New Left Review - Slavoj Zizek: How to Begin from the Beginning

New Left Review - Slavoj Zizek: How to Begin from the Beginning. This ‘red terror’ should nonetheless be distinguished from Stalinist ‘totalitarianism’. In his memoirs, Sándor Márai provided a precise definition of the difference. Even in the most violent phases of the Leninist dictatorship, when those who opposed the revolution were brutally deprived of their right to (public free) speech, they were not deprived of their right to silence: they were allowed to withdraw into inner exile. An episode from the autumn of 1922 when, on Lenin’s instigation, the Bolsheviks were organizing the infamous ‘Philosophers’ Steamer’, is indicative here. When he learned that an old Menshevik historian on the list of those intellectuals to be expelled had withdrawn into private life to await death due to heavy illness, Lenin not only took him off the list, but ordered that he be given additional food coupons. Once the enemy resigned from political struggle, Lenin’s animosity stopped.

For Stalinism, however, even such silence resonated too much. Not only were masses of people required to show their support by attending big public rallies, artists and scientists also had to compromise themselves by participating in active measures such as signing official proclamations, or paying lip-service to Stalin and the official Marxism. If, in the Leninist dictatorship, one could be shot for what one said, in Stalinism one could be shot for what one did not say. This was followed through to the very end: suicide itself, the ultimate desperate withdrawal into silence, was condemned by Stalin as the last and highest act of treason against the Party. This distinction between Leninism and Stalinism reflects their general attitude towards society: for the former, society is a field of merciless struggle for power, a struggle which is openly admitted; for the latter, the conflict is, sometimes almost imperceptibly, redefined as that of a healthy society against what is excluded from it—vermin, insects, traitors who are less than human.

This passage makes me think of the injunctions to express oneself that are necessary for communicative capitalism. Without the requirement that one express one's thoughts, desires, dreams, that one not only confess in the privacy of the confessional or analyst's couch but before others, whether on television or online, without the sense that putting into words was the essential political task, communicative capitalism could not have emerged. It could not have been a formation for or of strong silent types, for or of a repressed bourgeoisie. Rather, it depended--as is retroactively clear (the only possible path to clarity is backward)--on rap sessions, telling it like it is, speaking truth to power, expressing oneself, sharing one's feelings, not just being free to be you and me but being empowered and impelled to talk about it all the fucking time.

Why don't students talk? It's resistance, resistance to the Stalinist intolerance of silence. And, at risk of eliding Stalinism, communicative capitalism, and Nazism (I hope not an early symptom of becoming-Arendtian), I can't help but think of Schmitt's Buribunks, excerpted in Kittler:

Every Buribunk, regardless of sex, is obligated to keep a diary on every second of his or her life. These diaries are handed over on a daily basis and catalogued by district. A screening is done according to both a subject and a personal index. Then, while rigidly enforcing copyright for each individual entry, all entires of an erotic, demonic, satiric, political, and son on nature are subsumed accordingly, and witers are catalogued by district. Thanks to a precise systme, the organization of these entries in a card catalogue allows for immediate identification of relevant persons and their circumstances.
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A series of relevant practices--such as periodic and mutual photo opportunities and film presenations, an active exchange of diaries, readings from diaries, studio visits, conferences, new journals, theater productions preceded and followed by laudatios on the personality of the artists--ensure that the interest of the Buribunk in himself and in the quintessentially Buribunkic does not become mere decorum; they prevent as well a damaging, countercultural waning of interest, which leads us to doubt whether the refined existence of the Buribunk will ever come to an end.
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The basic outline of the philosophy of the Buribunks: I think, therefore I am; I speak therefore I am; I write, therefore I am; I publish therefore I am.
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I write therefore I am; I am, therefore I write. What do I write? I write muself. Who writes me? I myself write myself. What do i write about? I write that I write myself. What is the great engine that elevates me out of the complacent circle of egohood? History!

Comments

[Yunus Wajdi Gonzalez]

Great Post. It brought me great happiness to see that Zizek reference the author of such beautiful prose Sandor Marai.

I find myself thinking of Foucault's work on silences. There are things that we should protect by not speaking of. This has always presented itself, for me, as the greatest indictment of the psychoanalytic tradition. As much as I am astounded by the genius of Zizek's work i always shutter a little bit when he says things like everything must be interpreted or the secretly i believe the world exits so we can philosophize about it.

[Alain]

I really like this post as well Jodi. But I must ask, if one is constantly enjoined to speak, confess, express, etc... how does silence become something more than simply "opting out." I am thinking here more broadly, about a certain type of praxis or a broader political struggle. Perhaps this is unfair to ask since it is merely an observation but it seems to point at something essentially true of our current state. Thanks.

[Jodi]

Alain--good point. Maybe it signals a need to turn to Arendtian judgment? I'm not a fan of opting out (refusal, Bartleby) as a model for political action. On the other hand, it seems tactically foolish not to recognize that opting out might be appropriate some times (although it could not be a tool for taking over a system).

[Chris]

Why is it that when Zizek, Badiou..and you .. mention Arendt, it is always to express a distance or a difference from her? Sure, there are things worth distancing oneself from - totalitarianism and some of the company she kept - but surely her ideas about judgement - as expressive, of plurality and natality speak to the issues you raise here. Politics needs an engagement by citizens in a dissensus - not the retreat and silence she associates with the private realm of bourgeois liberalism.