Think about the strangeness of today’s situation. Thirty, forty years ago, we were still debating about what the future will be: communist, fascist, capitalist, whatever. Today, nobody even debates these issues. We all silently accept global capitalism is here to stay. On the other hand, we are obsessed with cosmic catastrophes: the whole life on earth disintegrating, because of some virus, because of an asteroid hitting the earth, and so on. So the paradox is, that it’s much easier to imagine the end of all life on earth than a much more modest radical change in capitalism.
-- Slavoj Zizek
(Several versions of this quote exist, with this seeming to be the oldest, dating to 2005, but he also articulated the same sentiment at the Occupy Wall Street protests, which is notable because they took place during a period when the established system of capitalism was in a self-acknowledged crisis.)
Rationality principle being invoked? What looks like impossibility or inevitability is often just a failure to generate alternative hypotheses.
I disagree with everything that Zizek says in this passage. What is strange about recognizing that global capitalism is here to stay, given the track record of the other two ideologies he mentions? The “cosmic” catastrophes (which are merely earthbound) aren’t something that I see getting much interest from the general public, let alone obsession. Global warming does get interest but he doesn’t use that example. The examples he does give, asteroids and viruses, are real things, that anyone who knows about agrees are real problems. They are in fact easier to imagine than any “radical change in capitalism”, because they are vastly simpler. Newtonian physics applied to rocks in near vacuum. Replicators whose only perception of the world is as atoms they can use to make more of themselves. There is nothing paradoxical about this.
Absent from the passage is any hint of an idea for the radical change in capitalism that he presumably wants to see. Perhaps he describes one elsewhere?
What is strange about recognizing that global capitalism is here to stay, given the track record of the other two ideologies he mentions?
What is strange? The complete failure to imagine anything other than capitalism, communism, or fascism, to think outside “things we have already tried” despite the observation that the things we’ve already tried all suck.
Personally speaking, I could give you a long, detailed proposal for a significantly different economic system, which, notably, does not require human beings to begin behaving in radically different ways, nor requires throwing anyone in camps of any kind. What I cannot do is give you a neat, one-word name for my proposed system (which is, of course, open to revisions and improvements, blah blah blah), because anything with a one-word name is already so fixed and set-in-stone as to be either the status quo or non-novel.
A rational individual, and especially a trans-whatever individual, should no more believe there are only three economic systems than he believes there are only three flavors of ice-cream.
What is strange? The complete failure to imagine anything other than capitalism, communism, or fascism, to think outside “things we have already tried” despite the observation that the things we’ve already tried all suck.
I think you’re projecting; it’s by no means a mutually agreed observation that these things all suck. Plenty of people think that capitalism is great. Some, despite the evidence of the past century, still think communism is great—the author of that quote, Slavoj Zizek, prominent among them. And while few openly call themselves Fascists, there’s actually no shortage of people holding views that fit broadly in that spectrum.
To change your analogy:
Alice: Chocolate ice-cream is the best.
Bob: No, vanilla is the most delicious.
Eli: Look, we’re all agreed that chocolate and vanilla ice-cream both suck. So let’s all try pistachio!
Submitted for a fun discussion:
-- Slavoj Zizek
(Several versions of this quote exist, with this seeming to be the oldest, dating to 2005, but he also articulated the same sentiment at the Occupy Wall Street protests, which is notable because they took place during a period when the established system of capitalism was in a self-acknowledged crisis.)
Rationality principle being invoked? What looks like impossibility or inevitability is often just a failure to generate alternative hypotheses.
I disagree with everything that Zizek says in this passage. What is strange about recognizing that global capitalism is here to stay, given the track record of the other two ideologies he mentions? The “cosmic” catastrophes (which are merely earthbound) aren’t something that I see getting much interest from the general public, let alone obsession. Global warming does get interest but he doesn’t use that example. The examples he does give, asteroids and viruses, are real things, that anyone who knows about agrees are real problems. They are in fact easier to imagine than any “radical change in capitalism”, because they are vastly simpler. Newtonian physics applied to rocks in near vacuum. Replicators whose only perception of the world is as atoms they can use to make more of themselves. There is nothing paradoxical about this.
Absent from the passage is any hint of an idea for the radical change in capitalism that he presumably wants to see. Perhaps he describes one elsewhere?
What is strange? The complete failure to imagine anything other than capitalism, communism, or fascism, to think outside “things we have already tried” despite the observation that the things we’ve already tried all suck.
Personally speaking, I could give you a long, detailed proposal for a significantly different economic system, which, notably, does not require human beings to begin behaving in radically different ways, nor requires throwing anyone in camps of any kind. What I cannot do is give you a neat, one-word name for my proposed system (which is, of course, open to revisions and improvements, blah blah blah), because anything with a one-word name is already so fixed and set-in-stone as to be either the status quo or non-novel.
A rational individual, and especially a trans-whatever individual, should no more believe there are only three economic systems than he believes there are only three flavors of ice-cream.
I think you’re projecting; it’s by no means a mutually agreed observation that these things all suck. Plenty of people think that capitalism is great. Some, despite the evidence of the past century, still think communism is great—the author of that quote, Slavoj Zizek, prominent among them. And while few openly call themselves Fascists, there’s actually no shortage of people holding views that fit broadly in that spectrum.
To change your analogy:
Alice: Chocolate ice-cream is the best.
Bob: No, vanilla is the most delicious.
Eli: Look, we’re all agreed that chocolate and vanilla ice-cream both suck. So let’s all try pistachio!
A&B together: No!!!
That’s a very good point. However, I would still call it a failure of rationality if it went like this:
Alice: Chocolate is best.
Bob: No, vanilla is delicious.
Me: I don’t really like either of those, so let’s get pistachio.
A&B together: There’s no such thing as ice-cream flavors other than chocolate and vanilla. Now hurry up and cast the tie-breaking vote!