Zizek: 20 Years of Collapse

20 Years of Collapse

By SLAVOJ ZIZEK

TODAY is the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. During this time of reflection, it is common to emphasize the miraculous nature of the events that began that day: a dream seemed to come true, the Communist regimes collapsed like a house of cards, and the world suddenly changed in ways that had been inconceivable only a few months earlier. Who in Poland could ever have imagined free elections with Lech Walesa as president?

However, when the sublime mist of the velvet revolutions was dispelled by the new democratic-capitalist reality, people reacted with an unavoidable disappointment that manifested itself, in turn, as nostalgia for the “good old” Communist times; as rightist, nationalist populism; and as renewed, belated anti-Communist paranoia.

The first two reactions are easy to comprehend. The same rightists who decades ago were shouting, “Better dead than red!” are now often heard mumbling, “Better red than eating hamburgers.” But the Communist nostalgia should not be taken too seriously: far from expressing an actual wish to return to the gray Socialist reality, it is more a form of mourning, of gently getting rid of the past. As for the rise of the rightist populism, it is not an Eastern European specialty, but a common feature of all countries caught in the vortex of globalization.

Much more interesting is the recent resurgence of anti-Communism from Hungary to Slovenia. During the autumn of 2006, large protests against the ruling Socialist Party paralyzed Hungary for weeks. Protesters linked the country’s economic crisis to its rule by successors of the Communist party. They denied the very legitimacy of the government, although it came to power through democratic elections. When the police went in to restore civil order, comparisons were drawn with the Soviet Army crushing the 1956 anti-Communist rebellion.

This new anti-Communist scare even goes after symbols. In June 2008, Lithuania passed a law prohibiting the public display of Communist images like the hammer and sickle, as well as the playing of the Soviet anthem. In April 2009, the Polish government proposed expanding a ban on totalitarian propaganda to include Communist books, clothing and other items: one could even be arrested for wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt.

No wonder that, in Slovenia, the main reproach of the populist right to the left is that it is the “force of continuity” with the old Communist regime. In such a suffocating atmosphere, new problems and challenges are reduced to the repetition of old struggles, up to the absurd claim (which sometimes arises in Poland and in Slovenia) that the advocacy of gay rights and legal abortion is part of a dark Communist plot to demoralize the nation.

Where does this resurrection of anti-Communism draw its strength from? Why were the old ghosts resuscitated in nations where many young people don’t even remember the Communist times? The new anti-Communism provides a simple answer to the question: “If capitalism is really so much better than Socialism, why are our lives still miserable?”

It is because, many believe, we are not really in capitalism: we do not yet have true democracy but only its deceiving mask, the same dark forces still pull the threads of power, a narrow sect of former Communists disguised as new owners and managers — nothing’s really changed, so we need another purge, the revolution has to be repeated …

What these belated anti-Communists fail to realize is that the image they provide of their society comes uncannily close to the most abused traditional leftist image of capitalism: a society in which formal democracy merely conceals the reign of a wealthy minority. In other words, the newly born anti-Communists don’t get that what they are denouncing as perverted pseudo-capitalism simply is capitalism.

One can also argue that, when the Communist regimes collapsed, the disillusioned former Communists were effectively better suited to run the new capitalist economy than the populist dissidents. While the heroes of the anti-Communist protests continued to dwell in their dreams of a new society of justice, honesty and solidarity, the former Communists were able to ruthlessly accommodate themselves to the new capitalist rules and the new cruel world of market efficiency, inclusive of all the new and old dirty tricks and corruption.

A further twist is added by those countries in which Communists allowed the explosion of capitalism, while retaining political power: they seem to be more capitalist than the Western liberal capitalists themselves. In a crazy double reversal, capitalism won over Communism, but the price paid for this victory is that Communists are now beating capitalism in its own terrain.

This is why today’s China is so unsettling: capitalism has always seemed inextricably linked to democracy, and faced with the explosion of capitalism in the People’s Republic, many analysts still assume that political democracy will inevitably assert itself.

But what if this strain of authoritarian capitalism proves itself to be more efficient, more profitable, than our liberal capitalism? What if democracy is no longer the necessary and natural accompaniment of economic development, but its impediment?

If this is the case, then perhaps the disappointment at capitalism in the post-Communist countries should not be dismissed as a simple sign of the “immature” expectations of the people who didn’t possess a realistic image of capitalism.

When people protested Communist regimes in Eastern Europe, the large majority of them did not ask for capitalism. They wanted the freedom to live their lives outside state control, to come together and talk as they pleased; they wanted a life of simplicity and sincerity, liberated from the primitive ideological indoctrination and the prevailing cynical hypocrisy.

As many commentators observed, the ideals that led the protesters were to a large extent taken from the ruling Socialist ideology itself — people aspired to something that can most appropriately be designated as “Socialism with a human face.” Perhaps this attitude deserves a second chance.

This brings to mind the life and death of Victor Kravchenko, the Soviet engineer who, in 1944, defected during a trade mission to Washington and then wrote a best-selling memoir, “I Chose Freedom.” His first-person report on the horrors of Stalinism included a detailed account of the mass hunger in early-1930s Ukraine, where Kravchenko — then still a true believer in the system — helped enforce collectivization.

What most people know about Kravchenko ends in 1949. That year, he sued Les Lettres Françaises for libel after the French Communist weekly claimed that he was a drunk and a wife-beater and his memoir was the propaganda work of American spies. In the Paris courtroom, Soviet generals and Russian peasants took the witness stand to debate the truth of Kravchenko’s writings, and the trial grew from a personal suit to a spectacular indictment of the whole Stalinist system.

But immediately after his victory in the case, when Kravchenko was still being hailed all around the world as a cold war hero, he had the courage to speak out passionately against Joseph McCarthy’s witch hunts. “I believe profoundly,” he wrote, “that in the struggle against Communists and their organizations … we cannot and should not resort to the methods and forms employed by the Communists.” His warning to Americans: to fight Stalinism in such a way was to court the danger of starting to resemble their opponent.

Kravchenko also became more and more obsessed with the inequalities of the Western world, and wrote a sequel to “I Chose Freedom” that was titled, significantly, “I Chose Justice.” He devoted himself to finding less exploitative forms of collectivization and wound up in Bolivia, where he squandered all his money trying to organize poor farmers. Crushed by this failure, he withdrew into private life and shot himself in 1966 at his home in New York.

How did we come to this? Deceived by 20th-century Communism and disillusioned with 21st-century capitalism, we can only hope for new Kravchenkos — and that they come to happier ends. On the search for justice, they will have to start from scratch. They will have to invent their own ideologies. They will be denounced as dangerous utopians, but they alone will have awakened from the utopian dream that holds the rest of us under its sway.

Slavoj Zizek, the international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities in London, is the author, most recently, of “First as Tragedy, Then as Frace.

Terayama Shuji: Pastoral Hide-and-Seek

寺山修司的田园之死 (Pastoral Hide-and Seek, 1974, dir. Terayama Shuji)

By Venus Lau
《田园之死》 是寺山修司五部长片之一，是新手观其电影的入门课。片中华丽的视觉隐喻流溢，碎片般的情节，穿插期间的古怪人物（马戏团里的空气女，侏儒，全身披黑袈裟， 带海盗眼罩的白面老妇，硫磺味弥漫的恐山，化浓妆的小孩等），种种意象搭构出寺山修司的世界，跟寺山修司的整个电影系列组成庞大的风格化异色空间。

不少人看过《田园之死》后均认为其为寺山的自传体作品，除了以第一人称作为陈述角度外，戏中主角（以成人和少年两种姿态出现）与寺山修司同月同日生（同为12月10日，但寺山修司生于公元1935年，主角“我”出生年份则为昭和49年，即公元1974年，亦即该片拍摄年份）； 寺山修司在日本青森县出生，戏中主角的出生地是位于青森县，有日本三大灵场之称的恐山（电影里主角称自己的出生地－－恐山地处东京市）。种种非巧合的安排，证明寺山修司欲一借电影改写自己的历史而重生的意图。故此，解读此片的时候，不少人会堕入以作者生平为阐释作品的单一切入点的圈套，出色的电影随即代替作者经验（empirical）生活成为主线，不论是意难平或者有病呻吟，戏里的肆意的意象和诗意都沦为对作者来得太迟的抱怨的附庸。

艺术作品一如艺术家之儿。父母和子女的关系强调的是被伦理强化的，以脐带为象征的血缘关系。但是作品不是艺术家的附属，作品俨如离开子宫的幼儿，已然是独立个体，而不是父母共同投下的影子。电影是开放的，流动的文本，解读（虽然所有阐释都是误读）若然只取作者主导的方式，难免减损作品的价值－－作品的价值就是的每次阐释的内容，每一次解读赋予作品新的生命。我不否定寺山修司欲以〈田园之死〉来表现昔日屈服于母亲权威下迟熟的反抗，继而获得重生，但寺山修司的想法并不是诠释的唯一路标，而且这观点在云云有关寺山修司的评论已被多番提及，更有有心人以寺山修司生平对号入座，把电影各元素与寺山生平的经验事件等同，把寺山多彩诡奇的想像力拉低到生活牢骚的水平， 艺术里的直观成分亦被完全消去。


反抗权威的败北
寺山修司电 影里对权威的反抗极为明显，如在实验短片《番茄酱皇帝》里小童追杀成人，《再见方舟》近亲表兄妹不顾坚固的贞操带的阻隔，坚持尝试做爱，片中人物对权力象征权力实体的颠覆意图都非常明显。这些露白的反抗行动是寺山修司电影的重要课题。对权威的挑战在《死在田园》展示为弑母意识。主角想借对记忆的操控，让少 年时代的自己杀掉母亲，事与愿违，弑母计划最后失败。

弑母计划是对母亲此权力／权威象征和实体的挑战。权力是弥散的，是一种力量关系，权力并不是由在上者的创造，权力得以成就，有赖所有参与者（包括在下者）的共谋，而作为共谋者，在下者的权力就是作为社会共谋的权力；权力，需要两端的支撑。所以死在田园的主角弑母失败，不单因为受制与社会伦理的羁绊，而是自己还没有脱离作为权力共谋的脚色，主角一厢情愿地企图抹走权力实体或者象征带来的阴影，根本不能切断权力力量关系的纽带，反而越踩越深。这样的反抗一如萨德对神的亵渎，一切最后只是徒劳。

不少人认为弑母是一种“反俄狄浦斯”, 把寺山得作品一把跟法国哲学家德勒兹(Gilles Deleuze)联系起来。但是单单把主角身兼父职的母亲等同德勒兹以差异和生成(becoming)挑战being的游牧，似乎有有点太草率。俄狄浦斯情结作为主体进入象征界(the symbolic)的关键,也是主体建立和认同(identification)的关键，当中的关键词是弑父意图，继而带出父明(the name of father)。田园之死里的弑母意图，与其说是对传统主体概念的颠覆，倒不如说是对家庭结构的崩坏和重组。
寺山修司的时间
无论在寺山的电影，还是在他主持的《天栈屋敷》话剧团的作品里，时间的象征和隐喻无处不在：《再见方舟》内失去时间的村庄；舞台剧由真人扮演的巨钟，或者，，〈田园之死〉主角母亲收集的破钟堆。形形色色，表报不同时间的时钟，没有提醒人时间，相反，它们让人忘掉时间。时钟不但是象征，更是实际工具，令量化客观时间的统一结构可以复印在世界之上。 至少是人所认知的世界，之上。

客观时间是我们所熟悉的时间，三点半，美国比中慢，十三小时，一分钟等 同六十秒。。。。。这都是被普遍默认的，跟本真时间对立的派生概念。客观时间也是“时间对我们显现为各个当下，各个现在的次序” （1）这些现在可以在某写发 生事情的时段上被计数”，这种概念为时间的量化和一体化提供了可能性。相反，本真时间没有经过任何概念的干扰，是本原地向人展示的时间。本真时间就是我们 的此在，就是我们的主体性，那是真正的自我 （无意识？他者的语言？），而非透过线性时间里，拉康的镜象自我。

〈死在田园〉主角母亲尝试把自己的 儿子（少年时代的“我”）困在她的时间里，此举跟客观线性时间的霸权如出一辙。唯压力越大反抗越大，主角为古灵精怪的马戏团所吸引，决心逃离母亲，离开村 子过新生活，最后他阴差阳错失去了童贞。客观时间象征－－母亲的时钟堆－－渐渐远离的同时，少年手上多了一只象征本真时间的手表。比起弑母此类 对某一权力对象的颠覆，重新阐释时间， 并展示时间的伯格森式(Bergson)不可分割性并以此建立主体性是更为彻底的革命。

除了控制戏中人的时间，〈田园之死〉也操控观者的时间。电影开端小朋友玩躲猫猫，原本的小玩伴忽然变成大正年代打扮的诡异人物，电影结尾主角跟母亲在故乡家中，刹那间四面墙倒下，主角暴露与东京繁华的街头，还有电影中 空气女的呻吟，系在殉情男女身上的红线，鬼火般飘浮的日本老童谣。。。。。。这些感官异觉化（视觉和听觉上）不啻是寺山修司强烈风格特征，也是延长艾柯 （Umberto Eco)在〈优游小说林〉里述及的阅读（观看）时间的技巧。对于电影和书本里寻常的物事和情节，我们会用在现实中早已熟知的经验／取自经验的逻辑推断，加 快阅读时间。面对寺山修司精心布局的奇形怪状，既有逻辑无用武之地，观众只好费尽心神寻找当中的意蕴，或者象我那样，尽情享受日本cult 片鬼才预备的感官盛宴。如是者，观众所经验的时间不是放片的102 分钟，而是他们迷路的时间。


记忆的不可信性

在 阳光灿烂的日子（或原著《动物凶猛》）里，主角马小军越深入自己的记忆，就越发现处处出错，到后来甚至黑白不分，我们就知道记忆的不可信。记忆隐恶扬善，只保留对意识有利的叙述，甚至对你作出彻底背叛。《死在田园》的“我”以为可以驾驭记忆，并以这种自信武装自己回到故乡恐山。可惜，当他跟昔日年轻的自己开始对话，少年主角马上揭 露成年主角美化了过去，记忆本是一连串谎言。记忆就是这么不可靠。无奈的是，我们需要从记忆抽取经验来建立自我的主体性和应付生活上的决定，无法进入记忆和意识的，就是我们生活里的惊颤。

俳句
寺山是俳人，在〈田园之死〉里，俳句俯拾皆是，有人理解其所为是对美国强势文化的抗议。俳句的节奏是跟日本人的呼吸非常吻合的，再好的文笔，也只可以翻译俳句书面的意思，但不可能翻译俳句的呼吸。田园之死的俳句表示了艺术的直观成分，那些部分，一如禅言，同为不可说，不可说。我没有大道理，只是任何的解释读不及无法解释的呼吸，那么有趣。


田园之死的流程里，主角不断与权力短兵相接，不断重建主体性。那些我们永无完结的游戏。

寺山修司的重口味freak show 意向让不少人把他跟费里尼（Federico Fellini)连在一起,也有人说寺山修司象拍过Salo的柏索里尼（Pier Paolo Pasolini )，因为大家都有或隐晦或露白的性描写。 但，

寺山修司就是寺山修司，只能是寺山修司。
（1）胡塞尔与海德格尔的“本真”时间现象学，克劳斯·黑尔德

Eyes Wide Shut: The Feng Jiangzhou solo

Eyes Wide Shut: Feng Jiangzhou opens the realm of senses

Venus Lau


Among the world’s living creatures, human beings are a species that relies heavily on vision, a perception that fosters itself in art with intoxicatingly bright colors and eye-catching images on canvas and sculpture and allows an equation between art and visual art. This assessment is further reinforced by the conditioned practice that humans have of watching TV, by which they let canned laughs and big grins determine the point at which they should be amused. Perhaps this is what is most exciting about Feng Jiangzhou’s first solo exhibition, “Dharmaguptaka-vinaya,” a multimedia art show that promises enough sensual texture to steer a little bit away from the ocularcentricism of the contemporary art world, and ultimately the world at large.

After producing copious amounts of music under the names of The Fly and Far East Digital Hardcore, and others, and following his 2006 solo release Si Fen Lü (Dharmaguptaka-vinaya), Feng began a move into the realm of multimedia art, including designing stage works for famed director Meng Jinghui. The artist-cum-musician finally had his first solo debut in October 2008.

The show put on display a video and a multi-track sound art installation, the former titled Ni Kan Jian Xu Kong Dui Ni Zha Yan Le Ma?, or, to be more concise, Do You See the Void Blinking Back at You?, and the latter titled Dharmaguptaka-vinaya (also the name of the show as a whole). The video consists of an appropriation of the Yongle Gong (literally “Forever-Bliss Palace”) painting in Shanxi province, a mural dating back to the Yuan dynasty, in which the 200-plus supernatural Taoist immortals of the original wall painting are made by Feng to blink imperceptibly at the audience. Calling reference to a Zen Koan about “the emptiness blinks,” the piece meshes elements of Taoism and Zen, and offers a Chinese cultural label wittier than the Orientalist fantasy of mass-producing Mao’s face in 70 different colors. The appropriation of the symbols in both religions also engenders a look into nihilism characterized by negation.

If this piece grants any pleasure (or more precisely, jouissance), the pleasure comes from — instead of the surprising witness of a Taoist immortal blinking at you after a long wait — how the video exposes viewers to the uncanny gaze of the actually larger-than-human Taoist immortals in a reification of the “Big Other.” It is a bit unsettling to look into the eyes of deities on video, looking into the absolute alterity manifested in the face and the heavy ruffles on the ancient Chinese costumes: this is the otherness whereby death is forever postponed, while I am still stuck in the "being towards death," in a plural form with other beings. It would be wrong to spend too much time on this piece, waiting for a wink from a nameless deity. The piece requires intrinsic power beyond mere size in order to allow the gaze to be activated between the piece and the viewers; otherwise, it could easily be criticized for transplanting Chinese visual icons of any type onto a digital screen and calling it Chinese new media art.

Feng’s Buddhist proclivities led him to titled the show Dharmaguptaka-vinaya (also the name of his 2006 album), which means “the discipline in four parts” and is a title taken from a Theravada Buddhist book of rules. Feng’s audio installation is a 3.5 meter cage-like metal structure covered with black fabric, with amplifiers fixed on the inner frame. This constructed dark space creates total blindness while the amplifiers radiate random sounds from different directions, tickling and distracting the listener from localization within the body of blackness. The disorientation of senses constructs a space that is occasionally disrupted by sound morsels and recalls what anthropologist Edmund Carpenter referred to as “Eskimo Space,” described in his seminal 1973 work, Eskimo Realities, as a place where there is no distance and there are no angles or contours but only a barely-visible cold mist rising from the ice. Similarly, Feng’s piece creates a nomadic space, a stroll in darkness navigated by sensory geography in which the database of perception is rendered useless. As the sounds are produced out of context, the listener perceives the immediate power of the piece without an ability to decode it. It would be cliche to conclude this synopsis piece with a simple diagnosis of regression to the mother's womb. Man, as an animal of meaning, is thrown into this blanket of insecurity (the dark cage), the signification process for the noise — glitches that are the symptom of its signifying system — sounds like a futile attempt. Just as Zizek notes in Lacanian Real Television, the symbolic representation of the subject always ends up as a signifying surplus trying to hide fundamental lack. In this piece, Feng Jiangzhou takes a poetic artistic practice, providing poetry as a known symbolic dispositif pointing to an unknown. This is a subversion of language inside itself, transforming the it-is-very-dark-in-here installation into a smooth plane with only it inside itself.

If I may add another personal point, I would like to express my respect for Feng Jiangzhou's use of numerals in his concepts, explicitly highlighted in the pieces' titles. From Si Fen Lu in this show to Ba Yin,the Mariko-Mori-esque sound installation, the artist successfully brings an aesthetics of musical precision to his work.

This exhibition may claim nothing worth “seeing,” but it makes an effort to trick the senses into the process contradicting our obsession with residues of light reflections.

洗頭要用哥麗美之清新香氣讓人更文明

from Jandan.net

来自美国Brigham Young University 的一项研究：清新的气味，清爽的环境能使人变得更加宽宏大量，行为举止更加文明。简单的说，只要使用几支香味剂，人类就能进入‘文明社会’。

一个有趣的实验：
研究人员分发给志愿者每人12美元，让他把这钱和同一房间的另一人未领钱的人平均分配(同时此人也不明真相不知道一共有多少钱)。
干净房间里的‘文明人’分给了同伴5.33元(平均值)。
而普通房间里的人只分给了同伴2.81元(平均值)。也就是说他们并没有做到真正的平均分配。

同时还发现干净房子里的人更愿意捐助、充当志愿者等等。研究人员认为，当我们需要教育小朋友需要更加懂礼貌时，不妨先把他们的屋子打扫干净弄点香香，这可能自然就会改变他们的行为。

齊澤克新書

齊老又有新書：First as Tragedy, Then as Farce.
剛開始看，菜譜看來少不了共產主義/拉康/后911政治/流行文化/法國解構主義，看看有沒時間試試譯下。

藥

小時候有十多年基本每星期要看一次醫生，一般是咳嗽，氣管炎，腸胃炎等等，不是大病，但這種持久戰折磨了我很長時間。咳嗽時一般是咳水比藥丸管用，顏色越深的越難喝。（雖然人稱“馬尿”的黑色藥水我倒覺得沒什麼）小時候我一般每天要喝六種藥水，深顏色占多數，紫紅色那種甜中包裹陰毒的微苦，像陌生人的汗濕的肌膚，讓我寒顫連連。淺顏色的一般甜酸口，黃色菠蘿味，透明的也好喝，綠色的還好，就是不喜歡它那種假蜜瓜味。

弟弟妹妹小時候在父母的祖村生病，都去村里的衛生站，因為當時村里并沒有醫院診所。簡陋的衛生站窩縮在土色斑駁的平房里，到處放著殘舊的藥瓶，安置在更殘舊的木架子上。藥瓶大多深棕色，上面貼著標簽，寫上了艱深的元素表式藥名。也有中藥片。妹妹一咳嗽就喝川貝液，下屬淡黃色裝載小小玻璃瓶里，用小吸管吸飲。弟弟妹妹也服些些中藥片研碎而成的藥散，因為藥丸吞不下，淡淡的藥香蜿蜒一夏。現在想起，警覺他們以前原來那么小。

家里也 給我燉制大量補品，固本之余清清身體，因為西藥毒。補藥除了比較大路的北芪黨參雞湯，花旗參瘦肉，蟲草鵪鶉，紅參，燕窩，紅棗肉餅水，水魚，鱷魚肉，南豆衣等。

當然也有另類的，銀灰帶紅點的蛤蚧，從蛇腹直接擠出的生蛇膽，拌以不知名汁液的濃稠川貝糊，蟬蛻，不知名蟲類等。

大人感冒時，祖母會給他們弄一碗“盒仔茶”，盒仔茶和我體質不夾，所以我從來沒喝過。只記得一煮就一屋子那種味道，聞起來像咸味的木片和生姜。

Aspirin我自懂事開始就沒接觸，因為爸爸說我對其過敏。我在嬰兒時期曾經因服用該藥以致胃出血，一個月的小小身體，小小的胃，鮮血漫漫浸潤。朋友曾經告訴我aspirin的水楊酸可以融化胃內壁，不知是真是假。在藥店看到一膠瓶雪白的藥片，想像粉紅光滑的肉質上面，一層辛勞悄悄剝落。

來不及問的問題

從以前到現在，一直有很多想問但是無法問，忘了問的問題

（給他們）1998年6月4號的那個清晨是甚麼顏色的？

（給Abbas Kiawostami，那天我就在你身後）你電影裡的長鏡頭，和你的短促的俳句式詩歌相映成趣，你的詩歌像呼氣那麼短，連吸氣的時間段都取消，比Rubaiyat 更短？

（給祖母）你去世那天給我留著的鳳梨哪裡去了呢？
在那個灰色的夢裡你為甚麼一直跑呢？你的鞋跟在地上烙下了一個個黑色的圓，裡面爬滿了螞蟻，你燙好了頭髮呢？在醫院裡洗得掉色的，像別人的體溫那樣陌生的被子呢？

（給你）你想看一下我們的孩子嗎？他現在在黑暗裡。