Slavoj Žižek: Monitor and Punish? Yes, Please!

Many liberal and Leftist commentators have noted how the coronavirus epidemic serves to justify and legitimize measures of control and regulation of the people that had been till now unthinkable in a Western democratic society. Is the total lockdown of Italy not a totalitarian’s wet dream come true? No wonder that (at least the way it looks now) China, which had already widely practiced modes of digitalized social control, proved to be best equipped for coping with catastrophic epidemics. Does this mean that, at least in some aspects, China is our future? Are we approaching a global state of exception? Have Giorgio Agamben’s analyses gained new actuality?


It is not surprising that Agamben himself drew this conclusion: he reacted to the coronavirus epidemic in a radically different way from the majority of commentators. He deplored the “frantic, irrational, and absolutely unwarranted emergency measures adopted for a supposed epidemic of coronavirus” which is just another version of flu, and asked: “Why do the media and the authorities do their utmost to create a climate of panic, thus provoking a true state of exception, with severe limitations on movement and the suspension of daily life and work activities for entire regions?”

Agamben sees the main reason for this “disproportionate response” in “the growing tendency to use the state of exception as a normal governing paradigm.” The imposed measures allow the government to seriously limit our freedoms by executive decree: “It is blatantly evident that these restrictions are disproportionate to the threat from what is, according to the NRC, a normal flu, not much different from those that affect us every year. /…/ We might say that once terrorism was exhausted as a justification for exceptional measures, the invention of an epidemic could offer the ideal pretext for broadening such measures beyond any limitation.” The second reason is “the state of fear, which in recent years has diffused into individual consciousnesses and which translates into a real need for states of collective panic,for which the epidemic once again offers the ideal pretext.”

Agamben is describing an important aspect of the functioning of state control in ongoing epidemics. But there are questions that remain open: why would state power be interested in promoting such a panic, which is accompanied by distrust in state power (“they are helpless, they are not doing enough…”) and which disturbs the smooth reproduction of capital? Is it really in the interest of capital and state power to trigger a global economic crisis in order to reinvigorate their reign? Are the clear signs that not just ordinary people, but also state power itself is in panic, fully aware of not being able to control the situation – are these signs really just a stratagem?

Agamben’s reaction is the extreme form of a widespread Leftist stance of reading the “exaggerated panic” caused by the spread of the virus as a mixture of power exercise of social control and elements of outright racism (“blame nature or China”). However, such a social interpretation doesn’t make the reality of the threat disappear. Does this reality compel us to effectively curtail our freedoms? Quarantines and similar measures, of course, limit our freedom, and new Assanges are needed here to bring out their possible misuses. But the threat of viral infection also gave a tremendous boost to new forms of local and global solidarity, plus it made clear the need for control over power itself. People are right to hold state power responsible: you have the power, now show what you can do! The challenge that Europe faces is to prove that what China did can be done in a more transparent and democratic way:

“China introduced measures that Western Europe and the USA are unlikely to tolerate, perhaps to their own detriment. Put bluntly, it is a mistake to reflexively interpret all forms of sensing and modelling as ‘surveillance’ and active governance as ‘social control’. We need a different and more nuanced vocabulary of intervention.”[1]

Everything hinges on this “more nuanced vocabulary”: the measures necessitated by an epidemic should not be automatically reduced to the usual paradigm of surveillance and control propagated by thinkers like Foucault. What I fear today more than the measures applied by China (and Italy and…) is that they apply these measures in a way that will not work to contain the epidemic, while authorities will manipulate and conceal the true data.

Both alt-right and fake Left refuse to accept the full reality of the epidemic, each watering it down in an exercise of social-constructivist reduction, i.e., denouncing it on behalf of its social meaning. Trump and his partisans repeatedly insist that the epidemic is a plot by Democrats and China to make him lose the upcoming elections, while some on the Left denounce the measures proposed by the state and health apparatuses as tainted by xenophobia and, therefore, insist on shaking hands, etc. Such a stance misses the paradox: not to shake hands and to go into isolation when needed IS today’s form of solidarity.

Who, today, will be able to afford shaking hands and embracing? The privileged. Boccaccio’s Decameron is composed of stories told by a group of seven young women and three young men sheltering in a secluded villa just outside Florence to escape the plague which afflicted the city. The financial elite will withdraw into secluded zones and amuse themselves there telling stories in the Decameron style. (The ultra-rich are already flocking with private planes to exclusive small islands in the Caribbean.) We, ordinary people, who will have to live with viruses, are bombarded by the endlessly repeated formula “No panic!”… and then we get all the data that cannot but trigger a panic. The situation resembles the one I remember from my youth in a Communist country: when government officials assured the public that there was no reason to panic, we all took these assurances as clear signs that they were themselves in a panic.

But panic is not a proper way to confront a real threat. When we react in a panic, we do not take the threat too seriously; we, on the contrary, trivialize it. Just think of how ridiculous the excessive buying of toilet paper rolls is: as if having enough toilet paper would matter in the midst of a deadly epidemic… So, what would be an appropriate reaction to the coronavirus epidemic? What should we learn and what should we do to confront it seriously?

When I suggested that the coronavirus epidemic may give a new boost of life to Communism, my claim was, as expected, ridiculed. Although it looks that a strong approach to the crisis by the Chinese state worked – at least it worked much better than what is going on now in Italy -, the old authoritarian logic of Communists in power also clearly demonstrated its limitations. One of them was that the fear of bringing bad news to those in power (and to the public) outweighs actual results. This was the reason why those who first reported on a new virus were arrested, and there are reports that a similar thing is going on now:

“The pressure to get China back to work after the coronavirus shutdown is resurrecting an old temptation: doctoring data so it shows senior officials what they want to see. This phenomenon is playing out in Zhejiang province, an industrial hub on the east coast, in the form of electricity usage. At least three cities there have given local factories targets to hit for power consumption because they’re using the data to show a resurgence in production, according to people familiar with the matter. That’s prompted some businesses to run machinery even as their plants remain empty, the people said.”

We can also guess what will follow when those in power note this cheating: local managers will be accused of sabotage and severely punished, thus reproducing the vicious cycle of distrust… A Chinese Julian Assange will be needed here to expose to the public this concealed side of how China is coping with the epidemic. So, if this is not the Communism I have in mind, what do I mean by Communism? To get it, it suffices to read the public declarations of WHO. Here is a recent one:

“WHO chief Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Thursday that although public health authorities across the globe have the ability to successfully combat the spread of the virus, the organization is concerned that in some countries the level of political commitment does not match the threat level. ‘This is not a drill. This is not the time to give up. This is not a time for excuses. This is a time for pulling out all the stops. Countries have been planning for scenarios like this for decades. Now is the time to act on those plans,’ Tedros said. ‘This epidemic can be pushed back, but only with a collective, coordinated and comprehensive approach that engages the entire machinery of government.’”

One might add that such a comprehensive approach should reach well beyond the machinery of single governments: it should encompass the local mobilization of people outside state control as well as strong and efficient international coordination and collaboration. If thousands are hospitalized for respiratory problems, a vastly increased number of respiratory machines will be needed, and to get them, the state should directly intervene in the same way as it intervenes in conditions of war when thousands of guns are needed. And it should rely on the cooperation with other states. As in a military campaign, information should be shared and plans fully coordinated – THIS is all I mean by “Communism” needed today, or, as Will Hutton put it: “Now, one form of unregulated, free-market globalization with its propensity for crises and pandemics is certainly dying. But another form that recognizes interdependence and the primacy of evidence-based collective action is being born.” What now still predominates is the stance of “every country for itself”: “there are national bans on exports of key products such as medical supplies, with countries falling back on their own analysis of the crisis amid localised shortages and haphazard, primitive approaches to containment.”

The coronavirus epidemic does not signal just the limit of market globalization, it also signals the even more fatal limit of nationalist populism, which insists on full state sovereignty. It’s over with “America (or whoever) first!” since America can be saved only through global coordination and collaboration. I am not a utopian here; I don’t appeal to an idealized solidarity between people. On the contrary, the present crisis demonstrates clearly how global solidarity and cooperation is in the interest of the survival of all and each of us, how it is the only rationally egotistic thing to do. And it’s not just coronavirus: China itself suffered a gigantic swine flu months ago, and it is now threatened by the prospect of a locust invasion. Plus, as Owen Jones noted, the climate crisis kills many more people around the world than coronavirus, but there is no panic about this…

From a cynical vitalist standpoint, one would be tempted to see the coronavirus as a beneficial infection, which allows humanity to get rid of the old, weak and ill, like pulling out a half-rotten weed, and thus contributes to global health. The broad Communist approach I am advocating is the only way for us to really leave behind such a primitive vitalist standpoint. Signs of curtailing unconditional solidarity are already discernible in ongoing debates, as in the following note about the role of the “three wise men” if the epidemic takes a more catastrophic turn in the UK: “NHS patients could be denied lifesaving care during a severe coronavirus outbreak in Britain if intensive care units are struggling to cope, senior doctors have warned. Under a so-called ‘three wise men’ protocol, three senior consultants in each hospital would be forced to make decisions on rationing care such as ventilators and beds, in the event hospitals were overwhelmed with patients.” What criteria will the “three wise men” rely on? Sacrifice the weakest and eldest? And will this situation not open up the space for immense corruption? Do such procedures not indicate that we are getting ready to enact the most brutal logic of the survival of the fittest? So, again, the ultimate choice is either this or some kind of reinvented Communism.

But things go much deeper than that. What I find especially annoying is how, when our media announce some closure or cancellation, they as a rule add a fixed temporal limitation: the “schools will be closed till April 4” formula. The big expectation is that, after the peak which should arrive fast, things would return to normal. In this sense, I was already informed that a university symposium is just postponed to September… The catch is that, even when life eventually returns to normal, it will not be the same normal we were used to before the outbreak: things we were used to as part of our daily life will no longer be taken for granted; we’ll have to learn to live a much more fragile life with constant threats lurking just behind the corner.

For this reason, we can expect that viral epidemics will affect our most elementary interactions with other people and objects around, inclusive of our own bodies: avoid touching things which may be (invisibly) “dirty,“ do not touch hooks, do not seat on public toilets or on benches in public places, avoid embracing others and shaking their hands… And even be careful about how you control your own body and your spontaneous gestures: do not touch your nose or rub your eyes – in short, do not play with yourself. So, it’s not only the state and other agencies that will control us; we should learn to control and discipline ourselves! Maybe, only virtual reality will be considered safe, and moving freely in an open space will be reserved for the islands owned by the ultra-rich.

But even here, at the level of virtual reality and the internet, we should remind ourselves that, in the last decades, the terms “virus” and “viral” were mostly used to designate digital viruses which were infecting our web-space and of which we were not aware, at least not until their destructive power (say, of destroying our data or our hard-drive) was unleashed. What we see now is a massive return to the original literal meaning of the term: viral infections work hand in hand in both dimensions, real and virtual.

So, we’ll have to change our entire stance toward life, toward our existence as living beings among other forms of life. In other words, if we understand “philosophy” as the name for our basic orientation in life, we’ll have to experience a true philosophical revolution. Maybe we can learn something about our reactions to the coronavirus epidemic from Elisabeth Kübler-Ross who, in her On Death and Dying, proposed the famous scheme of the five stages of how we react upon learning that we have a terminal illness: denial (one simply refuses to accept the fact: “This can’t be happening, not to me.”); anger (which explodes when we can no longer deny the fact: “How can this happen to me?”); bargaining (the hope we can somehow postpone or diminish the fact: “Just let me live to see my children graduate.”); depression (libidinal disinvestment: “I’m going to die, so why bother with anything?”); acceptance (“I can’t fight it, I may as well prepare for it.”). Later, Kübler-Ross applied these stages to any form of catastrophic personal loss (joblessness, death of a loved one, divorce, drug addiction), and also emphasized that they do not necessarily come in the same order, nor are all five stages experienced by all patients.

One can discern the same five stages whenever a society is confronted with some traumatic break. Let’s take the threat of ecological catastrophe: first, we tend to deny it (it’s just paranoia, what happens are the usual oscillations in weather patterns); then comes anger (at big corporations which pollute our environment, at the government which ignores the dangers) followed by bargaining (if we recycle our waste, we can buy some time; plus, there are good sides to it also: we can grow vegetables of Greenland, ships will be able to transport goods from China to the US much faster on the northern route, new fertile land is becoming available in northern Siberia due to the melting of permafrost…), depression (it’s too late, we’re doomed…), and, finally, acceptance: we are dealing with a serious threat and we’ll have to change our entire way of life!

The same holds for the growing threat of digital control over our lives: first, we tend to deny it (it’s an exaggeration, a Leftist paranoia, no agency can control our daily activity…), then we explode in anger (at big companies and secret state agencies who know us better than we know ourselves and use this knowledge to control and manipulate us), which is followed by bargaining (authorities have the right to search for terrorists, but not to infringe upon our privacy…), depression (it’s too late, our privacy is lost, the time of personal freedoms is over), and, finally, acceptance: digital control is a threat to our freedom; we should make the public aware of all its dimensions and engage in fighting it!

Even in the domain of politics, the same holds for those who are traumatized by Trump’s presidency: first, there was denial (don’t worry, Trump is just posturing, nothing will really change if he takes power), followed by anger (at the dark forces which enabled him to take power, at the populists who support him and pose a threat to our moral substance…), bargaining (all is not yet lost, maybe Trump can be contained, let’s just tolerate some of his excesses…), depression (we are on the path to Fascism, democracy is lost in the US), and acceptance: there is a new political regime in the US, the good old days of American democracy are over, let’s face the danger and calmly plan how we can overcome Trump’s populism…

In medieval times, the population of an affected town reacted to the signs of the plague in a similar way: first denial, then anger (at our sinful lives for which we are punished, or even at the cruel God who allowed it), then bargaining (it’s not so bad, let’s just avoid those who are ill…), then depression (our life is over…), then, interestingly, orgies (since our lives are over, let’s get out of it all the pleasures still possible – drinking, sex…), and, finally, acceptance: here we are, let’s just behave as much as possible as if normal life goes on…

And is this not also how we are dealing with the coronavirus epidemic that exploded at the end of 2019? First, there was a denial (nothing serious is going on, some irresponsible individuals are just spreading panic); then, anger (usually in a racist or anti-state form: the dirty Chinese are guilty, our state is not efficient…); next comes bargaining (OK, there are some victims, but it’s less serious than SARS, and we can limit the damage…); if this doesn’t work, depression arises (let’s not kid ourselves, we are all doomed). But what would acceptance look like here? It is a strange fact that the epidemic displays a feature common with the latest round of social protests (in France, in Hong Kong…): they don’t explode and then pass away; rather, they stay here and just persist, bringing permanent fear and fragility to our lives. But this acceptance can take two directions. It can mean just the re-normalization of illness: OK, people will be dying, but life will go on, maybe there will be even some good side effects… Or acceptance can (and should) propel us to mobilize ourselves without panic and illusions, to act in collective solidarity.

What we should accept, what we should reconcile ourselves with, is that there is a sub-layer of life, the undead, stupidly repetitive, pre-sexual life of viruses, which always was here and which will always be with us as a dark shadow, posing a threat to our very survival, exploding when we least expect it. And at an even more general level, viral epidemics remind us of the ultimate contingency and meaninglessness of our lives: no matter how magnificent spiritual edifices we, humanity, bring out, a stupid natural contingency like a virus or an asteroid can end it all… Not to mention the lesson of ecology which is that we, humanity, may also unknowingly contribute to this end.

To make this point clearer, let me shamelessly quote a popular definition: viruses are “any of various infectious agents, usually ultramicroscopic, that consist of nucleic acid, either RNA or DNA, within a case of protein: they infect animals, plants, and bacteria and reproduce only within living cells: viruses are considered as being non-living chemical units or sometimes as living organisms.” This oscillation between life and death is crucial: viruses are neither alive nor dead in the usual sense of these terms. They are the living dead: a virus is alive due to its drive to replicate, but it is a kind of zero-level life, a biological caricature not so much of death-drive as of life at its most stupid level of repetition and multiplication. However, viruses are not an elementary form of life out of which more complex forms developed. They are purely parasitic; they replicate themselves through infecting more developed organisms (when a virus infects us, humans, we simply serve as its copying machine). It is in this coincidence of the opposites – elementary and parasitic – that resides the mystery of viruses: they are a case of what Schelling called “der nie aufhebbare Rest,” a remainder of the lowest form of life that emerges as a product of malfunctioning of higher mechanisms of multiplication and continues to haunt (infect) them, a remainder which cannot ever be re-integrated as the subordinate moment of a higher level of life.

Here we encounter what Hegel calls “speculative judgment,” an assertion of the identity of the highest and the lowest. Hegel’s best-known example is “Spirit is a bone” from his analysis of phrenology in Phenomenology of Spirit, and our example should be “Spirit is a virus.” Is human spirit also not some kind of virus that parasitizes of the human animal, exploits it for its own self-reproduction, and sometimes threatening to destroy it? And, insofar as the medium of spirit is language, we should not forget that, at its most elementary level, language is also something mechanic, a matter of rules we have to learn and follow.

Richard Dawkins claimed that memes are “viruses of the mind,” parasitic entities which “colonize” the human mind, using it as a means to multiply themselves. It is an idea whose originator was none other than Leo Tolstoy. Tolstoy is usually perceived as a much less interesting author than Dostoyevsky – a hopelessly outdated realist for whom there is basically no place in modernity, in contrast to Dostoyevsky’s existential anguish. Perhaps, however, the time has come to fully rehabilitate Tolstoy, his unique theory of art and humanity in general, in which we find echoes of Dawkins’s notion of memes. “A person is a hominid with an infected brain, host to millions of cultural symbionts, and the chief enablers of these are the symbiont systems known as languages”[2] – is this passage from Dennett not pure Tolstoy? The basic category of Tolstoy’s anthropology is infection: a human subject is a passive empty medium infected by affect-laden cultural elements that, like contagious bacilli, spread from one individual to another. And Tolstoy goes here to the end: he does not oppose to this spread of affective infections a true spiritual autonomy; he does not propose a heroic vision of educating oneself to be a mature autonomous ethical subject by way of getting rid of infectious bacilli. The only struggle is the struggle between good and bad infections: Christianity itself is an infection, if – for Tolstoy – a good one.

Maybe, this is the most disturbing thing we can learn from the ongoing viral epidemic: when nature is attacking us with viruses, it is in a way sending our own message back to us. The message is: what you did to me, I am now doing to you.

Notes:

[1] Benjamin Bratton, personal communication.

[2] Daniel Dennett, Freedom Evolves, London: penguin Books 2004, p. 173.


Source: Slavoj Žižek: Monitor and Punish? Yes, Please! 


See also:

Slavoj Zizek: Coronavirus situation is way too serious to be in panic (video)


Slavoj Zizek: Coronavirus situation is way too serious to be in panic

Top officials in a number of countries including the UK, US and across the Medittaranean in Europe have been infected by Covid-19... or are in self-quarantine. And many say politics is a vulnerable profession - due to the average age of lawmakers.

Slavoj Zizek talks about the impact of Covid-19 outbreak.



See also: 

Slavoj Zizek: What the coronavirus & France protests have in common (and is it time for ORGIES yet?)

Epidemic outbreaks – just like social protests – don’t erupt and then disappear; they persist and lurk around, waiting to explode when it’s least expected. We should accept this, but there are two ways to do it.

People outside China thought that a quarantine would be enough to tackle the virus’s spread, and that they are more or less safe behind that ‘wall.’ But now that coronavirus cases have been reported in over 20 countries, a new approach is needed. How are we to deal with such traumatic threats?



Maybe we can learn something about our reactions to the coronavirus epidemics from psychiatrist and author Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, who, in On Death and Dying, proposed the famous schema of the five stages of how we react upon learning that we have, for example, a terminal illness: Denial (one simply refuses to accept the fact, as in “This can’t be happening, not to me.”); Anger (which explodes when we can no longer deny the fact, as in “How can this happen to me?”); Bargaining (the hope we can somehow postpone or diminish the fact, as in “Just let me live to see my children graduate.”); Depression (libidinal disinvestment, as in “I'm going to die, so why bother with anything?”); and finally Acceptance (“I can't fight it, I may as well prepare for it.”).

Kübler-Ross later applied these stages to any form of catastrophic personal loss (joblessness, death of a loved one, divorce, drug addiction) and also emphasized that they do not necessarily come in the same order, nor are all five stages experienced by all patients.

One can discern the same five stages whenever a society is confronted with some traumatic event. Let’s take the threat of ecological catastrophe.

First, we tend to deny it: ‘it’s just paranoia, all that really happens are the usual oscillations in weather patterns’. Then comes anger – at big corporations that pollute our environment and at the government which ignores the dangers. That is followed by bargaining: ‘if we recycle our waste, we can buy some time; plus, there are good sides to it also, we can now grow vegetables in Greenland, ships will be able to transport goods from China to the US much faster via the northern route, new fertile land is becoming available in northern Siberia due to the melting of permafrost.’ It is then followed by depression (‘it’s too late, we’re lost’), and, finally, acceptance – ‘we are dealing with a serious threat and we’ll have to change our entire way of life!’

The same holds for the growing threat of digital control over our lives. Again, first, we tend to deny it, and consider it ‘an exaggeration’, ‘more Leftist paranoia’, ‘no agency can control our daily activity.’ Then we explode in anger at big companies and secret state agencies who ‘know us better than we know ourselves’ and use this knowledge to control and manipulate us. It’s followed by bargaining (authorities have the right to search for terrorists, but not to infringe upon our privacy), depression (it’s too late, our privacy is lost, the age of personal freedoms is over). And, finally, comes acceptance: ‘digital control is a threat to our freedom, we should render the public aware of all its dimensions and engage ourselves to fight it!’


Even in the domain of politics, the same holds for those who are traumatized by Trump’s presidency: first, there was a denial (‘don’t worry, Trump is just posturing, nothing will really change if he takes power’), followed by anger (at the ‘dark forces’ that enabled him to take power, at the populists who support him and pose a threat to our moral substance), bargaining (‘all is not yet lost, maybe Trump can be contained, let’s just tolerate some of his excesses’), and depression (‘we are on the path to Fascism, democracy is lost in the US’), and then acceptance: ‘there is a new political regime in the US, the good old days of American democracy are over, let’s face the danger and calmly plan how can we overcome Trump’s populism.’

In medieval times, the population of an affected town reacted to the signs of plague in a similar way: first denial, then anger (at our sinful lives for which we are punished, or even at the cruel God who allowed it), then bargaining (it’s not so bad, let’s just avoid those who are ill), then depression (our life is over), then, interestingly, orgies (‘since our lives are over, let’s get all the pleasures still possible – drinking, sex…’). And, finally, there was acceptance: ‘here we are, let’s just behave as much as possible as if normal life goes on.’

And is this not also how we are dealing with the coronavirus epidemics that exploded at the end of 2019? First, there was a denial (nothing serious is going on, some irresponsible individuals are just spreading panic); then, anger (usually in a racist or anti-state form: the dirty Chinese are guilty, our state is not efficient…); next comes bargaining (OK, there are some victims, but it’s less serious than SARS, and we can limit the damage); if this doesn’t work, depression arises (let’s not kid ourselves, we are all doomed).

But how would our acceptance look here? It is a strange fact that these epidemics display a feature common with the latest round of social protests such as those in France or in Hong Kong: they don’t explode and then fizzle away, they stay here and just persist, bringing permanent fear and fragility to our lives.

What we should accept, what we should reconcile ourselves with, is that there is a sub-layer of life, the undead, stupidly repetitive, pre-sexual life of viruses, which always was here and which will always be with us as a dark shadow, posing a threat to our very survival, exploding when we least expect it.

And at an even more general level, viral epidemics remind us of the ultimate contingency and meaninglessness of our lives: no matter how magnificent spiritual edifices we, humanity, create, a stupid natural contingency like a virus or an asteroid can end it all. Not to mention the lesson of ecology which is that we, humanity, may also unknowingly contribute to this end.

But this acceptance can take two directions. It can mean just the re-normalization of illness: OK, people will be dying, but life will go on, maybe there will be even some good side effects. Or acceptance can (and should) propel us to mobilize ourselves without panic and illusions, to act in collective solidarity.

Source: Slavoj Zizek: What the coronavirus & France protests have in common (and is it time for ORGIES yet?)

See also:



Slavoj Zizek: Global communism or the jungle law, coronavirus forces us to decide

As panic over coronavirus spreads, we have to make the ultimate choice – either we enact the most brutal logic of the survival of the fittest or some kind of reinvented communism with global coordination and collaboration.

Our media endlessly repeat the formula “No panic!” And then we get all the reports which cannot but trigger panic. The situation resembles the one I remember from my youth in a communist country: when government officials assured the public that there is no reason to panic, we all took these assurances as clear signs that they were themselves in panic.



It’s too serious to lose time with panic

Panic has a logic of its own. The fact that, in the UK, due to the coronavirus panic even toilet paper rolls have disappeared from the stores reminds me of a weird incident with toilet paper from my youth in socialist Yugoslavia. All of a sudden, a rumor started to circulate that there was not enough toilet paper in the stores. The authorities promptly issued assurances that there was enough toilet paper for the normal consumption, and, surprisingly, this was not only true but people mostly even believed it was true.

However, an average consumer reasoned in the following way: I know there is enough toilet paper and the rumor is false, but what if some people take this rumor seriously and, in a panic, will start to buy excessive reserves of toilet paper, causing this way an actual lack of toilet paper? So I better go and buy reserves of it myself.

It is even not necessary to believe that some others take the rumor seriously – it is enough to presuppose that some others believe that there are people who take the rumor seriously – the effect is the same, namely the real lack of toilet paper in the stores. Is something similar not going on in the UK (and also in California) today?

The strange counterpart of this kind of ongoing excessive panic is the total lack of panic where it would have been fully justified. In the last couple of years, after the SARS and ebola epidemics, we were told again and again that a new much stronger epidemic is just a matter of time, that the question is not IF but WHEN it will occur. Although we were rationally convinced of the truth of these dire predictions, we somehow didn’t take them seriously and were reluctant to act and engage in serious preparations – the only place we dealt with them were in apocalyptic movies like Contagion.

What this contrast tells us is that panic is not a proper way to confront a real threat. When we react in panic we do not take the threat too seriously. On the contrary, we trivialize it. Just think at how ridiculous the excessive buying of toilet paper rolls is: as if having enough toilet paper would matter in the midst of a deadly epidemic. So what would be an appropriate reaction to the coronavirus epidemic? What should we learn and what should we do to confront it seriously?


What I mean by communism

When I suggested that the coronavirus epidemic may give a new boost of life to communism, my claim was, as expected, ridiculed. Although it looks that the strong approach to the crisis by the Chinese state worked – at least it worked much better than what goes on now in Italy, the old authoritarian logic of communists in power also clearly demonstrated its limitations. One of them was that the fear of bringing bad news to those in power (and to the public) outweighs actual results – this was apparently the reason why those who first shared information on a new virus were reportedly arrested, and there are reports that a similar thing is going on now.

The pressure to get China back to work after the coronavirus shutdown is resurrecting an old temptation: doctoring data so it shows senior officials what they want to see,” reports Bloomberg. “This phenomenon is playing out in Zhejiang province, an industrial hub on the east coast, in the form of electricity usage. At least three cities there have given local factories targets to hit for power consumption because they’re using the data to show a resurgence in production, according to people familiar with the matter. That’s prompted some businesses to run machinery even as their plants remain empty, the people said.

We can also guess what will follow when those in power note this cheating: local managers will be accused of sabotage and severely punished, thus reproducing the vicious cycle of distrust… A Chinese Julian Assange would be needed here to expose to the public this concealed side of how China is coping with the epidemic. So if this is not the communism I have in mind, what do I mean by communism? To get it, it suffices to read the public declarations of WHO – here is a recent one:

WHO chief Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said last week that although public health authorities across the globe have the ability to successfully combat the spread of the virus, the organization is concerned that in some countries the level of political commitment does not match the threat level. “This is not a drill. This is not the time to give up. This is not a time for excuses. This is a time for pulling out all the stops. Countries have been planning for scenarios like this for decades. Now is the time to act on those plans,” Tedros said. “This epidemic can be pushed back, but only with a collective, coordinated and comprehensive approach that engages the entire machinery of government.

One might add that such a comprehensive approach should reach well beyond the machinery of single governments: it should encompass local mobilization of people outside state control as well as strong and efficient international coordination and collaboration.

If thousands will be hospitalized for respiratory problems, a vastly increased number of respiratory machines will be needed, and to get them, the state should directly intervene in the same way as it intervenes in conditions of war when thousands of guns are needed, and it should rely on the cooperation of other states. As in a military campaign, information should be shared and plans fully coordinated – THIS is all I mean by ‘communism’ needed today, or, as Will Hutton put it: “Now, one form of unregulated, free-market globalization with its propensity for crises and pandemics is certainly dying. But another form that recognizes interdependence and the primacy of evidence-based collective action is being born.


Global coordination & collaboration necessary

What now still predominates is the stance of “every country for itself”: “There are national bans on exports of key products such as medical supplies, with countries falling back on their own analysis of the crisis amid localised shortages and haphazard, primitive approaches to containment,” Will Hutton wrote in the Guardian.

The coronavirus epidemic does not signal just the limit of market globalization, it also signals the even more fatal limit of nationalist populism which insists on full state sovereignty: it’s over with ‘America (or whoever) first!’ since America can be saved only through global coordination and collaboration.

I am not a utopian here, I don’t appeal to an idealized solidarity between people – on the contrary, the present crisis demonstrates clearly how global solidarity and cooperation is in the interest of survival of all and each of us, how it is the only rational egotist thing to do. And it’s not just coronavirus: China itself suffered a gigantic swine flu months ago, and it is now threatened by the prospect of a locust invasion. Plus, as Owen Jones noted, climate crisis kills much more people around the world than coronavirus, but there is no panic about this.

From a cynical vitalist standpoint, one would be tempted to see coronavirus as a beneficial infection which allows humanity to get rid of the old, weak and ill, like pulling out the half-rotten weed, and thus contributes to global health.

The broad communist approach I am advocating is the only way for us to really leave behind such a primitive vitalist standpoint. Signs of curtailing unconditional solidarity are already discernible in the ongoing debates, as in the following note about the role of the “three wise men” if the epidemics takes a more catastrophic turn in the UK: “NHS patients could be denied life saving care during a severe coronavirus outbreak in Britain if intensive care units are struggling to cope, senior doctors have warned. Under a so-called ‘three wise men’ protocol, three senior consultants in each hospital would be forced to make decisions on rationing care such as ventilators and beds, in the event hospitals were overwhelmed with patients.

What criteria will the “three wise men” rely on? Sacrifice the weakest and eldest? And will this situation not just open up space for immense corruption? Do such procedures not indicate that we are getting ready to enact the most brutal logic of the survival of the fittest? So, again, the ultimate choice is: this or some kind of reinvented communism.



See also:


The Zizek Calendar

Reading Žižek – Where to Start?

Slavoj Zizek: Coronavirus is ‘Kill Bill’-esque blow to capitalism and could lead to reinvention of communism

The ongoing spread of the coronavirus epidemic has also triggered vast epidemics of ideological viruses which were laying dormant in our societies: fake news, paranoiac conspiracy theories, explosions of racism.



The well-grounded medical need for quarantines found an echo in the ideological pressure to establish clear borders and to quarantine enemies that pose a threat to our identity.

But maybe another – and much more beneficial – ideological virus will spread and hopefully infect us: the virus of thinking about an alternate society, a society beyond nation-state, a society that actualizes itself in the forms of global solidarity and cooperation.

Speculation is often heard today that the coronavirus may lead to the fall of communist rule in China, in the same way that (as Gorbachev himself admitted) the Chernobyl catastrophe was the event which triggered the end of the Soviet communism. But there is a paradox here: the coronavirus will also compel us to re-invent communism based on trust in the people and in science.

In the final scene of Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Kill Bill 2,’ Beatrix disables the evil Bill and strikes him with the “Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique” – the most deadly blow in all of martial arts. The move consists of a combination of five strikes with one’s fingertips to five different pressure points on the target’s body. After the target walks away and has taken five steps, their heart explodes in their body and they fall to the ground.

This attack is part of martial arts mythology and is not possible in real hand-to-hand combat. But, back to the film, after Beatrix does it, Bill calmly makes his peace with her, takes five steps and dies…

What makes this attack so fascinating is the time between being hit and the moment of death: I can have a nice conversation as long as I sit calmly, but I am all this time aware that the moment I start to walk, my heart will explode and I will drop dead.

Is the idea of those who speculate about how the coronavirus epidemic could lead to the fall of communist rule in China not similar? Like some kind of social “Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique” on the country’s communist regime, the authorities can sit, observe and go through the motions of quarantine, but any real change in the social order (like trusting the people) will result in their downfall.

My modest opinion is much more radical: the coronavirus epidemic is a kind of “Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique” attack on the global capitalist system – a signal that we cannot go on the way we were up until now, that a radical change is needed.


Sad fact, we need a catastrophe

Years ago, Fredric Jameson drew attention to the utopian potential in movies about a cosmic catastrophe (an asteroid threatening life on Earth, or a virus killing humanity). Such a global threat gives birth to global solidarity, our petty differences become insignificant, we all work together to find a solution – and here we are today, in real life. The point is not to sadistically enjoy widespread suffering insofar as it helps our cause – on the contrary, the point is to reflect upon a sad fact that we need a catastrophe to make us able to rethink the very basic features of the society in which we live.

The first vague model of such a global coordination is the World Health Organization, from which we are not getting the usual bureaucratic gibberish but precise warnings proclaimed without panic. Such organizations should be given more executive power.

Bernie Sanders is mocked by skeptics for his advocacy of universal healthcare in the US – is the lesson of the coronavirus epidemic not that even more is needed, that we should start to put together some kind of GLOBAL healthcare network?

A day after Iran’s Deputy Health Minister Iraj Harirchi appeared at a press conference in order to downplay the coronavirus spread and to assert that mass quarantines are not necessary, he made a short statement admitting that he has contracted the coronavirus and placed himself in isolation (already during his first TV appearance, he had shown signs of fever and weakness). Harirchi added: “This virus is democratic, and it doesn’t distinguish between poor and rich or between statesman and an ordinary citizen.

In this, he was right – we are all in the same boat. It is difficult to miss the supreme irony of the fact that what brought us all together and pushed us into global solidarity expresses itself at the level of everyday life in strict commands to avoid close contacts with others, even to self-isolate.

And we are not dealing only with viral threats – other catastrophes are looming on the horizon or already taking place: droughts, heatwaves, massive storms, etc. In all these cases, the answer is not panic but hard and urgent work to establish some kind of efficient global coordination.


Will we only be safe in virtual reality?

The first illusion to dispel is the one formulated by US President Donald Trump during his recent visit to India, where he said that the epidemic would recede quickly and we just have to wait for the spike and then life will return to normal.

Against these all too easy hopes, the first thing to accept is that the threat is here to stay. Even if this wave recedes, it will reappear in new, maybe even more dangerous, forms.

For this reason, we can expect that viral epidemics will affect our most elementary interactions with other people and objects around us, including our own bodies – avoid touching things that may be (invisibly) dirty, don’t touch hooks, don’t sit on toilet seats or public benches, avoid embracing people or shaking their hands. We might even become more careful about spontaneous gestures: don’t touch your nose or rub your eyes.

So it’s not only the state and other agencies that will control us, we should also learn to control and discipline ourselves. Maybe only virtual reality will be considered safe, and moving freely in an open space will be restricted to the islands owned by the ultra-rich.

But even here, at the level of virtual reality and internet, we should remind ourselves that, in the last decades, the terms “virus” and “viral” were mostly used to designate digital viruses which were infecting our web-space and of which we were not aware, at least not until their destructive power (say, of destroying our data or our hard-drive) was unleashed. What we see now is a massive return to the original literal meaning of the term: viral infections work hand-in-hand in both dimensions, real and virtual.


Return of capitalist animism

Another weird phenomenon that we can observe is the triumphant return of capitalist animism, of treating social phenomena like markets or financial capital as living entities. If one reads our big media, the impression one gets is that what we should really worry about are not thousands who already died (and thousands more who will die) but the fact that “markets are getting nervous.” The coronavirus is increasingly disturbing the smooth running of the world market and, as we hear, growth may fall by two or three percent.

Does all this not clearly signal the urgent need for a reorganization of the global economy which will no longer be at the mercy of market mechanisms? We are not talking here about old-style communism, of course, just about some kind of global organization that can control and regulate the economy, as well as limit the sovereignty of nation-states when needed. Countries were able to do it against the backdrop of war in the past, and all of us are now effectively approaching a state of medical war.

Plus we should also not be afraid to note some potentially beneficial side effects of the epidemic. One of the symbols of the epidemic is passengers caught (quarantined) on large cruise ships – good riddance to the obscenity of such ships, I am tempted to say. (We only have to be careful that travel to lone islands or other exclusive resorts will not become again the privilege of the rich few, as it was decades ago with flying.) Car production is also seriously affected by the coronavirus – which is not too bad, as this may compel us to think about alternatives to our obsession with individual vehicles. The list goes on.

In a recent speech, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said: “There is no such thing as a liberal. A liberal is nothing more than a communist with a diploma.

What if the opposite is true? If we designate as “liberals” all those who care for our freedoms, and as “communists” those who are aware that we can save these freedoms only with radical changes since global capitalism is approaching a crisis? Then we should say that, today, those who still recognize themselves as communists are liberals with a diploma – liberals who seriously studied why our liberal values are under threat and became aware that only radical change can save them.

Source: Slavoj Zizek: Coronavirus is ‘Kill Bill’-esque blow to capitalism and could lead to reinvention of communism

See also:


Slavoj Žižek: A Left that Dares to Speak Its Name - 34 Untimely Interventions

With irrepressible humor, Slavoj Žižek dissects our current political and social climate, discussing everything from Jordan Peterson and sex "unicorns" to Greta Thunberg and Chairman Mao. Taking aim at his enemies on the Left, Right, and Center, he argues that contemporary society can only be properly understood from a communist standpoint.

A Left that Dares to Speak Its Name

Why communism? The greater the triumph of global capitalism, the more its dangerous antagonisms multiply: climate collapse, the digital manipulation of our lives, the explosion in refugee numbers - all need a radical solution. That solution is a Left that dares to speak its name, to get its hands dirty in the real world of contemporary politics, not to sling its insults from the sidelines or to fight a culture war that is merely a fig leaf covering its political and economic failures. As the crises caused by contemporary capitalism accumulate at an alarming rate, the Left finds itself in crisis too, beset with competing ideologies and prone to populism, racism, and conspiracy theories.

A Left that Dares to Speak Its Name is Žižek's attempt to elucidate the major political issues of the day from a truly radical Leftist position. The first three parts explore the global political situation and the final part focuses on contemporary Western culture, as ?i?ek directs his polemic to topics such as wellness, Wikileaks, and the rights of sexbots. This wide-ranging collection of essays provides the perfect insight into the ideas of one of the most influential radical thinkers of our time.




Slavoj Žižek: A Left that Dares to Speak Its Name

Table of Contents 

Introduction: From the Communist Standpoint

The Global Mess
1 200 Years After: Is Marx Alive, Dead, or a Living Dead?
2 Why Secondary Contradictions Matter: A Maoist View
3 Nomadic // Proletarians
4 Should the Left’s Answer to Rightist Populism Really be a “Me Too”?
5 When Unfreedom Itself is Experienced as Freedom
6 Only Autistic Children Can Save Us!
7 They are Both Worse!
8 A Desperate Call for (T)Reason

The West…
9 Democratic Socialism and Its Discontents
10 Is Donald Trump a Frog Embracing a Bottle of Beer?
11 Better Dead than Red!
12 “There is Disorder Under Heaven, the Situation is Excellent”
13 Soyons realistes, demandons l’impossible!
14 Catalonia and the End of Europe
15 Which Idea of Europe is Worth Defending?
16 The Right to Tell the Public Bad News

…And The Rest
17 It’s the Same Struggle, Dummy!
18 The Real Anti-Semites and Their Zionist Friends
19 Yes, Racism is Alive and Well!
20 What is to be Done When Our Cupola is Leaking?
21 Is China Communist or Capitalist?
22 Venezuela and the Need for New Clichés
23 Welcome to the True New World Order!
24 A True Miracle in Bosnia

Ideology
25 For Active Solidarity, Against Guilt and Self-Reproach
26 Sherbsky Institute, APA
27 Welcome to the Brave New World of Consenticorns!
28 Do Sexbots have Rights?
29 Nipples, Penis, Vulva…and Maybe Shit
30 Cuaron’s Roma: The Trap of Goodness
31 Happiness? No, Thanks!
32 Assange has Only us to Help Him!

Appendix
33 Is Avital Ronell Really Toxic?
34 Jordan Peterson as a Symptom…of What?






Slavoj Zizek: There is no conflict between the struggle against antisemitism and the struggle against Israeli occupation

Today, the charge of antisemitism is addressed at anyone who critiques Israeli policy


Jean-Paul Sartre wrote that, if you are attacked for the same text by both sides in a political conflict, this is one of the few reliable signs that you are on the right path. In the last decades, I have been attacked by a number of very different political actors (often on account of the same text!) for antisemitism, up to advocating a new Holocaust, and for perfidious Zionist propaganda (see the last issue of the antisemitic Occidental Observer). So I think I’ve earned the right to comment on the recent accusations against the Labour Party regarding its alleged tolerance of antisemitism.

I, of course, indisputably reject antisemitism in all its forms, including the idea that one can sometimes ”understand” it, as in: “considering what Israel is doing on the West Bank, one shouldn’t be surprised if this gives birth to antisemitic reactions”. More precisely, I reject the two symmetrical versions of this last argument: “we should understand occasional Palestinian antisemitism since they suffer a lot” as well as “we should understand aggressive Zionism in view of the Holocaust.” One should, of course, also reject the compromise version: “both sides have a point, so let’s find a middle way…”.

Along the same lines, we should supplement the standard Israeli point that the (permissible) critique of Israeli policy can serve as a cover for the (unacceptable) antisemitism with its no less pertinent reversal: the accusation of antisemitism is often invoked to discredit a totally justified critique of Israeli politics. Where, exactly, does legitimate critique of Israeli policy become antisemitism? More and more, mere sympathy for the Palestinian resistance is condemned as antisemitic. Take the two-state solution: while decades ago it was the standard international position, it is more and more proclaimed a threat to Israel's existence and thus antisemitic.

Things get really ominous when Zionism itself evokes the traditional antisemitic cliché of roots. Alain Finkielkraut wrote in 2015 in a letter to Le Monde: “The Jews, they have today chosen the path of rooting.” It is easy to discern in this claim an echo of Heidegger who said, in a Der Spiegel interview, that all essential and great things can only emerge from our having a homeland, from being rooted in a tradition. The irony is that we are dealing here with a weird attempt to mobilise antisemitic clichés in order to legitimize Zionism: antisemitism reproaches the Jews for being rootless; Zionism tries to correct this failure by belatedly providing Jews with roots. No wonder many conservative antisemites ferociously support the expansion of the State of Israel.

However, the trouble with the settlement project today is that it is now trying to get roots in a place which was for thousands of years inhabited by other people. That’s why I find obscene a recent claim by Ayelet Shaked, the former Israeli justice minister: “The Jewish People have the legal and moral right to live in their ancient homeland.” What about the rights of Palestinians?

For me, the only way out of this conundrum is the ethical one: there is ultimately no conflict between the struggle against antisemitism and the struggle against what the State of Israel is now doing on the West Bank. The two struggles are part of one and the same struggle for emancipation. Let’s mention a concrete case. Some weeks ago, Zarah Sultana, a Labour candidate, apologised for a Facebook post in which she backed the Palestinian right to “violent resistance”: “I do not support violence and I should not have articulated my anger in the manner I did, for which I apologize.” I fully support her apology, we should not play with violence, but I nonetheless feel obliged to add that what Israel is now doing on West Bank is also a form of violence. No doubts that Israel sincerely wants peace on the West Bank; occupiers by definition want peace in their occupied land, since it means no resistance. So if Jews are in any way threatened in the UK, I unconditionally and unequivocally condemn it and support all legal measures to combat it–but am I permitted to add that Palestinians in the West Bank are much more under threat than Jews in the UK?

Without mentioning Corbyn by name, the Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis recently wrote in an article for the Times that “a new poison–sanctioned from the top–has taken root in the Labour Party.” He conceded: “It is not my place to tell any person how they should vote,” though went on to add: “When December 12 arrives, I ask every person to vote with their conscience. Be in no doubt, the very soul of our nation is at stake.” I find this presentation of a political choice as a purely moral one ethically disgusting–it reminds me of how, decades ago, the Catholic Church in Italy did not explicitly order citizens to vote for Christian Democracy, but just said that they should vote for a party which is Christian and democratic.

Today, the charge of antisemitism is more and more addressed at anyone who deviates from the acceptable left-liberal establishment towards a more radical left–can one imagine a more repellent and cynical manipulation of the Holocaust? When protests against the Israel Defense Forces' activities in the West Bank are denounced as an expression of antisemitism, and (implicitly, at least) put in the same line as Holocaust deniers–that is to say, when the shadow of the Holocaust is permanently evoked in order to neutralise any criticism of Israeli military and political operations–it is not enough to insist on the difference between antisemitism and the critique of particular measures of the State of Israel. One should go a step further and claim that it is the State of Israel that, in this case, is desecrating the memory of Holocaust victims, ruthlessly using them as an instrument to legitimise present political measures.

As Mirvis wrote, the soul of our nation is indeed at stake here–but also, the soul of the Jewish nation. Will Jews follow Finkielkraut and “take roots”, using their sacred history as an ideological excuse, or will they remember that ultimately we are all strangers in a strange land? Will Jews allow Israel to turn into another fundamentalist nation-state, or remain faithful to the legacy that made them a key factor in the rise of modern civil society? (Remember that there is no Enlightenment without the Jews.) For me, to fully support Israeli politics in the West Bank is a betrayal not just of some abstract global ethics, but of the most precious part of Jewish ethical tradition itself.

Source: There is no conflict between the struggle against antisemitism and the struggle against Israeli occupation

The Zizek Calendar

Reading Žižek – Where to Start?

LIVESTREAM: Slavoj Žižek: "Why I Am Still A Communist" - December 7, 2019

The Holberg Debate: Slavoj Žižek: "Why I Am Still A Communist"

Saturday, December 7, 2019 at 3 PM – 5:15 PM



Slavoj Žižek has been called the «the most dangerous philosopher in the West» and a cultural theorist superstar, as he mixes Marxism with pop culture and psychoanalysis. Three decades after the fall of «Communism» in Eastern Europe, why does Žižek still call himself a communist?

Even though Europe’s authoritarian Socialist states have been gone for about 30 years, socialism and communism have not disappeared from the lexicon of political ideas in the West.

Here, the last decade has seen both a crisis of capitalism, high levels of polarisation and turmoil, a rediscovering of Marxism in certain circles, and a mainstream American Left that advocates «democratic socialism».

What exactly such terms mean to their advocates and critics, however, remains unclear, as the US enters one of the most contentious election years ever. And while the Nordic “social democracies” may be known for their expansive welfare states, arguing that they still represent “socialism” would likely require a stretch of both concepts and imagination.

In an age where the principles of the free marked have become the driving force of both the economy, public services, foreign policy, and education, “communism” remains a dirty word among the political establishment.

So why is Žižek still a communist?


"At the 2019 Holberg Debate, we are honoured to be joined by two big thinkers: Slavoj Žižek and Tyler Cowen. Prof. Žižek will deliver his keynote address, “Why I Am Still A Communist”, before being interviewed by Prof. Cowen. In the subsequent Q & A session, we encourage everyone to contribute with questions and comments, either from the floor, or via Twitter. Twitter users may use hashtag #qholberg for questions and submit their comments either in writing or as video snippets. Questions may be submitted at any time, before or during the event. In other words: You are welcome to submit your questions today."

The Zizek Calendar

Reading Žižek – Where to Start?


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