The CJLC conducted this interview with Žižek over e-mail from December 2005-January 2006.
In every authentic revolutionary explosion, there is an element of “pure” violence, i.e., an authentic political revolution cannot be measured by the standard of servicing the goods (to what extent “life got better for the majority” afterwards) – it is a goal-in-itself, an act which changes the very standards of what “good life” is, and a different (higher, eventually) standard of living is a by-product of a revolutionary process, not its goal.
Usually, revolutionary violence is defended by way of evoking proverb platitudes like “you cannot make an omelet without breaking some eggs” – a “wisdom” which, of course, can easily be rendered problematic through boring “ethical” considerations about how even the noblest goals cannot justify murderous means to achieve them. Against such compromising attitudes, one should directly admit revolutionary violence as a liberating end-in-itself, so that the proverb should rather be turned around: “You cannot break the eggs (and what is revolutionary politics if not an activity in the course of which many eggs are broken), especially if you are doing it in big heat (of a revolutionary passion), without making some omelets!” … This, of course, in no way implies that we should dismiss violence as such. Violence is needed – but which violence? There is violence and violence: there are violent passages a l’acte which merely bear witness to the agent’s impotence; there is a violence the true aim of which is to prevent that something will effectively change – in a Fascist display of violence, something spectacular should happen all the time so that, precisely, nothing would really happen; and there is the violent act of effectively changing the basic coordinates of a constellation. In order for the last kind of violence to take place, this very place should be opened up through a gesture which is thoroughly violent in its impassive refusal itself, through a gesture of pure withdrawal in which, to quote Mallarme, rien n’aura eu lieu que le lieu, nothing takes place but the place itself.
And this brings us to Melville’s Bartleby. His “I would prefer not to” is to be taken literally: it says “I would prefer not to” and not “I don’t prefer (or care) to do it.” We are thereby back at Kant’s distinction between negative and infinite judgment. In his refusal of the Master’s order, Bartleby does not negate the predicate. He rather affirms a non-predicate: what he says is not that he doesn’t want to do it; he says that he prefers (wants) not to do it. This is how we pass from the politics of “resistance” or “protestation” which parasitizes upon what it negates, to a politics which opens up a new space outside the hegemonic position and its negation. We can imagine the varieties of such a gesture in today’s public space: not only the obvious “There are great changes for a new career here! Join us!” – “I would prefer not to”; but also “Discover the depth of your true self, find inner peace!” – “I would prefer not to”; or “Are you aware how our environment is endangered! Do something for ecology!” – “I would prefer not to”; or “What about all the racial and sexual injustices that we witness all around us? Isn’t it time to do more?” – “I would prefer not to.”
This is the gesture of subtraction at its purest, the reduction of all qualitative differences to a purely formal minimal difference. There is no violent quality in it; violence pertains to its very immobile, inert, insistent, impassive being. Bartleby couldn’t even hurt a fly – that’s what makes his presence so unbearable.
CJLC: So we must all then become so unbearable?
SŽ: Precisely.