“Better to do nothing than to engage in localized acts whose ultimate function is to make the system run more smoothly. The threat today is not passivity, but pseudo-activity, the urge to "be active", to "participate", to mask the Nothingness of what goes on. People intervene all the time, "doing something"; academics participate in meaningless "debates," etc.; but the truly difficult thing is to step back, to withdraw from it all. Those in power often prefer even "critical" participation or a critical dialogue to silence, since to engage us in such a "dialogue" ensures that our ominous passivity is broken. The "Bartlebian act" I propose is violent precisely insofar as it entails ceasing this obsessive activity-in it, violence and non-violence overlap (non-violence appears as the highest violence), likewise activity and inactivity (the most radical thing is to do nothing).”― Slavoj Žižek, "In Defense of Lost Causes"
Tuesday, January 24, 2017
Removing the Mask of the Cisgen Women's March Protestors!
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FYI: A LIVE New York performance of Beethoven's Sonata #7 for piano and violin, Opus 20, #2 with ME at the keyboard is posted now at WESTERN HERO.
I hope you will listen, and make some sort of comment since we've known each other so long.
SilverFiddle was very gracious to post this at Western Hero.
Not trying to "show off" just hope to show that I am not all words and no action. Even Gert might want to listen to some of it, if only just out of curiosity.
Sadly and predictably, Zizek is right here too. I'd put it in plain English though. This march was plain old partisanship/banal anti-Trumpism/feelz good stuff. Not the birth of a new movement at all. Where where these women when the DNC was sliding into neoliberalism/illiberalism under Obama/HRC?
Controlled opposition serves the 'bosses': no change but the 'demonstrators' get 'it out of their system'.
Punching a sandbag would be as effective, cost less and have a smaller carbon footprint! ;>)
In other talks Zizek frequently mentions how "good it feels" to be in Tahrir Square during the insurrection. But if no one has plans for "the day after", it was all wasted energy.
Hence Zizek's emphasis on the importance of "theory".. so as not to "squander" the people's energy on "useless" activism (ie - the opposition marches in Caracas). Best come up with a plan to usurp power, and then execute it.
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