On Sat, 17 Mar 2007 09:51:23 -0700 (PDT) Wojtek Sokolowski
<swsokolowski at yahoo.com> writes:
> -- "B." <docile_body at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
> >
> > Where to look for a revolutionary potential?
> >
> >
> >
> > by Slavoj Žižek
> >
> >
> >
>
> >
>
>
> [WS:] Zizek may be up to something this time,
> especially re. the proximity of NYC and Slovene
> academics - but I think he is quite unrealistic about
> the revolutionary potential of the slum dwellers. In
> fact his percpeption of slum dwellers is that of a
> pampered star-eyed arm chair philsophiser who did not
> even come near a slum.
>
> I did, in Nairobi, inter alia. A short visit, to
> be sure, but eye opening. I got there thanks to an
> 'inside connection' - my driver lived there and
> offered to show it to me. Before I proceed I need to
> expaln why a driver employed by a univesity in Nairobi
> lived in a slum. He did so, because most of his
> salary, not so bad for local conditions, went to
> support his extended family, specifically health care.
> There is no public health insurance in Kenya -
> hospital care is strictly on fee-for-service basis.
> As a rsult, extended families bear the finacial burden
> of hospital care of their relatives.
> This was not the only slum I visited in my travels.
> I've also been to the slums of Siem Reap, Bangkok,
> Maputo, Santiago and Mexico City. In all those places
> I saw signs of social structure and order amids the
> squarlor. It is only pampered arm-chair philosophers
> and campus radicals bored with their middle class
> existence and trying to escape their petit bourgeois
> ennui by looking for the exotic that see a "boiling
> revoltionary mass" or similar bullshit. I see people
> trying to build normal lives and maintain order and
> dignity, even amidst squarlor. Anyone who is
> imagining that these pople would drop whatever little
> order and stability they have for the
> pseudo-revolutionary mumbo jumbo jumbo of the blase
> first world intellectuals needs to have his head
> examined.
However, under certain circumstances, they might
well become revolutionaries precisely in order to
hold on to or recreate the little stability and order
that they have, or had, in their lives in the face of
threatening economic, social, and political
forces. I don't think that most people, whether
they be workers, peasants, or slum dwellers
ever become revolutionaries, simply for the
hell of it. They do so, because they see, usually
following a period of improving conditions, the
gains they had made come under threat
>
> There is very little doubt in my mind that the slum
> dwellers have elaborate social structure, norms of
> behavior, values, and informal social instituions that
> gives their lives a sense of direction and order.
> These may not be values, expectations or structures
> that a liberal intellectual like myself may find
> appealing - in fact some of them may be quite
> antithetical to what I believe. But seeing the slum
> dwellers and underlas in general as as a massive
> force majeure ready to swell and install a new higher
> world order is nothing but a delusion of a blase
> intellelctual waiting for the biggest spectacle of
> them all to happen.
>
> A final comment - although Zizek is very careful to
> avoid romanticizing the underclass and slum dwellers -
> this is usually not the case of many self-styled
> radicals and lefties. It seems that thier vision of a
> "revolution" is to create an exciing spectacle: tear
> down the norms of everyday life and drag down the high
> culture to the gutters, instead of uplifting the
> underclass to the level of high culture. This is one
> of the main reasons that I am a wussy social democrat
> not a radical, and if by any remote chance the
> revolution finally comes to town, I will be sipping
> wine in my modest middle class apartment, looking
> through the window and waiting for all that brouhaha
> to die down.
>
> Wojtek
>
>
>
>
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