Mao's 'Disorder Under the Heaven'
anecdote · Mao Zedong ·
retold in 4 talks
Žižek quotes Mao Zedong: 'There is disorder under the heaven, the situation is excellent,' using it to justify the view that political chaos is a precondition for positive restructuring.
≤2000talks it is told in, per year2026
As told 4
“there is disorder under the heaven, the situation is excellent.”
“there is disorder under the heaven, so the situation is itcellent. we shouldn't be afraid to act in this situation”
“there is a great disorder in heavens so the situation is perfect.”
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
Eric Miller1Matteotti1Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck1Pablo Iglesias Turrión1Charles Darwin2Melanie Klein1Podemos1Luigi Pirandello1
alongside works
Every retelling 4
Žižek quotes Mao Zedong: 'There is disorder under the heaven, the situation is excellent,' using it to justify the view that political chaos is a precondition for positive restructuring., illustrating spirit of urgency,disorder under the heaven
He quotes Mao Zedong's famous statement about disorder to justify political action in chaotic times, despite acknowledging the horrors of Maoist policies like the Great Leap Forward., illustrating Disorder under the heaven
Žižek connects Jacques-Alain Miller’s phrase 'great disorder in the real' to Mao’s saying 'there is a great disorder in heavens, so the situation is perfect,' illustrating the shift from stable natural laws to a contingent, revolutionary real., illustrating geopolitics-war,ideology
Žižek invokes Mao's famous saying, 'There is great disorder under heaven, so the situation is excellent', to express his non-pessimist, non-optimist stance: open situations of disorder are opportunities for new beginnings., illustrating openness of the political situation,why not despair,dialectical optimism