http://crisiscritique.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Zizek_Politics.pdf
A true Master is not an agent
of discipline and prohibition, his message is not “You cannot!”, also not “You
have to…!”, but a releasing »You can!« - what?
Do the impossible, i.e., what
appears impossible within the coordinates of the existing constellation – and
today, this means something very precise: you can think beyond capitalism and
liberal democracy as the ultimate framework of our lives.
A Master is a vanishing
mediator who gives you back to yourself, who delivers you to the abyss of your
freedom: when we listen to a true leader, we discover what we want (or, rather,
what we always-already wanted without knowing it).
A Master is needed because we
cannot accede to our freedom directly – for gain this access we have to be
pushed from outside since our “natural state” is one of inert hedonism, of what
Badiou called “human animal.”
The underlying paradox is here
that the more we live as “free individuals with no Master,” the more we are
effectively non-free, caught within the existing frame of possibilities – we
have to be pushed/ disturbed into freedom by a Master.
Slavoj Žižek, “The Impasses of
Today’s Radical Politics,” page 42
Page 42
No comments:
Post a Comment