IJS Vol 2.

0 (2008) - iek po Polsku

"If God doesnt exist, everything is prohibited" - Maciej Nowicki interviews Slavoj iek, April 2007.
Translated by Krzysztof Chromik.
Originally the interview appeared in Europa, a supplement to Dziennik, on 24th April. 2007. Available at: http://www.dziennik.pl/dziennik/europa/article46346/Jezeli_Boga_nie_ma_wszystko_je st_zakazane.html We are grateful to Europa for the permission to republish it in International Journal of iek Studies.

Maciej Nowicki's questions are in bold text & iek's responses are in unemboldened text:
You insist that we live in an extremely permissive society. At the same time, we have lost any freedom of choice meaningful choices have been substituted with seeming ones. Thus comes your main advice, borrowed from Alain Badious writings: in order to regain freedom, we need to become merciless censors of ourselves. How can we find freedom as such censors? The problem is with the fact, that the price we pay for todays permissiveness is a growing barracking. On one hand, gays and lesbians enter the mainstream. On the other, our existence becomes more and more regulated. This paradox always fascinated me on what bases, and in the name of what, permissiveness coexists with a growing level of injunctions, which enter all the recesses of our ordinary life?

Sociologists and philosophers continue to stress that our world is a world in which people dont find any values. Your diagnosis is exactly the opposite we deal with a universe completely impregnated with ethical demands. We all remember what Dostoevsky wrote: "If God doesnt exist, everything is permitted". What we see today proves the exact opposite: If God doesnt exist, then everything is prohibited. So called fundamentalist terrorists are a living proof God exists and everything is permitted. You dont even need to refer to Islamic terrorists. A Serbian journalist, Alexander Bialic, once wrote a beautiful text in an almost pro-Milosevi vein. He was wondering, why was Milosevi so popular in his country for so many years. And so his answer was: Because he gave his people the illusion of everlasting holidays. Once I visited Belgrade, about 10 years ago and had a traumatic meeting with a few lovers of nationalism. Then, once and for all I understood that the description of todays society which you mentioned that people cant find any values and they turn to the old fundamentalist systems is completely wrong. They said: If I want to be a normal citizen in todays world you need to follow an infinite number of rules. You arent allowed to smoke in public places, you cant beat your wife and so on. You constantly need to be careful what youre doing. And if youre a nationalist, you can do almost everything. You can even kill. Adorno (some make a fool of him nowadays, but I dont agree with that), in a very interesting text on structure of fascist propaganda, stressed that Hitler wasnt only a master saying: You need to be obedient simultaneously he offered some obscene delight. I think all totalitarian regimes worked similarly excluding Stalinism. Here we return to what I said before: permissiven has always had a second face, unusually disciplining. Thats why youre so distrustful of, so common today, aiming for pleasure and you point that we shouldnt permit ourselves too much. You describe a modern society in Hegels words as a spiritualized community of animals. We use our reason only to articulate our private interests, to manipulate others to serve our pleasures. This is the world which lacks any spiritual substance, in which people behave like intelligent animals. We tend to think that our world is a world of human rights, while in fact its a place of struggle for human animals rights We need to ask ourselves a question: What is freedom? Answering this question, Im totally on Badious side, but also on the side of Christianity or Kantism. I dont think freedom has something to do with spontaneity. I think that on a spontaneous level we are slaves, we only want delight and pleasure. I dont drink, I dont smoke and as the only representative of my generation to have never even touched drugs. I only allow myself to have Coke Light. I think that freedom is something you need to conquer and that this liberation hurts. That is why I have a huge problem with the dominant ethics of today, which is based on self-realization You need to stay true to yourself. Whereas, if you want to stay true to yourself, you need to reproduce the whole shit thats inside of you. There are things in us that are disgusting. Im an old leftist. On the psychological level, however, I have a conservative and pessimistic vision of a man theres something terrible in all of us and we have to destroy it at all cost.

Attacks on permissive society are in fact only an introduction to a more fundamental dispute attacks on the ideology of multiculturalism, which todays left wing has made its main weapon. Its the campaign for recognition of the next groups or cultures that were supposed to give it a victory in a political battle. Youre a radical leftist and, at the same time, youre determined to attack multiculturalism. For many old leftists multiculturalism is in fact an ersatz of politics for people since we dont even know if the proletariat still exists, lets talk about the persecution of several minorities. Today, its physical work not sex which is more clearly perceived as something obscene that has to be hidden from public. Hard physical work is associated with criminal conspiracy. In Bond movies there is always that scene: the villain is showing 007 around his factory, presenting him with pride all his machines. Later Bond blows all this in the air, so we can forget about the proletariat once and for all. Thus we return to a place we love most consumerist paradise Thats very characteristic for as Jacques Ranciere calls it post-politics. All conflicts have to be hidden. Thats a pretty common diagnosis: we live in a post-political world. You think of it as a lie? We live in a world which falsely introduces itself as a post-political, in order not to discuss some primary social decisions. Its a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy: when we say that we live in a post-political world, everything becomes post-politics. Lets have a look at the last 2-3 decades of our history. I cant see any post-politics there. The economy has gone through radical changes due to globalization, national insurance is perceived totally differently, and the social role of the state has also changed. There has been a great break and we had no influence on that. No one has voted in this case. This means that we should at least ask some questions: What does democracy truly mean today? In what way does it function?. In the past people wondered what will the future of the world be like capitalistic or socialistic? Or maybe fascist? Theres no such thing anymore. What is the conclusion then? Theres no conflict between multiculturalism and global capitalism? Or to say it in Stalins language, which you like so much multiculturalism is an objective ally of capitalism. Thats absolutely clear. Todays capitalism develops thanks to differences, not due to the homogenization of society based on some cultural and patriarchal model. In order to constantly be reborn, to meet expectations of consumer society and keep up with the dynamics of market, capitalism cant do without multiculturalism. The latter is not only an objective ally, but also the main ideology of a globalized capitalism. My friends, leftists, have completely missed that fact. Its all about creating a world in which every, even the most specific, lifestyle can fully develop.

Thats the opinion which Peter Sloterdijk has already expressed years before he claimed that the dynamics of todays society is based on constant inventing itself anew and testing new versions of I in all possible conditions. Sloterdijk is a great philosopher, to whom Im indebted a lot, though hes my political enemy. The fact, that he isnt treated seriously in Germany nowadays, is a proof that the Spirit, who loved the country so much, has left it. Lets return to what you said. Experiencing the self-transformation used to be considered as traumatic today its supposed to be a proof of freedom. Thats how it looks in the language of culture. Lets now express the same thing in language of economy. As you know, one of the biggest problems nowadays is that many people have to constantly change their jobs. Of course such experience is traumatizing no-one likes to be unsure of tomorrow. In the meantime we are told: How great it is to invent yourself anew every few years. Thats what I was talking about before: economic problems are being culturalized in order to enter the area of post-politics. Lets look at Spain. Zapatero puts a lot of energy in his attempts to legalize homosexual marriages and to guarantee parental rights to gays. At the same time he does it order not to take care of the economy! For me, such behavior has nothing to do with real politics. Thus, the problem is that it is all reduced to cultural wars Exactly. In this sense, theres something true in The Clash of Civilizations by Huntington, though not in the way he assumed. I lately talked with Fukuyama. I told him: Do you notice that there are no contradictions between you and Huntington? Cultural wars are the only politics at the end of the history. The only problems were interested today, are problems of culture. We abandoned searching for universal truth. Instead of that we have narratives about what we are, stories we tell about ourselves. I object to that completely. Im an old universalist Goschist and the only problems Im interested in, are those of the universal character. I dont agree to a situation where the number of tales is the ultimate ethical horizon. It isnt enough for a particular group to say: We want the rest of a society to hear our story. No, the story of the group should point on what is really wrong with todays society. You simply stated that multiculturalism is a perfect way to keep status quo a liberal capitalism deals with it perfectly, in fact it, not the left, has invented multicultural ideology. Therefore, I will ask a nave question: what can threaten the liberal capitalism? What constitutes a deadly danger for it? Do you really think liberal capitalism will end soon? Every person who reads you carefully sees that you dont believe that revolution is at the gates A near end of liberal capitalism isnt my problem. Lets be serious. We need to say one thing: if we have a look at the western part of Europe, its absolutely obvious that never, in the history of mankind, so large a population has lived in such wealth. Its not about fighting liberal capitalism today. Im interested in what capitalism will be in 20 years I want to fight the exact thing itll become. You can already notice the birth of the new society, the new apartheid. This tendency is extremely visible in United States

Indeed, theres growing number of analyses which show that American society becomes less egalitarian. It moves back a few decades, to a situation from the early 60s. In America, this tendency is clearest, but we can see something similar in all western countries. Generally there are about three groups. Firstly, so called symbolic class which consists of journalists, managers, academic teachers etc. It constitutes about 20 percent of the society. Then theres middle class, living in a constant threat, becoming more nationalistic. At the end, there are the excluded that dont have the access to anything. Well, theres no contact between them today, they develop in totally different directions, become another societies. Representatives of American symbolic class read more or less the same books as I, we understand each other well. And whos the favourite author of American middle class? Thats Tim LaHaye who writes Christian fundamentalist political thrillers he has already sold over 60 million copies. For him the Antichrist isnt the Arabs. Theyre just puppets of a real Antichrist, namely Europe, who hired them. The 11th September attacks had place because European Union wanted to ruin New York, in order to move the UN location to Brussels. Someone would say: Thats an incredible stupidity. Why should anybody read that? Whereas its all about that an incredible stupidity becomes the culture of the American middle class. For me its a sign of one thing: were coming closer to the moment of disintegration of nations because particular classes are no longer bond together. Instead of this, well have a new apartheid. To be honest, I thought youd like it. As an author who constantly emphasizes his disgust with any forms of national feelings and writes: I hate them! about local cultures. OK, Im one hundred percent anti-nationalist. I know well that for all Goschists patriotism is synonymous with proto-fascism. However, I must admit that the loss of patriotic spirit also has its bad side. Even my Jacobin friends in France such as Badiou admit that democracy cant function without a dose of patriotism. Patriotism gives us the feeling of belonging to certain group. New apartheid destroys it all. Of course, you can assume that a possible solution would be a society ruled by experts, where there are groups representing different lifestyles, which experts are to coordinate. On one hand theres a rule of the technocrats, on the other small conflicts of cultures. Im sure its the way to catastrophe. Such society wouldnt have a universal dimension, nor space for mutual debate. Ive read Hannah Arendt lately, with whom I have very little in common. She was fascinated by the fact that during Vietnam War there was an opportunity for a real public debate. Of course you can point cynically: Its obvious why the opponents of Vietnam War have won. Thats because young people didnt want to risk themselves. But and here Arendt was right the debate about Vietnam didnt concern just Vietnam. Something else was more important: people asked in what way we can change our society. Today theres no such thing.

Still, we have a general world debate about the Iraq War. Its not only about the military issues or attitudes to American policy. Almost everybody thinks that one should have some opinion about this war it became one of regular elements of the definition of us Thats actually pretty good. However, it lacks one basic thing. Its not about if Americans made some mistakes in Iraq, but if the leftists have any vision. I dont have any doubts about the military and political consequences of occupation of Iraq. Its Iran who turned out to be the winner. As a spectator I suggested imagining a Stalinist prosecutor in todays America, who would order to arrest Bush and torture him, so that he confessed that hes an Iranian agent and he did it all to obey the order of Tehran. But its not the problem of the left. The lefts problem is: Whats the alternative? Many Goschists hate me when I say: Lets not yield to the easy anti-Americanism! Why? Because the trap of anti-Americanism reduces us to projecting the whole evil on America, whereas, the global capitalism is in fact international. Theres no sense in saying that its being controlled by USA. Capitalism lost its relation with nation-state. We entered a new phase of colonialism. Once, colonial nations subjugated other nations. Today there are only colonies. International companies are the colonizing power today. Thats why each one of us no matter where he lives is a citizen of a Banana Republic. Today youre an opponent of any action. You always say that when you have choice to do something or not to do anything, you tend to choose the latter. Perhaps then you should be the one visited by Stalinist prosecutor, not Bush, with the accusation: you are an objective ally of capitalism? I hate the rhetoric which says: Lets do something, enough of this talking. No and no. These are just great liberal capitalists like Bill Gates who say: Whats happening is terrible, we have to do something. They earn billions and then drop crumbs from the lords table. Secondly when we already find the right words, we will no longer be able to act like we did before. Today we have to change Marxs words and say: We have changed the world so much, that its high time to interpret it. Either we assume that liberal capitalism is the final frontier of what can be done, or we think that we should do something more. I absolutely think that we should do something more. If it comes to action, however, Im a huge pessimist I dont really know what should be done. Theres this old joke. Someone asks Marx, Engels and Lenin, who would they prefer a wife or a lover. Marx says: Wife. Engels: Lover. And Lenin says: Both. Everyone are surprised: Hows that Lenin, youre an ascetic. Why would you need a wife and a lover? And he explains: What for? I would tell my lover that Im at my wifes and my wife that Im at my lovers place. But what would you do in the meantime? Lenin says: What would I do? Id study. When I was at school, there was this message of Lenin to young people on every wall: "Uczitsia, uczitsia, uczitsia" [Study, study, study]. Its pretty topical again.

We finally reached it. I didnt want to start our conversation with Lenin or Stalin. I wanted the people who regard you as a dangerous man, portending the return of Soviet totalitarianism, to at least start reading this interview. But I need to ask you: why Lenin? When somebody asks me a question: What type of Leninist are you? I reply: Im like Lenin from 1915, who hid in Switzerland and started reading Hegel. Thats exactly what we need a return to fundamental matters. We dont have any general theory of whats happening. For example, its clear that the only historical function of Chinese or Russian communism was as a break between different phases of capitalism. Today China shows us what the next great question concerning the future of capitalism looks like. Is this authoritarian capitalism a bastard phenomenon? Or it foreshadows the future of authoritarian capitalism, postmodernist one? Thats of course possible. Finally, the tragedy of capitalism is that historically its connected with Protestantism, with Christianity. But thanks to globalization it starts to function as universal machinery, its compatible with almost everything. Returning to Lenin. As you know, when I wrote the foreword to Lenins texts, there was a huge scandal. I dont think that we should return to Lenin in the sense of what hes done. I keep on repeating that Lenin is dead Hes dead and he isnt, at the same time. There must be some reason why you keep on referring to him all the time. Probably not only because he thought about fundamental matters (which has on the other hand brought only disasters) then, there would be many more candidates. Ive got only one choice here: either I will treat this patronage as a pure provocation you dont want it, you wrote about it many times or we can assume that the choosing Lenin is something much more important. Firstly, Lenin doesnt suit todays universal canon. Someone who refers to him, hears: Do you want new gulags? What can be positive about this choice? Well, were at a standstill today. Thats why we should just express our disagreement or discontent. Yes, we dont have a positive program, but at least we can prepare the ground for new fights. For me that is the basic ethical act: to keep an open space. Its about a minority gesture which leads to rearticulating the world. Secondly, some idiots think that Im fascinated with whats worst in Communism, that I love Stalinism etc. Well, I live in a constant trauma of Stalinism, in the sense that its an unusually enigmatic and perverse phenomenon. Fascism is a phenomenon relatively easy to explain: its a conservative revolution, which aims for the creation of, what todays post-colonial studies call, the alternative present. Meanwhile, we dont know what Communism was. We, Europeans, regard it as the incarnation of an Eastern satrap, Russian nationalists think of it as one of the stages of Western modernization imposed from the outside, which began with Peter the Great. For me, Communism is a big philosophical mystery Please have a look at Stalinism. On one hand it was unusually cruel system, controlled by some unknown suicidal dynamics in the middle 30s about 80 percent of Central Committee was killed. On the other hand they took real care of the appearances the whole of reality got a theatrical form.

You talked about the cruelty which communism included. I have the impression that the system fascinates you just because of the violence related with it Its not only related to Communism. In this sense no one can answer the question which of the systems was worse. Nazism was a more radical culture it naturalized the guilt. If you were a Jew, there would be no redemption for you. You were guilty for who you were. On the other hand, in Soviet Union purges had even more mass character Thats what I was driving at. You are suspected not only of love for Stalinism. Declarations concerning theethical dimension of violence made some people see a tone close to a fascist one.. My celebration of violence may in fact seem proto-fascist. Ive been attacked for this on the left. Ill reply in a scary manner: So what? When we have look at history, many things we regard as proto-fascist, are not so in fact. Lets take Leni Riefenstahl, about whom I wrote a few times. Its said about her films: theyre fascist because they constitute a celebration of mass spectacles. But the Nazis took the form of their assembly from the social democrats. My way of thinking is as follows: we shouldnt renounce something just because it was once taken over by some villains. We should rather think how to regain it. Of course heres a great problem its hard to draw a border between violence, which liberates, and one which is a celebration of violence for violence sake, so its fascist. This way or another, I dont buy the idea of revolution without revolution, that everything will change and no one gets harmed. Unfortunately, every true change has to hurt. At the beginning of our conversation before I started recording you stated: I dont believe in my own theories. Referring to this I need to ask: What should I do with everything what you said? Why should I believe your words, when you dont believe them? Thats how communist propaganda showed the priest its a man, who already knows that his religion is dead, but he pretends in front of other people in order to keep his power Its said that we live in a post-ideological era. I dont think so. For me ideologies are not great projects of reconstruction of the world. For me, these are attitudes and behaviors in everyday life. Many of these things can be found in mass culture, many of them are created by mass culture. Thats why its the main ideological battleground. Here we reach the issue of faith. What is it supposed to mean? My Jewish friends say: We dont believe! But on the other hand they dont eat pork. Another example I found it in Niels Bohr biography. Somebody visited Bohr and noticed a horseshoe on his door. He asked him: Do you believe in it? Bohr replied: No, I dont. But I was told that it works! Therefore, in fact faith is not a matter of faith. Faith is a matter of practice.