Slavoj Zizek and Benjamin Ramm 1
July 2016
https://www.opendemocracy.net/can-europe-make-it/slavoj-zizek-benjamin-ramm/slavoj-i-ek-on-brexit-crisis-of-left-and-future-of-eur
Slavoj Žižek is animated about
Brexit. “You know, popular opinion is not always right”, he
insists. “Sometimes I think one has to violate the will of the majority”.
This sentiment may surprise some of his admirers, but our discussion highlights
his long-standing ambivalence about democracy. The despair and confusion
of the past week has only reinforced his outlook. Reflecting on the Leave
voters who were alarmed to learn that their side had actually won, Žižek quips:
“The worst surprise is to get what you want!”
I ask whether the referendum
posed a false choice, offering a nation state solution to transnational
problems. “Precisely. The EU is in a state of inertia, and I share this
rage of the people. But what will be the result? Britain will lose months,
years in protracted negotiations with a shitty compromise at the end – during
which time the space for real change will have diminished. The British
attitude, of leaving the EU to its fate, is the logic of the wrong era in an
age of global problems: ecology, biotechnology, intellectual property. Britain
all alone will be even more vulnerable, exposed to the pressure of
international capital without any of the protections. I don’t see any strength
gained in standing alone”.
The final weeks of the
referendum campaign were characterized by strong criticism of direct democracy,
elements of which have been revived by progressives in recent years (citizens
juries, participatory budgeting, etc). What of the Marxist tradition of
celebrating this model, as espoused by CLR
James? “Direct democracy is the last Leftist myth”, Žižek tells me. “When
there is a genuine democratic moment – when you really have to decide – it’s
because there is a crisis”. He says referendums are impractical for resolving
transnational challenges, and would prefer “the appearance of a free decision,
discretely guided” by a discerning elite.
Perhaps we shouldn’t be too
surprised by these remarks: Žižek has frequently defended the Leninist idea of
a ‘vanguard’, and has witnessed firsthand the dangers of populism in eastern
Europe. (Walter Benjamin, surveying the surge of nationalism in the early
1930s, came to a similar conclusion). Žižek’s prescription is an intriguing
riff on Marx: “good alienation”, in which “power is anonymous and functioning
in an efficient way”. He imagines an “invisible state, whose mechanisms work in
the background” – a sort of “bureaucratic socialism, but not in the Stalinist
sense”. (The problem, he tells me, was that “Stalin’s bureaucracy didn’t function,
lurching from one emergency state to another” – a debatable assertion).
This appetite for technocracy
ought to make Žižek an enthusiastic supporter of the EU, an
institution that reflects Saint-Simon’s aim of replacing “the government of
persons by the administration of things”. Žižek says that “the future
of Europe is an open question: the disorientation of the crisis offers an
opportunity for revival”. He has endorsed Yanis Varoufakis’ DiEM25, aimed at forging an alternative
‘social Europe’, and says “the most precious part of Europe – our contribution
to civilization – is the social protections”. Like Varoufakis, he argues
that continental solidarity is the only way to deal with cross-border
challenges, from the environment to the refugee crisis. Žižek admires how
the EU has “imposed standards on anti-racism and women’s rights” across the
board, but laments its handling of the Eurozone crisis. He suggests the problem
with the EU is not its lack of accountability, but its lack of ability. If only
the elite were competent, they could administer to our needs!
Žižek’s growing scepticism of
democracy reflects his frustration with radical politics. “It’s a very strange
situation: this crisis should be ideal for the Left, but it doesn’t have any
answers”. He is tired of the mass rallies without a plan, whether in Syntagma
or Tahrir. “I am fed up of these demonstrations of one million people – they
are bullshit. A short period of enthusiasm, where we are all together crying
and bonding – and then? Ordinary people see no change”. Žižek feels
that the Left’s tepid varieties of social democracy are impotent in the current
climate, having failed to address the challenges of globalization. This is no
more evident than in Greece: “Syriza exemplified this true tragedy: one day
they win, and the next day they surrender. It is not a ‘betrayal’, but a
genuine tragedy – a radical dead end”.
It’s tempting to speculate
that Žižek has not only broken with democracy, but with the Left itself. After
all, the state provision of goods and services is not exclusively a Leftist
project – many patrician pre-democratic cultures performed it, often with a
degree of consent. “Less and less I trust the Left”, he says; “what was said of
Yasser Arafat is true of the Left – it never misses an opportunity to miss an
opportunity”.
There are various
contradictions here: Žižek acknowledges that traditional statist models are
redundant, but waxes lyrical about “bureaucratic socialism”; he desires “an
authentic revolution”, but isn’t so keen on taking to the streets; he laments
“Asian values capitalism” (more truthfully termed ‘authoritarian capitalism’),
but downplays democratic mandates; he decries “totally impenetrable
institutions” but says “I want efficiency, not transparency”; and so on and so
on. But even with these paradoxes (as he would term them), he offers
illumination about the challenges ahead.
What struck me most about our
conversation is not Žižek’s disillusionment with the Left or his aversion to
democracy. Instead, it is what he calls his “secret dream”, of a settlement that
transcends political activity. I sense his “emancipatory vision” is no longer
about liberation from oppression, but about liberation from politics itself. If
Europe does have a “unique contribution”, as Žižek terms it, maybe it is this “sense
of an ending” described by Hegel (his favourite philosopher); of the
longed-for deliverance from the weight of history, to a realm beyond
the burden of ideology.
Slavoj Žižek delivers a
keynote address on Power, Betrayal and Brexit at the Royal Festival Hall on
Saturday 2 July as part of Southbank Centre's Power of Power festival. More information on the event is
available here
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