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Sunday, May 24, 2009

"A Plea for Leninist Intolerance," by Slavoj Zizek :

"A Plea for Leninist Intolerance," by Slavoj Zizek :

Full: <http://criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/issues/v28/v28n2.zizek.html>

"Fidelity to the democratic consensus means the acceptance of the
present liberal-parliamentary consensus, which precludes any serious
questioning of how this liberal-democratic order is complicit in the
phenomena it officially condemns and, of course, any serious attempt
to imagine a society whose sociopolitical order would be different.

"In short, it means say and write whatever you want on the condition
that what you do does not effectively question or disturb the
predominant political consensus. So everything is allowed, solicited
even, as a critical topic. [...]

"The problem is that all this occurs against the background of a
fundamental _Denkverbot_, a prohibition against thinking. Today's
liberal-democratic hegemony is sustained by a kind of unwritten
_Denkverbot_ similar to the infamous _Berufsverbot_ in Germany of the
late sixties; the moment one shows a minimal sign of engaging in
political projects that aim to seriously challenge the existing order,
the answer is immediately: "Benevolent as it is, this will necessarily
end in a new Gulag!"

"[...] The moment one seriously questions the existing liberal
consensus, one is accused of abandoning scientific objectivity for the
outdated ideological positions.

"This is the point that one cannot and should not concede: today,
actual freedom of thought must mean *the freedom to question the
predominant liberal-democratic postideological consensus--or it means
nothing*.

Full: <http://criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/issues/v28/v28n2.zizek.html>

.Posted byVenu K.M

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