In a time of change

From Žižek's On Belief (London and New York: Routledge, 2001), pp. 32-33:

"Today, in a time of continuous rapid changes, from the 'digital revolution' to the retreat of old social forms, thought is more than ever exposed to the temptation of 'losing its nerve,' of precociously abandoning the old conceptual coordinates. The media constantly bombard us with the need to abandon the 'old paradigms': if we are to survive, we have to change our most fundamental notions of what constitutes personal identity, society, environment, etc. New Age wisdom claims that we are entering a new 'post-human' era; postmodern political thought tells us that we are entering post-industrial societies, in which the old categories of labor, collectivity, class, etc., are theoretical zombies, no longer applicable to the dynamics of modernization. The Third Way ideology and political practice is effectively THE model of this defeat, of this inability to recognize how the New is here to enable the Old to survive. Against this temptation, one should rather follow the unsurpassed model of Pascal and ask the difficult question: how are we to remain faithful to the Old in the new conditions? ONLY in this way can we generate something effectively New."