Censorship Today:
Violence,
or Ecology as a New Opium for the Masses - Part I
by SLAVOJ ZIZEK
In spite of the infinite adaptability of capitalism
which, in the case of an acute ecological catastrophe
or crisis, can easily turn ecology into a new field
of capitalist investment and competition, the very
nature of the risk involved fundamentally precludes a
market solution - why? Capitalism only works in
precise social conditions: it implies the trust into
the objectivized/"reified" mechanism of the market's
"invisible hand" which, as a kind of Cunning of
Reason, guarantees that the competition of individual
egotisms works for the common good.
Censorship Today:
Violence,
or Ecology as a New Opium for the Masses - Part II
by SLAVOJ ZIZEK
The horror of the Chernobyl accident resides in the
fact that when one visits the site, with the
exception of the sarcophagus, things look exactly the
same as before, life seems to have deserted the site,
leaving everything the way it is, and nonetheless we
are aware that something is terribly wrong. The
change is not at the level of the visible reality
itself, it is a more fundamental one, it affects the
very texture of reality. No wonder there are some
lone farmers around the Chernobyl site who continued
to lead their lives as before - they simply ignore
all the incomprehensible talk about
radiations.