Demanding the Impossible by Slavoj Žižek

Let’s take Scandinavian countries. We can be critical of them. I know all those stories about Sweden being really racist and collaborating with the Nazis, etc., etc. But, let me be very naive: in the history of humanity, I don’t think there have ever been, at any stage, so many people living such a relatively safe and comfortable life. So when Western European social democracy is still successful, what is so bad about this? Nothing. But the point is that, unfortunately, because of economic necessities, this social democratic system is approaching its end. It cannot work in that way.
    There is, radically, a new level of capitalism where everything changes. For example, take personal morality. This is my big problem with my old friend Judith Butler. My problem with post-feminists is that, for them, the enemy is still patriarchal identity politics. But, as I tell them all the time, this is no longer the ruling ideology today. The ruling ideology today is basically something like a vague hedonism with a Buddhist touch. “Realize yourself! Experiment! Be satisfied! Do what you want with your life.” It’s a kind of generalized hedonism. So what Judith Butler is preaching is a subversive model: “No fixed identity. Reconstruct yourself.” But this, I claim, is not the ruling ideology today. Conservatives are just a reaction to this. The basic model is this one: there is no longer a fixed identity.
    You see what I mean? We really have to rethink it all. Everything should be rethought, one should begin from the zero point. The left is not yet aware of what 1990 meant. It was that all models – the communist state model, the social democratic model, also this immediate democracy model – have failed. So, we should really start to think again .

21
The Fear of Real Love
    What should the left take as a warning from this failure? What will we learn from this failed revolution?
    SŽ: Let me quote Badiou here. I think this might amuse you. Now, even sex, in the sense of intensively falling in love, is going out of fashion. What is fashionable now are one-night-stands, as shown by all these slogans: “Don’t take bonds too seriously. You must creatively try homosexuality and heterosexuality. Be open. Don’t fix yourself.” Alain Badiou drew my attention to something. He found a wonderful French advertisement for an internet dating site and matrimonial agency, which promised: “We will enable you to be in love without falling in love!” It works both in French and English with the word “fall” which, in French, is “tomber.” The idea of falling in love is considered to be something terrible. Let’s admit it. You have a good, normal life. Everything is perfect. But when you fall in love – I mean in a true meaning of love – you will be shocked. Falling in love is really just too traumatic. Because your life will be totally ruined. We are too narcissistic to risk any kind of accidental trip or fall . Even into love.
    Well, this is such a narcissistic economy that you must have a marital agency. It is somehow a nice idea, but nonetheless here we are basically in a way returning to the pre-modern tradition of arranged marriages or dates. Only instead of parents and relatives, it’s the agency that takes on this role. You know why? Because we are afraid of exposing ourselves. We do not fall in love. Rather, we look out for better characteristics and economic backgrounds. But it’s incredible to see how this actually works. And did you notice, in our narcissistic era, how love or fanatical sexual engagements are themselves becoming transgressive?
    I am tempted to link this to another example that really worries me. Something weird is going on in Hollywood. It’s a small symptom, but I think it’s dangerous. Did you know that the James Bond film Quantum of Solace – it’s relatively leftist as James Bond saves the Morales regime in Bolivia – was the first Bond film where Bond didn’t have sex with the Bond Girl?