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philosophyofpolitics · 6 years

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Why Nietzsche has once again become an inspiration to the far-right

The philosopher was read by Mussolini, appropriated by the Nazis and now influences the alt-right. Is Friedrich Nietzsche doomed to be abused and misunderstood?

Asked who the most overrated author was in a recent interview, Steven Pinker, Harvard psyc-hologist-at-large extraordinaire, named Friedrich Nietzsche. He explained, “It’s easy to see why his sociopathic ravings would have inspired so many repugnant movements of the 20th and 21st centuries, including fascism, Nazism, Bolshevism, the Ayn Randian fringe of libertarianism, and the American alt-right and neo-Nazi movements today.”

For Pinker, the British analytical philosopher Bertrand Russell got Nietzsche right in his 1945 book A History of Western Philosophy when he pointed out that he would rather have lived in the Athens of Pericles or the Florence of the Medici than today. That he would rather live in the past than the present – and in eras known respectively for the birth of democracy and the Renaissance no less – is, according to Pinker, suspect, because on every measure human life has today become longer, healthier, safer, happier, more peaceful, more stimulating and more prosperous (he has made 75 graphs to prove it). “If one wanted to single out a thinker who represented the opposite of humanism (indeed, of pretty much every argument in this book), one couldn’t do better than the German philologist Friedrich Nietzsche,” Pinker writes at the end of Enlightenment Now. “Drop the Nietzsche” is his recommendation.

Another who blames the ills of the world on the type of postmodernism Nietzsche is often associated with is the Canadian academic psychologist Jordan Peterson, who has become the darling of the alt-right. Peterson presents himself as the defender of “traditionalism” or “classical liberalism”. Beyond his online lecture series, what brought Peterson to international attention was his railing against a Canadian law that would enforce gender-neutral pronouns. His colleague at the University of Toronto, Ronald Beiner, a professor of political science, explicitly links Nietzsche to the alt-right in his book Dangerous Minds. Beiner argues that Nietzsche’s rejection of the Enlightenment has influenced right-wing ideologues from Richard Spencer to Steve Bannon.

From the nemesis of the Enlightenment to the inspiration for the alt-right: why is Nietzsche in the bad books again?

To understand why Nietzsche has been so misunderstood, Russell’s A History of Western Philosophy is a good place to start. He wrote the book during the Second World War while at Bryn Mawr College near Philadelphia. Although the book was lauded for its literary style, and subsequently cited as having contributed to Russell winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1950, the account of the various philosophers it discussed – including Nietzsche – was dismissed by specialists.

A well-known pacifist who at first opposed the war – although he later accepted it as the lesser of two evils when compared to Hitler taking over Europe – much of Russell’s History was his personal response to it. So part of what he was trying to do was to understand the rise of Hitler, and to that he found an answer: Nietzsche. The Second World War, Russell declared, was “Nietzsche’s War”. With Donald Trump in the White House and the alt-right in the streets, many commentators have started to ask whether fascism has finally arrived in America. As such it is no surprise to see the 1930s return as the historical moment to compare to the present era. Mussolini claimed he was influenced by Nietzsche, and Hitler presented himself as a Nietzschean superman leading his Aryan master race to victory.

Nietzsche died in 1900 after suffering a mental breakdown in 1889 – legend has it he broke down in Turin after seeing a horse being flogged by its owner, wrapping his arms around it to protect it. The great political figures of his day were neither Hitler nor Mussolini but Bismarck, and its politics was neither fascism nor Nazism but the “power politics” of German unification and the European balance of power.

Nietzsche was born in 1844 in the small town of Röcken in the German province of Saxony. His father, a Lutheran pastor, died at quite a young age, of a “softening of the brain”, which Nietzsche himself might have been afflicted by in later life. He was a precocious student, gaining a chair in philology at the age of 24 at the University of Basel. But he was plagued by ill-health for most of his life and had to resign his position, after which he became a wandering intellectual.

He met some of the most important people of his time, including the composer Richard Wagner, whom he would later fall out with over the latter’s pan-Germanism, anti-Semitism and rallying to Christianity. He also knew the psychoanalyst and later lover and muse of Sigmund Freud, Lou Andreas-Salomé, whom he fell in love with (like everyone else). Nietzsche proposed to her at least twice, but instead she ran off with his friend Paul Rée. He also volunteered as a cavalry officer in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, the last of the wars Bismarck waged to unify Germany into the first German Reich with Prussia at its head.

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It would be hard to overestimate the influence Nietzsche had on the culture of the 20th century. His literary style influenced Albert Camus, André Gide, DH Lawrence, Jack London, Thomas Mann, Yukio Mishima, Eugene O’Neill, William Butler Yeats, Wyndham Lewis and George Bernard Shaw; his philosophy Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault; and he is often considered the forefather of existentialism, critical theory, post-structuralism, deconstruction and postmodernism. His books range from a study of Ancient Greek drama in The Birth of Tragedy (1872) to the later poetic philosophy of Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883) and his attack on Christianity in his final book, The Antichrist (1888). Today he is best remembered for his 1887 polemic On the Genealogy of Morality, in which he explored in three essays the idea that all history was a struggle between two moralities: a noble “master morality” that values strength, beauty, courage and success, and a “slave” morality that values kindness, empathy, sympathy. The latter he strongly associated with Christianity.

But he didn’t leave it at that: he used his theories and ideas to analyse the politics of his time. Bismarck’s aim was to unify Germany so that it might have a seat at the table with the other great nations – France, Great Britain and Russia – who were dividing the world between them. But Nietzsche rejected a politics based on nationalism, xenophobia, philistinism and the fragmentation of Europe: it was the political manifestation of the slave morality he so brilliantly dissected in the Genealogy. Instead, he posited his own master morality “great politics” that aimed at the unification of (continental) Europe to be led by a new, transnational elite. Their aim would not solely be to lead Europe into what Rudyard Kipling later called the “great game” – namely the power struggle between Britain and Russia over Afghanistan and northern India (the “jewel in the crown”) – but more importantly to participate in the creation of a new, truly European, high culture.

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How did Nietzsche become the philosopher of the Third Reich? It was Alfred Baeumler, the Nazi court philosopher, who transformed him into a “Hitler prophecy”, as the German writer Thomas Mann put it. Nietzsche was recast as a philosopher of the German state and of German racial purity. Baeumler was aided and abetted by Nietzsche’s sister, Elisabeth, who published a collection of his final notebooks as Will to Power.

Nietzsche was quite close to his sister, two years his junior, when he was younger, but their relationship soured when she tried to intervene in his doomed courtship of Lou Andreas-Salomé, whom she considered to be “immoral”. But the definite break came when she married Bernhard Förster, a rabid anti-Semite who tried to found a “pure” Aryan colony “Nueva Germania” in Paraguay. In a letter to his sister, Nietzsche denounced Förster as part of an “anti-Semitic canaille”, and they never spoke again. For the rest of his life Nietzsche considered himself to be an “anti-anti-Semite”.

The colony in Paraguay was a failure: Förster committed suicide and Elisabeth returned to Germany in the early 1890s heavily in debt. But she saw an opportunity in the new-found celebrity of her brother (who had since had his mental breakdown).

The great Danish literary critic Georg Brandes, who was Jewish, had started lecturing on Nietzsche in Copenhagen. Elisabeth set herself up as the guardian of her brother’s literary estate. From this came a collection of his last notes, which Elisabeth edited and presented as the “magnum opus” he had intended to complete, even though Nietzsche claimed to have “finished” his final book with The Antichrist. The Nazis claimed Nietzsche as their own philosopher and in 1934 Hitler visited the Nietzsche archive set up by Elisabeth in Weimar, and she offered him her brother’s walking stick.

Although from this period we only remember the so-called Nazi-Nietzsche, Baeumler’s was not the only voice. For instance the psychologist and existentialist philosopher Karl Jaspers wrote what many consider to be the first serious scholarly study of Nietzsche in 1936, and he explained that he “intended to marshal against the National Socialists the world of thought of the man whom they had proclaimed as their own philosopher”.

This struggle between the good and the bad Nietzsche has gone on ever since. After the Second World War, Nietzsche was made safe again by the German émigré philosopher and translator Walter Kaufmann, who, in his classic 1950 study, showed how the Will to Power was a fraud.

The Nietzsche that came out of that strand of interpretation was a sunny, happier (and more literary) Nietzsche, one linked with individual self-fashioning as explored in film (think Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), literature and poetry. But the bad Nietzsche was never far away. He reappeared in the 1980s “culture wars” in America, notably as a consequence of the conservative philosopher Allan Bloom’s attack on the moral relativism, or “nihilism”, that had supposedly taken over American universities. Bloom had read Nietzsche, and praised his cultural elitism, but he decried how his thought had come to serve the cause of the liberal identity politics Bloom abhorred.

Ironically, the term “culture war” is derived from Bismarck’s Kulturkampf – his “cultural struggle” against German Catholics he was concerned would not be loyal to the new Protestant Reich. Nietzsche despised Bismarck’s policies, and secretly hoped that the Catholic church and the German state would “mutually devour one another”. For him, the “struggle” was a squabble within Christianity itself: the true world-historical struggle is between master and slave morality, whereas the struggle between Catholics and Protestants was only a struggle within slave morality itself.

Ultimately whether we have the good or the bad, Nietzsche tells us more about ourselves and our times than it does about Nietzsche: when things are good we have the Nietzsche of individual self-creation, when things are bad we have Nietzsche the god-father of fascism.

But something more profound is going on. And that has to do with Nietzsche’s notorious claim that “God is dead”.

What Nietzsche meant is that modern societies no longer have a common moral reference point to guide their actions: the role Christianity used to play. This has come about because of the Enlightenment Steven Pinker defends, which undercuts not solely the belief in a Christian God but in all types of belief structures.

The Enlightenment has brought about the triumph of scientific rationality over sacred revelation. We no longer have a shared morality around which to organise our lives, and we are left instead with moral relativism, or nihilism: the belief that life has no value; that there is no objective morality. Nihilism holds that “nothing is true, everything is permitted”, as Nietzsche, perhaps drawing from one of his favourite novelists, Dostoevsky, whom he considered one of the greatest psychologists of his time, put it.

Nietzsche is often considered one of the great psychologist-philosophers, having diagnosed the ills that befall our age: Freud lauded him as having the most “penetrating knowledge of himself than any man who ever lived or was likely to live”. And this nihilism – a feeling of being unmoored in the modern world – captures something profound about the spirit of our age, which has seen events – the election of Trump and Brexit to name but two – many of us find difficult to apprehend. Having lost our intellectual anchor, we set sail looking for a new mooring, but the open sea still separates us.

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Steven Pinker and Jordan Peterson are both psychologists, so it is no surprise that Nietzsche the psychologist-philosopher, diagnostician of the nihilism of the modern world, should play such a central role in their thinking. Both agree that what is wrong with the world is nihilism, and both want to restore order to it. The subtitle to Peterson’s book 12 Rules for Life is An Antidote to Chaos. Pinker thinks the answer is to return to the values and methods of the Enlightenment, grounded in modern science, thereby skipping back over Nietzsche as if he had never existed. Petersonbelieves the world is divided between order and chaos, and that for masculine order to dominate the feminine chaos, then certain rules – the 12 he proposes – must prevail.

Nietzsche’s notion of the “death of God” is introduced by a madman rushing into a marketplace in daylight with a lit lamp, asking where God is. He is met with much ridicule by the those gathered around, themselves non-believers.

The madman declares: “Where is God? I’ll tell you. God is dead, and we have killed him, you and I.”

This is met by shocked silence, and the man, frustrated, finally smashes his lamp to the ground and says to himself: “I come too early, my time hasn’t come yet. This tremendous event is still on its way, still travelling – it has not yet reached human ears. Lightning and thunder need time, deeds need time after they have been done before they can be seen and heard.”

The point of this famous passage from The Gay Science (1882) is that although “God is dead” – in that the non-believers no longer believe in him – they continue to live as if he were still alive. This is what Nietzsche calls living in the “shadows of God”. The challenge that Nietzsche, through the parable of the madman on the market square, addresses to non-believers is neither to pretend that God isn’t dead nor to fall into nihilism, but instead to have the courage to create their own values. If we have killed God, then “must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?” the madman asks.

From a Nietzschean point of view, what both Pinker and Peterson propose is to remain within the shadows of God. Pinker wants to erect a new God of the Enlightenment, with its values and methods. In elaborating his rules for life, Peterson draws freely from the great myths and religions of the past, which he describes as being essentially moral stories. But it is not just the Christian God that has died but “All Gods are Dead”, as Nietzsche’s infamous alter-ego, Zarathustra, will make clear: it is not just Christian morality that can no longer be grounded but all types of morality.

Peterson comes closest to advocating what Nietzsche is advocating – he has a long engagement with his notion of the death of God in 12 Rules – but he steps back from the abyss. Perhaps he didn’t like what he saw there. (“You stare into the abyss and the abyss stares back into you,” as Nietzsche put it.) Peterson agrees we are living in an age of nihilism, but rejects Nietzsche’s view that what is left for us is to create our own values: “We cannot invent our own values, because we cannot merely impose what we believe on our souls.” We have a nature that must be discovered, and we need rules for our life so chaos doesn’t overwhelm order.

Nietzsche would have nothing to say against constraints, nor does he believe that it will be open to everyone to create their own values: he is quite happy for the majority of people to go on living as if God were still alive. But that didn’t mean he thought creating new values, as we saw from the madman passage, would be open to no one. It would be open to non-believers who have the courage to create their own values.

In his book Dangerous Minds, Beiner is thus quite right to point out that: “Nietzsche wanted creativity and open horizons for the heroic philosopher and wanted brutally closed and confined horizons for everyone else,” except that Nietzsche thought the closed and confined horizons were self-imposed (ie imposed on the slave-morality herd by itself). Such a political vision does not immediately make Nietzsche a Nazi. In fact, there is an element of pluralism in Nietzsche’s thinking: he gladly accepts that most civilisations are a mixture of master and slave moralities and that most people should continue to live as if God still existed, while those who do not should be given the opportunity to explore new modes of existence.

Both types of lives, according to Nietzsche, have their own value, and his desire to find the right balance between the two opens the door to what we would recognise today as political liberalism – that is, a politics that tries to mediate between competing spheres and demands, while giving each its due.

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Linking nihilism to Nietzsche is undoubtedly correct, but blaming Nietzsche for nihilism is like shooting the messenger: Nietzsche diagnosed its arrival, but he never endorsed it. His whole enterprise was about trying to find ways out of it. Linking Nietzsche to fascism, as both Pinker and Beiner do, is thus likely to backfire: the alt-right will seize on this as a way of giving their movement the intellectual heft it is missing, much like the Nazis and Mussolini tried to appropriate Nietzsche to legitimise themselves.

If Nietzsche is the diagnostician rather than the herald of nihilism, then perhaps the conceptual tools he forged for himself to make sense of the world he lived in might be the best way to use him today. Nietzsche, after all, was the philosopher of ressentiment, which seems to be driving much populist politics today.

Indeed his notion of “slave morality”, marked by nationalism, xenophobia and fragmentation, seems like a good way to characterise a lot of the current politics of the far right. Bertrand Russell closed his chapter on Nietzsche in A History of Western Philosophy with the line: “His followers have had their innings, but we may hope that it is coming rapidly to an end.” This is unlikely – not least because we are still grappling with the “death of God”. The way out will not be through erecting another “good” or “bad” Nietzsche, but through confronting head-on what he was trying to teach us.

What was he trying to impart? On his own account Nietzsche’s greatest lesson was the thought of the eternal return. In another famous passage from The Gay ScienceNietzsche asks: “What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: ‘This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more’… Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: ‘You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.’” The key word here is “if”: Nietzsche does not claim that the eternal return is true – that you will relive every single instance of your life an infinite amount of times – but asks how you would react if it were true. Would you “curse the demon”, or would you say “never have I heard anything more divine”?

Most people would probably opt for the former – there are plenty of moments in one’s life one would rather not have to relive, and indeed given the option most people will want to return to the past to change something they have done and regretted. But what Nietzsche is trying to cure us from is resentment towards our past: he wants us to come to accept it. And one way to accept it is to learn from the past to better confront the future: if we hadn’t made mistakes in the past how could we warn against making the same mistakes in the future?

So the question we might ask ourselves is: what future action would justify my past mistakes; what in the future might help me reconcile myself with a past action I regret? This is why the eternal return not only has a backward-looking but a forward dimension too: Nietzsche writes “that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity”. Overcoming one’s resentment towards one’s past is the only way to overcome nihilism, to give one’s life meaning again.

Again, most people still might not pass the test, but that is OK: Nietzsche was quite content for lots of people – if not the majority – to continue to live their lives as they have always done. But for those willing to give it a go, perhaps the thought of the eternal return can offer the basis for a new valuation, for a new ethics. As moral philosopher Bernard Williams brilliantly saw in Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy(1985), what Nietzsche was trying to do was to replace a top-down, institutional, dogmatic and absolutist morality with a more bottom-up, individualistic and self-creating ethic. Will this succeed? Who knows, but it might be worth a shot. If not we’ll be condemned to eternally play out the good versus the bad Nietzsche.

Hugo Drochon

New Statesman

Hugo Drochon is a political theorist at Cambridge University and the author of “Nietzsche’s Great Politics” (Princeton University Press)

#politics #Philosphy #friedrich nietzche #Nietzsche #far right #hitler

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philosophyofpolitics · 6 years

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About twenty years ago the novelist Umberto Eco, noting like George Orwell how loose the word fascism had become, wrote that the ideology is like a virus that changes to reflect the contours of the society in which it exists. Mussolini’s version was quite different from Franco’s, for example. But wherever it went, claimed Eco, certain characteristics would usually be found. Hatred of the other, a cult of tradition, and racial purity always feature, of course. But, he argued, there was a fascist style of politics too: one which sanctifies action without thought, prizes tribal loyalty, and encourages a wild and anxious rage that The Great Leader can then direct and exploit.

https://unherd.com/2018/08/social-media-makes-fascists-us/

#Fascism #Umberto Eco

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philosophyofpolitics · 6 years

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The Other Side of John McCain

As the Cold War entered its final act in 1985, journalist Helena Cobban participated in an academic conference at an upscale resort near Tucson, Arizona, on U.S.-Soviet interactions in the Middle East. When she attended what was listed as the “Gala Dinner with keynote speech”, she quickly learned that the virtual theme of the evening was, “Adopt a Muj.”

“I remember mingling with all of these wealthy Republican women from the Phoenix suburbs and being asked, ‘Have you adopted a muj?” Cobban told me. “Each one had pledged money to sponsor a member of the Afghan mujahedin in the name of beating the communists. Some were even seated at the event next to their personal ‘muj.’”

The keynote speaker of the evening, according to Cobban, was a hard-charging freshman member of Congress named John McCain.

During the Vietnam war, McCain had been captured by the North Vietnamese Army after being shot down on his way to bomb a civilian lightbulb factory. He spent two years in solitary confinement and underwent torture that left him with crippling injuries. McCain returned from the war with a deep, abiding loathing of his former captors, remarking as late as 2000, “I hate the gooks. I will hate them as long as I live.” After he was criticized for the racist remark, McCain refused to apologize. “I was referring to my prison guards,” he said, “and I will continue to refer to them in language that might offend some people because of the beating and torture of my friends.”

McCain’s visceral resentment informed his vocal support for the mujahedin as well as the right-wing contra death squads in Central America — any proxy group sworn to the destruction of communist governments.

So committed was McCain to the anti-communist cause that in the mid-1980s he had joinedthe advisory board of the United States Council for World Freedom, the American affiliate of the World Anti-Communist League (WACL). Geoffrey Stewart-Smith, a former leader of WACL’s British chapter who had turned against the group in 1974, described the organization as “a collection of Nazis, fascists, anti-Semites, sellers of forgeries, vicious racialists, and corrupt self-seekers. It has evolved into an anti-Semitic international.”

Joining McCain in the organization were notables such as Jaroslav Stetsko, the Croatian Nazi collaborator who helped oversee the extermination of 7,000 Jews in 1941; the brutal Argentinian former dictator Jorge Rafael Videla; and Guatemalan death squad leader Mario Sandoval Alarcon. Then-President Ronald Reagan honored the group for playing“a leadership role in drawing attention to the gallant struggle now being waged by the true freedom fighters of our day.”

Being Lauded as a Hero

On the occasion of his death, McCain is being honored in much the same way — as a patriotic hero and freedom fighter for democracy. A stream of hagiographies is pouring forth from the Beltway press corps that he described as his true political base. Among McCain’s most enthusiastic groupies is CNN’s Jake Tapper, whom he chose as his personal stenographer for a 2000 trip to Vietnam. Former CNN host Howard Kurtz asked Tapper in February, 2000, “When you’re on the [campaign] bus, do you make a conscious effort not to fall under the magical McCain spell?”

“Oh, you can’t. You become like Patty Hearst when the SLA took her,” Tapper joked in reply.

Ocasio-Cortez: Called McCain ‘an unparalleled example of human decency.’

But the late senator has also been treated to gratuitous tributes from an array of prominent liberals, from George Soros to his soft power-pushing client, Ken Roth, along with three fellow directors of Human Rights Watch and “democratic socialist” celebrity Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, who hailed McCain as “an unparalleled example of human decency.” Rep. John Lewis, the favorite civil rights symbol of the Beltway political class, weighed in as well to memorialize McCain as a “warrior for peace.”

If the paeans to McCain by this diverse cast of political climbers and Davos denizens seemed detached from reality, that’s because they perfectly reflected the elite view of American military interventions as akin to a game of chess, and the millions of dead left in the wake of the West’s unprovoked aggression as mere statistics.

There were few figures in recent American life who dedicated themselves so personally to the perpetuation of war and empire as McCain. But in Washington, the most defining aspect of his career was studiously overlooked, or waved away as the trivial idiosyncrasy of a noble servant who nonetheless deserved everyone’s reverence.

McCain did not simply thunder for every major intervention of the post-Cold War era from the Senate floor, while pushing for sanctions and assorted campaigns of subterfuge on the side. He was uniquely ruthless when it came to advancing imperial goals, barnstorming from one conflict zone to another to personally recruit far-right fanatics as American proxies.

In Libya and Syria, he cultivated affiliates of Al Qaeda as allies, and in Ukraine, McCain courted actual, sieg-heiling, neo-Nazis.

While McCain’s Senate office functioned as a clubhouse for arms industry lobbyists and neocon operatives, his fascistic allies waged a campaign of human devastation that will continue until long after the flowers dry up on his grave.

American media may have sought to bury this legacy with the senator’s body, but it is what much of the outside world will remember him for.

‘They are Not al-Qaeda’

When a violent insurgency swept through Libya in 2011, McCain parachuted into the country to meet with leaders of the main insurgent outfit, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), battling the government of Moamar Gaddafi. His goal was to make kosher this band of hardline Islamists in the eyes of the Obama administration, which was considering a military intervention at the time.

What happened next is well documented, though it is scarcely discussed by a Washington political class that depended on the Benghazi charade to deflect from the real scandal of Libya’s societal destruction. Gaddafi’s motorcade was attacked by NATO jets, enabling a band of LIFG fighters to capture him, sodomize him with a bayonet, then murder him and leave his body to rot in a butcher shop in Misrata while rebel fanboys snapped cellphone selfies of his fetid corpse.

A slaughter of Black citizens of Libya by the racist sectarian militias recruited by McCain immediately followed the killing of the pan-African leader. ISIS took over Gaddafi’s hometown of Sirte while Belhaj’s militia took control of Tripoli, and a war of the warlords began. Just as Gaddafi had warned, the ruined country became a staging ground for migrant smugglers on the Mediterranean, fueling the rise of the far-right across Europe and enabling the return of slavery to Africa.

Many might describe Libya as a failed state, but it also represents a successful realization of the vision McCain and his allies have advanced on the global stage.

Following the NATO-orchestrated murder of Libya’s leader, McCain tweeted, “Qaddafi on his way out, Bashar al Assad is next.”

McCain’s Syrian Boondoggle

Like Libya, Syria had resisted aligning with the West and was suddenly confronted with a Salafi-jihadi insurgency armed by the CIA. Once again, McCain made it his personal duty to market Islamist insurgents to America as a cross between the Minutemen and the Freedom Riders of the civil rights era. To do so, he took under his wing a youthful DC-based Syria-American operative named Mouaz Moustafa who had been a consultant to the Libyan Transitional Council during the run-up to the NATO invasion.

In May 2013, Moustafa convinced McCain to take an illegal trip across the Syrian border and meet some freedom fighters. An Israeli millionaire named Moti Kahana who coordinated efforts between the Syrian opposition and the Israeli military through his NGO, Amaliah, claimed to have “financed the opposition group which took senator John McCain to visit war-torn Syria.”

“This could be like his Benghazi moment,” Moustafa remarked excitedly in a scene from a documentary, “Red Lines,” that depicted his efforts for regime change. “[McCain] went to Benghazi, he came back, we bombed.”

During his brief excursion into Syria, McCain met with a group of CIA-backed insurgents and blessed their struggle. “The senator wanted to assure the Free Syrian Army that the American people support their cry for freedom, support their revolution,” Moustafa said in an interview with CNN. McCain’s office promptly released a photo showing the senatorposing beside a beaming Moustafa and two grim-looking gunmen.

Days later, the men were named by the Lebanese Daily Star as Mohammad Nour and Abu Ibrahim. Both had been implicated in the kidnapping a year prior of 11 Shia pilgrims, and were identified by one of the survivors. McCain and Moustafa returned to the U.S. the targets of mockery from Daily Show host John Stewart and the subject of harshly critical reports from across the media spectrum. At a town hall in Arizona, McCain was berated by constituents, including Jumana Hadid, a Syrian Christian woman who warned that the sectarian militants he had cozied up to threatened her community with genocide.

But McCain pressed ahead anyway. On Capitol Hill, he introduced another shady young operative into his interventionist theater. Named Elizabeth O’Bagy, she was a fellow at the Institute for the Study of War, an arms industry-funded think tank directed by Kimberly Kagan of the neoconservative Kagan clan. Behind the scenes, O’Bagy was consulting for Moustafa at his Syrian Emergency Task Force, a clear conflict of interest that her top Senate patron was well aware of. Before the Senate, McCain cited a Wall Street Journal editorial by O’Bagy to support his assessment of the Syrian rebels as predominately “moderate,” and potentially Western-friendly.

Days later, O’Bagy was exposed for faking her PhD in Arabic studies. As soon as the humiliated Kagan fired O’Bagy, the academic fraudster took another pass through the Beltway’s revolving door, striding into the halls of Congress as McCain’s newest foreign policy aide.

McCain ultimately failed to see the Islamist “revolutionaries” he glad handled take control of Damascus. Syria’s government held on thanks to help from his mortal enemies in Tehran and Moscow, but not before a billion dollar CIA arm-and-equip operation helped spawn one of the worst refugee crises in post-war history. Luckily for McCain, there were other intrigues seeking his attention, and new bands of fanatical rogues in need of his blessing. Months after his Syrian boondoggle, the ornery militarist turned his attention to Ukraine, then in the throes of an upheaval stimulated by U.S. and EU-funded soft power NGO’s.

Coddling the Neo-Nazis of Ukraine

On December 14, 2013, McCain materialized in Kiev for a meeting with Oleh Tyanhbok, an unreconstructed fascist who had emerged as a top opposition leader. Tyanhbok had co-founded the fascist Social-National Party, a far-right political outfit that touted itself as the “last hope of the white race, of humankind as such.” No fan of Jews, he had complained that a “Muscovite-Jewish mafia” had taken control of his country, and had been photographed throwing up a sieg heil Nazi salute during a speech.

None of this apparently mattered to McCain. Nor did the scene of Right Sector neo-Nazis filling up Kiev’s Maidan Square while he appeared on stage to egg them on.

“Ukraine will make Europe better and Europe will make Ukraine better!” McCain proclaimed to cheering throngs while Tyanhbok stood by his side. The only issue that mattered to him at the time was the refusal of Ukraine’s elected president to sign a European Union austerity plan, opting instead for an economic deal with Moscow.

McCain was so committed to replacing an independent-minded government with a NATO vassal that he even mulled a military assault on Kiev. “I do not see a military option and that is tragic,” McCain lamented in an interview about the crisis. Fortunately for him, regime change arrived soon after his appearance on the Maidan, and Tyanhbok’s allies rushed in to fill the void.

By the end of the year, the Ukrainian military had become bogged down in a bloody trench war with pro-Russian, anti-coup separatists in the country’s east. A militia affiliated with the new government in Kiev called Dnipro-1 was accused by Amnesty International observers of blocking humanitarian aid into a separatist-held area, including food and clothing for the war torn population.

Six months later, McCain appeared at Dnipro-1’s training base alongside Sen.’s Tom Cotton and John Barasso. “The people of my country are proud of your fight and your courage,” McCain told an assembly of soldiers from the militia. When he completed his remarks, the fighters belted out a World War II-era salute made famous by Ukrainian Nazi collaborators: “Glory to Ukraine!”

Today, far-right nationalists occupy key posts in Ukraine’s pro-Western government. The speaker of its parliament is Andriy Parubiy, a co-founder with Tyanhbok of the Social-National Party and leader of the movement to honor World World Two-era Nazi collaborators like Stepan Bandera. On the cover of his 1998 manifesto, “View From The Right,” Parubiy appeared in a Nazi-style brown shirt with a pistol strapped to his waist. In June 2017, McCain and Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan welcomed Parubiy on Capitol Hill for what McCain called a “good meeting.” It was a shot in the arm for the fascist forces sweeping across Ukraine.

The past months in Ukraine have seen a state sponsored neo-Nazi militia called C14 carrying out a pogromist rampage against Ukraine’s Roma population, the country’s parliament erecting an exhibition honoring Nazi collaborators, and the Ukrainian military formally approving the pro-Nazi “Glory to Ukraine” greeting as its own official salute.

Ukraine is now the sick man of Europe, a perpetual aid case bogged down in an endless war in its east. In a testament to the country’s demise since its so-called “Revolution of Dignity,” the deeply unpopular President Petro Poroshenko has promised White House National Security Advisor John Bolton that his country — once a plentiful source of coal on par with Pennsylvania — will now purchase coal from the U.S. Once again, a regime change operation that generated a failing, fascistic state stands as one of McCain’s greatest triumphs.

McCain’s history conjures up memory of one of the most inflammatory statements by Sarah Palin, another cretinous fanatic he foisted onto the world stage. During a characteristically rambling stump speech in October 2008, Palin accused Barack Obama of “palling around with terrorists.” The line was dismissed as ridiculous and borderline slander, as it should have been. But looking back at McCain’s career, the accusation seems richly ironic.

By any objective standard, it was McCain who had palled around with terrorists, and who wrested as much resources as he could from the American taxpayer to maximize their mayhem. Here’s hoping that the societies shattered by McCain’s proxies will someday rest in peace.

Max Blumenthal

Mint Press News

Max Blumenthal is an award-winning journalist and the author of books including best-selling Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement That Shattered the Party, Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel, The Fifty One Day War: Ruin and Resistance in Gaza, and the forthcoming The Management of Savagery, which will be published by Verso. He has also produced numerous print articles for an array of publications, many video reports and several documentaries including Je Ne Suis Pas Charlie and the newly released Killing Gaza.Blumenthal founded the GrayzoneProject.com in 2015 and serves as its editor.

#politics #McCain #war

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philosophyofpolitics · 6 years

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#Trump #politics #philosophy

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philosophyofpolitics · 6 years

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Ko će pobediti u otvorenom sukobu Vučićeve vlasti i crkve?

Ako bismo u ovom trenutku imali na raspolaganju istraživače „Ipsosa“ recimo, i ukoliko bi oni postavili pitanje „ko je u pravu po vašem mišljenju – Aleksandar Vučić ili Sava Janjić i kome biste na osnovu toga poverili svoj glas“, šta mislite koji bi bio rejting igumana „Visokih Dečana“?

Da li bi se na stranu monaha svrstali svi koji su na predsedničkim izborima 2017. bili za Sašu Jankovića, Luku Maksimovića, Vuka Jeremića, kao i oni koji su za „SNS“ ali sa Tomislavom Nikolićem? Da li bi Vučić ipak dobio većinu, budući da je na društvenim mrežama monah Sava izložen serijskim uvredama onih koje zove „nesrećni botovi“. I još više na „Pinku“ – TV stanici koju je Vučićeva vlast postavila kao glavno poprište političke borbe. „Pink“, a ne parlament Srbije, jeste prava mera javne scene koja je dozvoljena pod naprednjacima. I ovih dana je postalo dozvoljeno da se monah proglašava izdajnikom Srbije, a istovremeno u prištinskim medijima označen je kao švercer deterdženta i mašina za mužu krava, i kao pop koji je blagosiljao ubicu Arkana.

Kako i zašto je monah sa par tvitova i objava na „Fejsbuku“ postao mnogo više od lidera opozicije – idejni vođa otpora Vučiću i njegovom establišmentu? Nije samo do Save ili kako „Pink“ insistira na svetovnom imenu, Dragutina Janjića. Niti je razlog u tome što je iguman „Visokih Dečana“ na dnevnoj bazi saopštavao stav „Srpske pravoslavne crkve“ o Kosovu. Crkve, za koju građanski krugovi u Beogradu tvrde da će uvek biti nazadna, uvek protiv napretka i ljudskih sloboda, ali koja se ipak o Kosovu mora nešto pitati – tamo su njeni najvažniji i najstariji hramovi. U narodu najpoznatije predstavnice građanskih krugova Nataša Kandić i Sonja Biserko ovoga puta svrstane su uz monaha. Prema „Pinku“, stavovi su im identični – protivljenje podeli Kosova.

Zašto je dakle Vučić uzeo monaha za protivnika? Posebno zašto, ako svaki put kad negativno govori o njemu, Vučić izgubi hiljadu glasova, izmerio mu to „Ipsos“ ili ne? Da li je propagandna mašina predsednika Srbije mogla da oćuti i tako spusti priču ispod nivoa vidljivosti, i ako nije, zašto? Odgovor nije samo psihološki. Prema toj psihološkoj glasini, Vučiću jako teško pada predstojeći sporazum sa Kosovom, jer se tome izričito protive njegovi politički očevi Vojislav Šešelj i Tomislav Nikolić. Zato mu je navodno potrebna pobuna protiv nekog jakog autoriteta, kako bi prevazišao taj problem. Međutim, nema veće besmislice od te glasine. Vučić je svoje političke očeve Nikolića i Šešelja dobro zbrinuo iza scene, koliko god da im je uzeo moć, i oni će morati da ga u javnosti podrže.

Vrlo je raširena zabluda kojoj podležemo da kod Vučića ima više psihologije nego politike, naprotiv potpuno je obrnuto. I sukob sa Savom Janjićem nije ni psihološki, a ni ideološki. To je prvi definitivan politički znak u kom pravcu dalje Vučić namerava da vodi Srbiju i svoju vlast. Sve dosad bile su otvorene dve mogućnosti. Jedna je da vlada po ugledu na Vladimira Putina. Sve veći procenti glasova koji „SNS“ dobija na izborima, posebno lokalnim, svedočili su o tome da on teži tom putinovskom rezultatu od oko 70 odsto. Međutim, ključni pokretač Putinove vladavine je patriotski identitet – odbrana Rusije od Zapada. Da bi tako vladao, Vučić bi morao da povuče neki potez sličan aneksiji Krima iz 2014. Druga mogućnost je da vlada kao Milo Đukanović u Crnoj Gori. A ključni pokretač Đukanovićeve vladavine je identitet otklona ili odvezivanja – od Srbije. Osnova Đukanovićevog vladanja je izgradnja novog crnogorskog identiteta. I on taj identitet gradi u sukobu sa „Srpskom pravoslavnom crkvom“, otvorenim verbalnim ratom sa vladikom Amfilohijem i sličnim postupcima, u kojima ima sličnosti sa sadašnjim sukobom Vučića i Save Janjića.

Vučić naravno nije Milo Đukanović, pa ne može da se otkloni od Srbije, ali može od Rusije. Pitanje Kosova je u isto vreme za Srbiju i pitanje savezništva sa Rusijom. U postkosovskoj stvarnosti, posle nekog sporazuma Beograda i Prištine, koji bi po strani ostavio kosovsku nezavisnost, Vučić bi mogao da gradi novi zapadni identitet Srbije, i u zavisnosti od uspeha, da uvodi zemlju u „NATO“. Taj novi politički proces koji bi zamenio kosovski i kojim bi on upravljao doneo bi mu ne jedan mandat na vlasti, kako tvrdi opozicioni Vuk Jeremić, već više mandata. Ako se prate Vučićeve izjave, u njima ima mnogo neskrivenih poruka da je spreman da menja srpski politički identitet. Od najsvežije izjave da nam je potrebno „novo prosvetiteljstvo“, do već ritualnog ponavljanja da mnogi nisu razumeli reformatora Zorana Đinđića.

Dalje, taj novi politički proces koji bi zamenio kosovski, mogao bi uspešno da se odvija samo pod određenim uslovima. Vučić mora da izađe kao istorijski pobednik, a to je moguće samo ako se desi neki događaj koji bi se mogao predstaviti kao istorijski. U ovom slučaju, to je podela Kosova, nakon čega je sledeći korak ujedinjenje albanskog dela sa Albanijom, a severnog sa Srbijom. Mada su priče o podeli Kosova delovale nerealno, a još nerazumniji nagoveštaji da bi i južni delovi Srbije mogli biti uključeni u aranžman, to je dubinska geopolitička promena, potrebna Vučiću. U tom slučaju on nastupa kao partner Edija Rame i Tirane, i kao neko ko je iznad Prištine i kosovskih lidera.

Za takav nastup njemu je potrebna i potpuna kontrola Srba na terenu. Otuda pismo deset kosovskih gradonačelnika javnosti u kojima najavljuju da će posećivati Vučićeve protivnike po kućama. Nije stvar u sumanutosti, nego u tome da Vučiću ne treba neka samoproglašena Republika Srpska Krajina, a još manje neka skupština na Palama, gde bi on poput Slobodana Miloševića ubeđivao nekog Radovana Karadžića da prihvati neki međunarodni plan. Vučić je već uspostavio potpunu kontrolu Srba na terenu, bilo da drži Dodika čvrsto uz sebe, bilo da poslanici njegove „Srpske liste“ drže vladu Ramuša Haradinaja, a oni pod njegovim uticajem vladu Andreja Plenkovića u Zagrebu. Ko se tome protivi poput Save Janjića mora biti politički slomljen i to bez obzira na sve, pa i na to što je sam samcat vodio uspešnu internet kampanju protiv prijema Kosova u „Unesko“. Konačno, čemu sve to? Posle kosovske nezavisnosti, zapadni partneri bi možda mogli da uskrate podršku Vučiću procenjujući da bi im bolji saveznik u Beogradu bio neki drugi. I zato se Vučić i tu razlikuje od Mila, u njegovoj kontroli za opoziciju ne postoji mesto.

Jasmina Lukač

Danas

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philosophyofpolitics · 6 years

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Why Netanyahu sees Poland as Israel's most loyal EU ally despite its ongoing problems with antisemitism

The strange case of a Polish Holocaust law which was immediately reversed can teach us something about Zionist antisemitism in Europe today

A very important development recently, though largely ignored by the media, offers a new insight into the campaign against Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in the UK, and “democratic socialists” in the US.

In January, our media abundantly reported the Polish Sejm – the lower house of parliament dominated by the populist PiS Law and Justice party – endorsed an amendment under which attributing blame to Poland for Second World War era Nazi crimes is punishable by three years in prison. The decision provoked outcry around the world and gave rise to tensions between Poland and Israel, since it was perceived as emblematic of a long running problem the eastern European nation has with antisemitism. It appeared to be just another chapter in the long feud between Christian nationalists and their “cosmopolitan” Jewish opponents.

But then, the largely ignored second act of the affair followed, noted only by a few commentators, my honourable Polish friend Slawomir Sierakowski among them.

At an abruptly convened session in late June, the Sejm rushed through another amendment, effective immediately, reversing the first amendment – such that writing about the responsibility of the Polish people for the Holocaust is now no longer punishable.

In line with PiS ideology, the amendment nonetheless emphasises the large number of Poles who heroically helped Jews, so that, as they say, PiS could have its cake and eat it. The message was: “You can write about it because there is nothing to write about.”

The first mystery here is the way in which this reconciliation between Polish populists and Israel was accomplished. The entire process was carried out in secret, to the point that Israeli-Polish relations were mediated by the countries’ respective intelligence agencies. Benjamin Netanyahu, the populist prim minister of Israel, was eager to resolve the conflict with fellow populists in the PiS government, because he did not want to alienate his nation’s most loyal ally within the European Union.

Which begs the question, how can Poland, with its awful tradition of antisemitism, be Israel’s most loyal ally?

We should remember Poland is no exception here: relations between Netanyahu and Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban – whose Fidesz party and its allies are also permeated by that particular brand of Christian nationalist antisemitism – are also more than cordial. And that is not to mention president Donald Trump, who is in the US supported by the antisemitic alt-right while internationally a staunch supporter of Zionist expansionism – with moving the US embassy to Jerusalem surely the biggest proof of this.

The extreme version of this seemingly self contradictory “Zionist antisemitism” was propagated by Anders Breivik, the Norwegian anti immigrant mass murderer: he was antisemitic but pro Israel, since the state of Israel was in his view the first line of defence against Muslim expansion – he even wanted to see the Jerusalem Temple rebuilt. In short, Breivik’s belief system seemed to say: Jews are okay as long as there aren’t too many of them or, as he wrote in his “manifesto”: “There is no Jewish problem in Western Europe, with the exception of the UK and France, as we only have 1 million in Western Europe, whereas 800,000 out of these 1 million live in France and the UK. The US, on the other hand, with more than 6 million Jews – 600 per cent more than Europe – actually has a considerable Jewish problem.” It was the ultimate paradox, of a Zionist antisemite.

The really depressing fact is Netanyahu and his partisans act as allies of this tendency, just one of the clear signs – the other being the new Israeli law on citizenship which transforms non Jews into secondary citizens – Israel is becoming just another Middle Eastern fundamentalist country, an ally of Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Antisemites in one’s own country – in the case of Poland, Hungary and the Baltic states – are nowadays tolerated insofar as they turn into Zionist supporters of Israeli politics in the West Bank, while leftists who sympathise with West Bank Palestinians and also warn against resurgent antisemitism in Europe are denounced.

One often hears antisemitism is today’s biggest left wing problem. But against this misconception, it should be emphasised today’s antisemitism is populist rather than leftist – populism always needs an external enemy threatening the harmony of the people, be they Jews, immigrants, Muslims or any combination of the above. The true left is never antisemitic – if it was, it would simply mean the movement had betrayed its leftist core. Here the logic of the old joke fully applies: “My fiancée is never late for a date, because the moment she is late, she is no longer my fiancée” – replace “fiancée” with “left” and “late” with “antisemitic” and you get the idea.

One should not be surprised to learn the push within Israel to condemn Poland’s memory law did not come from Zionist fundamentalists – it was launched by the Israeli anti fundamentalist opposition, and Netanyahu only went along with it because he had no other choice.

A new political line of division is emerging: antisemitic Zionists against those who fight aggressive Zionism and antisemitism on behalf of the Jewish emancipatory legacy itself. They should be our allies; they are one of the few glimmers of hope in today’s confused time of false divisions.

Slavoj Žižek

Independent

#Žižek #Zionism #antisemitism #politics #Philosphy

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philosophyofpolitics · 6 years

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Šmitova ideja suverene diktature u delima Zorana Đinđića

Aleksandar Molnar

Političar koji je pružio najveći otpor na putu Srbije od Miloševićevog do Koštuničinog ustava bio je nesumnjivo Zoran Đinđić. Rekonstruisati vrlo dinamičnu, višestranu i slojevitu ulogu koju je Đinđić odigrao u postkomunističkom političkom životu Srbije predstavlja vrlo ambiciozan posao i prevazilazi zadatak koji se ovde postavlja i koji je fokusiran na put recepcije, modifikacije i političke primene odgovarajućih ideja. U svakom slučaju, ako je Đinđićeva borba protiv Miloševića bila školski primer vrednog učenja na sopstvenim greškama, upornog i samopožrtvovanog napredovanja do jasno formulisanog konačnog cilja, organizacione posvećenosti zadatku od prvorazrednog značaja za opšte dobro Srbije, njegova borba protiv Koštunice bila je daleko od te jednoznačnosti. Nije u pitanju čak ni sam rezultat borbe – u svetlu Đinđićevog trijumfa nad Miloševićem (pogotovo kada se uzme u obzir aperçu izručenja potonjeg Haškom tribunalu), Koštuničina pobeda pokazuje odsustvo pravih zasluga i bilo kakvog istinskog raspleta – koliko njen progresivni gubitak svakog drugog smisla osim onog koji proizlazi iz fiksacije na pridruživanje Srbije Evropskoj uniji u bliskoj budućnosti. Jer, boreći se protiv “retrogradne” i modernizacijskim tekovinama navodno “prevaziđene” tradicionalističke politike, Đinđić je doživeo poraz od jednog njenog vida (ovaploćenog u “nacionalnom liberalizmu” iz čijeg je krila kasnije nastao Mitrovdanski ustav), dok je sam postepeno afirmisao njen drugi vid – diktaturu.

“Teren” na kojem je Đinđić odabrao da igra svoju odlučujuću “utakmicu” protiv Koštunice – da se ostane pri omiljenoj fudbalskoj metaforici prvog postmiloševićevskog premijera Srbije – bio je loše odabran, čime su na kraju obezvređeni skoro svi “golovi” koje je postizao. Fokusirajući se na cilj priključenja Srbije Evropskoj uniji, Đinđić je dozvolio da bude oslabljena njena intrinsična veza s evropeizacijom Srbije kao veličinom nesvodivom na puko članstvo u Evropskoj uniji. Norveška je, primera radi, zemlja koja je u potpunosti evropeizovana iako nije članica Evropske unije i njeno bogatstvo joj to u potpunosti omogućuje. Srbija, naravno, kao i sve druge siromašne postkomunističke zemlje nema puno manevarskog prostora: njoj je institucionalno vezivanje za Evropsku uniju potrebno upravo kako bi se evropeizovala, kako bi usvojila evropske vrednosti i norme, i to pod strogim nadzorom odgovarajućih evropskih organa. Međutim, to njenu političku elitu ne oslobađa obaveze da vodi računa o lomnoj međuzavisnosti i jednog i drugog �� i obaveza koje mora da ispunjava shodno statusu koji ima na putu do punopravnog članstva u Evropskoj uniji i unutrašnje “logike” sistemskog povezivanja evropskih vrednosti i institucija koje hvataju korena. Đinđićev problem ležao je upravo u tome što je članstvo Srbije u Evropskoj uniji toliko prenaglasio da je postalo samorazumljivo da se ono i ne može drugačije ostvariti osim jednom modernizacijskom diktaturom. Iz današnje perspektive gledano, tragično političko pregnuće Zorana Đinđića deluje toliko anahrono da, uprkos svim neospornim rezultatima u mnogim segmentima modernizacije Srbije, više podseća na ono što su činili Petar Veliki u Rusiji ili Kemal Ataturk u Turskoj, nego na reformske tekovine Vaclava Havela u Češkoj ili Leha Valense u Poljskoj. U njegovoj slici sveta Srbija je bila beznadežno zaostala, a njena sveukupna elita nedorasla svom liderskom zadatku, tako da je samo od jednog jedinog spasioca – njega samog – zavisilo da li će se Srbija sa populističkim olujama uzburkanog okeana tranzicije napokon skloniti u mirnu luku Evropske unije.

Zoran Đinđić je bio često optuživan, i to za mnogo toga. Svakako, najveća nepravda mu je naneta optužbama da nije imao političku viziju koju bi u svom političkom angažmanu sledio. Jer, Đinđićeva celokupna pokretačka snaga u politici je dopirala od snažne političke vizije, koju je godinama sledio sve opsesivnije i beskompromisnije – vizije Srbije koja 2004. postaje kandidat, a 2010. i punopravni član Evropske unije (Đinđić, 2005: 10 i 79),1 nalik Grčkoj (Đinđić, 2005: 264). Tu viziju Đinđić nije želeo da ukotvi ni u kakvu ideologiju – pa čak ni u neku ideološku mešavinu – nego ju je vezao direktno za legitimacionu matricu koju je nazivao “filozofijom srpske istorije” (Đinđić, 2005: 126). Đinđićeva “filozofija srpske istorije” temeljila se na verovanju da je Srbija skrenula sa glavnog istorijskog toka 1914. (1918?) i protraćila ostatak veka u realizaciji bankrotiranih ideologija – od jugoslovenstva, preko komunizma, do nacionalizma – tako da je 2000. jedva došla u priliku da sebi izbori šansu da do 2010. potre svoj istorijski gubitak (gubitak celog “20. veka”),2 i to tako što bi odbacila sve ideologije u korist “programskih koncepcija” (Đinđić, 2005: 16; Đinđić, 2003a: 63).3 Opredeljenje za “neideološku politiku” trebalo je da bude najbolja prevencija od novog razočarenja, pošto u Srbiji istorija (20. veka) pokazuje da “ideološke politike” završavaju katastrofom. Tako je pokušaj zauzimanja ekvidistance ne samo prema već osvedočeno propalim ideologijama (jugoslovenstvo, komunizam, nacionalizam), nego i prema onima koje u Srbiji (posle 1914?) nisu uhvatile korena (liberalizam, socijaldemokratija, moderni konzervativizam), Đinđića opredelio da svoju političku poziciju gradi na samoproklamovanom “pragmatizmu”4 (u službi “programskih koncepcija”) koji se orijentiše isključivo na “modernizaciju”, operacionalizovanu kroz ispunjavanje konkretnih uslova koji se traže na svakoj stepenici približavanja punopravnom članstvu u Evropskoj uniji.

Samim tim, Đinđićeva “filozofija srpske istorije” ostala je, u biti, jedan i dalje romantičarski pokušaj reformulisanja stare, već kanonizovane teorije srpskog “nacionalnog bića” i njegovog “posebnog puta” (između Istoka i Zapada),5 kroz neutralisanje njene ksenofobične i antimodernizacijske oštrice (konačnim opredeljenjem za Zapad). Suština Đinđićevog rešenja sastojala se u tome što je postojanje “posebnog puta” srpskog naroda prihvaćeno aksiomatski, uz pridruživanje drugog aksioma: da će se taj put skoro okončati (2010) priključenjem opštem istorijskom toku (Zapada, odnosno još uže, Evropske unije). “Poseban put” Srbije mora se, dakle, prihvatiti kao datost; on postoji i nužno će postojati i u narednim godinama, ali se približava svom kraju zato što na njega počinje da utiče istorijska zakonitost višeg reda, ona koja dopire sa jedino “pravog” (tj. zapadnoevropskog) puta (“magistrale”). U krajnjoj liniji, “dubinske” istorijske determinacije su ono što upravlja svim političkim dešavanjima i što na kraju krajeva opredeljuje ishode političkih sukoba. To je bio Đinđićev credo naročito u vreme kada je bio premijer Srbije: “Sreća ove vlade je što smo se našli na strani istorije, a istorija je evropska integracija”; “duh epohe” (Đinđić, 2003a: 322) je ono u šta se Đinđić uzdao da će njegovoj vladi pomoći da izdrži sva iskušenja i da Srbe dovede na kraj njihovog “posebnog puta”.

Zakonitosti istorije (“duha epohe”), po Đinđiću, nisu se manifestovale kroz ideje i ideologije nego kroz velike (“istorijske”) ličnosti. Na svom, nesrećno izabranom, “posebnom putu” srpski narod se i izgubio zato što su ga zbunile i pomele ideologije, sve te “lažne ideje” – u tom smislu Đinđić je ponovo dolazio u Marksovu blizinu – koje su ga sprečavale da spozna svoje “pravo sopstvo”. Ali, nisu bile samo ideologije u pitanju; najrazornije dejstvo po “osećaj realnosti” srpskog naroda imao je mit, prvo komunistički, a zatim i onaj kosovski.6 Još 1989. Đinđić je govorio da se “nacionalno težište” Srbije pomerilo na sever (tj. u modernizovanu Vojvodinu), dok “Kosovo u srpskoj istoriji igra ulogu razbijača realnosti, mit o Kosovu je od Srbije stvorio mit” (cit. prema: Dimitrijević, 2007: 32). Povratak iz ove ideološko-mitološke nedođije na „pravi“ put moglo se po Đinđiću izvesti još samo najneprohodnijom prečicom, kojom narod može da vodi samo oprezni intelektualni „avanturista“7 – ili, drugim rečima, „velika ličnost“,8 koja je iznad tradicionalnih relacija moći9 i koja time što se u potpunosti predaje „modernizaciji“ uspeva da prevaziđe istorijski usud cikličnih smenjivanja diktature i dezintegracije.10 Kao što se može odmah primetiti, „filozofija srpske istorije“ bila je ujedno i legitimaciona matrica za Đinđićevu vlastitu lidersku poziciju, temeljenu na suverenom poznavanju „logike“ svih (glavnih i sporednih) istorijskih tokova i odlučnosti da se suprotstavi mentalitetu srpskog naroda i njegove inteligencije (iz koje je i sam ponikao) i da ih naposletku promeni (tj. uskladi sa naddeterminišućim „duhom epohe“).

Veliko je pitanje koliko je ceo ovaj filozofsko-istorijski konstrukt opreznog intelektualnog „avanturizma“ bio u stanju da nadomesti mitove i ideologije i da posluži kao legitimaciona matrica Đinđićeve vlasti. Njegovi nedostaci morali su biti jasni i samom Đinđiću. Jer, dok je još bio na početku svog političkog angažmana, on je maja 1990. u novosadskom časopisu Stav objavio pronicljiv članak pod naslovom „Oni pomeraju brda“, u kojem je opisao šta čeka one najbolje kandidate za oprezne, intelektualne „avanturiste“ – srednjoevropske pisce i druge intelektualce – vrlo brzo nakon što im pođe za rukom da, po uspešno sprovedenim revolucijama u svojim zemljama, dođu na vlast. Oni bi, po Đinđiću, u politici još neko vreme mogli da uživaju poverenje građana na osnovu svog ranijeg ugleda, ali su osuđeni na to da brzo počnu da gube i jedno i drugo. „Već prve diskriminatorske odluke (a one su nužne, jer političke odluke uvek nekog privremeno diskriminišu) okrnjiće taj kredit. Započeće drama vrtoglavog trošenja glavnice, drama u kojoj će na kraju svi izgubiti. Postoji samo jedan izlaz. Ogromno poverenje, koje pisci i intelektualci kao svoj ulog unose u politiku, može da bude iskorišćeno za ubrzano stvaranje političkih institucija kao trajnih izvora političkog poverenja“ (Đinđić, 1996a: 56). Drugim rečima, Đinđić je 1990. intelektualce u postkomunističkim zemljama opominjao da moraju da prestanu da „pomeraju brda“ kada dođu na vlast i da svoju uzbudljivu imaginaciju obuzdaju u korist relativno bezličnog i mukotrpnog posla izgradnje demokratskih političkih institucija. Istinska politika vodi se u takvim institucijama, a onaj ko to ne čini mora da zna da sebi perspektivno kopa političku raku.11 Najbolja opomena dolazila je iz Srbije, u kojoj na vlasti doduše nije bio nikakav intelektualac, nego kratkovidi političar koji je ignorisao demokratske političke institucije i koji je doživeo sudbinu iz koje su najbolju pouku mogli da izvuku upravo intelektualci. Januara 1992. Đinđić je u jednom drugom tekstu opisao onaj najveći Miloševićev udes: doneo je čitav niz ličnih odluka, od kojih je količina loših bila toliko velika da su i one dobre postale bezvredne. Štaviše, svaka nova Miloševićeva odluka bila je sporna, pošto se više i nije mogla ocenjivati sa stanovišta ispravnosti ili pogrešnosti, tako da je jedina ispravna odluka koju je mogao da donese bila odluka da ode sa vlasti (Đinđić, 1996a: 134). U protivnom, drugim političkim akterima preostajala je samo jedna ispravna odluka – da svoju celokupnu političku aktivnost podrede osnovnom cilju da ga oni sami smaknu sa vlasti, kada već on to neće dobrovoljno da učini.

Postoje opipljive indicije da je Đinđić i po dolasku na vlast u svom filozofsko-istorijskom konstruktu opreznog intelektualnog „avanturizma“ prepoznavao ne samo „slamku spasa“, nego i ispoljavanje onog istog zla (one negativne strane u srpskom „nacionalnom biću“ ili, tačnije, u njegovoj političkoj eliti) od kojeg je Srbiju hteo da spasi. Kada je u tekstu „Neophodna promena srpskog kolektivnog ponašanja“, napisanom povodom prve godišnjice petooktobarskih promena, problematizovao „nacionalnu“ slabost Srba i njihove političke elite da ni za svoje najsvetlije istorijske događaje (kao što je bila revolucija od 5. oktobra 2000) ne znaju da li su bili pobeda ili poraz, Đinđić je pokrenuo i jedan sasvim drugačiji problem: „Šta možemo izdvojiti kao tipologiju ponašanja naše političke elite? Najpre, inicijativu i aktivizam, koji nas svrstavaju u istorijske narode. Ta osobina nas gura među aktere svetskih događaja. Uz nju dolazi i ispravan istorijski instinkt. Naša politička elita je, sve do određenog prelomnog trenutka, imala ispravnu procenu. Onda dolazi ‘žuta minuta’, gubitak osećaja za realnost, prevlast avanturizma i nekritičkog zanosa. Umesto da realistično proceni ostvarene rezultate, zadovolji se njima i postara se da ih obavezno sačuva, srpska politička elita hoće uvek više podsećajući na kockara koji povećava ulog, sve dok na kraju sve ne izgubi“ (Đinđić, 2003a: 312). Ovde se očigledno radi o nečemu sasvim drugom nego što je nerazlikovanje nacionalne pobede i poraza; ovde je problem u tome što se „srpska politička elita“ (sam Zoran Đinđić?) ponaša kao kockar koji od nedvosmislene male nacionalne pobede (revolucija od 5. oktobra 2000) pravi veresiju, zalećući se odmah ka konačnoj velikoj pobedi (punopravno članstvo u Evropskoj uniji 2010), i na kraju izgubi sve (uključujući i život). To su bile mračne strane Đinđićeve „filozofije srpske istorije“ kojih je on po svoj prilici bio samo maglovito svestan, koje su ga nesumnjivo opsedale, ali koje nikada nije želeo da podrobnije eksplicira zato što bi to vodilo urušavanju legitimacione matrice koje se morao to grčevitije držati što je više odbacivao ne samo mitove, nego i ideologije.

Ono, pak, što je bio najveći problem Đinđićeve „filozofije srpske istorije“ bilo je distanciranje i od same demokratije. Odbacujući sve ideologije redom, Đinđić je izgubio i uporište za odgovarajuće teorijsko fundiranje demokratije, što se onda odrazilo i na samu legitimacionu matricu njegove vlasti. Na taj način, on je, kako dobro primećuje Vladimir Gligorov, postao prijemčiviji za „shvatanje da demokratija nije sredstvo izgradnje države i nacije, već se to mora postići drugim sredstvima“ (Gligorov, 2006: 143), kao i za razvijanje čitave teorije reformi koje ne moraju nužno posedovati „demokratsku legitimnost“ (Gligorov, 2006: 146). Nema sumnje da je na Đinđićevu distanciranost spram demokratije uticalo njegovo razočarenje ishodom narodnih pobuna – od 9. marta 1991, preko protesta 1996/1997, pa do samog rušenja Miloševićeve vlasti 5. oktobra 2000.12 – ali se nikako ne sme izgubiti iz vida da je taj uticaj sve drugo samo ne jednoznačan. „Događanja naroda“ ostavila su dubok pozitivan uticaj na Đinđića, učvršćujući ga u uverenju da narod ima svoju jasnu i nedvosmislenu predstavu o „dobrom životu“ (u okviru Evropske unije), ali da mu manjka volja da tu predstavu ostvari, zbog čega je neophodno da ga u svoje ruke uzme reformski političar koji je u isto vreme i „nepretenciozni politički lider“13 i oprezni intelektualni „avanturista“. Zato je Đinđićeva predstava naroda uvek nosila na sebi pečat organske zajednice, koja na ulice izlazi povremeno da bi aklamirala vodeću ulogu „pravog“ reformskog političara, ali koju onda taj političar mora da dalje neprekidno drži u stanju „političkog jedinstva“, sprečavajući sve razdore i afirmišući vrednosti reda i poretka14 uz pomoć „totalne mobilizacije“.15 Tek u tom kontekstu može se dobro razumeti Đinđićeva ključna poruka njegovim stranačkim drugovima, napisana u Izveštaju o radu DS između dve skupštine, povodom prve godišnjice revolucije od 5. oktobra 2001: „Sve prepreke na tom putu ka Evropskoj uniji ćemo uklanjati, bilo da se zovu Milošević, da se zovu ustavi, bilo da se zovu zakoni“ (Đinđić, 2003a: 278). „Milošević, ustavi i zakoni“ predstavljali su kvintesenciju „prepreka“, koje Srbija treba da „uklanja“, predvođena Đinđićem kao „pravim“ reformskim političarem, tvorcem spasonosne „filozofije srpske istorije“ i sprovodiocem „totalne mobilizacije“. A pošto je Milošević već bio „uklonjena prepreka“ i pošto su se „ustavi i zakoni“ za Đinđića u to vreme već bili uglavnom sveli na jedno te isto, jedina prava, aktuelna i realna prepreka bili su „zakoni“ koje izglasava neposlušni, razdorima skloni i premijerskoj vlasti nedovoljno potčinjeni parlament. Ta „logika“ je za demokratiju bila mnogo pogubnija nego proglašavanje svih (redovnih i prevremenih) izbora za luksuz i kočnicu reformi, jer je na kraju vodila identifikovanju osnovne „prepreke“ reformi u svim onim pripadnicima naroda koji se uopšte „drznu“ da artikulišu svoje posebne interese, da ih brane od vlasti u meri u kojoj im to dopuštaju legalna sredstva i da biraju svoje predstavnike, čije prisustvo u parlamentu – i, štaviše, čije slobodno i aktivno učešće u njegovom radu – predstavlja conditio sine qua non izgradnje najstabilnije, a to znači demokratske osnove za bilo koju uspešnu politiku. Paradoks, koji je već primetio Gligorov, da je Đinđićevo „suviše veliko oslanjanje na diskrecionu vlast“ ugrožavalo ne samo brzinu kojom se reforme sprovode, nego i samu sudbinu reformi (Gligorov, 2006: 153–154), postajao je samo dramatičniji u svetlu vlastite Đinđićeve opaske o kockarskom mentalitetu „srpske političke elite“, koja je bila potpuno spremna da se odrekne manjeg cilja (započinjanja institucionalne demokratizacije Srbije u 2001. i njoj primerenih društvenih reformi) zarad „avanturizma“ ostvarivanja velikog cilja (punopravno članstvo Srbije u Evropskoj uniji 2010).

Na ovom mestu potrebno je zastati i postaviti pitanje kako je moguće da je, u svakom pogledu, tako brilijantan um kao što je bio Đinđićev mogao poći takvom stranputicom i svoj politički credo ispunjavati besmislicama – u rasponu od „filozofije srpske istorije“ kao nadomestka za ideologije, preko političkog jedinstva na temelju bespogovornog reda i poretka kao nadomestka za artikulaciju interesa i njihovo parlamentarno usaglašavanje, pa sve do „totalne mobilizacije“ kao nadomestka za demokratiju – koje će napokon kontaminirati i njegovo nesumnjivo najveće postignuće: afirmaciju vrednosti članstva u Evropskoj uniji. Jedan deo odgovora uspela je da rekonstruiše Đinđićeva prijateljica Dunja Melčić, u nadahnutom tekstu naslovljenom „Filozofska radoznalost Zorana Đinđića“. Melčićeva je istakla dva bitna momenta u političkom sazrevanju Zorana Đinđića, od kojih je prvi njegova progresivna orijentacija na praksu („rešavanje problema“), koja se opire teorijskoj refleksiji i implicitno prilagođava svetu u kojem se ima delati (Melčić, 2006: 103 i dalje). Drugim rečima, pošto je Zoran Đinđić imao nameru da politički dela (i postigne odgovarajući politički cilj) u uslovima zaostale Srbije, on je morao i da misao koja rukovodi delanjem prilagodi njenoj vladajućoj svesti – a to znači i da je „emancipuje“ od teorijskih uvida do kojih je došao u fazi u kojoj je bio isključivo filozof. Naravno, i sama Melčićeva je bila svesna da do potpunog diskontinuiteta nije moglo doći, pa je kao najbitniju kopču između Đinđića filozofa i Đinđića političara prepoznala u idejama nemačkog istoričara Rajnharda Kozeleka,16 čiju je knjigu Kritika i kriza Đinđić preveo upravo u saradnji s njom. Kozelekov uticaj na Đinđićev politički rezon tako bi se pokazivao pre svega u shvatanju da su sudeonici u krizi skloni da je interpretiraju ne kao krizu, nego kao emancipaciju (Melčić, 2006: 121).

I zaista, Đinđić je u prvoj polovini devedesetih Miloševićev režim interpretirao u kategorijama krize i sputane emancipacije. Maja 1993, on je napisao vrlo karakteristična zapažanja: „Režim u Srbiji opstao je ne uprkos krizi, nego upravo zahvaljujući njoj. To je režim vanrednog stanja i sve dok takvo stanje traje, on je u očima građana primereniji i opravdaniji od bilo kog demokratskog režima“ (Đinđić, 1996a: 183). Miloševićeva vlast u Srbiji je „puki proizvod državne krize. Ona parazitira na toj krizi, bez volje i namere da je reši“ (Đinđić, 1996a: 184). Ona uopšte i nije sposobna da vodi politiku, nego samo da vrši vlast, zbog čega je politika nosi poput stihije. Milošević je morao da bude sklonjen s vlasti upravo da bi ostavio mesta u Srbiji za vođenje politike – a za to je bila sposobna samo opozicija. Međutim, domet Kozelekovog uticaja na Đinđića kao političara nije išao preko ovog uvida i toga je bila svesna i Melčićeva. U vreme kada je pisao predgovor za prevod Kritike i krize, Đinđić se već bio opredelio za odgovore na krizu moderne, koje Kozelek nije imao u vidu, pre svega za Fergusonov koncept „političkih građana“ (Melčić, 2006: 129).17 Nevolja je, međutim, u tome što je do 2001, pod utiskom političkih zbivanja u Srbiji u periodu 1996–2001, Đinđić izgubio poverenje i u ovaj odgovor na krizu Srbije, pošto su „politički građani“ već bili pasivizovani, umorni i iscrpljeni. To, opet, ne znači da je Đinđić mogao ili želeo da se vrati na Kozelekovu poziciju,18 iako mu je sada prvi put u potpunosti bila otvorena ona perspektiva od koje je Kozelek polazio u svojoj kritici „patogeneze građanskog sveta“ i koja je „definitivno izgubila“ u modernoj epohi – perspektiva apsolutističke države (Đinđić, 1997: 8). A za heuristički kvalitet vraćanja tekovinama apsolutističke države Đinđiću više nije bio potreban Kozelek, nego onaj teorijski autoritet koji je na Kozeleka ostavio uticaj „mnogo značajniji nego što to fusnote mogu dokumentovati“ (Đinđić, 1997: 23) – Karl Šmit.

Pri boljem uvidu u one najopskurnije ideje kojima je Đinđić sve više inklinirao što je duže bio u političkom životu uočava se da, koliko god one na prvi pogled izgledale heterogeno (i inkompatibilno sa konačnim ciljem evropske integracije Srbije), sve vode natrag ka učenju Karla Šmita. Sa Šmitovim učenjem Đinđić se, kako svedoče Ernst Keler i Dunja Melčić, nije upoznao krajem sedamdesetih godina u Konstancu, nego tek početkom osamdesetih godina u Frankfurtu na Majni, gde je koristio stipendiju Fondacije Aleksander fon Humbolt. Šmit je, uz Kozeleka i Lumana, bio ključni autor pomoću koga je Đinđić pokušavao da zaboravi svoju raniju marksističko-anarhističku fazu (Đinđić, 2005: 280; Melčić, 2006: 128).19 Iako su ga, po povratku u Beograd, prijatelji počeli percipirati kao „građanskog liberala“ (cit. prema: Perović, 2006a: 30), Đinđić je – nesumnjivo imajući u vidu uticaj koji je Šmit ostavio na njega – s pravom govorio da je „došao u Nemačku kao levi anarhista, a vratio se kao konzervativac sa izvesnom distancom prema svim teorijama“ (cit. prema: Dimitrijević, 2007: 18). Jedan od prvih Đinđićevih pokušaja da Šmita afirmiše u srbijanskim intelektualnim krugovima trebalo je da bude prevod jedne njegove knjige (možda baš Ustavnog učenja?) u okviru edicije Polis u izdavačkoj kući Prosveta (Veličković i Zodeman, 2007: 38). No, pošto ova edicija nikada nije pokrenuta i pošto Đinđić nijednoj drugoj izdavačkoj kući nije ponudio prevođenje Šmitove knjige, ostalo je da njegovo predstavljanje nemačkog teoretičara široj čitalačkoj javnosti u Srbiji bude nekrolog koji je napisao i objavio u NIN-u samo nekoliko dana posle njegove smrti u 97. godini. Nakon toga je sledio niz članaka objavljenih u Književnim novinama i kasnije preštampanih u knjizi Jugoslavija kao nedovršena država, u kojima je Đinđić na ključnim mestima kritike državnog uređenja i politike u Jugoslaviji posezao za Šmitovim argumentima.

Iako postoji shvatanje da je i na Đinđića najveći uticaj ostavila Šmitova teorija političkog,20 ono teško može izdržati kritičku proveru. Štaviše, moglo bi se tvrditi da se Đinđić nikada nije inspirisao Šmitom na način na koji je to bilo pomodno u krugu ljudi koji su inklinirali politici Vojislava Koštunice i koji su, poput Slobodana Samardžića, zdušno prisvajali teoriju političkog. Šmitove tekstove iz perioda Vajmarske republike i Trećeg rajha, u kojima je on afirmisao podelu na prijatelje i neprijatelje kao suštinu „političkog“, Đinđić je naprosto ignorisao. Za njega su bili mnogo zanimljiviji Šmitovi posleratni pokušaji da se distancira od duhovne bliskosti svoje teorije političkog sa nacionalsocijalizmom i da sam optužuje druge (liberale, američke imperijaliste itd.) da se zalažu za moralno difamatorni pojam neprijatelja. U nekrologu Karlu Šmitu Đinđić je sasvim nekritički prenosio opomene ostarelog Šmita da je u suštini moderne epohe da se protivnik isključi iz sfere moralnosti, proglasi neprijateljem čovečanstva i na kraju uništi. Taj „pad u varvarstvo opšteg neprijateljstva“ (Đinđić, 1985: 35) Đinđić nije ni na koji način doveo u vezu sa samim Šmitovim učenjem. Iako nije propustio da napiše da je Šmit „poslednji dijalektičko-dijabolički mislilac iz epohe svetskih ratova“ (Đinđić, 1985: 35) i tvorac „zloglasnog“ pojma totalne države (Đinđić, 1985: 35), Đinđić je Šmita hvalio kao teoretičara koji je ukazivao na to da jedini put spasa od pogubnog poriva moderne da pervertira pojam neprijatelja leži u suspendovanju vrednosnog (ideološkog) pluralizma i prenošenju suvereniteta na vanpolitički autoritet21 – što je već nagoveštavalo Đinđićev kasniji zaokret ka glorifikaciji vlasti koja nije ideološka, nego društveno-reformska i intelektualno-avanturistička u isti mah.22

S druge strane, Miloševićevu vlast – u kojoj se, shodno Kozelekovoj paradigmi, najdestruktivnije ispoljavala kriza „srpske istorije“ – karakterisala je upravo najprimitivnija upotreba razlikovanja prijatelja i neprijatelja. U tekstu „Građansko društvo kao životinjsko carstvo“ iz 1992. godine Đinđić je, ne pominjući Šmita, sledio njegovo razlikovanje između političkih ratova na jednoj strani, i verskih ili ideoloških ratova na drugoj strani, i to razlikovanje primenjivao na javnu scenu Srbije: „Politički odnos neprijateljstva podrazumeva želju da se protivničkoj strani nanese šteta, pri čemu ona može biti totalna, tj. može u sebi uključivati želju za fizičkim uništenjem. Ali, političko neprijateljstvo nije lično neprijateljstvo. Tamo gde je protivnik moralna ništarija, tamo nema prostora za primirje, jer sa njim se rat vodi do istrebljenja“ (Đinđić, 2003a: 21). To je, po Đinđiću, bila situacija u Srbiji u kojoj je Milošević koristio kontrolisane medije da narod huškaju na opoziciju kao neprijatelja koga treba istrebiti. Umesto u „građanskom društvu“, Srbi su se nakon pada Berlinskog zida tako obreli u „životinjskom carstvu“, u kojem su mediji vodili ideološke ratove protiv demonizovanih neprijatelja (kao što je bio sam Đinđić). Do kraja svog života Đinđić će biti ubeđen da ga je pratila Miloševićeva stigma kao neprijatelja koji je moralna ništarija i koga treba likvidirati i da je to razlog zbog kojeg u Srbiji nikada nije ostvario onu popularnost koja bi mu u nekom otvorenom demokratskom društvu neminovno pripala.

Samim tim, Đinđić je imao sasvim opipljive razloge da iz svog selektivnog čitanja Karla Šmita izostavlja sve što je upućivalo na poželjnost razlikovanja prijatelja i neprijatelja. Ono što je Đinđića vuklo ka Šmitu bila je već sama činjenica što je nemački pravnik živeo u blizini „centara u kojima se odlučuje o istoriji, atmosferi egzistencijalne opasnosti koja prati velike odluke“ (Đinđić, 1985: 36) i što je mogao samouvereno da tvrdi da je politika „uvek polje egzistencijalnih istorijskih odluka, a nikad sitnih kompromisa i činovničke rutine“ (Đinđić, 1985: 35), kao i da demokratija nije u stanju da garantuje održanje „političke egzistencije nemačke nacije“, što ga je na kraju opredelilo da se svrsta uz nemačkog „vođ(u)“ (Đinđić, 1985: 36) i da ustraje na „nepokolebljivoj kritici parlamentarne demokratije“ (Đinđić, 1985: 35). Ipak, Đinđića je Šmitu najviše privukla „klasična teorija diktature“ ili – kako je on to u jednom od podnaslova knjige Jugoslavija kao nedovršena država formulisao – „diktatura posmatrana bez predrasuda“. Šmit je omogućio Đinđiću ovaj navodno bespredrasudni pogled na diktaturu, a pre svega na inovatorstvo u razlikovanju komesarske i suverene diktature,23 koji je omogućio i odgovarajuću kritiku ustavnog poretka SFR Jugoslavije i Srbije kao njene federalne jedinice.

Polazeći od Šmitove definicije suverena,24 Đinđić je u Jugoslaviji konstatovao postojanje neadekvatnog pravnog sistema, koji nije omogućavao pravljenje razlike između normalnog i vanrednog stanja – doprinoseći na taj način normalizaciji vanrednog stanja – i koji je bio upućen na permanentnu suverenu diktaturu (Đinđić, 1988: 85), komunističku diktaturu „koja sebe od samog početka razumeva kao trajni izvornormi koje regulišu život zajednice“ (Đinđić, 1988: 86). Komunistički suvereni diktator odvojio je svoju suverenost od države, legitimišući se ne zaštitom države i njenog normalnog pravnog poretka od neke velike opasnosti, nego jednom svetsko-istorijskom misijom – misijom oslobođenja čovečanstva (Đinđić, 1988: 88). Međutim, to nije bilo sve. Pod uticajem Šmita, Đinđić je kao jedno od najznačajnijih obeležja suverene diktature označio prisvajanje ustavotvorne vlasti koja se nalazi iznad (ili izvan) „ustava kao ugovora“ i čuva ga na taj način da ga degradira na nivo običnog zakonodavstva koje se može menjati u svako doba (Đinđić, 1988: 101–102). „Sudeći po načinu promene našeg ustava, ustavotvorna moć je tu sasvim trivijalizovana. Obična, zakonodavna skupština ovlašćena je da menja postojeći ustav i da eventualno donese novi, i za taj čin nisu joj potrebne nikakve dodatne kvalifikacije. Izuzetnost ustava, koja se između ostalog, ogleda u tome da ga donosi i suštinski menja samo ekskluzivni subjekt, ustavotvorna skupština, u našoj zemlji je u potpunosti razgrađena“ (Đinđić, 1988: 113).

Iako mu je taj teorijski model bio potreban kako bi ga koristio u svojoj kritici komunističke suverene diktature u Jugoslaviji, Đinđić je otišao korak dalje, pokušavajući da dodatno radikalizuje i sam taj teorijski model. Za Đinđića je sada svaki „čuvar ustava“ – čak i ako nije imao veze sa komunizmom (ili nacionalsocijalizmom) – mogao biti označen kao diktator. Šmit je, po Đinđiću, isprobavao različite varijante čuvara ustava, da bi na kraju završio u apologiji nemačkog vođe, realizujući tako ono što nije do kraja reflektovao u svojoj ustavnoj teoriji, a za šta mu je pretpostavku pružala njegova „klasična“ teorija diktature (Đinđić, 1988: 112). Na osnovu takvog inoviranja Šmitovog učenja, Đinđićev novi zaključak je glasio da je u svim demokratskim ustavnim državama koje poznaju čuvara ustava – pa makar on bio i ustavni sud – na delu diktatura. Enigmatično zapažanje iz knjige Jugoslavija kao nedovršena država da „gde postoji čuvar ustava, tamo ne postoji ustav (tj. tamo je ustav degradiran na nivo običnog zakonodavstva)“ (Đinđić, 1988: 107), svoje objašnjenje je dobijalo nekoliko strana dalje, na mestu na kojem je Đinđić davao svoj odgovor na pitanje šta bi trebalo smatrati čuvarom ustava: „jedini čuvar ustava koji ne ukida ustavnost jeste politička kultura političke zajednice“ (Đinđić, 1988: 110), shvaćena u smislu Šmitove političke jednakosti ili homogenosti.25 Problem „čuvara ustava“ time je zaoštren do besmisla: ustav može čuvati samo cela politička zajednica, homogenizovana jedinstvenom kulturom („duhom“), i to pod uslovom da ne postoji nijedan državni organ koji bi to činio (i koji bi automatski morao biti proglašen za diktatorski). A ako takva homogena politička zajednica ne postoji (što je nesumnjivo bio slučaj ne samo u Jugoslaviji nego i u Srbiji), onda državnim organima i ne preostaje ništa drugo do da uđu u legitimnu borbu za diktaturu. „Kulturalizacija“ pitanja čuvara ustava na kraju je završavala u ogoljavanju političke borbe za konkretno ovlašćenje čuvanja ustava: tamo gde nedostaje politička zajednica homogenizovana političkom kulturom legitiman je svaki moćnik koji pobedi svoje konkurente u borbi za interpretaciju ustava i onda počne da čuva tu interpretaciju ustava.

Đinđić je dalje tvrdio da je jedna moderna (a to neizbežno znači: pluralistička) politička zajednica nesposobna za jedinstvenu suverenu volju i da do nje ne može da dođe čak ni preko svojih predstavnika u ustavotvornoj skupštini. To se reflektuje na ustavnost tako što bi svaki ustav koji bi proizašao iz suverene volje naroda iskazane na ustavotvornoj skupštini, kao i na pratećem referendumu za usvajanje ustava, morao biti proglašen manjkavim – on bi navodno bio tek „jedan od mogućih ispoljavanja izvorne suverenosti, bez vlastitog težišta i imanentne legitimnosti“ (Đinđić, 1988: 117). Prigovor ima smisla samo ako se posmatra iz perspektive Šmitovog suverenog diktatora – koji je Đinđiću neprestano lebdeo pred očima – i njegove neprestane dispozicije ustavnih promena. Iz perspektive redovnog funkcionisanja demokratske ustavne države prigovor je besmislen pošto su legitimacijski neproblematične kako sporadične ustavne promene, sve dok se odvijaju po predviđenim pravilima i uz široku demokratsku podršku, tako i sve one borbe za ustavna tumačenja, koje se neprekidno odvijaju i u ustavnom sudu i u samom društvu (vršeći onda povratan uticaj na ustavni sud). Međutim, Đinđić je ovakvu predstavu demokratske ustavne države odbacio, smatrajući je legitimacijski problematičnom, i opredelio se za rešenje po kojem se utemeljenje za opšte važenje ustava može naći samo u osnovnim pravima čoveka (Đinđić, 1988: 118 i dalje). A pošto je i na osnovna prava čoveka suštinski gledao kroz prizmu Šmitovog „klasičnog prikaza“ iz Ustavnog učenja, tj. kao „sistem precizno definisanih kompetencija“ unutar ustavno-pravnog poretka nacionalne države (Đinđić, 1987b: 35) – dobro osećajući da se u celinu Šmitove teorije nikako ne uklapaju osnovna prava čoveka, shvaćenog kao “nepolitičko biće“ (Đinđić, 1987b:34) – to ga je opredelilo da njihovo najoptimalnije teorijsko osavremenjavanje pronađe u Lumanovoj društvenosistemskoj teoriji, unutar koje su osnovna prava čoveka tretirana kao prava svojstvena društvenom biću lišenom čoveka – odnosno kao „stabilizovani učinci društvene samointerpretacije“, kao objekti državnopravnih intervencija i kao „funkcije“ ustavno-pravnog poretka (upor. Đinđić, 1987b: 32, 35 i 36). To je bila pozicija sa koje je Đinđić ustrajno i konsekventno kritikovao i odbacivao „individualističko-liberalne teorije osnovnih prava“, kao posebno loš „praktično-organizacijski uput“ za postkomunistička društva poput Jugoslavije (Srbije). Pošto su navodno bile utemeljene na čoveku kao preddržavnom, nepolitičkom biću, koje se brani od države kada mu ona ugrozi slobode, Đinđić je u ovim teorijama prepoznao najveću smetnju za izgradnju ustavno-pravnog poretka koji osnovna prava čoveka tretira kao „instrumente integracije pojedinaca u političku zajednicu“ – odnosno kao sredstvo „integracije državne celine“ uopšte (Đinđić, 1987b: 36) – i u kojem je princip podele vlasti toliko obesmišljen da više ne postoji nijedno „socijalno relevantno polje na kome ne bi delovale sve tri klasične ‘vlasti’“ (Đinđić, 1987b: 35). Ustav koji bi nikao iz tako shvaćenih osnovnih prava (i u kojem bi liberalni princip checks and balances bio efektivno otpisan) bio bi veran originalnom duhu Šmitove ustavne teorije, jer bi se zaista pokazao kao potpuna negacija kako liberalizma, tako i konstitucionalizma: ustavno-pravni poredak koji bi takav ustav uspostavio mogao bi biti shvaćen još samo kao „interpretacija socijalnog poretka, a ne spisak vrednosti i normi“ (Đinđić, 1996b: 235) – pogotovo ne onih koje bi dovodile u pitanje „državnu celinu“ (u kojoj god „političkoj formi organizacije zajednice“ da se pojavi).

U svim ovim Đinđićevim izlaganjima sasvim se jasno može raspoznati gravitaciona snaga Šmitove teorije političkog jedinstva i, štaviše, homogenosti, bez koje nema one jedino „prave“ „državne celine“ – nacionalne države. Prava snaga političke homogenosti – pisao je Šmit, a prepisivao Đinđić – ležala je u iracionalnoj nacionalnoj svesti, na kojoj se temelji nacionalna država (politička zajednica ili „državni narod“) i celokupna ustavnost. Simboli nacionalne države imaju najveću „integrativnu moć“ jer podrazumevaju „znatan intenzitet osećanja pripadnosti, političke volje i državnosne svesti“ i ne mogu „se kompenzirati nekim racionalnim tipom ‘vezivanja’“ (Đinđić, 1988: 9).26 Na tom ključnom programskom mestu uvoda u tekstove skupljene u knjigu Jugoslavija kao nedovršena država Đinđić je prizvao i sam vrhovni autoritet – Karla Šmita – koji je obznanio najveću političku mudrost: „Ne stvara ‘državna vlast’ ‘državni narod’, nego predstavlja samo izraznjegove egzistencije u modusu onog političkog“ (Đinđić, 1988: 9). Naravno, Đinđić je odmah požurio da objasni da nije svaki narod ujedno i državni narod, kao što ni svaki državni narod ne mora to da ostane. „Niti je svaki narod koji se nalazi u državi politička zajednica (teritorija, narod i državna vlast nisu dovoljna pretpostavka), niti je ona neko trajno svojstvo, koje se ne može izgubiti“ (Đinđić, 1988: 16). Komunisti su u Jugoslaviji, odnosno Srbiji, ukinuli nacionalnu državu i na mesto državnog naroda stavili „radnu zajednicu“, koja se konstituiše kroz usaglašavanje samoupravnih interesa, i tako političko rastvara u ekonomskom. Ne samo što se politika vodi izvan parlamenta (Đinđić, 1988: 13), nego se i svi ustavni sporovi rešavaju u vanustavnom prostoru – u komunističkoj partiji. I dok je nekada barem ta partija bila homogena, krajem osamdesetih to više nije mogla da bude, pošto nije više bilo predsednika koji je bio njen „agens i istovremeno garant homogenosti“ (Đinđić, 1988: 40). Dezintegracija je pri tom zahvatila i sve narode koji su činili Jugoslaviju, tako da su i sami Srbi, posle svih tih raskorenjujućih decenija, prestali da budu „državni narod“ i da poseduju potpuno jedinstvenu „egzistenciju“, koja se jedino mogla izraziti „u modusu onog političkog“ i od koje se jedino moglo očekivati blagotvorno integrativno dejstvo na „državnu celinu“.

Srbi su, dakle, pali na istorijskoj probi, zbog čega su osamdesetih godina 20. veka, gvozdenom istorijskom zakonitošću, umesto starog suverenog diktatora mogli jedino da dobiju novog, sasvim nalik starom. Ustav koji je donet 1990. predstavljao je osnovu za suverenu diktaturu Slobodana Miloševića kao nadomestak za istinsko „političko jedinstvo“ koje je u Srbiji nedostajalo i bez kojeg nije bilo moguće stvoriti „državnu celinu“. Ali, pravi problem s tim ustavom Đinđić je imao ne kao teoretičar nego kao političar, štaviše kao revolucionar koji je srušio vlast Miloševića i koji je već 6. oktobra 2000. morao da razmišlja o tome šta da uradi s njegovim ustavom. „Za mene Miloševićev ustav nije bio legalan sistem, nego sistem jedne diktature i za mene su postojale dve mogućnosti. Jedna mogućnost je da ga anuliramo odjedanput i kažemo, više ne postoji, počinjemo od početka. Sve sudije su otpuštene, svi policajci su otpušteni, svi državni službenici i mi ćemo ih za deset dana ponovo zaposliti, ali ćemo ispitati ko su. Ili sve to isto učiniti za šest meseci, ali ne propustiti da se učini“ (Đinđić, 2001: 15). Međutim, meseci su prolazili i ništa se nije dešavalo, a Đinđić se i dalje protivio tome „da legalizuje stari sistem i da unutar starog sistema sprovodi promene“ (Đinđić, 2001: 15).

Miloševićev ustav važio je i dalje zato što je Đinđić, došavši u poziciju najmoćnijeg čoveka u Srbiji, shvatio da i dalje nema onog „političkog jedinstva“ bez kojeg ne može biti ni one svetle „državne celine“ o kojoj je pisao Šmit. Samim tim, izlaz se nije mogao naći ni u čemu drugom do u inoviranju – još jednom u nizu! – suverene diktature. Nema sumnje da je Đinđićeva pozicija unutar ustavnog poretka, koji je Milošević pravio za sebe, ostala jednako diktatorska, bez obzira na to što on sam nije zaposeo najmoćniji položaj u njemu, položaj predsednika Srbije (tu vlast je zapravo već Milošević bio pasivizovao, započevši praksu njenog popunjavanja političkim marionetama). U Srbiji je nastavljena praksa da se „delovanje nosilaca političke moći u normalnim situacijama, delom ili u potpunosti, kreće u prostoru meta-ustavnosti i meta-zakonitosti“ (Đinđić, 1988: 86–87), a ustavni poredak ne samo da nije uspeo da razvije „mehanizme miroljubivog rešavanja međusobnih konflikata“, nego su oni neprestano „proizvodili potrebu za političkim arbitrom koji to umesto njih čini, a taj politički arbitar samo je drugo ime za diktaturu“ (Đinđić, 1990: 565). Po parametrima sopstvene teorije, Đinđićeva premijerska vlast u Srbiji bila je jednako diktatorska kao što je to nekada bila i Miloševićeva (a pre njega i Brozova) predsednička. Ono što je jedino moglo da čini razliku bilo je dalje ojačavanje momenta suverene ustavotvornosti. Đinđićevo koketiranje sa revolucionarnom pravdom27 bilo je isuviše neartikulisano da bi moglo da posluži kao bilo kakvo upotrebljivo sredstvo legitimacije; jedino rešenje ležalo je stoga u vezivanju suverene diktature za ustavotvorstvo, kojem je temelje udario Šmit, a koje je Đinđić preveo u svoje „pragmatično“ vršenje vlasti. Iako joj je legitimacija bila uopštena do krajnjih granica „reformi“, nova diktatura je konkretno ovlašćenje za ustavotvorne promene crpela iz borbe za „čuvanje ustava“. Prisetimo li se Đinđićeve tvrdnje (iz knjige Jugoslavija kao nedovršena država) da „jedini čuvar ustava koji ne ukida ustavnost jeste politička kultura političke zajednice“ i stavimo li je u kontekst belodane činjenice da postmiloševićevska srbijanska politička zajednica nije imala političku kulturu, onda je svaki pobednik u aktuelnim političkim borbama mogao da istakne legitimno pravo da bude diktatorski „čuvar (nepostojećeg) ustava“, odnosno da sa ustavnošću čini šta ga je volja, nazivajući to sopstvenim „tumačenjem ustava“ koje samoinicijativno daje, „čuva“ i simultano sprovodi u političku praksu.

Naravno, Đinđiću njegova demokratska retorika nikada nije dozvolila da sebe javno problematizuje kao (suverenog) diktatora. Primera radi, jednom prilikom kada je govorio o istorijskoj zakonitosti „srpskog bića“ da osciluje od dezintegracije do diktature, on je svoju vlast predstavio kao prvi pokušaj da se dezintegracija zaustavi na jedan kvalitativno nov način, bez posezanja za diktatorskim ovlašćenjima: „Sada imamo veliki eksperiment, pokušavamo da zaustavimo dezintegraciju bez diktature. U tome nam pomaže ideja evropske integracije“ (Đinđić, 2005: 248). Diktatura na koju je ovde mislio Đinđić bila je pre svega vezana za fizičko nasilje i u tom smislu je njegova vlast zaista bila sve drugo samo ne upotreba fizičkog nasilja. Međutim, iz Šmitovih opisa suverene diktature, koju je bio namenio predsedniku Rajha, Đinđić je lako mogao da se uveri da je diktaturu daleko bolje definisati preko svrhe, nego preko sredstava koje upotrebljava. Zato više ni političko arbitriranje nije bilo dovoljno da objasni bit diktature – ili barem suverene diktature u koju se Đinđić uživljavao. Stvaranje političkog jedinstva (koje je nedostajalo u „egzistenciji“ Srba), samopotvrđivanje organske zajednice kroz red i poredak, te „totalna mobilizacija“ svih njenih pripadnika (izraz koji je Šmit preuzeo od svog prijatelja Ernsta Jingera) bili su isti krajnji ciljevi koje su Šmit i Đinđić delili, uzimali za polazište svojih projekata autoritarnog ustavotvorstva (u formi „čuvara ustava“) i sasvim neobavezno vezivali za neko šire evropsko okruženje (to što je Šmitov ius publicum Europaeum realno bio inkompatibilan sa savremenim pravom Evropske unije, kojem se Đinđić divio, ovde je od sasvim drugorazrednog značaja).

Sama pozicija premijera primoravala je Đinđića da se distancira od Šmitovog učenja, koje je u demokratski izabranom predsedniku države videlo onu reprezentativnu i suverenu figuru koja je predodređena za suverenu diktaturu. Međutim, pošto je i sam Šmit uvek podržavao jake, operativne i „aktivne“ kancelare, koji su se samo zaogrtali autoritetom ostarelog generala Hindenburga i koristili ga u svoje svrhe, to su krajnje intencije i Šmita i Đinđića bile sasvim saglasne. Jedina ključna razlika leži u tome što je Đinđić blokirao Koštuničin dolazak na mesto predsednika Srbije upravo zato što je ovaj imao sve preduslove za „reprezentativnu“ vlast (upor. npr. Đinđić, 2001: 6) i što se nije dao politički iskorišćavati na način na koji su nemački kancelari manipulisali izlapelim Hindenburgom u periodu 1932–1933. godine. To što je Koštunica u Đinđićevim očima ovaploćavao upravo one političke osobine koje je Šmit smatrao najnegativnijim – intelektualizam i nesposobnost za donošenje odluka28 – u početku ga je preporučivalo za marionetu, kojom će se Đinđić koristiti, da bi tek od momenta od kojeg je Koštunica počeo da pokazuje žilav otpor i pretenzije na zaokruživanje vlastite suverenosti (od vrhova vojske i obaveštajnih službi)29 postalo prepreka zbog koje je mesto predsednika Srbije ostalo upražnjeno sve do Đinđićeve smrti.

Što je više imao uspeha na političkoj pozornici Srbije, to je Đinđić bio više ubeđen u uspešnost Šmitove formule suverenog diktatora. Činilo mu se da pred sobom ima sve manje prepreka i da je naposletku kucnuo čas da svoju viziju transformiše od čisto tehničke „programske koncepcije“, s onu stranu svake ideologije, u novi Ustav Srbije. Pogledajmo sada ukratko kako su izgledale ključne premise takve ustavne inicijative. Prelomnu tačku Đinđić je dostigao u decembru 2002, nakon što je osujetio izbor predsednika Srbije i tu funkciju razložio u funkciji predsednika Skupštine, koja se nalazila pod neposrednom kontrolom njega kao premijera. U to vreme Đinđić je bio na polovini svog premijerskog mandata i, iako je znao da ne može da sasvim mirno čeka izbore 2004,30 bio je uveren da je najgori deo posla za njim. Sva tri njegova najveća unutrašnja protivnika nalazila su se pred eliminacijom sa političke scene. Osujećeni kandidat za predsednika Srbije Vojislav Koštunica je u februaru 2003. trebalo da napokon izgubi i poslednje uporište u (saveznoj) državi, zbog čega se morao vratiti u srbijansku opoziciju (gde je, shodno Đinđićevom uverenju temeljenom na iskustvu iz Miloševićevog vremena, bio potpuno bezopasan),31 dok je u martu predstojao odlazak Vojislava Šešelja u Ševeningen i realizacija policijske akcije Sablja, u kojoj je trebalo da bude zbrisan vrh organizovanog kriminala i paravojnih formacija (sa Miloradom Ulemekom na čelu). Doduše, sva tri najveća inostrana protivnika ostajala su stameno na svojim pozicijama: u Americi Džordž V. Buš (koji je pritiskao na saradnju sa Haškim tribunalom i tražio velike protivusluge za finansijsku pomoć Srbiji), u Crnoj Gori Milo Đukanović (koji je jasno stavljao do znanja da će za tri godine sprovesti referendum o nezavisnosti Crne Gore), a na Kosovu i Metohiji Ibrahim Rugova (koji je tražio bezuslovno i bezodložno priznavanje nezavisnosti ove teritorije pod protektoratom). Međutim, eliminacijom unutrašnjih protivnika Đinđić je dobijao ogroman manevarski prostor da se sa spoljnim protivnicima uhvati u koštac mnogo uspešnije nego što je to do tada bio slučaj.

Sve u svemu, Đinđić je decembra 2002. pred sobom video sedmogodišnji period u kojem će Srbijom moći da vlada sa ukroćenom opozicijom, u kojem ga na spoljnopolitičkom planu čekaju velike borbe, ali na čijem kraju ga je očekivao – po njegovom mišljenju, sasvim realni – cilj političke, ekonomske i kulturne (re)integracije Srbije u Evropu. Jedini pravi problem koji se na tom putu pojavljivao i koji je mogao da ugrozi celokupnu Đinđićevu viziju i na unutarpolitičkom, i na spoljnopolitičkom planu, bio je problem Kosova i Metohije. Na osnovu informacija kojima je raspolagao, Đinđić je verovao da status Kosova i Metohije dolazi na red za rešavanje za dve do tri godine (Đinđić, 2003b: 72 i 96) – dakle 2005. – i da sve govori u prilog tome da će priznavanje državne nezavisnosti biti neminovno. Đinđić je znao da je reintegracija Kosova i Metohije u Srbiju neostvarljivo, pa čak i za samu Srbiju opasno rešenje,32 ali je, s druge strane, predviđao da bi politika ovog ili onog oblika saglašavanja sa nezavisnošću kosovske države bila politički samoubistvena. To je verovatno bio i najveći razlog zbog kojeg je Đinđić decembra 2002. tvrdio: „Naredne dve, tri godine su prelomne“ (Đinđić, 2005: 127). Dakle, ako je želeo da preživi te prelomne godine, zaključno sa 2005, Đinđić je morao da dela odmah. Otuda poslednja tri meseca njegovog života protiču u svojevrsnoj odsutnosti i nedostatku razumevanja za istinsku opasnost koja se nad njegovim životom nadvijala (Dimitrijević, 2007: 286–287) – od onih istih protivnika koje je on već doživljavao kao „bivše“ – kao posledicama njegove preokupiranosti problemom koji su svi srbijanski politički akteri već bili gurnuli pod tepih, koji se činio sve samo ne aktuelan, ali koji je „vizionar“ Đinđić već prihvatio kao svoj jedini istinski problem: problem destabilizujućeg uticaja proglašenja nezavisnosti Kosova i Metohije po (njegovu sopstvenu suvereno-diktatorsku) vlast u Beogradu.

Konfrontiran s tim problemom Đinđić je napravio plan za koji je verovao da će na najbolji način amortizovati ovaj udarac, a koji se u osnovi svodio na teritorijalnu podelu Kosova. Plan je trebalo da izgleda na sledeći način: početkom 2003. trebalo je problematizovati slab učinak protektorata međunarodne zajednice na normalizaciju prilika na ovoj teritoriji i pokrenuti inicijativu33 koja bi dovela do konferencije o Kosovu i koja bi ishodovala njegovom „konfederalizacijom“ (prema „nekakvom Kiparskom modelu“, „sa civilizovanim teritorijalnim razmeštanjem stanovništva“ – Đinđić, 2003b: 105), odnosno stvaranjem srpske „mini-republike“ na severu (tokom druge polovine 2003).34 Na dalje korake ka nezavisnosti, koje bi albanska strana neminovno i nezaustavljivo činila u naredne „dve-tri godine“ i koji bi dezavuisali celokupnu ideju konfederalnog Kosova i Metohije, Đinđić je planirao da odgovori „destabilizacijom Dejtona“ (tj. dovođenjem u pitanje državnog integriteta Bosne i Hercegovine)35 i da s tim pritiskom na međunarodnu zajednicu ide onoliko daleko koliko njoj treba da shvati da joj je bolje da podeli konfederalno Kosovo nego konfederalnu Bosnu. Samim tim, balkanski čvor je mogao biti presečen 2005, ali ne tako što će nezavisno postati celo Kosovo, nego samo jedna njegova (nesumnjivo mnogo veća) konfederalna jedinica. Pošto bi bio u situaciji da Srbiji pokaže kako je uspeo da od Kosova izvuče „ono što se izvući moglo“, krizna 2005. godina bi se završila bez većih političkih potresa i plan evropske integracije Srbije mogao bi biti nastavljen bez većih poremećaja, sve do konačnog učlanjenja 2010. godine.

U tom kontekstu potrebno je sagledavati Đinđićevu recepciju najvažnijeg segmenta Šmitove koncepcije suverene diktature – same ustavne promene koju treba da izvrši suvereni diktator. Već smo imali prilike da vidimo da je ustavno pitanje Đinđić doživljavao kao jednu od „prepreka“ svom programu učlanjenja Srbije u Evropsku uniju, a ne kao njenu logičnu pretpostavku i neophodan uslov. On je znao da ne može da postigne ono „jedinstvo ustava“ koje je Šmit zahtevao u slučajevima kada postoji punina „državne celine“, koja je mogla da proizađe samo „iz temeljne saglasnosti koja je postignuta“ u društvu (Đinđić, 1996a: 136) i zbog čijeg je izostanka novembra 1990. tražio odlaganje donošenja Ustava Srbije (Đinđić, 1996a: 138). Vladajući polarizovanom zemljom, u kojoj su se – od parlamenta do podzemlja – gomilali protivnici njegove diktature, Đinđić je svoje probleme sveo na formulu „Milošević, ustavi i zakoni“ i dao se na rešavanje ustavnog problema na način na koji je ranije „rešio“ problem svrgavanja sa vlasti i isporučivanja Slobodna Miloševića Haškom tribunalu i na koji je svakodnevno „rešavao“ probleme donošenja zakona u parlamentu (u kojem je većinu poslanika mogao da drži pod kontrolom samo uz pomoć političkih mahinacija). U svojoj ustavnoj inicijativi za 2003. godinu, koja je trebalo da startuje marta, formiranjem Komisije za pripremu teksta ustava u Skupštini Srbije (Đinđić, 2003b: 84) i da se završi do decembra iste godine (do kada je međunarodna inicijativa za konfederalizaciju Kosova i Metohije već trebalo da dâ neke rezultate) donošenjem novog Ustava Srbije,36 Đinđić je imao tri ključne novine. Pre svega, morala je biti sprečena svaka mogućnost da se ugrozi njegova suverena diktatura, tako da je podela vlasti bila otpisana redukovanjem položaja predsednika Srbije na protokolarnu funkciju.37 Drugo, Srbija je morala biti decentralizovana,38 a pitanje nove teritorijalno-političke organizacije trebalo je da se bazira na relativno trajnom ustavnom redefinisanju statusa Kosova i Metohije.39 Naposletku, ceo posao ustavotvorstva trebalo je da bude lišen svake veze sa starim ustavom, ali i sa demokratijom, pošto je Ustav Srbije trebalo da donese, po svom sopstvenom nahođenju, ona ista parlamentarna većina koju je Đinđić kontrolisao i koja je već imala iskustva s identičnim zakonodavnim radom.40 Ista procedura trebalo je da bude primenjena i 2005, nakon otcepljenja južnog dela Kosova i Metohije, ali i 2009, u fazi finalizacije priprema za ulazak Srbije u Evropsku uniju. Na taj način Srbija bi bila ustavno „spakovana“ i „izručena“ Evropskoj uniji, a suvereni diktator je mogao da odahne: svoj dvodecenijski san bi ispunio, a nove generacije srbijanske političke elite trebalo bi tada da započnu sa konačnim prosvetiteljskim radom, obrazovanjem „političkih građana“ i stvaranjem „političkog jedinstva“ koje bi u nekoj daljoj budućnosti možda moglo da pretenduje na demokratski legitimitet.

Na kraju se hicima iz snajpera završila ova neobična diktatura, a uvođenje vanrednog stanja pokazalo je da Srbija nema diktatora koji bi bio u stanju da konačno sprovede u realnost teoriju suverene diktature Karla Šmita.41 Njene nesumnjive dobre strane – predanost cilju evropskih integracija, afirmacija kulture nenasilja i dinamizacija političkog života – zaslužuju da i dalje inspirišu nove generacije političkih teoretičara i praktičara u Srbiji. Međutim, iz njenih nesumnjivo loših strana moraju se izvući jasne pouke: kritika koja je komunizam otpisivala zbog jedne mesijanske ideje (dugoročnog ulaska u komunistički eshaton), pribegavanja suverenoj diktaturi i degradiranja ustavnosti na „obično“ zakonodavstvo, da bi na kraju i sama završila u jednoj drugoj mesijanskoj ideji (ekspresnog članstva u Evropskoj uniji) i nastavku pomenutih praksi vršenja suverene diktature i degradacije ustava, nema potencijal da Srbiju značajnije pomeri na putu političkih reformi. U tom smislu je Nenad Prokić bio potpuno u pravu kada je napisao da se Srbija mora čuvati da od „Đinđićevog delovanja ne napravi mit“ i kada je preporučio da se, na temelju veza koje su postojale između Šmita i Đinđića, započnu „široke refleksije npr. o odnosu vrhunskih intelektualaca i totalitarnih ideologija“ (Prokić, 2006). Refleksija koja je mnogo bitnija tiče se mogućnosti da se Šmit pobija Šmitom; da se Šmitovim (kasnijim) projektima „totalne pluralističke partijske države“ i „totalne firerove države“ suprotstavlja Šmitov (rani) koncept suverene diktature. A upravo se to dešavalo u Srbiji nakon obaranja vlasti Slobodana Miloševića. Kao sedamnaestovekovni glavni junak romana Podvojeni vikont Itala Kalvina, koga je topovsko đule rasparčalo, a medicinsko čudo ponovo oživelo kroz dve osamostaljene i međusobno suprotstavljene polovine, tako se i podvojeni Karl Šmit u Srbiji pojavio u samom središtu političke misli i prakse, inspirišući konačnu ustavnu katastrofu. Taj ishod se pokazao kao vrlo loš i zapravo kao kontraproduktivan sa stanovišta upravo onog konačnog cilja za koji se i sam Zoran Đinđić zalagao – sa stanovišta evropeizacije Srbije, koje treba, ali ne mora nužno i promptno i da vrhuni u članstvu u Evropskoj uniji.

Literatura:

Dimitrijević, Bojan (2007): Zoran Đinđić. Biografija, Beograd: Zavod za udžbenike. Đinđić, Zoran (1982): Subjektivnost i nasilje. Nastanak sistema u filozofiji nemačkog idealizma, Beograd: IIC SSO Srbije. Đinđić, Zoran (1985): „Fascinacija hoda po ivici. Povodom smrti Karla Šmita“, NIN, god. 36, br. 1797: 35–36. Đinđić, Zoran (1987a): Jesen dijalektike. K. Marks i utemeljenje kritičke teorije društva, Beograd: Mladost. Đinđić, Zoran (1987b): „Osnovna prava i ustavno-pravna država“, Theoria, god. 30, br. 1–2: 31–44. Đinđić, Zoran (1988): Jugoslavija kao nedovršena država, Novi Sad: Književna zajednica Novog Sada. Đinđić, Zoran (1990): „Funkcionalnost diktature“, Sociologija, god. 32, br. 4: 564–567. Đinđić, Zoran (1996a): Srbija ni na Istoku ni na Zapadu, Novi Sad: Cepelin. Đinđić, Zoran (1996b): „Demokratija i autoritarni sistem“, Filozofija i društvo, br. 9–10: 231–238. Đinđić, Zoran (1997): „Kritika utopijskog uma“, u: Kozelek, Rajnhart: Kritika i kriza. Studija o patogenezi građanskog sveta, Beograd: Plato. Đinđić, Zoran (2001): „Im Gespräch mit Paul Lendvai: Zur Anatomie einer Revolution“, Europäische Rundschau, god. 29, br. 4: 3–20. Đinđić, Zoran (2003a): Srbija u Evropi. Autorski tekstovi i intervjui, Beograd: Tanjug. Đinđić, Zoran (2003b): O Kosovu, Beograd: Udruženje građana „Cer“. Đinđić, Zoran (2005): Put Srbije u Evropu, Beograd: Draslar partner. Gligorov, Vladimir (2006): „Ratnici i trgovci, pragmatizam i legalizam“, u: Perović, Latinka (ur.): Zoran Đinđić: etika odgovornosti, Beograd: Helsinški odbor za ljudska prava u Srbiji. Mališić, Vesna (2004): Zoran Đinđić. San o Srbiji, Beograd: Čigoja. Melčić, Dunja (2006): „Filozofska radoznalost Zorana Đinđića“, u: Perović, Latinka (ur.): op. cit. Perović, Latinka (2006): „Uvod: Zoran Đinđić i srpsko društvo“, u: Perović, Latinka (ur.): op. cit. Popović, Nebojša i Nikolić, Kosta (2006): Vojislav Koštunica, Jedna karijera, Beograd: Komitet pravnika za ljudska prava. Prokić, Nenad (2006): „Fascinacija hoda po ivici. Sećanje na Zorana Đinđića – predlog za intelektualnu biografiju“, NIN, br. 2874 (26. januar), Veličković, Dušan i Zodeman, Kristof (2007): Đinđić, Beograd: Alexandria Press.

d.m:

1 „Teren“ na kojem je Đinđić odabrao da igra svoju odlučujuću „utakmicu“ protiv Koštunice – da se ostane pri omiljenoj fudbalskoj metaforici prvog postmiloševićevskog premijera Srbije – bio je loše odabran, čime su na kraju obezvređeni skoro svi „golovi“ koje je postizao.

2 Zakonitosti istorije („duha epohe“), po Đinđiću, nisu se manifestovale kroz ideje i ideologije nego kroz velike („istorijske“) ličnosti.

3 Ono, pak, što je bio najveći problem Đinđićeve „filozofije srpske istorije“ bilo je distanciranje i od same demokratije.

4 Ipak, Đinđića je Šmitu najviše privukla „klasična teorija diktature“ ili – kako je on to u jednom od podnaslova knjige Jugoslavija kao nedovršena država formulisao – „diktatura posmatrana bez predrasuda“.

5 Karl Šmit se u Srbiji pojavio u samom središtu političke misli i prakse, inspirišući konačnu ustavnu katastrofu.

Autor je profesor Filozofskog fakulteta u Beogradu.

Blokada socijalnom učenju, II deo, Republika, 474-475, 1-30.04.2010.

Peščanik.net, 12.04.2010.

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philosophyofpolitics · 6 years

Text

2011: Godina opasnog sanjanja

Na persijskom jeziku postoji jedan divan izraz: war nam nihadan, što znači ubiti nekoga, zakopati mu leš, a onda preko njega zasaditi cveće da se grob sakrije. Godine 2011, bili smo svedoci i učesnici niza dramatičnih događaja, od Arapskog proleća do OWS, od demonstracija u engleskim predgrađima do Brejvikovog ideološkog ludila u Oslu. Tako je 2011. postala godina opasnog sanjanja, u dva pravca. Bilo je emancipatorskih snova koji su mobilisali demonstrante širom sveta, kao i opskurnih, destruktivnih snova koji su pokrenuli rasističke populiste širom Evrope, od Holandije do Mađarske.

Osnovni zadatak hegemonske ideologije bio je da neutrališe pravi karakter ovih događaja. Zar nije dominantna reakcija naših medija bila upravo „war nam nihadan“? Mediji su ubijali radikalni emancipatorski potencijal tih dešavanja, ili su zamagljivali njihovu pretnju demokratiji i sadili cveće nad zakopanim lešom. Zato je toliko važno postaviti stvari na svoje mesto – locirati ove događaje unutar totaliteta aktuelnih događaja.

Kakvog totaliteta? Pema Hegelu, ponavljanje igra vrlo konkretnu ulogu u istoriji. Kada se nešto desi samo jednom, može se zanemariti kao puka sliučajnost, kao nešto što se moglo izbeći boljim rešavanjem situacije. Ali kad se isti događaj ponovi, to je znak da imamo posla sa dubljom istorijskom nužnošću. Kada je Napoleon 1813. prvi put izgubio bitku, činilo se da je u pitanju samo nesrećan slučaj, kada je izgubio drugi put kod Vaterloa, bilo je jasno da je njegovo vreme prošlo. Zar ovo isto ne važi i za današnju finansijsku krizu? Kada je prvi put pogodila tržišta u septembru 2008, ličila je na nezgodu koja se može ispraviti boljom regulacijom. Sada je sasvim izvesno da imamo posla sa strukturnom blokadom. Kako da se izvučemo iz takve konfuzne situacije?

Tridesetih godina prošlog veka, Hitler je ponudio antisemitizam kao narativno objašnjenje nedaća koje pogađaju obične Nemce. Nezaposlenost, kvarenje morala, društveni nemiri – iza svega toga stajali su Jevreji. Dakle, fabrikovanjem jevrejske zavere običnim ljudima je sve objašnjeno, tako što im je ponuđeno jednostavno kognitivno mapiranje. Zar današnja mržnja spram multikulturalizma i emigranata ne funkcioniše na sličan način? Dešavaju se čudne stvari. Odjednom imamo finansijske potrese koje osećamo u svakodnevnom životu, ali oni se doživljavaju kao potpuno neprozirni, a odbacivanje multikulturalizma uvodi lažnu jasnoću u ovu situaciju. Strani uljezi remete naš način života. Tako postoji međusobna povezanost između sve snažnije antiemigrantske klime u zapadnim zemljama i tekuće finansijske krize. Čvrsto držanje za etnički identitet služi kao zaštitni branik od traumatične činjenice da ste upali u vrtlog neprozirnih finansijskih apstrakcija.

Istinsko strano telo, koje se ne može asimilovati, nisu stranci, nego upravo samohodna mašinerija kapitala. Zato se treba zamisliti nad nekim stvarima iz Brejvikovog ideološkog opravdanja, kao i iz međunarodnih reakcija na njegov čin. Brejvik je antisemita, ali ujedno i pristalica Izraela, budući da za njega izraelska država predstavlja prvu liniju odbrane od muslimanske ekspanzije. On bi čak želeo da se ponovo podigne Jerusalimski hram. Brejvikov stav je da su Jevreji okej, sve dok ih nema previše. Kao što je napisao u svom manifestu: „Ne postoji jevrejski problem u zapadnoj Evropi, sa izuzetkom Britanije, pošto ih je ovde samo milion. S druge strane, Sjedinjene Američke Države, sa preko šest miliona Jevreja, 600% više nego u Evropi, imaju ozbiljan jevrejski problem.“

Šta treba da zaključimo iz ovoga? Ključ je u reakciji evropske desnice na Brejvikov napad. Mantra ovih reagovanja glasi – naravno da osuđujemo njegov zločinački napad, ali ne treba zaboraviti da je on postavio neka legitimna pitanja o pravim problemima. Mejnstrim politika nije sposobna da se suoči sa korozijom Evrope kroz islamizaciju i multikulturalizam, ili, citiram iz Jerusalem Posta, „trebalo bi iskoristiti tragediju u Oslu kao priliku da ozbiljno razmotrimo politiku integracije imigranata u Norveškoj i drugde“. U ovojh proceni, naravno, ključna je implicitna aluzija na Izrael. Multikulturni Izrael nema nikakve šanse da opstane, aparthejd je jedina realna opcija.

Cena ovog pervertiranog desničarsko-cionističkog pakta jeste to što cionistički predstavnici Izraela, kako bi opravdali svoje polaganje prava na Palestinu, moraju retroaktivno da prihvate argumentaciju koja je ranije u Evropskoj istoriji korišćena protiv samih Jevreja. Prećutni sporazum je sledeći: mi, radikalni cionisti, spremni smo da prihvatimo vašu zapadnoevropsku netolerantnost prema drugim kulturama na vašem području, ako vi prihvatite naše pravo da ne tolerišemo Palestince na našem području. Tragična ironija ovog prećutnog sporazuma je što su, u novijoj evropskoj istoriji, sami Jevreji bili, da ih tako nazovemo, multikulturalisti. Njihov problem bio je kako preživeti sa netaknutom kulturom na prostorima gde dominira neka druga kultura.

Uzgred, treba spomenuti da se devetsto tridesetih Ernst Džons, glavni vinovnik konformističke gentrifikacije psihoanalize, u direktnom odgovoru na nacistički antisemitizam, bavio uvrnutim proučavanjem procenata strane populacije koju može da toleriše jedno nacionalno telo, a da ne ugrozi sopstveni identitet. Prilično je šokantno kako je on, kome je Frojd toliko verovao, prihvatio nacističku problematiku. Govorio je: možda su nacisti malo radikalniji, možda bismo mogli da tolerišemo 5 odsto, ne više od toga, i tako dalje.

Na kraju ovog puta stoji ekstremna mogućnost koju nikako ne treba zanemariti. Mogućnost istorijskog pakta između cionista i muslimanskih fundamentalista. Ali, šta ako zaista ulazimo u novo razodoblje, gde će se to novo rezonovanje, zasnovano na etničkom identitetu, svuda nametnuti? Skorašnji izlivi homofobije u istočnoevropskim postkomunističkim državama trebalo bi da nas opomenu na razmišljanje. Početkom 2011. održana je gej parada u Istanbulu, gde je hiljade ljudi mirno šetalo. Pokušajte nešto slično da izvedete u zemljama bivše Jugoslavije. Gej parade je redovno prekidala nasilna rulja raspoložena za linčovanje.

Za mene je presudno da u ovom nizu lociram antisemitizam, kao jedan od elemenata pored rasizma, seksizma, homofobije, i tako dalje. Pokušavajući da utemelji svoju cionističku politiku, Izraelska država ovde pravi jednu katastrofalnu grešku. Odlučila je da umanji značaj takozvanog starog, tradicionalno evropskog antisemitizma, koncentrišući se umesto toga na novi, navodno aktuelni antisemitizam, koji je, kažu, prerušen u kritiku cionističke politike izraelske države. U skladu s tim, Bernar Anri Levi je nedavno izjavio da će „antisemitizam 21. veka biti progresivan, ili ga neće biti“. Izvedena do kraja, ova teza nas primorava da izvrnemo staru marksističku interpretaciju antisemitizma kao mistifikovanog antikapitalizma – umesto da krivimo kapitalistički sistem, mi se koncentrišemo na štetni uticaj Jevreja. Za Anri Levija i njegove pristalice, upravo današnji antikapitalizam predstavlja prerušenu formu anisemitizma. On je to doslovno izjavio u jednom intervjuu: „Iza svakog radikalnog antikapitalizma danas možete naći antisemitizam.“

Ova prećutna, ali ništa manje efikasna zabrana napadanja „starog“ antisemitizma odigrava se upravo u trenutku povratka starog antisemitizma u čitavoj Evropi, od postkomunističkih zemalja do Skandinavije. Primećuje se sličan savez u SAD. Kako mogu američki hrišćanski fundamentalisti, koji su antisemiti po prirodi, sada zdušno da podržavaju cionističku politiku izraelske države? Izrael ovde igra opasnu igru. Fox News, glavno glasilo američke radikalne desnice, promoter izraelske ekspanzije, nedavno je morao da skine s programa Glena Beka, čiji su komentari, kao što znate, postali otvoreno antisemitski. Mislim da je to vrlo mračna tendencija. Naime, standardni cionistički argument protiv kritičara izraelske politike jeste da Izrael treba promatrati i kritikovati ga kao i svaku državu, ali, kažu oni, kritičari Izraela često zloupotrebljavaju kritiku izraelske politike u antisemitske svrhe.

Kada hrišćanski fundamentalisti odbijaju da prihvate levičarsku kritiku izraelske politike, zar njihova prećutna argumentacija nije najbolje predstavljena jednom divnom karikaturom, objavljenom u julu 2008. u austrijskom dnevniku Die Presse? Na karikaturi vidimo dva punačka Austrijanca nacističkog izgleda, od kojih jedan u rukama drži novine i govori svom prijatelju: „Pogledaj kako se ovde potpuno opravdani antisemitizam zloupotrebljava kao jevtina kritika Izraela.“ Ovo su današnji saveznici Izraela. Jevrejski kritičari Izraela redovno se nazivaju autošovinistima. Međutim, pravi jevrejski autošovinisti, to jest oni koji potajno mrze istinsku slavu jevrejskog naroda, upravo su cionisti koji sklapaju prećutni pakt sa zapadnim antisemitima.

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O čemu je reč u današnjoj ekonomskoj krizi? Prva stvar koju treba razumeti da ovde nije reč o nemarnoj potrošnji, pohlepi, neefikasnoj regulaciji banaka itd. Na primer, kao što znate, danas je u Evropi moderno napadati Grčku – lenji Grci, troše evropski novac, itd. Ali mislim da su činjenice mnogo tragičnije. Grčka nije izuzetak. Ona je jednostavno jedan od glavnih poligona za nametanje novog društveno-ekonomskog modela, koji pledira na univerzalnost Depolitizovanog tehnokratskog modela, gde je bankarima i drugim ekspertima dozvoljeno da uguše demokratiju.

Zašto se ovo sada dešava? Mislim da se jedan ekonomski ciklus bliži kraju. Ciklus koji je počeo početkom sedamdesetih, u vreme kada je – prema grčkom ekonomisti Varufakisu – rođen takozvani ekonomski Minotaur. Čudovišna mašina, koja je upravljala svetskom ekonomijom od prve polovine osamdesetih do 2008. Dakle, Janis Varufakis tvrdi da kraj šezdesetih i početak sedamdesetih nije bilo samo vreme naftne krize i stagnacije. Niksonova odluka da napusti zlatni standard za američki dolar bila je znak mnogo radikalnije promene osnovnog kretanja kapitalističkog sistema. Do kraja šezdesetih, američka privreda više nije mogla da nastavi recikliranje svojih viškova u Evropi i Aziji. Njeni viškovi pretvorili su se u deficite. Godine 1971, američka vlada je reagovala na ovo opadanje jednim smelim strateškim potezom. Umesto da se bori sa deficitom, rešila je da uradi nešto sasvim suprotno – da podstakne deficit. A ko će to da plati? Ostatak sveta. Kako? Putem permanentnog transfera kapitala, koji je krenuo da dotiče preko dva velika okeana kako bi finansirao američki deficit.

Iako je vizija današnjeg globalnog poretka Emanuela Toda, opisana u njegovoj knjizi „Posle imperije“, prilično jednostrana, mislim da u njoj postoji zrno istine. Amerika je imperija na zalasku. Njen rastući negativni trgovinski bilans pokazuje da je Amerika neproduktivni grabljivac. Ona mora da usisa milijardu dolara dnevno iz drugih zemalja, da bi platila svoju potrošnju, i kao takva predstavlja univerzalnog kejnzijanskog potrošača koji pokreće svetsku ekonomiju. Ovaj priliv kapitala, sličan novcu koji se plaćao Rimu u antici ili žrtvama koje su stari Grci podnosili Minotauru, temelji se na složenom ekonomskom mehanizmu. Sjedinjenim Državama se veruje kao bezbednom i stabilnom centru, tako da svi ostali, od naftom bogatih arapskih zemalja do zapadne Evrope, Japana, a sada i Kine, ulažu svoj višak profita u SAD. Budući da je ovo poverenje u prvom redu ideološko i vojno, a ne ekonomsko, problem za SAD je kako da opravdaju svoju imperijalnu ulogu. Potrebno im je permanentno ratno stanje, pa su morali da izmisle rat protiv terorizma, nudeći se kao univerzalni zaštitnik svi ostalih normalnih (ne otpadničkih) država.

Ovo se razdoblje, tvrdim, sada završava – ova čudna nestabilnost gde je ceo svet, na neki način, finansirao SAD. I tvrdim da je pokret Occupy Wallstreet bio reakcija na to. Ja ne preuveličavam njegov značaj, a naročito im ne pripisujem znanje koje očigledno nemaju. Za mene je ključna poruka pokreta Occupy dvostruka. Prvo, ovo više nije samo izolovani protest oko jednog pitanja, kao recimo protest protiv rasizma, nekog konkretnog rata itd. To je pokret koji ukazuje na nekakvu konstrukcijsku grešku u globalnom kapitalističkom sistemu kao takvom. I drugo, još jedna implikacija pokreta Occupy Wallstreet jeste da postojeći demokratski institucionalni poredak nije dovoljno snažan da se izbori sa ovim problemom. Nemaju pozitivna rešenja kako da to izvedu, nemam ih ni ja, ali mislim da je ovo zapažanje tačno.

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Potpuno sam svestan da se odgovor demonstranata praktično svodi na odgovor Melvilovog Bartlbija – ne, radije ne bih. Nema pozitivnog programa. Možda bi tako trebalo početi, iako je pred nama dug put. Ubrzo ćemo morati da zatražimo makar elemente pozitivnog programa. Zašto?

Reagujući na proteste u Parizu 1968, Žak Lakan je rekao: „To čemu vi težite kao revolucionari jeste novi gospodar. I dobićete ga.“ Dobro, mislim da bi ovu dijagnozu i prognozu trebalo zanemariti, previše je jevtina. Ali ima u njoj mrvica istine. Tvrdim da ovo jeste problem sa današnjim protestima, barem u Evropi. Indignadosi u Španiji, do neke mere čak i u Grčkoj. Kad god razgovaram s demonstrantima, insistiram na jednom glupom, naivnom pitanju: „Šta vi hoćete?“ Recimo, bolju regulaciju, više etičke standarde, bolji kapitalizam, povratak u socijaldemokratiju, ili neku neomarksističku revoluciju? Redovno se ponašaju kao da sam postavio neko zabranjeno pitanje – kako možeš to da radiš, nije vreme za takva pitanja itd.

Mislim da jeste vreme. Veliki deo ovih protesta koji postavljaju zahteve – tražimo pravedan život, tražimo život gde novac služi ljudima a ne ljudi novcu itd. – suštinski je prizivanje novog gospodara. To je tipično histeričan gest, i taj novi gospodar se već nazire u Grčkoj i Italiji. Kao da ironično odgovaraju na nedostatak ekspertskih programa kod demonstranata, sada je tendencija da se političari u vladi zamenjuju neutralnim depolitizovanim tehnokratama. Ja tvrdim da ovo više nije šala. Demokratija je postepeno već napola ukinuta. Setimo se onog trenutka koji je mene prestravio, kada je Grčka bila u dubokoj krizi, poslednji premijer iz PASOKA, Papandreu, predložio je referendum. I čitava Evropa je bila u šoku – kako se usuđuje, nema ovde mesta za referendum. To je bukvalno bio pritisak porukama – ne, ovo je problem za eksperte, nemojte se ovde igrati demokratije.

Uzgred, potpuno se ista stvar desila u SAD 2008. Sećate se? Prvo je Bušova vlada predložila kongresu pomoć od 750 milijardi dolara, to je tada bila velika suma, danas nije ništa, i setićete se da je kongres glasao dvotrećinskom većinom protiv. Zatim je čitava politička elita – Buš, Mekejn, Obama – otišla tamo i panično ih ubedila. Njihova osnovna poruka glasila je: slušajte, treba nam ovaj novac smesta, nemamo sad vremena za demokratska zavitlavanja. I nedelju dana kasnije, opet se glasalo – dve trećine glasalo je za uredbu. Dakle, to je za mene de factoukidanje demokratije. Ponavljam, nema lakih rešenja. Za mene je pouka Occupy pokreta da moramo početi da razmišljamo.

***

Šta levica može da nauči od Ajn Rand? Pravi konflikt u univerzumu njenih romana nije između takozvanih velikih inovatora i gomile parazita koji žive od njihove produktivne genijalnosti. To je nešto sasvim drugo, ako pogledate ono remek delo, koje ja i pored najbolje volje nisam uspeo da pročitam do kraja, „Ravnodušni Atlas“. Pravi konflikt je onaj između Džona Galta i Dagni, junakinje. Između samih inovatora, kreativnih genija. On je u seksualnoj tenziji između inovatora Džona Galta, i njegove histerične parnerke, potencijalne inovatorke koja ostaje zarobljena u smrtonosnoj, autodestruktivnoj dijalektici.

Kada u „Ravnodušnom Atlasu“ jedan od inovatora, mislim da je Džoin Galt, kaže junakinji Dagni, koja želi da istraje u svom poduhvatu i održi u životu transkontinentalnu prugu, da njen pravi neprijatelj nije gomila parazita – već ona sama. Mislim da ovo treba shvatiti doslovno – Dagni to polako shvata. Kada inovatori počnu da nestaju iz javnog produktivnog života, ona sumnja na neku mračnu zaveru, koja ih primorava da se povuku i tako postepeno zaustave čitav društveni život. Zašto? Paraziti nemaju svoju konzistentnost. Rešenje nije da se oni razbiju, već da se pokida lanac koji prisiljava inovatore da rade za njih.

Ideja je da u korumpiranom sistemu socijalne države koji opisuje Ajn Rand, problem nije u toj Ruzveltovoj ili Obaminoj birokratiji. Problem su kreativni ljudi koji još uvek brinu kako da održe sistem u životu, koji se bore sa sistemom unutar sistema – oni su pravi neprijatelji. A zaključak je da moraju da prestanu da brinu tuđe brige. Treba da se povuku, da dopuste sistemu da dotakne najnižu tačku, i jedino će tako moći da sprovedu radikalne promene.

Ovde potpuno zloupotrebljavam Ajn Rand u radikalno levičarske svrhe, ali ako još uvek želimo da budemo nekakvi radikalni levičari, možda bi upravo ovo na nekom nivou trebalo da shvatimo. Ne budite kao Dagni, kao kreativni ljudi koji očajnički pokušavaju da spasu sistem. Iako se protiv njega bore, oni mu praktično produžavaju život. Kao u Evropi danas – šta će se desiti sa evrom, šta će se desiti sa finansijskom krizom itd. Naravno, nemojte me pogrešno razumeti, ne kažem da ne treba ništa da učinimo ako milioni ljudi umiru od gladi. Ali danas ne brinemo o tome. Danas brinemo o problemima poput finansijskog kolapsa. Sve češće padam u iskušenje da kažem: možda bi trebalo da dopustimo da se to odigra. Nemojte brinuti tuđe brige. Ne budite protivnici koji svojim očajničkim trudom omogućavaju funkcionisanje sistema. Povucite se, dozvolite da sistem sam sebe uništi.

Mislim da je za svaku istinsku društvenu promenu neophodan ovakav trenutak. Samo nakon prolaska kroz ovaj trenutak, kada vidite kako vaša aktivnost u suprotstavljanju sistemu, umesto da mu naškodi, omogućava njegov opstanak – samo tada možete da zamislite pravu promenu. Nema prave promene bez ovog prolaska kroz tačku apsolutnog, kada vidite kako standardne metode opiranja omogućavaju funkcionisanje sistema. Šta bi danas bile uobičajene metode otpora? Moralizatorska kritika – nacionalizujte banke, kaznite finansijske špekulante itd. Ozbiljno sam nameravao da napišem nešto u odbranu Bernarda Mejdofa. Ne, on jeste đubre, ali nemojte njega kriviti. Krivite sistem koji mu je omogućio da uradi to što je uradio. On nije problem. Prvo što danas treba uraditi je zabrana moralizatorske kritike – pohlepa, finansijske spekulacije itd. To nije problem. Problem je zašto je sistem stvorio prostor za takve finansijske spekulacije. Mislim da se radi o dubokoj strukturnoj nužnosti. To nema nikakve veze sa pohlepom, bankarima itd. Ako niste spremni da prođete kroz tu nultu tačku, vodite lažan život.

Delovi predavanja Slavoja Žižeka održanog 25. aprila 2012. u Njujorku.

Snimak celog predavanja

Slavoj Žižek, 25.04.2012.

Izabrao i preveo Ivica Pavlović

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philosophyofpolitics · 6 years

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Shoplifters of the World Unite

Slavoj Žižek on the meaning of the riots

Repetition, according to Hegel, plays a crucial role in history: when something happens just once, it may be dismissed as an accident, something that might have been avoided if the situation had been handled differently; but when the same event repeats itself, it is a sign that a deeper historical process is unfolding. When Napoleon lost at Leipzig in 1813, it looked like bad luck; when he lost again at Waterloo, it was clear that his time was over. The same holds for the continuing financial crisis. In September 2008, it was presented by some as an anomaly that could be corrected through better regulations etc; now that signs of a repeated financial meltdown are gathering it is clear that we are dealing with a structural phenomenon.

We are told again and again that we are living through a debt crisis, and that we all have to share the burden and tighten our belts. All, that is, except the (very) rich. The idea of taxing them more is taboo: if we did, the argument runs, the rich would have no incentive to invest, fewer jobs would be created and we would all suffer. The only way to save ourselves from hard times is for the poor to get poorer and the rich to get richer. What should the poor do? What can they do?

Although the riots in the UK were triggered by the suspicious shooting of Mark Duggan, everyone agrees that they express a deeper unease – but of what kind? As with the car burnings in the Paris banlieues in 2005, the UK rioters had no message to deliver. (There is a clear contrast with the massive student demonstrations in November 2010, which also turned to violence. The students were making clear that they rejected the proposed reforms to higher education.) This is why it is difficult to conceive of the UK rioters in Marxist terms, as an instance of the emergence of the revolutionary subject; they fit much better the Hegelian notion of the ‘rabble’, those outside organised social space, who can express their discontent only through ‘irrational’ outbursts of destructive violence – what Hegel called ‘abstract negativity’.

There is an old story about a worker suspected of stealing: every evening, as he leaves the factory, the wheelbarrow he pushes in front of him is carefully inspected. The guards find nothing; it is always empty. Finally, the penny drops: what the worker is stealing are the wheelbarrows themselves. The guards were missing the obvious truth, just as the commentators on the riots have done. We are told that the disintegration of the Communist regimes in the early 1990s signalled the end of ideology: the time of large-scale ideological projects culminating in totalitarian catastrophe was over; we had entered a new era of rational, pragmatic politics. If the commonplace that we live in a post-ideological era is true in any sense, it can be seen in this recent outburst of violence. This was zero-degree protest, a violent action demanding nothing. In their desperate attempt to find meaning in the riots, the sociologists and editorial-writers obfuscated the enigma the riots presented.

The protesters, though underprivileged and de facto socially excluded, weren’t living on the edge of starvation. People in much worse material straits, let alone conditions of physical and ideological oppression, have been able to organise themselves into political forces with clear agendas. The fact that the rioters have no programme is therefore itself a fact to be interpreted: it tells us a great deal about our ideological-political predicament and about the kind of society we inhabit, a society which celebrates choice but in which the only available alternative to enforced democratic consensus is a blind acting out. Opposition to the system can no longer articulate itself in the form of a realistic alternative, or even as a utopian project, but can only take the shape of a meaningless outburst. What is the point of our celebrated freedom of choice when the only choice is between playing by the rules and (self-)destructive violence?

Alain Badiou has argued that we live in a social space which is increasingly experienced as ‘worldless’: in such a space, the only form protest can take is meaningless violence. Perhaps this is one of the main dangers of capitalism: although by virtue of being global it encompasses the whole world, it sustains a ‘worldless’ ideological constellation in which people are deprived of their ways of locating meaning. The fundamental lesson of globalisation is that capitalism can accommodate itself to all civilisations, from Christian to Hindu or Buddhist, from West to East: there is no global ‘capitalist worldview’, no ‘capitalist civilisation’ proper. The global dimension of capitalism represents truth without meaning.

The first conclusion to be drawn from the riots, therefore, is that both conservative and liberal reactions to the unrest are inadequate. The conservative reaction was predictable: there is no justification for such vandalism; one should use all necessary means to restore order; to prevent further explosions of this kind we need not more tolerance and social help but more discipline, hard work and a sense of responsibility. What’s wrong with this account is not only that it ignores the desperate social situation pushing young people towards violent outbursts but, perhaps more important, that it ignores the way these outbursts echo the hidden premises of conservative ideology itself. When, in the 1990s, the Conservatives launched their ‘back to basics’ campaign, its obscene complement was revealed by Norman Tebbit: ‘Man is not just a social but also a territorial animal; it must be part of our agenda to satisfy those basic instincts of tribalism and territoriality.’ This is what ‘back to basics’ was really about: the unleashing of the barbarian who lurked beneath our apparently civilised, bourgeois society, through the satisfying of the barbarian’s ‘basic instincts’. In the 1960s, Herbert Marcuse introduced the concept of ‘repressive desublimation’ to explain the ‘sexual revolution’: human drives could be desublimated, allowed free rein, and still be subject to capitalist control – viz, the porn industry. On British streets during the unrest, what we saw was not men reduced to ‘beasts’, but the stripped-down form of the ‘beast’ produced by capitalist ideology.

Meanwhile leftist liberals, no less predictably, stuck to their mantra about social programmes and integration initiatives, the neglect of which has deprived second and third-generation immigrants of their economic and social prospects: violent outbursts are the only means they have to articulate their dissatisfaction. Instead of indulging ourselves in revenge fantasies, we should make the effort to understand the deeper causes of the outbursts. Can we even imagine what it means to be a young man in a poor, racially mixed area, a priori suspected and harassed by the police, not only unemployed but often unemployable, with no hope of a future? The implication is that the conditions these people find themselves in make it inevitable that they will take to the streets. The problem with this account, though, is that it lists only the objective conditions for the riots. To riot is to make a subjective statement, implicitly to declare how one relates to one’s objective conditions.

We live in cynical times, and it’s easy to imagine a protester who, caught looting and burning a store and pressed for his reasons, would answer in the language used by social workers and sociologists, citing diminished social mobility, rising insecurity, the disintegration of paternal authority, the lack of maternal love in his early childhood. He knows what he is doing, then, but is doing it nonetheless.

It is meaningless to ponder which of these two reactions, conservative or liberal, is the worse: as Stalin would have put it, they are both worse, and that includes the warning given by both sides that the real danger of these outbursts resides in the predictable racist reaction of the ‘silent majority’. One of the forms this reaction took was the ‘tribal’ activity of the local (Turkish, Caribbean, Sikh) communities which quickly organised their own vigilante units to protect their property. Are the shopkeepers a small bourgeoisie defending their property against a genuine, if violent, protest against the system; or are they representatives of the working class, fighting the forces of social disintegration? Here too one should reject the demand to take sides. The truth is that the conflict was between two poles of the underprivileged: those who have succeeded in functioning within the system versus those who are too frustrated to go on trying. The rioters’ violence was almost exclusively directed against their own. The cars burned and the shops looted were not in rich neighbourhoods, but in the rioters’ own. The conflict is not between different parts of society; it is, at its most radical, the conflict between society and society, between those with everything, and those with nothing, to lose; between those with no stake in their community and those whose stakes are the highest.

Zygmunt Bauman characterised the riots as acts of ‘defective and disqualified consumers’: more than anything else, they were a manifestation of a consumerist desire violently enacted when unable to realise itself in the ‘proper’ way – by shopping. As such, they also contain a moment of genuine protest, in the form of an ironic response to consumerist ideology: ‘You call on us to consume while simultaneously depriving us of the means to do it properly – so here we are doing it the only way we can!’ The riots are a demonstration of the material force of ideology – so much, perhaps, for the ‘post-ideological society’. From a revolutionary point of view, the problem with the riots is not the violence as such, but the fact that the violence is not truly self-assertive. It is impotent rage and despair masked as a display of force; it is envy masked as triumphant carnival.

The riots should be situated in relation to another type of violence that the liberal majority today perceives as a threat to our way of life: terrorist attacks and suicide bombings. In both instances, violence and counter-violence are caught up in a vicious circle, each generating the forces it tries to combat. In both cases, we are dealing with blind passages à l’acte, in which violence is an implicit admission of impotence. The difference is that, in contrast to the riots in the UK or in Paris, terrorist attacks are carried out in service of the absolute Meaning provided by religion.

But weren’t the Arab uprisings a collective act of resistance that avoided the false alternative of self-destructive violence and religious fundamentalism? Unfortunately, the Egyptian summer of 2011 will be remembered as marking the end of revolution, a time when its emancipatory potential was suffocated. Its gravediggers are the army and the Islamists. The contours of the pact between the army (which is Mubarak’s army) and the Islamists (who were marginalised in the early months of the upheaval but are now gaining ground) are increasingly clear: the Islamists will tolerate the army’s material privileges and in exchange will secure ideological hegemony. The losers will be the pro-Western liberals, too weak – in spite of the CIA funding they are getting – to ‘promote democracy’, as well as the true agents of the spring events, the emerging secular left that has been trying to set up a network of civil society organisations, from trade unions to feminists. The rapidly worsening economic situation will sooner or later bring the poor, who were largely absent from the spring protests, onto the streets. There is likely to be a new explosion, and the difficult question for Egypt’s political subjects is who will succeed in directing the rage of the poor? Who will translate it into a political programme: the new secular left or the Islamists?

The predominant reaction of Western public opinion to the pact between Islamists and the army will no doubt be a triumphant display of cynical wisdom: we will be told that, as the case of (non-Arab) Iran made clear, popular upheavals in Arab countries always end in militant Islamism. Mubarak will appear as having been a much lesser evil – better to stick with the devil you know than to play around with emancipation. Against such cynicism, one should remain unconditionally faithful to the radical-emancipatory core of the Egypt uprising.

But one should also avoid the temptation of the narcissism of the lost cause: it’s too easy to admire the sublime beauty of uprisings doomed to fail. Today’s left faces the problem of ‘determinate negation’: what new order should replace the old one after the uprising, when the sublime enthusiasm of the first moment is over? In this context, the manifesto of the Spanish indignados, issued after their demonstrations in May, is revealing. The first thing that meets the eye is the pointedly apolitical tone: ‘Some of us consider ourselves progressive, others conservative. Some of us are believers, some not. Some of us have clearly defined ideologies, others are apolitical, but we are all concerned and angry about the political, economic and social outlook that we see around us: corruption among politicians, businessmen, bankers, leaving us helpless, without a voice.’ They make their protest on behalf of the ‘inalienable truths that we should abide by in our society: the right to housing, employment, culture, health, education, political participation, free personal development and consumer rights for a healthy and happy life.’ Rejecting violence, they call for an ‘ethical revolution. Instead of placing money above human beings, we shall put it back to our service. We are people, not products. I am not a product of what I buy, why I buy and who I buy from.’ Who will be the agents of this revolution? The indignados dismiss the entire political class, right and left, as corrupt and controlled by a lust for power, yet the manifesto nevertheless consists of a series of demands addressed at – whom? Not the people themselves: the indignados do not (yet) claim that no one else will do it for them, that they themselves have to be the change they want to see. And this is the fatal weakness of recent protests: they express an authentic rage which is not able to transform itself into a positive programme of sociopolitical change. They express a spirit of revolt without revolution.

The situation in Greece looks more promising, probably owing to the recent tradition of progressive self-organisation (which disappeared in Spain after the fall of the Franco regime). But even in Greece, the protest movement displays the limits of self-organisation: protesters sustain a space of egalitarian freedom with no central authority to regulate it, a public space where all are allotted the same amount of time to speak and so on. When the protesters started to debate what to do next, how to move beyond mere protest, the majority consensus was that what was needed was not a new party or a direct attempt to take state power, but a movement whose aim is to exert pressure on political parties. This is clearly not enough to impose a reorganisation of social life. To do that, one needs a strong body able to reach quick decisions and to implement them with all necessary harshness.

Slavoj Žižek

LRB onlike

#Žižek #Europe #Riot #Marxism #Hegel #Politics #Philosphy

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philosophyofpolitics · 6 years

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Philosophy of politics (1)

First, let us consider the nature of this discipline and what it studies. If we look at the history of philosophy and political systems, we will see the following regularity. Philosophy and politics, from the very beginning, from the very birth of these two disciplines, developed not only in parallel, but inseparably from one another. Among the first of the Seven Wise Men, who are considered the founders of the philosophical tradition of the Greek Pre-Socratics, are many, including Solon, who are famous for writing political laws, constitutions, criminal codes, who were essentially political actors, representing their cities, their political units. So at the very beginning of the history of philosophy, we see an inseparable connection between philosophy and politics. Hence, politics as a separate phenomenon, disconnected from philosophy, studied for instance by philosophical methods, is a completely different approach.

In fact, the philosophy of politics is a deeper discipline than that. It is a discipline that considers the philosophers who engaged in politics, the philosophers who write about politics, and political actors who based their laws, the establishment of their political system, on philosophical principles. In fact, in the epoch of the birth of philosophy, and in the epoch of the birth of politics, these things were not at all separated from one another. Thus, the subject matter of philosophy and politics is that originary sphere that united philosophy and politics in a certain shared orientation. In other words, I want to say that there does not exist a separate phenomenon of politics and a separate phenomenon of philosophy, which we unite artificially. Nor do we study politics with the help of philosophy. We are speaking not only about the political philosophy of one or another school, period, culture, or civilization. When we speak of the philosophy of politics, we are talking to a significant degree about the essence of politics, of that which makes politics politics – on one hand. On the other hand, we are talking about the political essence of philosophy, which makes philosophy philosophy.

But there is a difference. Philosophy dominates here, because politics without philosophy is not possible at all. Politics is a form of applied philosophy, the application of philosophy to a certain sphere of human life. But philosophy without politics is possible, theoretically. That is, there is a philosophy that does not occupy itself with politics, but there is no politics that is not based on philosophy. So, there is an inequality here; philosophy dominates. Nevertheless, philosophy studies politics; not only the philosophical foundations of, but also the political aspects of philosophy itself; because politics is not a partial and accidental application of philosophy, but the most general, most fundamental, yet applied element of philosophy. As soon as philosophy appears, it necessarily, first of all, when it exists, turns to politics; and all politics emerges from philosophy. Between them there exists an unequal, but very deep, organic connection. There, where this original unification of the philosophical and the political occurs…there the birth of all possible political systems and at the same time the crystallization of philosophical knowledge happens. Although there is a philosophy that free from politics occupies itself with non-political questions, in fact, in one way or another, even such a free, non-political philosophy is connected, in one way or another, with politics, inasmuch as philosophy and politics have a common root. For this reason, if philosophy considers aesthetic questions, historical questions, cultural questions, and says nothing about politics, this nevertheless does not mean that it is a completely separate phenomenon. Any philosophy at all, even the most abstract, has a political dimension, in some cases explicitly. In the case of Solon, as in the case of the ancient Greek Pre-Socratics and Wise Men, and as in the case of Plato and Aristotle, this is an explicit dimension of philosophy. But there is also an implicit political dimension of philosophy, when philosophy says nothing about politics, but the very fact of the presence of a philosophical paradigm of one or another already carries in itself the possibility of a political dimension. In one case it is only explicit, open, and manifest; in the other, it is implicit, contained. Hence, between philosophy and politics there is a very, very deep connection, a connection at the level of their origin. And the study of philosophy without politics already in itself impoverishes and weakens the concept of philosophy. On the other hand, the study of politics without philosophy is not at all valid. In that case, we’ve already gone the way of programming and established rule by Word; that is, open file, close file. We are good programmers….we know two functions, save and save as. We can be excellent users of Word, we can write very good texts on Word, but we are not programmers. People who do not have the philosophy of politics, who do not have philosophy, they are as much politicians as computer programmers are, as are people who [inaudible]. In fact, a person who does not know philosophy cannot engage in politics; he’s not a politician. He is a hired government worker who is simply in front of a wall. Someone has told him: go there, do that. What to do, where to go…he might be an excellent user, but in reality politicians who lack a philosophical dimension are merely on a construction-site, some foreign construction-site… In reality, without philosophy, there just is no politics, period. Politics is one of the dimensions contained within philosophy.

Politics without philosophy does not exist, but philosophy without politics does exist, because it is primary in relation to politics; but all philosophy has a political dimension – either, as I said, explicitly, or implicitly, in which case we are silent about it. But this silence of philosophy concerning its political dimension or expression is not a total silence; it is sooner reticence than silence. That is, philosophy which does not occupy itself with politics knows about politics and has it within itself, but openly does not speak about this. This is a peculiar silence. There is the silence of the wise man, and there is the silence of the dummy. This one stays silent in order not to say the wrong thing, because he senses that if he starts to talk, nothing good will come of it. The wise man stays silent for a completely different reason. The silence of philosophy concerning politics is the silence of the wise man. But, if we inquire of the wise man properly, he will tell us what he knows about politics and what he tells will be entirely sensible. But he’s silent.

So, any philosophical system carries in itself a political dimension, but not every philosophical system develops this model explicitly. That’s the most important thing in order to understand the sphere of the subject matter which we will be studying in the course of the philosophy of politics. In other words, we are studying the philosophical root, the base, the programming base, the matrix base, of all politics, which is entirely reducible to philosophy – there is nothing in politics, not a single element, which does not lead to, is not explained by, and does not emerge from philosophy. Simply, politics is a part of philosophy, on one hand. So we’ll be studying that. We’ll also be studying the political dimension of philosophy, which also [inaudible] because it is the servant of philosophy; on the other hand, the philosophy which carries politics within it is of course richer than politics, but nevertheless in any philosophical system we can discover, even there where nothing is said about it, a possible application to the political sphere, i.e. the possibility of deriving from philosophy political content. […] Politics is if you will the most important case of the application of philosophy. […] […]. Accordingly, the history of philosophy and the history of politics produce strictly one and the same pattern. This is extremely important. There exists a precise homology between them. If philosophy moves in one direction, politics cannot move in another direction. Politics moves together with philosophy. If something has changed in philosophy, something will change in politics. If something changed in politics, something changed in philosophy, which predetermined this change in politics. Politics has no autonomy from philosophy. Politics is often more visible, though sometimes less so. From the perspective of history…the changes of dynasties, of a certain leader, prince, imperator…to start a war…this is evident, this is a political decision, but it is never distinct from philosophy. It is what we see – the political decision – but we do not see the philosophical decision, which must be there. From the perspective of the philosophy of politics, political history is a section of the history of philosophy, depending on this philosophical history absolutely. No politician is free from philosophy, and no philosopher can fail to be viewed in the light of his implicit political dimension. In other words, the historical picture, history, history as such, the rise and fall of princedoms, the construction and death of civilizations, conflicts between civilizations, political revolutions…decisions about tramways…all this has under it a philosophical dimension, not always evident and not always recognized, but the task of those who study the philosophy of politics is to elaborate the entirely of this total homology…this equal (homo) meaning (logos). The meaning of history is political-philosophical or philosophical-political. All history has these two sides. On one hand it is the history of princedoms, on the other it is the history of ideas. The history of princedoms and the history of ideas are not separate; it is one and the same history. Thus, if we fasten onto the philosophical dimension, for instance the transition from subjective idealism to objective idealism, this necessarily is connected with an identical political dimension…a transition from one political model to another…changes in the configurations of religions – and this is a philosophical problem in the first place, theology – change radically the content of the political processes occurring in the society where this philosophy is spreading. We can approach this homology between the philosophical and the political from all sides. We can say the political system changed, and depending on how it changed, in what direction, with what speed, and the content of the change, we can, even if we know nothing of the philosophy of that period, establish what was going on on the level of philosophical matters.

Or the opposite: we don’t know what happened politically in some society, but the history of arguments of one philosopher with another was preserved; from this argument, if it is written down correctly, we can reconstruct the whole political picture of what was happening in that moment, in the agora where everything was decided democratically, in the ding or the veche, or on the contrary if there was a monarchy, theocracy, for instance, or an empire. In other words, to study the philosophy of politics, we begin with a certain axiom, the axiom of the absolute homology between the political and the philosophical. Of course we can make a certain distinction, between politics and the political. I want to draw attention to one of the most eminent philosophers of politics, Carl Schmitt; we will refer to him throughout the entire course. In the 21st century, it is commonly agreed that Carl Schmitt was the most outstanding political philosopher[s] of the 20th century. At some times this was doubted; it was said that there would be other philosophers…but today if you say “Carl Schmitt”, everywhere you’ll be told that he is our most outstanding political philosopher; maybe the most outstanding, alongside Hobbes and alongside Plato. That is, Carl Schmitt is the political philosopher par excellence. I want to draw your attention to his works, and recommend that everyone necessarily and without delay familiarize themselves with his work on the political, das Politische. This is very important. Carl Schmitt distinguishes politics and the Political. He considers the Political – written with a capital P – in this case it is an adjective considered as a noun…das is the article indicating that we are talking about a noun. In German this is very clear: das Politische, as opposed to mere politische. In order to convey Schmitt’s meaning, we use the capital letter, the Political [henceforth, I will not capitalize; it is necessary in Russian, where there is no definite article.] This – the political – Schmitt distinguishes from politics. By politics, he understands the application of the political to a concrete social situation. The concretization of politics is the concretization of the political. But what, then, is the political? The political – das Politische – is precisely that point where the son (politics) is connected with the father (philosophy). That is, the political is precisely the sphere of philosophical politics, the sphere where philosophy connects directly with politics, what we called the homology of philosophy and politics. In other words, das Politische, according to Schmitt, is precisely the point of homology where we speak not of politics […] but not yet of philosophy as an ever broader level. It is the border, the horizon, the line between philosophy and politics. That is what das Politische means.

Another interesting aspect is that it is a certain sphere, a sphere that we define precisely as the philosophy of politics. The entire sphere of the philosophy of politics is contained in this concept of the political, das Politische. Another very important concept Schmitt employs is what is called a “fore-concept” [Vorgriffe]. The fore-concept is not yet a political law, it is not yet a political institution, is a not a political party, nor is it a concrete political program. The fore-concept is a kind of element or singularity of the political in its pure guise – not purely philosophical, but where the philosophy of politics steps into its own right. Carl Schmitt calls this a fore-concept. The field of the political thus consists entirely of fore-concepts, political fore-concepts.

The political fore-concept is also a very interesting phenomenon in itself. It is precisely that moment of transition when philosophy becomes politics. But notice the tense: it becomes; it has not yet become, but only becomes. When philosophy becomes politics, when are dealing with a political concept. This is the political concept, for instance, of the separation of powers, the relation of Church and State, notions of borders, the subject, and political institutions. This is already a political concept, in the full sense of the word. When, then, is it a fore-concept? When the birth [I think] of this political concept is prepared on the basis of philosophical content. In this way, the sphere of the political is the sphere of the existence of fore-concepts. The political consists of fore-concepts; and studying fore-concepts, we study that homology about which we spoke earlier. The study of the homology of philosophy and politics, of what is common between these two asymmetrical spheres, is the study of fore-concepts and the task of the philosophy of politics. This is what we are talking about. We are talking about a kind of field that exists, where the multiplicity of the philosophical intersects with the multiplicity of politics. In here between them is precisely what is common…the political, which the philosophy of politics studies.

-----------------

That was the introduction. Now we move to the question of how this occurs in practice. Plato is considered the founder of the first full-fledged philosophical system in history. He formulated most completely that philosophical agenda that not only predetermined the entire ancient history of philosophy, the entire Middle Ages, to a significant extent the philosophy of the Renaissance, which [inaudible] the philosophy of Modernity. But moreover, there is not today in the 21st century a philosopher more relevant and less understood than Plato. In other words, Plato is all of philosophy [the whole of philosophy; philosophy in toto]. The sharpest thinkers of the 19th, 18th, 17th, 16th, 15th…and so on until Plato all study Plato. In fact, strictly speaking there is one philosopher: Plato, and this is philosophy. To this day we have not [inaudible] his agenda. Concerning each of Plato’s words, of each of his phrases, there are heated arguments to this day, and no one can ascertain fully whether that is the way he was understood. Geniuses arise to take one position; geniuses arise and oppose it. Not simple people. Philosophical geniuses… All Christian dogma is based on Plato. In Christian theology there is not one thesis which does not have a Platonic dimension. In Islamic theology, everything is based exclusively on Platonism. And even where Platonism did not reach, in India, nevertheless the simplest way to study Hindu philosophy, Vedas, religion, is with Platonism, because the analogy is at once obvious. So, Plato is considered the prince of the philosophers, and his princedom in philosophy no one has yet been able to attack. Thousands of times it was announced that Plato’s empire has fallen. These proved each time to be some kind of marginal hallucinations. We live in the philosophy of Plato, Plato is the prince of philosophy, and either we contest this, in which case we […] the rise of the slaves who try to break free from the might of Plato’s princedom, or else we simply accept it as loyal citizens and follow our Emperor, Plato. Next, the idea that philosophy has brought something supplementary to Plato is an entirely unfounded, unscientific academic hypothesis. It is a kind of rumor which is not confirmed by the scientific community. Even those who are thought of as the embodiment of the philosophy of Modernity studied Plato [he talks about Bergson, who gave us, through the “primitive and very limited” Karl Popper, the open society, and about Whitehead, to show that both, though modern, were inspired by Plato]. Plato is everything. Hence, in fact if someone reads Plato, he comes up against not just one philosopher, not one author, not one school; he comes up against philosophy as such. Because all philosophy is nothing other than the movement between a few of Plato’s theses. Plato founded all philosophy at once: at once, and all together. Thus, the study of philosophy is the study of the philosophy of Plato. Everything else, essentially – as Whitehead, an analytical philosopher, a logician, a mathematician, himself said – is a footnote to the philosophy of Plato. SO we must attend to the fact that philosophy is only Plato. And if we do not understand Plato, we do not understand the programming language of philosophy. […] The study of philosophy begins with the study of the works of Plato; the study of philosophy is thunder-struck [porazhaetsya, I think I heard] through the study of works of Plato; the study of philosophy ends with the study of the works of Plato; there’s enough here for a lifetime. Accordingly, one can – I’ve been too general. This is a program for geniuses. For a simple, ordinary philosopher, it is possible to take one of Plato’s dialogues. I take the Cratylus [for instance], and live my life with the Cratylus. By the end of my life, the clarity of the Cratylus will be total. For students, the matter narrows. Let us take a separate saying of Plato and try in the course of some extent of time to live it through. And even that will be enormous, because Plato is philosophy. Accordingly, if we talk of philosophy, we talk of Plato. [..] If we want to familiarize ourselves with that matrix on the basis of which das Politische and the sphere of that homology we spoke of is formed, or with those fore-concepts with which we deal, if we want to understand where politics comes from, what its structures are, and how it is crystallized and manifested through the political, we must study Plato. […] So the first things we must get to know are Plato’s writings.

Aleksandr Dugin

Translation of M. Millerman

The Fourth Political Theory

#Politics #Philosphy #Dugin

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philosophyofpolitics · 6 years

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Noam Chomsky Condemns Israel’s Shift to Far Right & New “Jewish Nation-State” Law

AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask you about Israel right now, Israel’s passage of the new law that defines Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people and gives them the sole right to self-determination. The law also declares Hebrew the country’s only official language and encourages the building of Jewish-only settlements in the occupied territory as a “national value.” This is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: [translated] This is a defining moment in the annals of Zionism and the history of the state of Israel. We will keep ensuring civil rights in Israel’s democracy. These rights will not be harmed. But the majority also has rights, and the majority decides. An absolute majority wants to ensure our state’s Jewish character for generations to come.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about this new law, Noam Chomsky?

NOAM CHOMSKY: Yeah. First of all, a slight correction: the all-Jewish settlements that are authorized are within Israel proper. It’s not even a question on the Occupied Territories. They’re all like that. But this is within Israel proper.

So, yes, the new law does change the existing situation, but not by as much as is being claimed. What the new law describes has pretty much been in place for a long time. Basic law back in—land laws back in 1960 established what the Israeli high court called, concluded is—their statement was “Israel is the sovereign state of the Jewish people”—all Jewish people, but not its citizens, just the Jews. That was 60 years ago. The land laws were set up in such a way that, as was recognized at the time, in fact, that—internally in Israel, not outside—that the state lands would be effectively under the administration of the Jewish National Fund. An array of legal and administrative practices were set up to ensure that. If you’re interested in details, I wrote about them in detail 30 years ago in a book called Towards a New Cold War, sort of went through the documents. But, basically, a complex array was set up to ensure that the Jewish National Fund would be in control of state lands. That amounts to over 90 percent of the country’s lands.

What’s the mission of the Jewish National Fund? Well, it has a contract with the state of Israel which determines that its mission is to work for the benefit—I’m quoting now—of people “of Jewish race, religion or origin.” OK, what do you expect to follow from this? What you expect to follow is that 92, 93 percent of the land of the country is effectively reserved for people of Jewish race, religion and origin. And that’s the way it played out.

This finally came to the court, the Israeli courts, high court, in the year 2000. Civil liberties association in Israel brought a case. The plaintiffs were an Arab couple, professional Arab couple, who wanted to buy a home in a Jewish settlement, settlement of Katzir, which was, like most of the country, restricted to Jews. The court finally ruled in their favor, in a very narrow decision.

Almost immediately, efforts began to try to figure out a way around it, by various devices. And the new law simply authorizes it, straight. It authorizes all Jewish settlements in Israel proper, which means about 90 percent of the country. If you look at the development of settlements over the years—it’s discussed in an important article by Israeli writer Yitzhak Laor in a recent issue of Haaretz—I wrote about it in a post here in Truthout—he points out that, I think, about 700 all-Jewish settlements were set up, no Arab settlements. Arab Palestinians are restricted to about 2 percent of the land, a lot of them being kicked out of that.

So, all of this, it formalizes what has been practiced, in complex ways. It does demote Arabic from being an official language, to not having that status. It enhances the past practices by introducing them into the—what’s called the Basic Law, which is effectively the constitution. So, yes, these are changes, but less dramatic than the way it’s portrayed, not because these are proper moves, but because it’s always been like that in one way or another.

Incidentally, this should not be too strange to Americans. You look at the housing—this has recently been discussed by [Richard] Rothstein, an interesting book. If you look at the New Deal housing programs, they were legally and explicitly directed to ensuring white-only projects, white-only towns. That’s why the towns that sprang up in the 1950s, like Levittown, were 100 percent white. Various legal requirements were introduced to ensure that. This is the New Deal. We’re not talking about the Deep South, although, of course, they influenced it.

This didn’t change until the late '60s. And by then, it was too late to benefit African Americans. The reason was because of general economic changes in the ’50s—'50s and the '60s were a great growth period in the United States, offered the first time in hundreds of years of history, 400 years of history, for African Americans to have some sort of a chance of entering the mainstream society. But they were blocked from housing, by legal means. By the time the legal means were dismantled, we were moving into the onset of the neoliberal period of stagnation and decline, so it didn't do them any good. That’s another chapter in the ugly history of American racism.

So, we shouldn’t be all too startled to see what’s going on in Israel, which is quite ugly and is part of the shift of the country far to the right, which was predicted in 1967, predicted right off, that a consequence of the occupation would be to turn the country to the right. When you have your jackboot on someone’s neck, it’s not good for your psyche. And I think we’ve been watching this happen.

Israel is quite aware of it, incidentally. Israeli political analysts have been pointing out for a couple of years that Israel should be preparing itself for a period in which it loses the support of sectors of the world that have some concern for human rights and international law, and should be returning towards alliances with the countries that just don’t care about this. Say, India, under the recent ultranationalist Modi government, shares with Israel the move towards ultranationalism, repression, a hatred of Islam; China doesn’t pay attention to these things; Singapore; Saudi Arabia; United Arab Emirates.

And we can see it happening in the United States, as well. So, not too long ago, Israel was the absolute darling of liberal America. That’s changed. By now, among self-identified Democrats, they have considerably more support for Palestinians than for Israel. Support for Israel in the United States has shifted to the ultranationalist right and evangelicals, who, for the wrong reasons, support Israeli actions, with some passion, in fact, while at the same time many of them hold to doctrines which claim that the second coming of Christ, which is imminent, will lead to a series of events which will end up with the Jews being sent to eternal perdition. That combines with the support for Israeli actions. And that’s the—that’s why the base of Israeli support in the United States has shifted to the right wing of the Republican Party. So, these things are happening all over the world.

AMY GOODMAN: Noam Chomsky, now linguistics professor at the University of Arizona, Tucson. Coming up, he’ll talk about the crisis in Gaza.

Democracy Now

#Chomsky #israel #Palestine #DemocracyNow #Politics #philosophy #netanyahu

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philosophyofpolitics · 6 years

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Noam Chomsky on Mass Media Obsession with Russia & the Stories Not Being Covered in the Trump Era

AMY GOODMAN: We continue our interview with Noam Chomsky, world-renowned dissident, linguist and author, now in Tucson at the University of Arizona. I asked him about a recent mix-up on Fox & Friends, in which the hosts thought they were interviewing former Democratic congressional candidate, a current one, Ann Kirkpatrick of Arizona, who supports Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, known as ICE, but, in fact, they were actually speaking to a Massachusetts Democratic congressional candidate, Barbara L’Italien, who opposes ICE. Here is how the interview started.

SEN. BARBARA L’ITALIEN: Good morning. I’m actually here to speak directly to Donald Trump. I feel that what’s happening at the border is wrong. I’m a mother of four. And I believe that separating kids from their parents is illegal and inhumane. I’m actually Barbara L’Italien. I’m a state senator representing a large immigrant community. I’m running for Congress in Massachusetts. I keep thinking about what we’re putting parents through, imagining how terrifying that must be for those families, imagining how it would feel not knowing if I’d ever see my kids again. We have to stop abducting children and ripping them from their parents’ arms—

ROB SCHMITT: OK—

SEN. BARBARA L’ITALIEN: —stop putting kids in cages—

ROB SCHMITT: You want to—

SEN. BARBARA L’ITALIEN: —and stop making 3-year-olds defend themselves in court.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Barbara L’Italien said a lot there, but she was then cut off, with the shock of the Fox & Friends crew in the morning that they had the wrong Democratic congressional candidate. But this kind of media activism also just goes to the whole issue of the media, Noam Chomsky, the issue of Fox News becoming really state media, with—you have the person who supported the sexual harasser Roger Ailes, Bill Shine, now a top aide to President Trump in the White House. That’s gotten little attention. So you have Fox being a mouthpiece for Trump and a place for him to hear what people have to say, and the other networks very much running counter to Trump, on certain issues, CNNand MSNBC. But your thoughts?

NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, my frank opinion is that—I must say I don’t pay much attention to television, so I don’t know a great deal about it. But, in general, I think the media—first of all, Fox News is, by now, basically a joke. It’s, as you said, state media. The other media, I think, are focusing on issues which are pretty marginal. There are much more serious issues that are being put to the side. So, the worst of—even on the case of immigration, once again, I think the real question is dealing with the roots of immigration, our responsibility for it, and what we can do to overcome that. And that’s almost never discussed. But I think that’s the crucial issue. And I think we find the same across the board.

So, of all Trump’s policies, the one that is the most dangerous and destructive, in fact poses an existential threat, is his policies on climate change, on global warming. That’s really destructive. And we’re facing an imminent threat, not far removed, of enormous damage. The effects are already visible but nothing like what’s going to come. A sea level rise of a couple of feet will be massively destructive. It will make today’s immigration issues look like trivialities. And it’s not that the administration is unaware of this. So, Donald Trump, for example, is perfectly aware of the dangerous effects, in the short term, of global warming. So, for example, recently he applied to the government of Ireland for permission to build a wall to protect his golf course in Ireland from rising sea levels. And Rex Tillerson, who was supposed to be the adult in the room before he was thrown out, as CEO of ExxonMobil, was devoting enormous resources to climate change denial, although he had, sitting on his desk, the reports of ExxonMobil scientists, who, since the '70s, in fact, were on the forefront of warning of the dire effects of this accelerating phenomenon. I don't know what word in the language—I can’t find one—that applies to people of that kind, who are willing to sacrifice the literal—the existence of organized human life, not in the distant future, so they can put a few more dollars in highly overstuffed pockets. The word “evil” doesn’t begin to approach it. These are the kinds of issues that should be under discussion. Instead, what’s being—there is a focus on what I believe are marginalia.

So, take, say, the huge issue of interference in our pristine elections. Did the Russians interfere in our elections? An issue of overwhelming concern in the media. I mean, in most of the world, that’s almost a joke. First of all, if you’re interested in foreign interference in our elections, whatever the Russians may have done barely counts or weighs in the balance as compared with what another state does, openly, brazenly and with enormous support. Israeli intervention in U.S. elections vastly overwhelms anything the Russians may have done, I mean, even to the point where the prime minister of Israel, Netanyahu, goes directly to Congress, without even informing the president, and speaks to Congress, with overwhelming applause, to try to undermine the president’s policies—what happened with Obama and Netanyahu in 2015. Did Putin come to give an address to the joint sessions of Congress trying to—calling on them to reverse U.S. policy, without even informing the president? And that’s just a tiny bit of this overwhelming influence. So if you happen to be interested in influence of—foreign influence on elections, there are places to look. But even that is a joke.

I mean, one of the most elementary principles of a functioning democracy is that elected representatives should be responsive to those who elected them. There’s nothing more elementary than that. But we know very well that that is simply not the case in the United States. There’s ample literature in mainstream academic political science simply comparing voters’ attitudes with the policies pursued by their representatives, and it shows that for a large majority of the population, they’re basically disenfranchised. Their own representatives pay no attention to their voices. They listen to the voices of the famous 1 percent—the rich and the powerful, the corporate sector. The elections—Tom Ferguson’s stellar work has demonstrated, very conclusively, that for a long period, way back, U.S. elections have been pretty much bought. You can predict the outcome of a presidential or congressional election with remarkable precision by simply looking at campaign spending. That’s only one part of it. Lobbyists practically write legislation in congressional offices. In massive ways, the concentrated private capital, corporate sector, super wealth, intervene in our elections, massively, overwhelmingly, to the extent that the most elementary principles of democracy are undermined. Now, of course, all that is technically legal, but that tells you something about the way the society functions. So, if you’re concerned with our elections and how they operate and how they relate to what would happen in a democratic society, taking a look at Russian hacking is absolutely the wrong place to look. Well, you see occasionally some attention to these matters in the media, but very minor as compared with the extremely marginal question of Russian hacking.

And I think we find this on issue after issue, also on issues on which what Trump says, for whatever reason, is not unreasonable. So, he’s perfectly right when he says we should have better relations with Russia. Being dragged through the mud for that is outlandish, makes—Russia shouldn’t refuse to deal with the United States because the U.S. carried out the worst crime of the century in the invasion of Iraq, much worse than anything Russia has done. But they shouldn’t refuse to deal with us for that reason, and we shouldn’t refuse to deal with them for whatever infractions they may have carried out, which certainly exist. This is just absurd. We have to move towards better—right at the Russian border, there are very extreme tensions, that could blow up anytime and lead to what would in fact be a terminal nuclear war, terminal for the species and life on Earth. We’re very close to that. Now, we could ask why. First of all, we should do things to ameliorate it. Secondly, we should ask why. Well, it’s because NATO expanded after the collapse of the Soviet Union, in violation of verbal promises to Mikhail Gorbachev, mostly under Clinton, partly under first Bush, then Clinton expanded right to the Russian border, expanded further under Obama. The U.S. has offered to bring Ukraine into NATO. That’s the kind of a heartland of Russian geostrategic concerns. So, yes, there’s tensions at the Russian border—and not, notice, at the Mexican border. Well, those are all issues that should be of primary concern. The fate of—the fate of organized human society, even of the survival of the species, depends on this. How much attention is given to these things as compared with, you know, whether Trump lied about something? I think those seem to me the fundamental criticisms of the media.

AMY GOODMAN: Noam Chomsky, world-renowned political dissident, author and linguist, now a laureate professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Arizona, Tucson. He taught for 50 years at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Tune in next week when we continue our conversation with Noam Chomsky about Gaza, Israel’s new nationality law, the recent Trump-Putin summit, Iran, North Kora, the war in Yemen and more. In December, Noam Chomsky will be celebrating his 90th birthday.

Democracy Now

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philosophyofpolitics · 6 years

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Noam Chomsky: U.S. Must Improve Relations with Russia and Challenge the Expansion of NATO

AMY GOODMAN: Russian President Vladimir Putin has invited President Trump to Moscow, just days after the White House postponed a planned summit between the two leaders in Washington until after the midterm elections. Well, to talk more about U.S.-Russian relations and much more, we’re spending the hour with the world-renowned political dissident, author and linguist Noam Chomsky. He is now laureate professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Arizona and professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he taught for more than 50 years. His recent books include Global Discontents: Conversations on the Rising Threats to Democracy and Requiem for the American Dream: The 10 Principles of Concentration of Wealth & Power. He joined us from Tucson, Arizona, last week. I asked him about the recent Trump-Putin summit in Helsinki and played for him a short pinwheel of U.S. media coverage of the summit.

ANDERSON COOPER: You have been watching perhaps one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president at a summit in front of a Russian leader, certainly that I’ve ever seen.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: All of you who are watching today will be able to tell your friends, family, your children, your grandchildren you were watching a moment of history. It may not be for the right reasons.

NORAH O’DONNELL: This Helsinki summit was one for the history books. President Trump’s refusal to challenge the Russian strongman drew widespread condemnation from members of his own party and administration. This summit, that might have been about U.S. condemnation, instead ended with President Putin giving President Trump a soccer ball from the World Cup, and Mr. Trump handing Putin a gift of absolution.

AMY GOODMAN: So that was CBS’s Norah O’Donnell, George Stephanopoulos of ABC News and CNN’s Anderson Cooper, reporting after the July 16 joint press conference with Trump and Putin. I asked Noam Chomsky for his response to the Helsinki summit.

NOAM CHOMSKY: Trump has basically one principle: me first. That’s almost all of his policies, and wild statements and so on are perfectly well explicable within—under the assumption that that’s what’s driving him. Now, that—crucially, for him, he has to ensure that the Mueller investigation is discredited. Whatever they come up with, if it implicates him in any way, the way the media and political culture function, that will be considered of enormous significance, much more significance than his pursuing policies on the environment which may destroy human civilization. But given that, those highly skewed circumstances, he has to make sure that the Mueller investigation is discredited. And that was the main core part of his interview with Trump. Putting aside the way he behaved, you know, the soccer ball, which apparently had a listening device embedded in it and so on, yes, that was strange and unpleasant and so on.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, actually, that World—that soccer ball, that particular ball has that little device in it, and that’s how it’s sold. It was a World Cup soccer ball, and that’s what it—that’s one of its attributes that people like, that they can put their iPhone next to it and get information.

NOAM CHOMSKY: Yeah, well, Putin was plainly treating Trump, more or less, with contempt. So, whatever you think about that, nevertheless his—the main concern—his main concern was pretty obvious. And that was the center part—central part of the Putin-Trump interviews. And so, yeah, I think—I just don’t see the great significance of his acting in a silly and childish way in an interview. OK, let’s—he did. Now let’s go to the important issues which are not being discussed. The issue of improving relations with Russia is of overwhelming significance as compared with the remarks saying, “Well, I don’t know whether to trust my own intelligence agencies,” for—saying that for perfectly obvious reasons: to discredit the Mueller investigation and to ensure that his fervently loyal base stays supportive. That’s not an attractive policy, but we can understand very easily what he’s doing.

AMY GOODMAN: Those intelligence agencies—former CIA Director John Brennan tweeted, “Donald Trump’s press conference performance in Helsinki rises to & exceeds the threshold of 'high crimes & misdemeanors.' It was nothing short of treasonous. Not only were Trump’s comments imbecilic, he is wholly in the pocket of Putin. Republican Patriots: Where are you???” Again, the former CIA Director John Brennan’s tweet. Noam?

NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, his remarks were certainly incorrect. Whatever you think of Trump’s behavior, it has nothing to do with high crimes and misdemeanors or treason. That’s just not true. But again, the same point I’ve been trying to make throughout, we are focusing on issues of minor significance and putting aside problems of enormous importance and significance, whether we’re thinking of how to deal with immigration or whether we’re dealing with the question of survival of organized human life on Earth. Those are the topics we should be thinking about, not whether Trump misbehaved in a press conference.

AMY GOODMAN: Noam Chomsky, I wanted to ask you about NATO. President Trump has questioned a key provision of the NATO military alliance: the mutual defense of NATO member countries. He made this remark during an interview with Fox News host Tucker Carlson just a week ago.

TUCKER CARLSON: Why should my son go to Montenegro to defend it from attack? Why is that—

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I understand what you’re saying. I’ve asked the same question. You know, Montenegro is a tiny country with very strong people.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah, I’m not against Montenegro.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Right.

TUCKER CARLSON: Or Albania.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: No, by the way, they’re very strong people. They have very aggressive people. They may get aggressive, and, congratulations, you’re in World War III.

AMY GOODMAN: There’s President Trump, questioning the whole idea of NATO. Well, if you could specifically address this? Interesting he chose Montenegro, where, well, many months ago, when he was with the G7, the G8, he pushed aside the prime minister of Montenegro. But the bigger point about—well, he wasn’t making this point, but I’d like to ask you about whether you feel NATO should exist.

NOAM CHOMSKY: That’s the crucial question, not whether Trump made an ugly and demeaning comment about a tiny country. But what is NATO for? For from the beginning, from its origins, we had drilled into our heads that the purpose of NATO was to defend us from the Russian hordes. We can put aside for the moment the question whether that was accurate. But let’s—in any event, that was the dominant theme, overwhelming, in fact, unique theme. OK, 1991, no more Russian hordes. So, the question is: Why NATO?

Well, what happened was very interesting. There were negotiations, between George Bush, the first; James Baker, secretary of state; Mikhail Gorbachev; Genscher and Kohl, the Germans, on how to deal with the—this was after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the beginning of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Gorbachev made an astonishing concession. Astonishing. He agreed to allow Germany, now unified, to join NATO—a hostile military alliance. Just look at the history of the preceding years. Germany alone had practically destroyed Russia, at an extraordinary cost, several times during the preceding century. But he agreed to allow Germany to—a rearmed Germany to join NATO, a military alliance that was set up to counter Russia. There was a quid pro quo, namely that NATO not—meaning NATO means basically U.S. forces—not expand to East Berlin, to East Germany. Nobody talked about anything beyond that. Baker and Bush verbally agreed to that. They didn’t put it in writing, but they essentially said, “Yeah, we will”—in fact, the phrase that was used was “not one inch to the east.” Well, what happened? NATO immediately moved to East Germany. Under Clinton, other countries, former Russian satellites, were introduced into NATO. Finally, NATO went so far, as I mentioned before, 2008, again in 2013, to suggest that even Ukraine, right at the heartland of Russian strategic concerns—any Russian president, no matter who it was, any Russian leader—that they join NATO.

So, what’s NATO doing altogether? Well, actually, its mission was changed. The official mission of NATO was changed to become to be—to control and safeguard the global energy system, sea lanes, pipelines and so on. And, of course, on the side, it’s acting as a intervention force for the United States. Is that a legitimate reason for us to maintain NATO, to be an instrument for U.S. global domination? I think that’s a rather serious question. That’s not the question that’s asked. The question that’s asked is whether NATO made—whether Trump made some demeaning comment about Montenegro. It’s another example of what I was talking about before: the focus of the media and the political class, and the intellectual community in general, on marginalia, overlooking critical and crucial issues, issues which do literally have to do with human survival.

AMY GOODMAN: Noam Chomsky, now linguistics professor at the University of Arizona, Tucson. Coming up, we’ll talk to him about climate change, nuclear weapons, Israel, Gaza and more.

Democracy Now

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philosophyofpolitics · 6 years

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THREE VARIATIONS ON TRUMP: CHAOS, EUROPE, AND FAKE NEWS

There is disorder under heavens; the situation is excellent

Now that yet another week of Donald Trump’s frantic activity is safely behind us and slowly receding into memory, the time has come to think about the chaotic wasteland his visits left behind. Trump visited three places: Brussels, where he met key European leaders; London where he met Theresa May (plus the queen); and Helsinki where he met Putin. Everybody noted the strange fact that Trump was much friendlier to those perceived as American enemies than to its friends. But such facts should not surprise us too much. Our attention should turn in another direction. As is often the case with Trump, reactions to his acts are more important than what he did or said.

Let us begin by comparing what Trump said with what his partners said. When Trump and May were asked by a journalist what they thought about the flow of immigrants to Europe, Trump brutally and honestly rendered his populist anti-immigrant position: immigrants are a threat to the European way of life; they are destabilizing the safety of our countries, bringing violence and intolerance, so we should keep them out. A careful listener could easily notice that Theresa May said exactly the same thing, just in a more diplomatic and “civilized” way: immigrants bring diversity; they contribute to our welfare, but we should carefully check who we let in… We’ve got here a clear taste of the choice which is more and more the only one presented to us: either direct populist barbarism or a more civilized version of the same politics, barbarism with a human face.

Generally, reactions to Trump from all across the spectrum in the US, Republicans and Democrats, were those of global shock and awe bordering on panic pure and simple: Trump is unreliable. He brings chaos: first, he reproached Germany for relying on Russian gas and thus becoming vulnerable to our enemy; days later he praised his good relation with Putin… He doesn’t even have good manners (the horror: when meeting the queen, he violated the protocol of how you behave in the presence of a monarch!). He doesn’t really listen to his democratic partners in a dialogue, while he is much more open to the charm of Putin, America’s big enemy. The way he acted at the press conference with Putin in Helsinki was not only an unheard-of humiliation (just think of it: he didn’t behave as Putin’s master!), and some of his statements could even be considered outright acts of treason. Rumours swirled of how Trump was Putin’s puppet because Putin had some hold over him (the famous photos of prostitutes urinating on Trump in Moscow?), and parts of the US establishment, Democrats and some Republicans, began to contemplate a quick impeachment, even if Pence would be his replacement. The conclusion was simply that the President of the US is no longer the leader of the free world… But has the President of the US really ever been such a leader? Here our counter-attack should begin.

Note that the overall confusion of Trump’s statements contains some truths here and there. Wasn’t he in some sense right when he said that it was in our interest to have good relations with Russia and China to prevent war? Wasn’t he partially right to present his tariff war also as a protection of the interests of the US workers? The fact is that the existing order of international trade and finance is far from just, and that the European establishment hurt by Trump’s measures should also look at its own sins. Did we already forget how the existing financial and trade rules that privilege the strong European states, especially Germany, brought devastation to Greece?

Concerning Putin, I believe most of the accusations against him to be true. Say, with regard to his meddling in the US elections, probably yes, Putin was caught doing… what? What the US are doing regularly and massively, just that in their case, they call it the defence of democracy. So, Trump is a monster, and when he designated himself as a “stable genius,” we should read this as a direct reversal of the truth: he is an unstable idiot who disturbs the establishment. But as such, he is a symptom, an effect of what is wrong with the establishment itself. The true Monster is the very establishment shocked by Trump’s actions.

The panicky reaction to Trump’s latest acts demonstrates that he is undermining and destabilizing the US political establishment and its ideology. Our conclusion should thus be: the situation is dangerous; there are uncertainty and elements of chaos in international relations. But it is here that we should remember Mao’s old motto: “There is great disorder under the sky, so the situation is excellent!” Let’s not lose our resolve, let’s exploit the confusion by systematically organizing another anti-establishment front from the Left. The signs are clear here: the surprising electoral victory of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a self-proclaimed democratic Socialist, against 10-terms House incumbent Joe Crowley in a New York congressional primary was, hopefully, the first in a series of shocks that will transform the Democratic Party. People like her, who are not the well-known faces from the liberal establishment, should be our answer to Trump.

Trump and the Idea of Europe

In an interview on July 15, 2018, just after attending a stormy meeting with the EU leaders, Trump mentioned the European Union as the first in the line of “foes” of the US, ahead of Russia and China. Instead of condemning this claim as irrational (“Trump is treating the allies of the US worse than its enemies,” etc.), we should ask a simple question: what bothers Trump so much about the EU? And which EU is he talking about? This question should be raised because, when Trump was asked by journalists about immigrants flowing into Europe, he answered as it befits the anti-immigrant populist that he is: immigrants are tearing apart the fabric of European mores and ways of life, posing a danger to European spiritual identity… In short, it was people like Orban or Salvini who were talking through him.

So which Europe bothers Trump? It is the Europe of transnational unity, the Europe vaguely aware that, in order to cope with the challenges of our moment, we should move beyond the constraints of nation-states. It is the Europe which also desperately strives to somehow remain faithful to the old Enlightenment motto of solidarity with victims, the Europe aware of the fact that humanity is today One, that we are all on the same boat (or, as we say, on the same Spaceship Earth), so that the other’s misery is also our problem. We should mention here Peter Sloterdijk who noted that the struggle today is about how to secure the survival of modern Europe’s greatest economico-political achievement, the Social Democratic Welfare State. According to Sloterdijk, our reality is – in Europe, at least – “objective Social Democracy” as opposed to “subjective” Social Democracy. One should distinguish between Social Democracy as the panoply of political parties and Social Democracy as the “formula of a system” which “precisely describes the political-economic order of things, which is defined by the modern state as the state of taxes, as infrastructure-state, as the state of the rule of law and, not last, as the social state and the therapy state”: “We encounter everywhere a phenomenal and a structural Social Democracy, a manifest and a latent one, one which appears as a party and another one which is more or less irreversibly built into in the very definitions, functions, and procedures of modern statehood as such.” (Peter Sloterdijk, “Aufbruch der Leistungstraeger,” Cicero, November 2009, p. 99)

In the normal run of things, this Idea that underlies a united Europe got corrupted, half-forgotten, and it is only in a moment of danger that we are compelled to return to this essential dimension of Europe, to its hidden potential. More precisely, the point is not just to return to this Idea but to (re)invent it, to “discover” what was actually never there. As Alenka Zupančič put it apropos of the threat of nuclear (self-)destruction of humanity: “the true choice is between losing it all and creating what we are about to lose: only this could eventually save us, in a profound sense. […] The possible awakening call of the bomb is not simply ‘let’s do all in our power to prevent it before it is too late’, but rather ‘let’s first built this totality (unity, community, freedom) that we are about to lose through the bomb’.”

Therein resides the unique chance opened up by the very real threat of nuclear (or ecological, for that matter) destruction. When we become aware of the danger that we could lose it all, we automatically get caught in a retroactive illusion, a short-circuit between reality and its hidden potentials. What we want to save is not the reality of our world but reality as it might have been if it were not hindered by antagonisms which gave birth to the nuclear threat. And the same goes for the united Europe which lies in the great pincers between America on the one side and Russia on the other. Although America and Russia may appear opposites – unbridled liberalism and individualism versus new authoritarianism–, seen metaphysically, they are the same: the same hopeless frenzy of unchained technology grounded in fake patriotism (“America first,” “Russia first”). When the farthest corners of the globe have been conquered technically and can be exploited economically; when any incident you like, in any place you like, at any time you like, becomes accessible as fast as you like; when, through televised “live coverage,” you can simultaneously “experience” a battle in the Iraqi desert and an opera performance in Beijing; when, in a global digital network, time is nothing but speed, instantaneity, and simultaneity; when a winner in a reality TV-show counts as the great man of the people; then, yes, there still loom like spectres over all this uproar the questions: what for? – where to? – and what then?…

Anyone minimally acquainted with Heidegger will easily recognize in this paragraph an ironic paraphrase of his diagnosis of the situation of Europe from mid-1930s (Introduction to Metaphysics). There effectively is a need, among us, Europeans, for what Heidegger called Auseinandersetzung (an interpretive confrontation) with others as well as with Europe’s own past in all its scope, from its Ancient and Judeo-Christian roots to the recently deceased Welfare-State idea. Every crisis is in itself an instigation for a new beginning. Every collapse of short-term strategic and pragmatic measures can be a blessing in disguise, an opportunity to rethink the very foundations. What we need is a retrieval-through-repetition (Wieder-Holung): through a critical confrontation with the entire European tradition, one should repeat the question “What is Europe?”, or, rather, “What does it mean for us to be Europeans?”, and thus formulate a new inception.

Both the US and Russia openly want to dismember Europe. Both Trump and Putin support Brexit, and they support euro-sceptics in every corner, from Poland to Italy. What is bothering them about Europe when we all know the misery of the EU which fails again and again at every test, from its inability to enact a consistent immigration policy to its wretched reaction to Trump’s tariff war? It is obviously not this actually-existing Europe, but the idea of Europe that rekindles against all odds and becomes palpable in the moments of danger.

From Fake News to the Big Lie

An obsession with fake news is something that Trump and his critics share: Trump is accused of lying all the time, while Trump himself accuses his opponents of spreading fake news. In debates about the explosion of fake news in (not only) our media, liberal critics like to point out three events which, combined, continuously bring about what some call the “death of truth.”

First, it is the rise of religious and ethnic fundamentalisms (and its obverse, stiff Political Correctness) that disavow rational argumentation and ruthlessly manipulate data to get their message through. Christian fundamentalists lie for Jesus, Politically Correct Leftists obfuscate the news showing their favourite victims in a bad light (or denounce the bearers of such news as “Islamophobic racists”), etc.

Then, there are the new digital media that enable people to form communities defined by specific ideological interests, communities where they can exchange news and opinions outside a unified public space and where conspiracies and similar theories can flourish without constraints (just look at the thriving neo-Nazi and anti-Semitic websites).

Finally, there is the legacy of postmodern “deconstructionism” and historicist relativism, which claim that there is no objective truth valid for all, that every truth relies on a specific horizon and is rooted in a subjective standpoint dependent on power relations, and that the greatest ideology is precisely the claim that we can step out of our historical limitation and look at things objectively. Opposed to this is, of course, the view that facts are out there, accessible to an objective disinterested approach, and that we should distinguish between the freedom of opinions and the freedom of facts. Liberals can thus comfortably occupy the privileged ground of truthfulness and dismiss both sides, alt-right and radical Left.

Problems begin with the last distinction. In some sense, there ARE “alternate facts,” though, of course, not in the sense of the debate whether the Holocaust did or did not happen. (Incidentally, all the Holocaust-revisionists whom I know, from David Irving on, argue in a strictly empirical way of verifying data; none of them evokes postmodern relativism!) “Data” are a vast and impenetrable domain, and we always approach them from what hermeneutics calls a certain horizon of understanding, privileging some data and omitting others. All our histories are precisely that – stories, a combination of (selected) data into consistent narratives, not photographic reproductions of reality. For example, an anti-Semitic historian could easily write an overview of the role of the Jews in the social life of Germany in the 1920s, pointing out how entire professions (lawyers, journalists, art) were numerically dominated by Jews – an account that is (probably more or less) true, but clearly in the service of a lie.

The most efficient lies are lies performed with truth, lies which reproduce only factual data. Take the history of a country: one can tell it from the political standpoint (focusing on the vagaries of political power), on economic development, on ideological struggles, on popular misery and protest… Each of the approaches could be factually accurate, but they are not “true” in the same emphatic sense. There is nothing “relativist” in the fact that human history is always told from a certain standpoint, sustained by certain ideological interests. The difficult thing is to show how some of these interested standpoints are not ultimately all equally true: some are more “truthful” than others. For example, if one tells the story of Nazi Germany from the standpoint of the suffering of those oppressed by it, i.e., if we are led in our telling by an interest in universal human emancipation, this is not just a matter of a different subjective standpoint. Such a retelling of history is also immanently “more true” since it describes more adequately the dynamics of the social totality which gave birth to Nazism. Not all “subjective interests” are the same, not only because some are ethically preferable to others but because “subjective interests” do not stand outside a social totality; they are themselves moments of that social totality, formed by active (or passive) participants in social processes. The title of Habermas’s early masterpiece “Knowledge and Human Interest” is perhaps more actual today than ever before.

There is an even greater problem with the underlying premise of those who proclaim the “death of truth”: they talk as if before (say, until the 1980s), in spite of all the manipulations and distortions, truth did somehow prevail, and that the “death of truth” is a relatively recent phenomenon. Already a quick overview tells us that this was not the case. How many violations of human rights and humanitarian catastrophes remained invisible, from the Vietnam War to the invasion of Iraq? Just remember the times of Reagan, Nixon, Bush… The difference was not that the past was more “truthful” but that ideological hegemony was much stronger, so that, instead of today’s greater melee of local “truths,” one “truth” (or, rather, one big Lie) basically prevailed. In the West, this was the liberal-democratic Truth (with a Leftist or Rightist twist). What is happening today is that, with the populist wave which unsettled the political establishment, the Truth/Lie that has served as an ideological foundation for this establishment is also falling apart. And the ultimate reason for this disintegration is not the rise of postmodern relativism but the failure of the ruling establishment, which is no longer able to maintain its ideological hegemony.

We can now see what those who bemoan the “death of truth” really deplore: the disintegration of one big Story more or less accepted by the majority, a story, which used to bring ideological stability to a society. The secret of those who curse “historicist relativism” is that they miss the safe situation where one big Truth (even if it was a big Lie) provided basic “cognitive mapping” to all. In short, it is those who deplore the “death of truth” that are the true and most radical agents of this death: their motto is the one attributed to Goethe, “besser Unrecht als Unordnung,” better injustice than disorder, better one big Lie than the reality of a mixture of lies and truths. One thing is clear: there is no return to the old ideological hegemony. The only way to return to Truth is to reconstruct it from a new cognitive interest in universal emancipation.

Slavoj Žižek

The Philosophical Salon

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