It is impotent rage and despair masked as a display of force; it is envy masked as triumphant carnival.
Slavoj Žižek: Shoplifters of the World Unite
Still on the subject of last month’s London riots (and beyond), Slavoj Zizek bests my ability to articulate a few (hopefully) nuanced thoughs. His indictment is complete: conservatives blind to the fact the riots were themselves a conservative outburst, leftists too vain to recognize impotence and too eager to opt in on to any popular outbursts without discrimination; and a particular insight about both sides’ lack of ‘world’, which I read as the refusal to acknowledge nuance, complexity, and the staggering fact that there are seven thousand million people around. Perhaps an good example of this - and as picking on the right-wing would be too easy - is the typical leftist blind and uncompromising refusal of nuclear energy, as if the option was between nuclear and nothing - it is obviously, a complex choice between nuclear and other equally harmful sources, as even a similar megawattage of ‘sustainable’ sources such as wind or solar is arguably ecologically harmful (and even if people in their little community believe they need no such amounts of energy, perhaps their 7000 million meat-eating, Benz-craving neighbours disagree, and what to do then?).
Again, a very recommended and uncompromising read.
Source: lrb.co.uk
