China banning time-travel and alternate-history narratives
example · geopolitics-war ·
retold in 13 talks
Chinese authorities reportedly ban time-travel and alternate-history topics in narrative media. Žižek finds this a good sign: at least those in power are still afraid of the popular imagination, unlike the West, where no prohibition is needed because we cannot imagine an alternative at all.
≤2000talks it is told in, per year2026
As told 13
“prohibiting topics of time travel and alternate history in narrative media.”
“They are afraid that somebody would say 'Well, what if China would not be communist, or what if we can return and get rid of Mao.'”
“history is a too serious matter to be left to such trifling games”
What it carries
one story, many jobs: the ideas this anecdote is deployed to argue, one tally mark per use (an idea page shows the same relation from the other end, as its shelf of stories)
Its cast and sources
populated by
John McDowell2Pranav Mistry2Newt Gingrich2Ernst Lubitsch6Olof Palme2André Bazin2Karl Popper3Dan Brown3
alongside works
Every retelling 13
Chinese authorities reportedly ban time-travel and alternate-history topics in narrative media. Žižek finds this a good sign: at least those in power are still afraid of the popular imagination, unlike the West, where no prohibition is needed because we cannot imagine an alternative at all., illustrating the true utopia
Chinese authorities passed a law prohibiting time travel and alternate reality narratives in public art, ostensibly to protect cultural traditions; Žižek reads this as political fear that someone might imagine 'what if China were not communist' or 'what if we could undo Mao.', illustrating circular temporality,ideology and censorship,geopolitics
Chinese authorities banned TV shows and films involving time travel or alternate realities on the grounds that history is too serious for such games, Žižek reads this as proof that even dreaming of alternatives must be suppressed, and compares it to Western 'Isolierung' of alternatives., illustrating ideology,the possible-impossible couple,censorship
China's authorities banned time-travel and alternate-history themes in narrative media because they feared people would start imagining political alternatives, Žižek reads this as a good sign: at least the Chinese state fears alternative thinking, unlike Western democracies where no one even dares to imagine it., illustrating ideology and the horizon of the possible,communism as the name of a problem
In 2011 China prohibited alternate-history and time-travel fiction as too frivolous; Žižek's point is that the West needs no such prohibition because we have already stopped being able to imagine alternatives., illustrating ideology and the foreclosure of alternatives,the possible vs. the impossible
In mid-April (of the talk's year) China banned time-travel and alternate-reality topics in all narrative media (cinema, TV, novels). Žižek reads this as a hopeful sign that Chinese people still need to be prevented from imagining alternatives, whereas in the West we no longer even need censorship because we cannot imagine alternatives., illustrating expanding the imaginable,ideology,censorship and the possible