Žižek’s Follies

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.  With great respect to those whom adore Žižek, fear is necessary for mankind to embrace new philosophical systems or re-embrace old ones, whether that be religion or environmentalism.  The Church by and large is averse to embracing new ecologies because the existing nature of creation must be respected.  In other words, any sublimated “superstitions,” however outlandish, can be evaluated but ultimately must be sustained for the entire body of believers to feel included.  Žižek’s “unknown knowns” fall into this category: religion (and environmentalism) in Žižek’s narrow estimation is established as that accessible only to the most intellectually attuned but not those who hear the word, understand that they are saved, and unconsciously embellish their faith with various glittering trivialities.  These trivialities in the aggregate represent in Žižek’s mind a danger because where a “great” leader—Bush II or Leopold II—might have the imprimatur of the evangelical church and the Catholic Church, respectively, any foreign enterprise embarked upon to improve a country’s safety or privilege it economically is, indeed, systematically evil.

Žižek is unafraid to take on religion or the new religion, environmentalism.  Human beings are reactive, nay reactionary, by nature and the Lord understands it.  Negative motivation is necessary, for without a counter-joy, real joy would be taken for granted and counted as an exclusively human purview.  Real joy, however, comes from the Lord and must also be shared.  Isolationist Christianity, for example, is an oxymoron which fails the basic tenets of loving one’s neighbor.  If America were to shut its borders as did seventeenth century Japan, many countries the world over—including Canada—would suffer.  The economic benefit American provides is important along with missionaries various church organizations send all across the globe.  Am I digressing?

Do economics and religion still go hand in hand?  When we spread prosperity, are we also spreading the gospel?  Heavy-handedness like the Iraq War is wrong, yes, but is the world safer with Saddam gone?  I would like to think so for the sake of the lives lost.  Are the atrocities committed in the Congo Free State important that they be remembered such that they not be repeated?  The answer to this is also yes.  I don’t understand why the spread of prosperity means, for Žižek, that resources must be purposed equally for all peoples.  The arc of the Biblical narrative does not reflect this: some will have much, others not so much.  But in no way is this inhumane.  In Žižek’s world, terror would reinforce the State’s governing of egalitarian resource utilization.  So there would emerge a totalitarian state to replace our current set of nation-states all fighting for hegemony.  Hmm….

The beauty of Christianity is that there is the hope that we will get to a point where all will feel inclined to volunteer to help and love one’s neighbor.  But that is not violent reinforcement.  In fact, the negativity of Hell is not a reinforcement but a warning, a heeding.