I want to assert that I am being an utter realist here: one should prepare medicaments to enable a painless death for the terminally ill, to spare them the unnecessary suffering. But our first principle should be not to economize but to assist unconditionally, irrespective of costs, those who need help, to enable their survival.
So don't panic; Ã... ½iÃ... ¾ek has not gone over to the Other Side.
And then, lo and behold, he cites a phone conversation (unreported by the MSM) that Greek politician and writer Yanis Varoufakis had just a few days ago with Julian Assange, who weighed in on the Covid-19 crisis during a phone call from Belmarsh. Assange told Varoufakis that "this new phase of the crisis is, at the very least, making it clear to us that anything goes-that everything is now possible." Varoufakis tells Assange, "Whether the epidemic helps deliver the good or the most evil society will depend, of course, on us - on whether progressives manage to band together." f*ck, are we that desperate for change that we're putting allour eggs in Covid-19 basket? That's deplorable.
And that leads to his final section, Communism Or Barbarism, As Simple As That! What does the future hold for humanity? Following on from the Three Grim Reapers scenario, Ã... ½iÃ... ¾ek visions up:
I don't think the biggest threat is a regression to open barbarism, to brutal survivalist violence with public disorders, panic lynching, etc.. More than open barbarism I fear barbarism with a human face-ruthless survivalist measures enforced with regret and even sympathy, but legitimized by expert opinions.
A kind of global Velvet Revolution! Featuring communism, without the tanks; a brotherhood of sisters; the 1% diluted; Animal Farm, the sequel (Boxer, the glue of society, graciously remembered); everybody sharing sh*t, the return of peer-to-peer networks. Man, imagine that! I got your pandemic: I got your pandemic right here.
By the time Z. 's finished, a half-mad globe is put back in some semblance of order. Our "avowed Christian atheist" has convened a new world order of fresh-faced Communism; Corona has abdicated, Climate Change has been biff-bam-boomed. That was the Plan, anyway. But, lo, after all is said and said, Z. is back in his phone-book jammies and half-asleep, when there comes a rap-rap-rappin' on the windows and a knock-knock-knockin', actually a loud banging, on the door.
Outside, his acolytes - deconstruction workers, panpsychists, old school existentialists, sordid coprolaliacs, and Derrida - are coming at him, the walking dead, and he waits, like Vincent Price, in The Last Man on Earth, he waits, with all the answers, as they chant, "Zizek! We're going to kill you, Zizek!" and he falls and he falls into an opioid slumber, a white hole event horizon, where no darkness can escape.
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