Zizek,+Slavoj.+Welcome+to+the+Desert+of+the+Real!

=Zizek, Slavoj. __Welcome to the Desert of the Real!: Five Essays on 11 September and Related Dates__.= London: Verso, 2002. Print.

**Abstract** No abstract

=Argument=

In the context of September 11th, the most influential tragedy of the 21st century (so far), Zizek uses this event to illustrate how our culture changed instantaneously, following this traumatic event. The collection is primarily concerned with how to remember trauma, noting that in order to forget it, it must "first be remembered properly" (22). Zizek argues that the devastation of September 11th pushed people further towards existence, and pushes people to face "the Real," however terrifying it may be.

Witnessing the combination of social media within the context of traumatic events, this riveting text wrestles with how to characterize life when it is deafeningly real.

=Key Passages=


 * For this reason, the true choice apropos of historical traumas is not the one between remembering and forgetting them: traumas we are not ready or able to remember haunt us all the more forcefully. We should therefore accept the paradox that, in order really to forget an event, we must first summon up the strength to remember it properly.** (22)

In order to account for this paradox, we should bear in mind that the opposite of //existence// is not nonexistence, but insistence: that which does not exist, continues to //insist//, striving towards existence. (22)

...its //excessive energy// can be read only as a reaction to the ('unconscious') awareness of missed revolutionary opportunity. (23)

We thereby enter the domain of secret operations, of what the Power does without ever admitting it. (27)

This 'impossible' act is what takes place in every authentic revolutionary process. (27-28)

Here, we should abandon the standard metaphorics of the Real as the terrifying Thing that is impossible to confront face to face, as the ultimate Real is concealed beneath the layers of imaginary and/or symbolic Veils: the very idea that, beneath deceptive appearances, there lies hidden some ultimate Real Thing too horrible for us to look at directly is the ultimate appearance -- //this Real Thing is a fantasmatic spectre whose presence guarantees the consistence of our symbolic edifice, thus enabling us to avoid confronting its constitutive inconsistency ('antagonism').// (31-32)


 * This fragile balance was disturbed -- by what? By desire, precisely. Desire was the force which compelled people to go further -- and end up in a system in which the fast majority are definitely //less// happy. (59)**


 * A good lifestyle, physical fitness, the best medicine, healthy food, family love and support can do nothing about it -- pure fatalism, undiluted by environmental variability.** There is as yet no cure, we can do nothing about it. **So what should we do when we know that we can submit ourselves to testing and thus acquire knowledge that which, if positive, tells us exactly when we will** go mad and die? Can we imagine a clearer confrontation with the meaningless contingency that rules our life? **(62)**


 * We should never reduce the Other to our enemy, to the bearer of false knowledge, and so forth:** always in him or her there is the Absolute of the impenetrable abyss of another person. **(67)**

(regarding the popularity of Shrek) ... we should focus on the fact that, through all these displacements, //the same old story is being told//. In short, the true function of these displacement and subversions is precisely to make the traditional story relevant to the 'postmodern' age -- and thus to prevent us from replacing it with a new narrative. (70-71)

(preface: opposition between the working class and 'subject proper') Is not this opposition ultimately the one, elaborated by Alain Badiou, between Event and the positivity of mere Being? '//Istina//' is the mere factual truth (correspondence, adequacy), while '//Pravda//' designates the self-relating Event of truth; '//svoboda//' is the ordinary freedom of choice, while '//volja//' is the resolute Event of freedom....In Russian, this gap is directly inscribed, appears as such, and thus reveals the radical risk involved in every Truth-Event: there is no ontological guarantee that '//Pravda//' will succeed in asserting itself at the level of facts (covered by '//istina//'). And, again, it seems as if the awareness of this gap itself is inscribed in Russian language, in the unique expression //awos// or //na awos//, which means something like 'on our luck'; **it articulates the hope that things will turn our all right when one makes a risky radical gesture without being able to discern all its possible consequences.... The interesting feature of this expression is that it combines voluntarism, an active attitude of taking risks, with a more fundamental fatalism: one acts, makes a leap, and then one hopes that things will turn out all right**... (81)

=Selected Works Cited= None