What do we choose to live in denial of? One Sunday evening, I picked up a book from the common shelves at my now former apartment in the 13th arrondissement of Paris. It was my last night at the place I called home for over a year, so I was a bit anxious before going to bed. Having all of mybooks packed and already sent to Grenoble, I almost jokingly picked up Slavoj Žižek’s Living in the End Times, which was left in the living room by the previous tenant, a Marxist urbanism graduate who now lives in Barcelona.
Usually, when I start a new book it is either with the hardcore stoic attitude of I shall finish it no matter what or with the idea of dipping my toe with no pressure of actually reading more than a few pages. It was undoubtedly the latter with Living in the End Times but I quickly found myself drawn in - nodding to myself and underlining (with very thin pencil lines, don’t be mad at me).
As I am writing this, it is Sunday evening following the abovementioned events and… I have made my way through what may sound like the highly unimpressive volume of 81 pages, or the first section titled “ Denial: The Liberal Utopia”. However, these were dense and meaningful pages that unless I discuss or summarize in writing will end in the big pile of “Things I Read About and Now Sound Familiar But I Can’t Tell You Exactly What They Are.”
We have all heard in passing the famous scheme of the five stages of grief or dealing with a traumatic event: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. In Living in the End Times, Žižek looks at each stage as a way in which “our social consciousness attempts to deal with the forthcoming apocalypse.” And for him the four reasons (or riders, as he calls them) for the “the global capitalist system approaching an apocalyptic zero point” are: Ecology (approaching environmental crises), Economy (the worldwide financial collapse), Biology (the rise of biogenetics and its transformation of human identity), and Society (widening social gaps leading to protests and rebellions.)
But what does it mean to be in denial? Looking at the four points, immediately I feel highly ignorant about 2 and 3, and mildly less ignorant about 1 and 4 but only in a tiny fraction of the Earth. That being so, what is the difference between lack of knowledge and denial?
In denial, we are also knee deep in ideology. It is true especially if we think we are not, or on the other hand, if we do believe ourselves militant in our conscious ideological beliefs - we would still be swimming in yet another different pool of ideology.
If there is an ideological experience at its purest, at its zero-level, then it occurs the moment we adopt an attitude of ironic distance, laughing at the follies in which we are ready to believe - it is at this moment of liberating laughter, when we look down at the absurdity of our faith, that we become pure subjects of ideology, that ideology exerts its strongest hold over us.
You may think “But I am ironic all the time!”, which is my case at least, so yeah - truth hurts. But the idea of ideology having its strongest grip over us precisely at times we are having our little ironic comedy routine is rooted in the feeling or performance of liberation. Let’s say, we are all so aware of the hyper consumerist culture or the hustle culture, compelling us to always buy, buy, buy and do it now, quickly, get up at 4am in order to fit everything we would like to do in our schedules. We may know it’s silly, we may know it’s a capitalist trap. Yet, the mere fact that we have elevated ourselves at the “high horse” of theoretically knowing better to the extent of being able to formulate witty jokes or memes, liberates us from further responsibility. Maybe we feel that we have already done the work, we are not like the other girls and ironically, this is when we get even more imprisoned in ideology. This mental performance of liberation puts us in a place of illusory outside of ideology, the denial of our participation in it or of its reality even.
The collective denial, the way I see it, as opposed to ignorance should be seen not on its own but as inextricably linked to the ideological apparatuses at play, which create the structural conditions for its hegemony. This reminds me of a Bulgarian podcast episode I listened to some months ago and still do not shut up about - “Скорост” (Speed) by Vox Nihili (Ratio). One of the two hosts, Lyubo, begins the discussion by sharing that an acquaintance of his recently died in a car accident, which is why he wanted to have an episode about road safety. Yet, all throughout he himself remains very skeptical if such discourse would be even “productive” enough and if he shouldn’t on the contrary use his time and energy for some sort of political organizing, raise awareness through an event etc. On the other hand, the second podcast host, Stoyan, wants to talk about speed instead,and the way it has penetrated every aspect of our lives:
Talking allows for the space to lower the speed of action and engaging in discussions is actually part of the process that is critically placed in relation to speed, the movement that is against “Just Do It”. These are the messages that we see all the time in ads and slogans in various forms. What that means essentially is “Step on the gas!”, “Do things quickly! Don’t overthink it, skip some stages and just do it!”, “Ride fast or die.” You [Lyubo] thinking that talking can be useless is you facing the problem of speed. You are trying to hurry to the next stage. If we weren’t systematically trying to be so fast, we would have saved many lives.
Isn’t that the perfect example of ideology? People tragically killing others (and at times themselves) because of Fast-and-Furious-esque shenanigans on the road is just another face of, let’s say, the cultural messages propelling one to rush through their day and deliver work as quickly as possible. The whole episode, it seems to me, was the most genuine back and forth between Stoyan pointing finger to ideology and essentially proclaiming “Any discussion that is not about ideology would be missing the point!” and Lyubo wanting to discuss something “more concrete”, hence missing the point.
Perhaps, we are all in denial like Lyubo - when we see a YouTube ad prompting us to donate to help kids in Ukraine, its real ideological message is “Just Do It.” Just donate, help this one concrete kid and don’t politicize, don’t reflect on the complex webs and systems that allow it.
And ironically, even as I sat down to write my blog post I quickly entered another state of krisis stemming precisely from the phenomenon of speed at which I wished to share. An anxiety of writing too slowly possessed me and I ruminated long over the impossibility to publish one text a week with my snail’s pace. Is it not funny that I was knee deep in ideology while writing about ideology? I believe it is, though not at the moment while I was in my krisis.
An important message here is that, while we can’t remove ourselves from all forms of ideological messages, performances and participation, we should truly strive to not miss the main point, often well hidden by ideology. If we look at my speed-related anxiety, one could choose to deem it a purely individual issue - like Lyubo, focusing on the concrete. Or, one could choose to regard the situation as the collective question of ideology it truly is. My worries that I am not producing enough content for a given amount of time is part of the problem of speed, which is part of the accelerating nature of capitalism. And while we still need individual band-aids (for instance, me doing breathing exercises or talking to a friend), we need to be looking towards real socio-cultural solutions and the starting point, as Stoyan put it, is “to at least start these conversations and counter culture where we realize speed is not only virtue.”
I hope if you got till the end of this page, you found something meaningful in my first encounter with Žižek through Living in the End Times, but even if not - pretty please don’t beat yourself up for “losing time”! It is a trap of hegemonic ideology!
And stay tuned for Part 2, where I continue to share my musings on ideological loops, recreating the past as well as the philosophy of modern gyms…