The CJLC conducted this interview with \u017di\u017eek over e-mail from December 2005-January 2006.<\/p>\n
In every authentic revolutionary explosion, there is an element of \u201cpure\u201d violence, i.e., an authentic political revolution cannot be measured by the standard of servicing the goods (to what extent \u201clife got better for the majority\u201d afterwards) \u2013 it is a goal-in-itself, an act which changes the very standards of what \u201cgood life\u201d is, and a different (higher, eventually) standard of living is a by-product of a revolutionary process, not its goal.<\/p>\n
Usually, revolutionary violence is defended by way of evoking proverb platitudes like \u201cyou cannot make an omelet without breaking some eggs\u201d \u2013 a \u201cwisdom\u201d which, of course, can easily be rendered problematic through boring \u201cethical\u201d 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: \u201cYou 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!\u201d … This, of course, in no way implies that we should dismiss violence as such. Violence is needed \u2013 but which violence? There is violence and violence: there are violent passages a l\u2019acte which merely bear witness to the agent\u2019s impotence; there is a violence the true aim of which is to prevent that something will effectively change \u2013 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\u2019aura eu lieu que le lieu, nothing takes place but the place itself.<\/p>\n
And this brings us to Melville\u2019s Bartleby. His \u201cI would prefer not to\u201d<\/span> is to be taken literally: it says \u201cI would prefer not to\u201d and not \u201cI don\u2019t prefer (or care) to do it.\u201d We are thereby back at Kant\u2019s distinction between negative and infinite judgment<\/span>. In his refusal of the Master\u2019s order, Bartleby does not negate the predicate. He rather affirms a non-predicate: what he says is not that he doesn\u2019t want to do it; he says that he prefers (wants) not to do it.<\/span> This is how we pass from the politics of \u201cresistance\u201d or \u201cprotestation\u201d 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\u2019s public space: not only the obvious \u201cThere are great changes for a new career here! Join us!\u201d \u2013 \u201cI would prefer not to\u201d; but also \u201cDiscover the depth of your true self, find inner peace!\u201d \u2013 \u201cI would prefer not to\u201d; or \u201cAre you aware how our environment is endangered! Do something for ecology!\u201d \u2013 \u201cI would prefer not to\u201d; or \u201cWhat about all the racial and sexual injustices that we witness all around us? Isn\u2019t it time to do more?\u201d \u2013 \u201cI would prefer not to.\u201d<\/p>\n 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\u2019t even hurt a fly \u2013 that\u2019s what makes his presence so unbearable.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n CJLC: So we must all then become so unbearable? The CJLC conducted this interview with \u017di\u017eek over e-mail from December 2005-January 2006. In every authentic revolutionary explosion, there is an element of \u201cpure\u201d violence, i.e., an authentic political revolution cannot be measured by the standard of servicing the goods (to what extent \u201clife got better for the majority\u201d afterwards) \u2013 it is a goal-in-itself, … Continue reading “Bartleby and violence 2006”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[83,15,106,20],"tags":[137,109],"class_list":["post-5758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-agency","category-subjectivity","category-the-act","category-zizek","tag-interview","tag-whoa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5758"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5758\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5760,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5758\/revisions\/5760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nS\u017d: Precisely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"