This title is a not-terribly-subtle allusion to an old Eastern European joke that Zizek recounts in one of his books, where two Polish comrades are separated, one is sent to the Siberian mines, and before he leaves, he tells his friend: Look, we will establish a code for writing letters, since they are obviously going to be censored. If I want to write you something true, I will write it in blue ink. If it’s false, I’ll write it in red ink. The soldier finally sends a letter out of the Siberian camps, written in blue ink, talking about how wonderful things are there, how great the climate is, etc. with the final provision that the only problem is that they’re all out of red ink.
With that in mind, I’ve been informed that WordPress has “a concern about some of the content” on my blog, and that all of my postings, until this issue is “resolved,” must first be submitted for review. What this means is anyone’s guess – I suppose I’ve long fancied myself a threat to public order, but there’s something mildly discomfiting in having it confirmed by an external order. Were I to take a guess at my alleged transgressions, I would presume that I’ve either simply used too many swear words, which would seem fairly petulant and a bit arbitrary, or that I’ve become too radical, which seems more rational and thus less likely. This second hypothesis strikes me as nearly the worst decision that WordPress could make, and allows me to weave my first paragraph neatly in with my second and third; namely, another Zizek article.
This one is from a book he wrote shortly after 9/11 called “The Desert of the Real,” in which his opening declaration is that offering people Enlightenment-esque freedom of thought and speech is an extremely effective way of enslaving them. Now, to be fair, Zizek is a bit like the M. Night Shamalayan of popular intellectuals – there is generally an absurd twist, in which he uncovers the paradox or absurd or sometimes just plain opposite at the heart of every seemingly honest proposition. I think I believe these about half the time, but with this one, I’m relatively convinced. Zizek bases his statement on Kant’s explanation of the Enlightenment; Kant writes, “Argue as much as you want and about what you want, but obey!” In short, the offer of the freedom for debate removes the joy of the struggle, the reality of it. Perhaps the best way to keep people enslaved is to emancipate their minds – a criticism that Juergen Habermas would probably be well-served to consider. Zizek transitions into another story which I think is amusing – he recounts Brecht walking home one day in July 1953, and passing an enormous column of Soviet tanks headed to put down the Worker’s Revolt. He later wrote in his journal that that day, that time, was the first time in his life that he had been tempted to join the Communist Party. Not out of some ideological affinity, that cruelty and death were necessary to bring about the greater gains in the class struggle, but rather because it was simply real, authentic.
I think that this is similar to the sort of post-modern malaise that I’m experiencing now – these multifaceted and somewhat acephalous urges I’m feeling to lash out at something, anything, are an attempt to reach through a symbolic order and access the Real. Of course, Zizek, as an adamant Lacanian, holds that perceiving the Real will drive you mad, but I suppose that everyone suffers for art, right? Even more amusing, Zizek talks about the sort of bizarre wish-fulfillment in the 9/11 attacks, where Americans constantly made films showing New York as the hotbed of some sort of alien attack or natural disaster. And then, when it finally happened, we couldn’t perceive it as anything other than a spectacle – we never registered the real significance of its meaning, and were forced to throw it into these endless loops of television news network mediation. I, in turn, have written a number of times on this blog about how I’ll eventually be censored, that the things I’m writing are inappropriate or inaccessible to most of the public, that people don’t like to think these things nor be presented with them – and now that I actually have been censored for my material, I’m shocked, in the way that some sort of bizarre fantasy for the Real, for Oppression or Censorship was ultimately rewarding only because of the firm belief that it couldn’t transpire.
Of course, I suppose now that I no longer have the freedom of mind, I do have something to struggle against. Thanks for that, WordPress. I look forward to learning which parts of my content were objectionable.
Postscript: Perhaps most amusingly, it looks like the Submit for Review buttons are strictly for show – they appear to do absolutely nothing.
