Žižek and me in 2008. Photo by Lee Yew Leong.  To go along with some of my thoughts in my last post about some of the 99%ers, and how we need more than just to shake the capital loose from the top because Americans cannot continue to live like they did from 1980-2008 (building suburbs and large houses everywhere with an agricultural monoculture) since it’s an environmental disaster and we have to start reimagining how we run our society, our neighborhoods, and our lives as a whole, here are some thoughts from Slavoj Žižek, the Slovenian theorist:   “In April 2011, the Chinese government prohibited on TV and films and in novels all stories that contain alternate reality or time travel. This is a good sign for China. It means that people still dream about alternatives, so you have to prohibit this dream. Here we don’t think of prohibition. Because the ruling system has even suppressed our capacity to dream. Look at the movies that we see all the time. It’s easy to imagine the end of the world. An asteroid destroying all life and so on. But you cannot imagine the end of capitalism. So what are we doing here? …  “There is a danger. Don’t fall in love with yourselves. We have a nice time here. But remember: carnivals come cheap. What matters is the day after. When we will have to return to normal life. Will there be any changes then. I don’t want you to remember these days, you know, like - oh, we were young, it was beautiful. Remember that our basic message is: We are allowed to think about alternatives. The rule is broken. We do not live in the best possible world. But there is a long road ahead. There are truly difficult questions that confront us. We know what we do not want. But what do we want? What social organization can replace capitalism? What type of new leaders do we want?”

Žižek and me in 2008. Photo by Lee Yew Leong. 

To go along with some of my thoughts in my last post about some of the 99%ers, and how we need more than just to shake the capital loose from the top because Americans cannot continue to live like they did from 1980-2008 (building suburbs and large houses everywhere with an agricultural monoculture) since it’s an environmental disaster and we have to start reimagining how we run our society, our neighborhoods, and our lives as a whole, here are some thoughts from Slavoj Žižek, the Slovenian theorist:  

“In April 2011, the Chinese government prohibited on TV and films and in novels all stories that contain alternate reality or time travel. This is a good sign for China. It means that people still dream about alternatives, so you have to prohibit this dream. Here we don’t think of prohibition. Because the ruling system has even suppressed our capacity to dream. Look at the movies that we see all the time. It’s easy to imagine the end of the world. An asteroid destroying all life and so on. But you cannot imagine the end of capitalism. So what are we doing here? … 

“There is a danger. Don’t fall in love with yourselves. We have a nice time here. But remember: carnivals come cheap. What matters is the day after. When we will have to return to normal life. Will there be any changes then. I don’t want you to remember these days, you know, like - oh, we were young, it was beautiful. Remember that our basic message is: We are allowed to think about alternatives. The rule is broken. We do not live in the best possible world. But there is a long road ahead. There are truly difficult questions that confront us. We know what we do not want. But what do we want? What social organization can replace capitalism? What type of new leaders do we want?”

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