First as Tragedy: Entry 5

Zizek takes us on an enlightening path concerning the "New Spirit" of modern capitalism in the section "The 'New Spirit' of Capitalism.  He begins by pointing out that it is truly a fear of the Other (meaning any neighbor) that causes us to have empathy with others, insofar as they are reduced to simply "fellow men" engaged in whatever emancipatory liberal struggle is being fought for.  To illustrate this in a rather gross manner, he applied this concept in another one of his books, Violence.  Believe it or not (although it shouldn't be hard to believe considering the state in which it happened), a California sex-products-based company has began sponsoring what they call the Masturbate-a-Thon.  The name isn't deceiving: it's nothing more than a big public masturbation fest.  (Yes, this has actually happened)  As disturbing as this is, it has proved to be an interesting study for psychologists.  The hosts of the M-a-T sell you the idea that you are being "open" and "secure" in your sexuality, by being your "own best lover."  But this free-love hippie bullcrap is far from the psyche of the freaks who participate.  Truly, these people are fearful of everyone else out in the world, and it comforts them to engage in crowd activities like this because only in times such as these are they truly alone.  Zizek poses the question: is it more embarrassing to masturbate in front of your spouse, or to have sex with them? Obviously masturbation.  And so the most intimate experiences are the ones we share with only one more person.  But the people who participate in the M-a-T are fully comforted in their activities because every person in the crowd shares the same solipsistic perception that no one else really exists.  This is the way modern capitalism is: we box ourselves off in our little communities and donate generously to charities out of our surpluses, but we really just pretend the people on the receiving end don't exist at all. 

Charity is another problem with modern eco- or green-capitalism.  As I mentioned last time, Starbucks tries to sell you the idea that "it's not what you're buying, it's what you're buying into."  They claim to buy only free-trade coffee beans, pay the fairest prices, support the greatest humanitarian efforts, etc., and yet they make money off of it all (why is their coffee more expensive than everyone else's?).  The problem with this idea of charitable giving is that it simply "keeps the poor alive," per se.  If you really want to end poverty, you must completely reform the economic system so that it is IMPOSSIBLE to be poor anymore.  Otherwise, you are like Bill Gates, Soros, and Starbucks: you give with one hand what you take with the other. 



Perhaps the indigenous people working to produce these coffee beans in Africa, say, would much rather grow the plants for themselves, rather than being paid and sold manufactured crops in return. 

First as Tragedy, Then as Farce: Entry 4

"Human, All Too Human..."

The fact that the modern era generally classifies itself as "post-ideological" most likely means that we are more immersed in ideology than ever before.  An example is how the modern (bourgeois) liberal society relates itself to MLK Jr.; as a welfare-capitalist movement that "has a dream" of equality in general, forgetting that many of the efforts the man fought for were formerly reserved for communists and socialists.  Worker unions, the right to strike, universal suffrage, etc. were all considered communist ideals until recently, as they have become part of modern "people-friendly" capitalism.  In fact, as I read through the demands at the end of my copy of the Communist Manifesto, I see the following included: "Every German over 21 years of age shall be able to vote and be elected, provided he has no criminal conviction," "All means of transport: railways, canals, steamships, roads, posts, etc., shall be taken over by the state. They are to be transformed into state property and put at the free service of the needy," and "Universal and free popular schooling." Now, how many of your typical hippie-capitalist CEO's of Starbucks and other such smiley-face corporations will disagree with those demands? Do we not swallow those down today as goals capitalism itself should pursue and protect?  And yet, what would these profiteers think if they found out these same ideals were Marxist?  That is what Zizek means when he asserts that ideology most often appears as its opposite, non-ideology.           

One of the major reasons for this disavowal of ideology is an elementary Freudian one: we repress our real social actions and behaviors and substitute a deeply emotional and "humanized" story of our "inner self" instead.  If it's true that an enemy is someone "you've never heard their story from," is it true we could sympathize with Hitler if only he were to tell us of his personal struggles? Of course not. We should resist that idea altogether. The reality of a person is what you get under psychoanalysis, occasional tongue-slips, or with some people, in candid conversation.  That is why your biggest capitalists like to relate themselves with humanitarian figures today--they mask their latent exploits, scams, and selfish schemes and desires with charities and stories of personal struggle.  Sure, this is a bit of a generalization. But if there is ever to be resistance to the problems we face in modern society, there's always need of a little generalization.  Nietzsche would be proud to have his book title acknowledged in such an aggressive social analysis. 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

Slovenian Castles (Current Events 2)

For my next current events entry on Slovenia, I decided to highlight a major tourist attraction that the country has to offer...castles.  There are about 500 castles, manors, and ruins in Slovenia, and many of the castles have been restored to serve other purposes.  Bled Castle, the oldest in the country, stands on a giant rock face above scenic Bled Lake.  The restored interior has wine cellars, a museum, and other attractions for tourists.  Ljubljana Castle is an example of a very old structure that was once transformed into a prison.  It probably dates back to the 9th century!  Fuzine Castle was designed by the well known Slovenian architect, Joze Plecnik.  It is often times accessed by mountain bikers.  Many castles contain medieval objects, showcased in their museums.  Stanjel Castle is surrounded by a wall that was used to defend against the Turks in the 15th century.  Predjama Castle, perhaps the most famous of Slovenia, was actually constructed in a cave.  Overall, the many restored castles of Slovenia are perfect destinations for travellers looking for ancient historical artifacts, a cool drink, good food, recreation, or a sublime view of the countryside.  They can be accessed by bus, car, or bike. 

http://www.castles.info/slovenia/

                                  Predjama Castle

Joze Plecnik (architect)

First as Tragedy: Entry 3

(last entry was emailed)

In this entry I will attempt to cover the next section of Zizek's book, "The Structure of Enemy Propaganda."

In the last section, we saw how ideology is often used to defend the current functioning political system against any opposition by saying it is the only system that aligns with unalterable human nature.  Alain Badiou (The Communist Hypothesis) postulated that all enemy propaganda fights something to which it is structurally blind; it does not fight direct counter-forces, but the possibilities of such threats.  Propaganda is cynical in that it truly believes its on words, that it is the least bad option, and that any other option or system would just make things worse. 

The financial world is a semblance of the reality of social conventions.  It rests on a cornerstone, something the psychologist Lacan called "the subject supposed to know."  The players in the stock market and other speculators base their actions on the words of these "subjects supposed to know," i.e. the top economists, authorities, politicians, etc.  But if this subject falters in any way, panic effectively ensues.  The funny thing is, the subjects supposed to know were already of little importance because of deregulation, and the belief that the market economy is always cyclical and depends on the masses themselves. And so, whenever there is an economic crisis, the people become angry with their subjects supposed to know, and this lasts until the time comes to reconstruct new subjects to advise ways to escape the crisis.  An example of this subject was Alan Greenspan.  When he came under fire during the credit meltdown, being accused of failing to regulate too-low interest rates on mortgages and encouraging fraudulent banking activities, he claimed that he was shocked to find out that the ruling ideology of free-market self-interest had failed.  It is evident, then, that Greenspan believed the ridiculous premise that lending institutions would act responsibly in the short-term to avoid long-term explosions, forgetting that these same institutions knew the government would bail them out if it ever came to long-term problems.  Similarly, in today's digitalized capitalism where big corporations can also interfere on a major level with people's private lives, many forget that state regulation is oftentimes needed to protect the very autonomy it is supposed, by the libertarians, to endanger. 

Thomas Frank, in his book What's the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America, outlined how the underlying social class dichotomy between the blue-collar working class and the wealthy lawyers, bankers, etc. has been transposed into a (false) dichotomy between "hard-working, honest, Christian Americans" and liberal (in today's sense), decadent, internationally-focused snobs.  And so they stand for an economic policy of "fewer taxes, fewer regulation," which effectively frees up the big corporations to exploit the working class and drive the "hard-working, honest" Americans out of business.  Populist conservatism shoots itself in the foot. 

So if these "Sormanesque" versions of capitalism are too blunt and paradoxical to be considered hegemonic, what is today's hegemonic form of global capitalism? The answer is eco-capitalism, or green capitalism.  Capitalism is shifting from a material-based to a spiritual/humanitarian-based paradigm.  The ruling belief is that invisible hand market forces can be used to counteract humanitarian issues such as world poverty, eco-disasters, hunger, etc.  Could it be that capitalism has even lost its psychological appeal?  Are these rich investors finding that they need a meaning for their lives other than simply generating endless profit?  The problems with eco-capitalism will be discussed later, but it is evident that the former ideological Real of capitalism (individualist greed, cheap labor, managerial society, technological innovation) is being separated from its social reality (relations between people in consumer/producer society) and transformed into a spiritual/"green" Real while keeping the social relations intact. 

Visuals of modern ideological examples:

 Alan Greenspan

 Tea Party Protests

First as Tragedy, Then as Farce: Entry 1

Slavoj Zizek begins his inquiry into modern-day capitalism and its ideologies by questioning why the 2008 financial crisis was such a surprise to most Americans.  The media, demonstration/riot/protest-busting policemen, and purposeful ignorance do play a large part, but Zizek reminds his readers that it was the famous economist Keynes who said that the market economy is based on social speculation: decisions in the stock market, for example, are not based on one's individual judgment nor on mass judgment; instead, they are based on the speculation of what the average opinion speculates (beliefs about other people's beliefs).  Here, Zizek quotes John Gray: "We are forced to live as if we were free." Thus, in theory, the market could react positively to the bail-out money simply because of a mass belief in its potential to do so. 

Slavoj then points out a contradiction inherent in the Republican oppositions to the bail-out money: why do they insist on it being a socialist measure, when the very class the funds are being given to is the rich, Wall Street speculative class? So it seems as if even the Democrats believe in the effectiveness of "trickle-down economics"; they apparently believe the best way to save "Main Street" is to save "Wall Street" first. State intervention is possibly very much a capitalistic means of stability and progress. To support this conjecture, Zizek points out how part of the 2008 meltdown, the housing crisis, was sparked when the US gov't  decided to make housing credit easier in order to compensate for the huge losses caused by the dotcom bubble bursting in 2001. Similarly, the US gov't pays American farmers of main staple crops much more than is invested in foreign, and often times higher-quality, markets of the same crops (Malian cotton and beef, for example).  Thus, there is another seemingly inherent contradiction in formal capitalism as well: nationalism always seems to thwart true free market (global) competition. True laissez-faire economics would allow the weakest links to disintegrate, but when those links are Wall Street traders, the US gov't does whatever it needs to do in order to counteract the quite natural effects of the free market.

In my next entry, I will focus on the next section of the book's Part I: "Crisis as Shock Therapy"

New Country/New Author/2nd Nine Weeks First Entry

As I am switching to Slovenia for my next country of study, I have decided to read a non-fiction political critique by the pop philosopher Slavoj Zizek. The title of the novel is First as Tragedy, Then as Farce, being a spin off of one of Marx's famous lines.  I believe it is important to read political non-fiction from other countries because it is sometimes necessary to learn from foreign ideologies in order to counteract the typical American news biases, infestations, and presuppositions that feed us everyday.  And it is only fitting that this book is an inquiry and critique on the basis of our American political, social, and economic lives: capitalism.  But as I have just begun reading it, I shall postpone any commentary on the first section until the next blog entry. Below are informational points on Slovenia, and some basic biographical information on Mr. Zizek.

Slovenia

•                                      
• Capital: Ljubljana
• Official Language: Slovene
• Government: Parliamentary Republic
• President: Danilo Turk
• Prime Minister: Borut Pahor
• Approx. Population as of '09:   2,054,199
• Currency: Euro
• GDP per capita: $28,118
• Predominant Religion: Roman Catholicism

Slavoj Zizek

• "The most dangerous philosopher in the West." -New Republic
• "The Elvis of cultural theory." -Chronicle of Higher Education
• Professor at several universities; senior researcher at the Institute of Sociology, Univ of Ljubljana, Slovenia
• Subjects of study: Marxism, Hegelianism, Lacanian psychoanalysis
• Atheist
• 2 documentaries: "Zizek" and "A Pervert's Guide to Cinema"

     

For an interesting synopsis of a Zizek thesis, watch this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpAMbpQ8J7g

U.S.-Poland Relations

• Diplomatic relations established in April 1919
• Relations stagnated during the heat of the Cold War, but were significantly improved afterwards when a consular agreement was signed in 1972
• 1974- Gierek, first Polish leader to visit the US, was proof of an improved tie between the two countries
• During the Solidarity movement in 1980, the U.S. provided $765 million in agricultural assistance for Poland
• When the Polish government tried to ban the Solidarity trade union, U.S.-Poland relations dipped a little, only to be reestablished in 1987
• Poland continues to be a loyal supporter of U.S. military endeavors, including anti-terrorism, human-rights issues, and UN reform.

U.S. Ambassador (Poland): Lee A. Feinstein

EDWARD GIEREK


LEE A. FEINSTEIN


http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2875.htm