect other religions not in spite of our innermost religious convictions but on account of them – respect for others is a proof of true belief.
‘Postcolonial’ critics like to emphasise the insensitivity of liberalism to its own limitation: in defending human rights, it tends to impose its own version of them onto others. However, the self-reflexive sensitivity to one’s own limitation can only emerge against the background of the notions of autonomy and rationality promoted by liberalism. One can, of course, argue that, in a way, the Western situation is even worse because in it oppression itself is obliterated and masked as free choice. (What are you complaining for? YOU chose to do this.) Our freedom of choice effectively often functions as a mere formal gesture of consent to our own oppression and exploitation. However, Hegel’s lesson that form matters is important here: form has an autonomy and efficiency of its own. So when we compare a Third World woman, forced to undergo clitoridectomy or promised in marriage as a small child, with the First World woman ‘free to choose’ painful cosmetic surgery, the form of freedom matters – it opens up a space for critical reflection.