ethics news & views: Haunted by the totalitarian past: Lessons in the failure of moral imagination

March 01, 2003

Haunted by the totalitarian past: Lessons in the failure of moral imagination

“Who worries about totalitarianism these days?” we may well ask. After the events of September 11, the specter of totalitarianism seems a faint memory compared to the more pressing global problem of terrorism.

But for Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek, the two are not so easily separated, for obvious reasons. An unrepentant Marxist and unapologetic Roman Catholic, Zizek sees a totalitarian menace where others see a totalitarian memory. Specifically, Zizek fears that false memories of what totalitarianism was endanger our chances of imagining a more whole society, exercising our moral imaginations, and condemning present evil.

Zizek finds that our misunderstandings of the “T-word” falls into one of five slots:

(1) We assume that modern life and society are so destructive that totalitarianism is almost inevitable, unleashing a human frailty unhemmed by the traditional community bonds it needs.

(2) We are so shocked by 20th century genocide—especially by the Holocaust—that we forget to take proper warning from the politics that brought it about. Soon, “totalitarianism” equates with “the Holocaust,” leaving us in a position where it is difficult to criticize either.

(3) We unthinkingly agree with political conservatives who inveigh against any imaginative utopian project whatsoever, saying that all utopias lead down the road of totalitarianism.

(4) In academic circles particularly, we worry unduly that any attachment to a “Big Picture” view of the world—accompanied as it often is by absolutes and moral imperatives—will contribute to a totalitarian mentality.

And finally, (5) we too easily accuse our political rivals of totalitarianism, reducing “fascist,” “Nazi,” and “communist” to mere schoolyard epithets.

In short, we have failed to learn the hard lessons of our totalitarian past, a failure that threatens to return to us with a vengeance. Most upsetting to Zizek is the observation that even though we reject all the historical incarnations and crimes of totalitarianism, we are not so immune to the kind of thinking that enables it in the first place. Like J.R.R. Tolkein’s “one ring to rule them all,” totalitarianism hides dormant for years, waiting for the right time to reappear in full force.

The chief assumption that threatens us, Zizek argues, is the easy belief that reality is fixed, that things will continue much as they have, that an occasional course correction is all that is necessary, indeed, all that is possible. Our resignation to the status quo—or to gradualism—opens up a space for utilitarian opportunists who are not afraid to shift around societal norms to suit their own selfish purposes. When hope in utopias is not present in society, Zizek fears, opportunists will be able to turn society’s lack of hopefulness against itself, preparing the ground for a later totalitarianism.

Key to the operation of any totalitarian regime is the enforcement of a single, narrow, even obviously absurd worldview, coupled with random acts of terror that force us to retreat into an alienated individuality, fearful that any aberration from the “party line” will bring certain harm to ourselves and our loved ones. The specifics of what counts as the party line are not at all important to the regime. All that is important is that some party line is out there, defining an elusive (even nonexistent) enemy so that society can be manipulated into marching lockstep, fearful of succumbing to a mysterious foe.

Our hope then, says Zizek, is to embrace the unfinished-ness of reality, its frayed ends and its budding shoots. These frayed ends and budding shoots in our lives are the very points where new visions of personal wholeness and the good society burst forth; in fact, it is naïve, argues Zizek, to assume that new visions will not spring forth. When we embrace this risky newness—our virtue intact—we will be occasionally but reliably surprised to discover new visions of the Good, visions that radically transform how we understand ourselves and each other.

Zizek models such a risky incompleteness in his writing. Rapidly switching subjects—anything from Al Pacino to Roman Catholic theology to the Stalinist purges—Zizek writes as though he were in a great hurry, yet manages to stay away (for the most part) from overly academic jargon.

It is easy to find Zizek’s view of discovering the Good too easy, too naïve. If goodness will simply happen when everybody gets together and tries to love one another right now, why isn’t there more goodness apparent in the world? Equally telling is the lack of clear articulations of the Good, from Zizek or others.

Perhaps it is most telling of our times that we find ourselves at pains to convincingly name either the Good or the Evil for society, not even when recent events made the existence of both painfully obvious. Zizek helps us at least to get started.

Did Someone Say Totalitarianism? Five Interventions in the Mis(use) of a Notion.
By Slavoj Zizek. Verso, 280pp. $22.

[ Posted by Chance Hunter at March 1, 2003 07:59 AM |