A Brief Clarification about Populism : By: Slavoj Žižek [View all]

The message of much mainstream propaganda is a resigned conviction that the world we live in, even if not the best of all possible worlds, is the least bad one, so that any radical change can only make it worse. This is why all forms of resistance, from Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain to Latin American “populisms,” should be fully supported

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We are today under a tremendous pressure of what we should unashamedly call enemy propaganda – let me quote Alain Badiou, “The goal of all enemy propaganda is not to annihilate an existing force (this function is generally left to police forces), but rather to annihilate an unnoticed possibility of the situation.” In other words, they are trying to kill hope: the message of this propaganda is a resigned conviction that the world we live in, even if not the best of all possible worlds, is the least bad one, so that any radical change can only make it worse. This is why all forms of resistance, from Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain to Latino American “populisms,” should be fully supported. Yes, we should submit them to a severe critique where needed, but it should be strictly an internal critique, a critique of our allies. As Mao ze Dong would have put it, these tensions are “contradictions within the people,” not contradictions between the people and its enemies.


Slavoj Žižek:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavoj_%C5%BDi%C5%BEek





http://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/A-Brief-Clarification-about-Populism-20150424-0013.html