Orwell on the radical intelligentsia's superstition (via Dolar)
anecdote · George Orwell ·
retold in 3 talks
Orwell noted that the radical intelligentsia talk about revolution superstitiously, as if talking about it enough would prevent anything from really changing, now, Žižek warns, real change is imminent and we will be tested.
As told 3
“most radical intelligentsia talks about revolution, but in this superstitious way, if we talk enough about it then maybe nothing will really change”23:42 Slavoj Zizek: Our public face is't our mask, our private inner truth is the real maskpub. 2017-09-10 · 44:58
“when they demand radical change they do it as some kind of a superstitious gesture just to make it sure that there really will not be a change.”
“Every revolutionary opinion draws part of its strength from a secret conviction that nothing can really be changed.”
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)
contents · one story, 1 jobsuses
fetishist disavowal
×1
Its cast and sources
populated by
Geert Wilders2Gérard Pommier1Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt1Sacha Baron Cohen1Richard Sennett1Christina of Sweden1John Berger1Zhang Yimou1
alongside works
Every retelling 3
23:42 Slavoj Zizek: Our public face is't our mask, our private inner truth is the real maskpub. 2017-09-10 · 44:58
Orwell noted that the radical intelligentsia talk about revolution superstitiously, as if talking about it enough would prevent anything from really changing, now, Žižek warns, real change is imminent and we will be tested., illustrating talking-about-revolution vs real change,we will be tested
Žižek cites Orwell's observation from the late 1930s that the left's demand for radical change often functions as a superstitious gesture precisely to ensure that real change does not occur., illustrating left's reluctance to win,ideology of the left
Orwell observed that radicals invoke the need for revolutionary change as a superstitious token to prevent change from really taking place, like a smoker who is convinced he can quit, and for that very reason never will., illustrating courage of hopelessness,theoretical cowardice,fetishist disavowal