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When you are bombarded by claims that in our post-[[ideological ]] cynical era nobody believes any more in the proclaimed ideals, when you [[encounter ]] a person who claims he is cured of any beliefs, accepting [[social ]] [[reality ]] the way it really is, you should always counter such claims with a simple, yet intricate question: What is your gadget, your favorite illusionary escape-hatch?

Is the [[Balkan ]] really an island of primitivism, exempted from this [[modernization]]? The [[case ]] of Muslims as an ethnic, not merely [[religious]], group in Bosnia is exemplary: during the entire [[history ]] of [[Yugoslavia]], Bosnia was the [[place ]] of potential tension and dispute, the locale in which the [[struggle ]] between Serbs and Croats for the dominant [[role ]] was fought. The problem was that the largest group in Bosnia were neither the Orthodox Serbs nor the [[Catholic ]] Croats, but Muslims whose ethnic origins were always disputed — are they Serbs or Croats. (This role of Bosnia even [[left ]] a trace in idiom: in all ex-Yugoslav nations, the expression "So Bosnia is quiet!" was used in [[order ]] to [[signal ]] that any [[threat ]] of a [[conflict ]] was successfully defused.) In order to forestall this focus of potential (and actual) conflicts, the ruling [[Communist ]] imposed in the 60s a miraculously simple invention: they proclaimed Muslims an autochthonous ETHNIC [[community]], not just a religious group, so that Muslims were able to avoid the pressure to [[identify ]] themselves either as Serbs or as Croats. What was so in the beginning a pragmatic [[political ]] artifice, gradually caught on, Muslims effectively started to perceive themselves as a [[nation]], systematically manufacturing their [[tradition]], etc. However, even today, there remains an element of a reflected [[choice ]] in their [[identity]]: during the post-Yugoslav war in Bosnia, one was ultimately [[forced ]] to CHOOSE his/her [[ethnic identity ]] — when a militia stopped a person, asking him/her threateningly "Are you a Serb or a Muslim?", the question did not refer to the inherited ethnic belonging, i.e. there was always in it an echo of "Which side did you choose?" (say, the movie director Emir Kusturica, coming from an ethnically mixed Muslim-Serb [[family]], has chosen the Serb identity).

The more general point to be made here is that the [[global ]] reflexivization/mediatization generates its own brutal immediacy whose [[figure ]] was best [[captured ]] by Etienne [[Balibar]]'s [[notion ]] of excessive, non-functional [[cruelty ]] as a feature of contemporary [[life]]: a cruelty whose [[figures ]] range from "fundamentalist" racist and/or religious slaughter to the "[[senseless]]" outbursts of [[violence ]] performed by adolescents and the homeless in our megalopolises, a violence one is tempted to call Id-[[Evil]], a violence grounded in no utilitarian or ideological reasons. All the talk [[about ]] [[foreigners ]] stealing [[work ]] from us or about the threat they [[represent ]] to our Western values should not deceive us: under closer examination, it soon becomes clear that this talk provides a rather superficial secondary [[rationalization]]. The answer we ultimately obtain from a skinhead is that it makes him feel [[good ]] to beat foreigners, that their [[presence ]] disturbs him… What we encounter here is indeed Id-Evil, i.e., the Evil [[structured ]] and motivated by the most elementary imbalance in the [[relationship ]] between the Ego and [[jouissance]], by the tension between [[pleasure ]] and the foreign [[body ]] of jouissance in the very heart of it. Id-Evil thus [[stages ]] the most elementary "short-circuit" in the relationship of the [[subject ]] to the primordially [[missing ]] [[object]]-[[cause ]] of his [[desire]]: what "bothers" us in the "[[other]]" (Jew, Japanese, African, Turk) is that he appears to entertain a privileged relationship to the object — the other either possesses the object-treasure, having snatched it away from us (which is why we don't have it), or he poses a threat to our possession of the object. What one should propose here is the ultimate identity of these "useless" and "excessive" outbursts of violent immediacy, which display [[nothing ]] but a pure and naked ("non-sublimated") [[hatred ]] of the [[Otherness]], with the global reflexivization of [[society]]; perhaps, the ultimate example of this coincidence is the fate of [[psychoanalytic ]] [[interpretation]]. Today, the [[formations ]] of the [[Unconscious ]] (from [[dreams ]] to [[hysterical ]] [[symptoms]]) have definitely lost their innocence and are thoroughly reflexivized: the "free [[associations]]" of a typical educated [[analysand ]] consist for the most part of attempts to provide a psychoanalytic explanation of their disturbances, so that one is quite justified in saying that we have not only Jungian, [[Kleinian]], Lacanian… [[interpretations ]] of the symptoms, but symptoms themselves which are Jungian, Kleinian, Lacanian…, i.e. whose reality involves implicit reference to some psychoanalytic [[theory]]. The unfortunate result of this global reflexivization of the interpretation (everything becomes interpretation, the Unconscious interprets itself) is that the [[analyst]]'s interpretation itself loses its [[performative ]] "[[symbolic ]] efficiency" and leaves the [[symptom ]] intact in the immediacy of its idiotic jouissance.

What happens in psychoanalytic [[treatment ]] is strictly homologous to the response of neo-[[Nazi ]] skinhead who, when really pressed for the reasons for his violence, suddenly starts to talk like social [[workers]], sociologists and social psychologists, quoting diminished social mobility, rising insecurity, the disintegration of paternal [[authority]], the [[lack ]] of [[maternal ]] [[love ]] in his early [[childhood ]] — the [[unity ]] of [[practice ]] and its inherent ideological legitimization disintegrates into raw violence and its impotent, inefficient interpretation. This [[impotence ]] of interpretation is also one of the necessary obverses of the universalized reflexivity hailed by the risk-society-theorists: it is as if our reflexive [[power ]] can flourish only insofar as it draws its strength and relies on some minimal "pre-reflexive" substantial support which eludes its grasp, so that its universalization comes at the price of its inefficiency, i.e., by the paradoxical reemergence of the brute [[Real ]] of "[[irrational]]" violence, impermeable and insensitive to reflexive interpretation. So the more today's [[social theory ]] proclaims the end of [[Nature ]] and/or Tradition and the rise of the "[[risk society]]," the more the implicit reference to "nature" pervades our daily [[discourse]]: even when we do not [[speak ]] of the "end of history," do we not put forward the same [[message ]] when we [[claim ]] that we are entering a "post-ideological" pragmatic era, which is [[another ]] way of claiming that we are entering a post-political order in which the only legitimate conflicts are ethnic/cultural conflicts? Typically, in today's critical and political discourse, the term "worker" disappeared from the [[vocabulary]], substituted and/or obliterated by "immigrants /immigrant workers: Algerians in [[France]], Turks in [[Germany]], Mexicans in the USA/" — in this way, the [[class ]] problematic of workers' exploitation is transformed into the multiculturalist problematic of the "[[intolerance ]] of the Otherness," etc., and the excessive investment of the multiculturalist [[liberals ]] in protecting immigrants's ethnic rights clearly draws its [[energy ]] from the "[[repressed]]" class [[dimension]]. Although Francis [[Fukuyama]]'s [[thesis ]] on the "end of history" quickly fell into disrepute, we still silently presume that the [[liberal]]-democratic [[capitalist ]] [[global order ]] is somehow the finally-found "[[natural]]" social [[regime]], we still implicitly conceive conflicts in the [[Third ]] [[World ]] countries as a subspecies of natural catastrophies, as outbursts of quasi-natural violent passions, or as conflicts based on the fanatic [[identification ]] to one's ethnic roots (and what is "the ethnic" here if not again a codeword for nature?). And, again, the key point is that this all-pervasive renaturalization is strictly correlative to the global reflexivization of our daily lives.

Does, then, this mean that, today, "nobody believes"? One of the [[postmodern ]] ironies is the strange [[exchange ]] between [[Europe ]] and Asia: at the very [[moment ]] when, at the level of the "[[economic ]] infrastructure," the European [[technology ]] and [[capitalism ]] are triumphing worldwide, at the level of "ideological superstructure," the Judeo-[[Christian ]] legacy is threatened in the European [[space ]] itself by the onslaught of the New Age "Asiatic" [[thought]], which, in its different guises, from the "Western [[Buddhism]]" (today's counterpoint to Western [[Marxism]], as opposed to the "Asiatic" Marxism-[[Leninism]]) to different "Taos," is establishing itself as the hegemonic [[ideology ]] of the global capitalism. Although "Western Buddhism" presents itself as the remedy against the stressful tension of the capitalist dynamics, allowing us to uncouple and retain the inner peace and [[Gelassenheit]], it actually functions as its perfect ideological [[supplement]]. One should mention here the well-known topic of the "[[future ]] schock," i.e. of how, today, [[people ]] are no longer psychologically able to cope with the dazzling rhythm of the technological [[development ]] and the social changes that accompany it — things simply move too fast, before one can accustom oneself to an invention, this invention is already supplanted by a new one, so that one more and more [[lacks ]] the most elementary "cognitive [[mapping]]." The recourse to Taoism or Buddhism offers a way out of this predicament which definitely work better than the desperate escape into old traditions: instead of trying to cope with the accelerating rhythm of the technological [[progress ]] and social changes, one should rather [[renounce ]] the very endeavor to retain [[control ]] over what goes on, rejecting it as the expression of the modern [[logic ]] of domination — one should, instead, "let oneself go," drift along, while retaining an inner distance and indifference towards the mad dance of the accelerated [[process]], a distance based on the insight that all this social and technological upheaval is ultimately just a non-substantial proliferation of semblances which do not really concern the innermost kernel of our being… One is almost tempted to resuscitate here the old infamous [[Marxist ]] cliche of [[religion ]] as the "opium of the people," as the [[imaginary ]] supplement of the terrestrial misery: the "Western Buddhist" meditative stance is arguably the most efficient way, for us, to fully participate in the capitalist dynamics, while retaining the [[appearance ]] of [[mental ]] sanity. If [[Max Weber ]] were to live today, he would definitely wrote a second, supplementary, volume to his Protestant [[Ethic]], entitled The Taoist Ethic and the Spirit of the Global Capitalism.

And, instead of playing the old [[game ]] of the [[aggressive ]] Islamic [[monotheism ]] against the "gentle" Buddhism, one should rather use the bombing of the Bamiyan status to reflect on a more fundamental deadlock. It is not only that Western Buddhism, this pop-[[cultural ]] phenomenon preaching inner distance and indifference towards the frantic pace of the [[market ]] competition, is arguably the most efficient way, for us, to fully participate in the capitalist dynamics, while retaining the appearance of mental sanity — in short, the paradigmatic ideology of [[late capitalism]]. One should add that it is no longer possible to oppose this Western Buddhism to its "authentic" Oriental version; the case of Japan delivers here the conclusive evidence. Not only do we have today, among the Japanese top managers, the wide-spread "corporate Zen" phenomenon; in the [[whole ]] of the last 150 years, Japan's rapid industrialization and militarization, with its [[ethics ]] of [[discipline ]] and sacrifice, was sustained by the large majority of Zen thinkers — who, today, [[knows ]] that D.T.Suzuki himself, the high guru of Zen in the America of the 60s, supported in his youth, in Japan of the 30s, the spirit of utter discipline and militaristic expansion. There is no [[contradiction ]] here, no manipulative [[perversion ]] of the authentic compassionate insight: the attitude of [[total ]] immersion into the [[self]]-less "now" of the instant [[Enlightenment]], in which all reflexive distance is lost and "I am what I do," as C.S.Lewis put it, in short: in which absolute discipline coincides with total [[spontaneity]], perfectly legitimizes one subordination to the militaristic social [[machine]]. Or, to put it in somewhat simplified [[terms ]] (which, however, just [[repeat ]] the central [[ethical ]] lesson of Bhagavadgita): if the [[external ]] reality is ultimately just an ephemeral appearance, even the most horrifying crimes eventually DO NOT MATTER.

"Western Buddhism" thus perfectly fits the [[fetishist ]] mode of ideology in our allegedly "post-ideological" era, as opposed to its traditional symptomal mode, in which the ideological lie which [[structures ]] our [[perception ]] of reality is threatened by symptoms qua "returns of the repressed," cracks in the fabric of the ideological lie. [[Fetish ]] is effectively a kind of envers of the symptom. That is to say, symptom is the exception which disturbs the surface of the [[false ]] appearance, the point at which the repressed [[truth ]] erupts, while fetish is the embodiment of the Lie which enables us to sustain the unbearable truth. Let us take the case of the [[death ]] of a [[beloved ]] person: when I "[[repress]]" this death, I try not to [[think ]] about it, but the repressed [[trauma ]] persists and returns in the symptoms. Say, after my beloved wife dies of the [[breast ]] cancer, I try to repress this fact by throwing myself into hard work or vivacious social life, but then there is always something which reminds me of her, I cannot escape her [[ghost ]] haunting me. In the case of a fetish, on the contrary, I "rationally" fully accept this death, I am able to talk about her most painful moments in a cold and clear way, because I cling to the fetish, to some feature that embodies for me the [[disavowal ]] of this death. In this [[sense]], a fetish can play a very constructive role of allowing us to cope with the harsh reality: fetishists are not dreamers lost in their private worlds, they are thoroughly "realists," able to accept the way things effectively are — since they have their fetish to which they can cling in order to cancel the [[full ]] impact of reality.

So, when we are bombarded by claims that in our post-ideological cynical era nobody believes in the proclaimed ideals, when we encounter a person who claims he is cured of any beliefs, accepting [[social reality ]] the way it really is, one should always counter such claims with the question: OK, but where is the fetish which enables you to (pretend to) accept reality "the way it is"? "Western Buddhism" is such a fetish: it enables you to fully participate in the frantic pace of the capitalist game, while sustaining the perception that you are not really in it, that you are well aware how worthless this [[spectacle ]] is — what really matters to you is the peace of the inner Self to which you [[know ]] you can always withdraw.

* [[Self-Deceptions|Self-Deceptions. On Being Tolerant and Smug]]. ''Die Gazette''. [[Israel]]. August 27, 2001. <http://www.lacan.com/zizek-self.htm > From: Die Gazette, Israel, 27 August 2001.Available: http://www.gazette.de/Archiv/Gazette-August2001/Zizek2.html