Žižek is one of the most prolific theorists of our times. Not to mention his immense popularity. Because of the vast range of his interests, and because unlike other intellectual greats who we follow or reject in our studies, Žižek is a contemporary, it makes it easier for his subscribers/detractors to trace the evolution in his thought and also to get his responses to present-day situations without having to speculate. His approach too appears to be less elitist, more inclined towards making people think through deliberate provocation.
This video is a bit from a Žižek lecture. I've made a rough transcription of what he says because the audio isn't too good and some might find it difficult to understand what he says because of his accent. And what he says, I think, is worth thinking about.
Transcription:
I was asked, ‘How should we fight racism?’ I said with progressive racism. We should adopt racism. They looked at me like - ‘Are you crazy? - And I gave them my own example - no, sorry (laughs), my own ex-country. Don’t you agree that there is a way to practise - I wouldn’t say racist jokes because precisely they are no longer racist - take my own country: till the 80s in ex-Yugoslavia, we all the time exchanged dirty jokes about one and the other nation. And I loved them. But this didn’t function as racist jokes but as a kind of a shared obscenity which meant a way of solidarity. Like I remember I met Monte- my classical story, sorry to repeat it - for example, I meet a guy from Montenegro. And again, you know it from ten times, we immediately start to tell to each other dirty jokes about the other and about ourselves. Like, okay, sorry if you know it, it’s boring - but the standard Montenegro story, Montenegrans are supposed to be lazy and they are an earthquake, earthquake country. So how does a Montenegro guy masturbate? He digs a hole in the earth, puts the penis in and waits for the earthquake. (Audience laughs) Because he is too lazy even to - but what I want to say is that this we talked about all the time and it absolutely wasn’t racism, it was solidarity. The message was: we are not just this, you know, cold, politically correct - ooh, what nice food you have, what nice ethnic dances. I don’t care about your stupid, ethnic dances! I want dirty jokes, you know! I don’t like this Santa Cruz - I was there - politically correct jokes. They told me, ‘Oh we have better jokes. They are funny but nobody is hurt.’ I asked them, ‘How?’ They told me, ‘For example, what happens when a circle meets a triangle?’ I told them - uh (points middle finger) - I don’t care. (Audience laughs) I don’t care what happens when, you know. But what I want to convince you is that it can function, it is absolutely not racism, it is shared solidarity. This is where again, you see, this is what - what interests me - what interests me, this how, even the struggle against - can serve as means to - to, to reproduce. This is why my lifetime experience was meeting a Ms. Sula Montana, Native American - so called. She hated the name. And he (sic) was right, he told me, ‘I absolutely prefer to be called Indian.’ He said, ‘Native American for me is much more racist. Native American, ha ha, so you’re cultural Americans and we are native - part of nature’ he said, ‘You call me Indian, at least my name is a monument to White man’s stupidity. (Audience laughs) You know, you know Amerigo Vespucci thought that, you know. I mean here, I think things have to change in some way. There is something so debilitating, immobilising in all this. So again only - I know I didn’t answer your question precisely - but you see, along what lines I try to think.
A well annotated version of the essay and of Thoreau’s other writings. Plus, an essay (biographically) locating “Civil Disobedience” in the context of his life and another examining its theory, practice and (tremendous) influence- here.
The key idea is to not think of it as an isolated piece of political writing by a loner Christian transcendentalist, a number of organizations and individuals were actively seeking ways to protest at this time. Who were these people? Find out yourself.
ND suggests comparing Thoreau’s account of jail with Gandhi’s- there’s a Gandhi reader in the DL.
Hannah Arendt’s Reflections on Violence borrows its name from and is a critique of Georges Sorel’s essay by the same name- full text here. Another writer she critiques extensively in Frantz Fanon. Her essay was written in the sixties so maybe we’ll discuss it further when we speak extensively about that time. Here is an essay critiquing her separation of power and violence ( I haven’t read it). The DL has a copy of Hannah Arendt’s The Human Condition, have fun.
