The threat today is not passivity, but pseudo-activity
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"
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