/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.6613362]

>Marx’s key insight remains valid, perhaps more than ever: for Marx, the question of freedom should not be located primarily in the political sphere proper (Does a country have free elections? Are its judges independent? Is its press free from hidden pressures? Does it respect human rights?). Rather, the key to actual freedom resides in the “apolitical” network of social relations, from the market to the family. Here the change required is not political reform but a transformation of the social relations of production — which entails precisely revolutionary class struggle rather than democratic elections or any other “political” measure in the narrow sense of the term. We do not vote on who owns what, or about relations in the factory, and so on — such matters remain outside the sphere of the political, and it is illusory to expect that one will effectively change things by “extending” democracy into the economic sphere (by, say, reorganizing the banks to place them under popular control). Radical changes in this domain need to be made outside the sphere of legal “rights.” In “democratic” procedures (which, of course, can have a positive role to play), no matter how radical our anti-capitalism, solutions are sought solely through those democratic mechanisms which themselves form part of the apparatuses of the “bourgeois” state that guarantees the undisturbed reproduction of capital. In this precise sense, Badiou was right to claim that today the name of the ultimate enemy is not capitalism, empire, exploitation, or anything similar, but democracy itself. It is the “democratic illusion,” the acceptance of democratic mechanisms as providing the only framework for all possible change, which prevents any radical transformation of capitalist relations.

Why is this man allowed to speak in universities? He's basically advocating an anti-democratic coup.

[Anonymous No.6613382]

>>6613362
He doesn't seriously advocate anything, save for increasing his own bank balance by blabbing off to some internet teenagers.

[Anonymous No.6613721]

>>6613362
You're not paying attention to what he's saying. Republicanism isn't democracy and Capitalism is inherently anti-democratic.

[Anonymous No.6613754]

>>6613362
>He's basically advocating an anti-democratic coup.
>2015
>believing we live in democracies

Anyway,
>2015
>listening to meme philosophers

[Anonymous No.6613797]

>He's basically advocating an anti-democratic coup.

>Marxists have controlled European academia since Frankfurt
>hurr durr I don't know what dictatorship of the proletariat is

This has been a common academic viewpoint for a long time, bud-o

[Anonymous No.6613806]

>>6613362
Still 20 years to see all the marxists die.

We will make it

[Anonymous No.6613819]

>>6613362
Actually what he's saying is spot on

[Anonymous No.6613858]

>>6613362

He is right though, most people with a fully functioning non-ideological brain agree with this.

Other people go saying everytime "if you want to change something, vote, in the mean time just work" thinking that they will see a change through votations.

[Anonymous No.6613952]

>>6613806
He's completely right though. Democracy (as it currently stands) is just an extension of upper class power where the plebs can choose which rich person represents them.
Consider the lack of a an open general public discourse in society. People can't speak or listen to new ideas, they can only vote on a handful of ones selected by people/groups with the financial backing to make it an issue.
What's really scary is thanks to industrialized education and media, even our morality is becoming a market product

[Anonymous No.6613963]

>implying the demos should remain powerful

[Anonymous No.6613965]

>>6613952
Are you talking about America only or the entire west?

[Anonymous No.6613968]

>>6613362
Read the sticky

[ΟΥΤΙΣ No.6613990]

>>6613362
>advocating a totalitarian ban because Zizek is antiequalitarianism

Oh the ironing

[Anonymous No.6614111]

>>6613952

I often tell people to just imagine the scenario: Hitler is succesful in Europe, a peace accord is achieved, but then he passes away.

A new election will be held where the new Fuhrer will be chosen by the people. The two are members of the nazi party, the media is controlled by the nazi party, etc. It may seem like anyone would be able to see through this sham, but soon the heavy campaigning would begin (Because after all both really want to be the Fuhrer) the different sects of the party and the media will choose their candidate, their small differences will begin to obfuscate their Nazi consensus, people will start picking on these differences ("X is better for women!" "Y has a better welfare plan") and soon even the most staunch opponents of the Nazis will see voting as the best way to change things, because the Nazi system may be bad, but we really need to stop X this election.

This is more or less the situation we're in. One group has won, and now we can pick between their two wings.

[Anonymous No.6614146]

>>6613362
Why do you reject the idea that universities should be places of free expression, OP?

[Anonymous No.6614151]

>>6613362
>He's basically advocating an anti-democratic coup
There's literally nothing wrong with that.

[Anonymous No.6614252]

>>6613362
Totally agree with him. We need to start giving more attention to our practice of power outside of established political forms. The "stroll through the institutions" (or whatever that phrase is in English) is a dead end full of fatal "compromises".

[Anonymous No.6614321]

of the the poltical does not equal the economic.

so if you change the political you still might not have changed anything about the economic. This is why worker ownership of the means or production still works through bourgeois laws and will not solve anything.

we have to go further

[Anonymous No.6614809]

>>6613362
>believing we have democracy.

You are cute, i guess you also believe we have free spech, and ninpho-fairires and so on and so on..

[Anonymous No.6614886]

Zizek is a God! Praise him!

[Anonymous No.6615037]

It's funny how we have such a consensus (at least coming from the Left) on /lit/ regarding liberal democracy but even in the comments section of radical publications such as Jacobin you can see that the left-wing has already decided they'll drink the Democrat kool aid once again and are already attacking those who refuse to support Sanders.

Every time there's an election I feel what Trotsky and Lenin must have during WW1 when everyone was turning into pro-government whores

[Anonymous No.6616287]

I never considered myself a Marxist or a Zizek fan, but I unintentionally made exactly the same argument today when I was discussing this feminist lynch mob that was trying to get Tosh.0 banned from speaking in my town.

The debate came to rest on the question of free speech. It was asserted that only the government has a right to honor speech rights. I said that that's bullshit because government per se doesn't determine who has the biggest megaphone, and that in practice, people need to vigorously denounce and oppose any mob that wants to shame venues or the media into banning a speaker (providing he's not inciting genocide). My argument rested basically on the idea that 'apolitical' social forces (media organizations, lynch mobs, networks of gossiping women) can become powerful enough to manipulate governments and society, so merely what rights the government protects don't mean shit.

Independently discovering Marx's insights FTW.