Difference between revisions of "The Desert of the Real"
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=Is this the end of fantasy?= | =Is this the end of fantasy?= | ||
<p>Christopher Isherwood, an Englishman who became an American, once | <p>Christopher Isherwood, an Englishman who became an American, once | ||
− | + | gave | |
− | expression to the unreality of American daily life, exemplified in | + | expression to the unreality of American daily [[life]], exemplified in |
− | + | the motel room: “American motels are unreal! … They are deliberately | |
− | + | designed to be unreal. … The Europeans [[hate]] us because we’ve retired | |
− | + | to live [[inside]] our advertisements, like hermits going into caves to | |
− | + | contemplate.” | |
− | + | </p><p></p> | |
− | + | <p> The Wachowski brothers’ 1999 hit [[film]] The [[Matrix]] brought this | |
− | + | [[logic]] to its extreme climax: The [[material]] [[reality]] we all [[experience]] | |
− | + | and see around us is a [[virtual]] one, generated and coordinated by | |
− | + | a gigantic mega-computer to which we are all attached. When the | |
− | + | hero, played by Keanu Reeves, awakens into the “[[real]] reality,” he | |
− | + | sees a desolate landscape littered with burned ruins—what remained | |
− | + | of Chicago after a [[global]] war. The [[resistance]] [[leader]] Morpheus utters | |
− | + | the ironic greeting: “Welcome to the desert of the real.”</p> | |
− | + | <p> Was it not something of a similar [[order]] that took [[place]] in New | |
− | + | York on [[September 11]]? As we were introduced to the “desert of the | |
− | + | real,” the landscape and the shots we saw of the collapsing towers | |
− | + | could only remind us of the most breathtaking scenes from innumerable | |
− | + | Hollywood disaster movies. The unthinkable had been the [[object]] of | |
− | + | [[fantasy]]. In a way, America got what it fantasized [[about]], and this | |
− | + | was the greatest surprise.</p> | |
+ | |||
+ | <p> It is precisely now, when we are dealing with the raw reality | ||
+ | of a catastrophe, that we should bear in [[mind]] the [[ideological]] and | ||
+ | [[fantasmatic]] coordinates that determine its [[perception]]. If there | ||
+ | is any [[symbolism]] in the collapse of the [[World]] Trade Center, it is | ||
+ | not that the Twin Towers stood for [[capitalism]] per se, but of virtual | ||
+ | capitalism, of financial speculations [[disconnected]] from the sphere | ||
+ | of material production. The towers [[symbolized]], ultimately, the stark | ||
+ | [[separation]] between the digitized First World and the [[Third]] World’s | ||
+ | “desert of the real.”</p> | ||
+ | <p> The American sphere of safety is now experienced by its citizens | ||
+ | as [[being]] under [[threat]] from an [[Outside]] of terrorist attackers who | ||
+ | are ruthlessly [[self]]-sacrificing and cowards, cunningly intelligent | ||
+ | and [[primitive]] barbarians. Whenever we [[encounter]] such a purely [[evil]] | ||
+ | Outside, we should gather the courage to [[remember]] the [[Hegelian]] lesson: | ||
+ | In this evil Outside, we should recognize the distilled version | ||
+ | of our own [[essence]]. For the [[past]] five centuries, the (relative) | ||
+ | prosperity and peace of the “civilized” West was bought by the export | ||
+ | of ruthless [[violence]] and [[destruction]] to the “savage” Outside. It’s | ||
+ | a long story, from the conquest of America to the slaughter in Congo.</p> | ||
+ | <p> Cruel and indifferent as it may sound, we should also, now more | ||
+ | than ever, bear in mind that the actual effect of these attacks | ||
+ | is much more [[symbolic]]: In Africa, every single day more [[people]] die | ||
+ | of AIDS than all the victims of the attacks on the World Trade Center | ||
+ | and the Pentagon, and their deaths can and could have been easily | ||
+ | minimized with relatively small financial means. The [[United States]] | ||
+ | got a taste of what goes on around the world on a daily basis, from | ||
+ | Sarajevo to Grozny, from Rwanda and Congo to Sierra Leone. If one | ||
+ | adds to the [[situation]] in New York rape gangs and a dozen or so snipers | ||
+ | blindly targeting people who walk along the streets, one gets an | ||
+ | [[idea]] of what Sarajevo was like a decade ago.</p> | ||
+ | <p> Now, we are [[forced]] to strike back, to deal with real enemies in | ||
+ | the real world … but whom to strike? Whatever the response, it | ||
+ | will never hit the [[right]] target, bringing us [[full]] [[satisfaction]]. | ||
+ | The [[spectacle]] of America attacking Afghanistan would be just that: | ||
+ | If the greatest [[power]] in the world were to destroy one of the poorest | ||
+ | countries, where peasants barely survive on barren hills, would | ||
+ | this not be the ultimate [[case]] of the impotent [[acting out]]? Afghanistan | ||
+ | is already reduced to rubble, destroyed by continuous war during | ||
+ | the past two decades. The impending attack brings to mind the anecdote | ||
+ | about the madman who searches for his lost key beneath a street | ||
+ | light; asked why he searches there, when he actually lost the key | ||
+ | in a dark corner, he answers: “But it is easier to [[search]] under | ||
+ | strong light!” Is it not the ultimate irony that Kabul already looks | ||
+ | like downtown Manhattan?</p> | ||
+ | <p> To succumb to the urge to retaliate now means precisely to avoid | ||
+ | confronting the [[true]] dimensions of what occurred on September 11—it | ||
+ | means an act whose true aim is to lull us into the secure conviction | ||
+ | that [[nothing]] has really changed. The true long-term [[threats]] are | ||
+ | further [[acts]] of mass [[terror]] in comparison to which the [[memory]] of | ||
+ | the World Trade Center collapse will pale—acts less spectacular, | ||
+ | but much more horrifying. What about [[biological]] warfare, the use | ||
+ | of lethal gas or the prospect of DNA terrorism—the [[development]] | ||
+ | of poisons that will [[affect]] only people who share a determinate | ||
+ | genome? Instead of a quick acting out, one should confront these | ||
+ | difficult questions: What will “war” mean in the 21st century? Who | ||
+ | will be “them”?</p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p> There is a [[partial]] [[truth]] in the [[notion]] of a “clash of civilizations” | ||
+ | attested here. [[Witness]] the surprise of the average American: “How | ||
+ | is it possible that these people display and [[practice]] such a disregard | ||
+ | for their own lives?” Is the obverse of this surprise not the rather | ||
+ | sad fact that we, in the First World countries, find it more and | ||
+ | more difficult even to imagine a [[public]] or [[universal]] [[cause]] for which | ||
+ | one would be ready to sacrifice one’s life?</p> | ||
+ | <p> But a brief look at the comparative [[history]] of [[Islam]] and [[Christianity]] | ||
+ | tells us that the “[[human]] rights record” (to use an anachronistic | ||
+ | term) of Islam is much better than that of Christianity: In past | ||
+ | centuries, Islam was significantly more tolerant toward [[other]] [[religions]] | ||
+ | than Christianity. It was through the Arabs that, in the Middle | ||
+ | Ages, Western Europeans regained access to the ancient Greek legacy. | ||
+ | We are not dealing with a feature inscribed into Islam as such, | ||
+ | but with the outcome of modern socio-[[political]] [[conditions]]. This | ||
+ | notion of the “clash of civilizations” has to be thoroughly rejected: | ||
+ | What we are witnessing today are rather clashes within each [[civilization]].</p> | ||
+ | <p> Indeed, every feature attributed to the Outside is already [[present]] | ||
+ | in the very heart of the United States. Murderous fanaticism? What | ||
+ | about the rightist, populist “fundamentalists” who also practice | ||
+ | a terror of their own, legitimized by (their [[understanding]] of) Christianity? | ||
+ | Since America is in a way “harboring” [[them]], should the U.S. [[Army]] | ||
+ | have punished its own country after the Oklahoma City bombing? And | ||
+ | what about the way Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson reacted to the | ||
+ | attacks on September 11, perceiving them as a [[sign]] that God had | ||
+ | lifted his protection because of the sinful lives of Americans, | ||
+ | putting the blame on hedonist [[materialism]], [[liberalism]] and rampant | ||
+ | [[sexuality]], and claiming that America got what it deserved?</p> | ||
+ | <p> It is still too early to tell how the events of September 11 will | ||
+ | be symbolized or what acts they will be evoked to justify. Even | ||
+ | now, in these moments of utmost tension, this link is not automatic | ||
+ | but [[contingent]]. We already see the first bad omens, like the sudden | ||
+ | resurrection, in the public [[discourse]], of the old [[Cold War]] term | ||
+ | “free world”: The [[struggle]] is now the one between the “free world” | ||
+ | and the forces of darkness and terror. The question to be asked | ||
+ | here is: Who then belongs to the unfree world? Are, say, China or | ||
+ | Egypt part of this free world?</p> | ||
+ | <p> The day after the attacks, I got a [[message]] from a journal that | ||
+ | was just about to publish a longer [[text]] of mine on [[Lenin]], telling | ||
+ | me that they decided to postpone its publication—they considered | ||
+ | it inopportune to publish a text on Lenin immediately after the | ||
+ | terrorist attacks. Does this point toward ominous ideological rearticulations | ||
+ | to come, with a new Berufsverbot ([[prohibition]] to employ radicals) | ||
+ | much stronger and more widespread than the one in the [[Germany]] of | ||
+ | the ’70s? </p> | ||
+ | |||
+ | <p> These days, one often hears the phrase that the struggle is now | ||
+ | the one for democracy—true, but not quite in the way this phrase | ||
+ | is usually meant. Already, some [[leftist]] friends of mine have written | ||
+ | me that, in these difficult moments, we had better keep our heads | ||
+ | down and not push forward with our agenda. Against this temptation | ||
+ | to duck out the crisis, one should insist that now the [[left]] should | ||
+ | provide a better [[analysis]]. To not do so is to concede in advance | ||
+ | the left’s political and [[ethical]] defeat in the face of acts of quite | ||
+ | genuine heroism on the part of ordinary people—like the passengers | ||
+ | who, in a [[model]] of [[rational]] ethical [[action]], apparently overtook | ||
+ | the hijackers and provoked the early crash of the fourth plane over | ||
+ | Pennsylvania.</p> | ||
+ | <p> So what about the phrase that reverberates everywhere, “Nothing | ||
+ | will be the same after September 11”? Significantly, this phrase | ||
+ | is never further elaborated—it’s just an [[empty gesture]] of saying | ||
+ | something “deep” without really [[knowing]] what we [[want]] to say. So | ||
+ | our reaction to this phrase should be: Really? Or is it rather that | ||
+ | the only [[thing]] effectively changed was that America was forced to | ||
+ | realize the kind of world it is part of?</p> | ||
+ | <p> Such changes in perception are never without consequences, since | ||
+ | the way we perceive our situation determines the way we act in it. | ||
+ | [[Recall]] the [[processes]] of collapse of a political regime—say, | ||
+ | the collapse of the [[Communist]] regimes in Eastern [[Europe]]. At a certain | ||
+ | [[moment]], people all of a sudden became aware that the [[game]] was over, | ||
+ | that the Communists had lost. The break was purely symbolic, nothing | ||
+ | changed “in reality”—and, nonetheless, from that moment on, | ||
+ | the final collapse of the [[regime]] was just a question of days.</p> | ||
+ | <p> What if something of the same order did occur on September 11? | ||
+ | We don’t yet [[know]] what consequences in [[economy]], [[ideology]], [[politics]] | ||
+ | and war this [[event]] will have, but one thing is sure: The United | ||
+ | States, which, until now, perceived itself as an island exempted | ||
+ | from this kind of violence, witnessing these kind of things only | ||
+ | from the safe distance of a TV [[screen]], is now directly involved. | ||
+ | So the question is: Will Americans decide to further fortify their | ||
+ | sphere, or risk stepping out of it? America has two choices. It | ||
+ | can persist in or even amplify its deeply immoral attitude of “Why | ||
+ | should this happen to us? Things like this don’t happen here,” leading | ||
+ | to even more [[aggression]] toward the Outside—just like a [[paranoiac]] | ||
+ | acting out. Or America can finally risk stepping through the fantasmatic | ||
+ | screen separating it from the Outside world, accepting its arrival | ||
+ | into the desert of the real—and thus make the long-overdue | ||
+ | move from “A thing like this should not happen here” to “A thing | ||
+ | like this should not happen anywhere!”</p> | ||
+ | <p> Therein resides the true lesson of the attacks: The only way to | ||
+ | ensure that it will not happen here again is to prevent it from | ||
+ | going on anywhere else. America should learn to humbly accept its | ||
+ | own vulnerability as part of this world, enacting the [[punishment]] | ||
+ | of those [[responsible]] as a sad [[duty]], not as an exhilarating retaliation. | ||
+ | Even though America’s peace was bought by the catastrophes going | ||
+ | on elsewhere, the predominant point of view remains that of an innocent | ||
+ | [[gaze]] confronting unspeakable evil that struck from the Outside. | ||
+ | One [[needs]] to gather the courage to recognize that the seed of evil | ||
+ | is within us too.</p> | ||
− | + | <p> In his campaign for the presidency, George W. [[Bush]] named [[Jesus]] | |
− | + | [[Christ]] as the most important person in his life. Now he has a unique | |
− | + | [[chance]] to prove that he meant it seriously. For him, as for all | |
− | + | Americans today, “[[Love]] thy neighbor” means “Love the Muslims.” Or | |
− | + | it means nothing at all. | |
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− | + | ==Source== | |
− | + | * [[The Desert of the Real]]. ''In These [[Times]]''. October 29, 2001. <http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/1588/> | |
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− | + | [[Category:Articles by Slavoj Žižek]] | |
− | + | [[Category:Works]] | |
− | + | [[Category:Articles]] | |
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Latest revision as of 00:36, 21 May 2019
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