Of course I have nothing against the fact
that your boss treats you in a nice way and
so on.
The problem is if this not only covers up
the actual relationship of power, but makes
it even more impenetrable.
You know, if you have a boss who is up there,
the old-fashioned boss shouting at you, exerting
full brutal authority.
In a way it’s much easier to rebel than
to have a friendly boss who embraces you or
how was the last night with your girlfriend,
blah, blah, all that buddy stuff.
Well then it almost appears impolite to protest.
But I will give you an example, an old story
that I often use to make it clear what do
I mean by this.
Imagine you or me, I’m a small boy.
It’s Sunday afternoon.
My father wants me to visit our grandmother.
Let’s say my father is a traditional authority.
What would he be doing?
He would probably tell me something like,
"I don’t care how you feel; it’s your
duty to visit your grandmother.
Be polite to her and so on."
Nothing bad about this I claim because I can
still rebel and so on.
It’s a clear order.
But what would the so-called post-modern non-authoritarian
father do?
I know because I experienced it.
He would have said something like this, "You
know how much your grandmother loves you,
but nonetheless I’m not forcing you to visit
her.
You should only visit her if you freely decide
to do it."
Now every child knows that beneath the appearance
of free choice there is a much stronger pressure
in this second message.
Because basically your father is not only
telling you, you must visit your grandmother,
but you must love to visit it.
You know he tells you how you must feel about
it.
It’s a much stronger order.
And I think that this is for me almost a paradigm
of modern permissive authority.
This is why the formula of totalitarianism
is not — I don’t care what you think;
just do it.
This is traditional authoritarianism.
The totalitarian formula is I know better
than you what you really want and I may appear
to be forcing you to do it, but I’m really
just making you do what without fully knowing
what you want and so on.
So in this sense yes, I am horrified by this.
Also another aspect this new culture of experts
where an injunction is presented just as a
neutral statement.
For example, one example that I like and let’s
not have a misunderstanding here.
I don’t smoke and I’m for punishing tobacco
companies and so on and so on.
But I’m deeply suspicious about our phobia
about smoking.
I don’t buy it that this can be really justified
just based on scientific knowledge how cigarettes
hurt us and so on and so on.
Because my first problem is that most of the
people who oppose smoking then usually are
for legalization of grass and so on and so
on.
But my basic problem is this one.
Look, now they found a more or less solution
— e-cigarettes, electronic cigarettes.
And I discovered that now big American airline
companies decided to prohibit them.
And it’s interesting to read the reason
why.
The reason is not so much that it’s not
yet sure are they safe or not.
Basically they are.
The idea is that if you smoke during the flight
e-cigarette you publicly display your addiction
and that is not a good pedagogical example
for others and so on and so on.
I mean I find this a clear example of how
a certain ethics, which is not just neutral
ethics of health, but basically I think it’s
ethics of don’t fall into it; don’t have
a too passionate engagement.
Remain at the proper distance; control yourself
and so on.
And now I will shock you to end.
I think even racism can be ambiguous here.
You know once I made an interview where I
was asked how do we find reactionary racism.
You know what was my answer.
With progressive racism.
Then, ah, ah, what do you mean?
Of course I didn’t mean racism.
What I meant is the following things.
Of course racist jokes and so on can be extremely
oppressive, humiliating, and so on.
But the solution I think is to create an atmosphere
or to practice these jokes in such a way that
they really function as that little bit of
obscene contact which establishes true proximity
between us.
And I’m talking from my own past political
experience.
Ex-Yugoslavia.
I remember when I was young when I met from
other — when I met with other people from
ex-Yugoslavia republics — Serbs, Croat,
Bosnians and so on.
We were all the time telling dirty jokes about
each other.
But not so much against the other.
We were in a wonderful way competing who will
be able to tell a nastier joke about ourselves.
These were obscene racist jokes, but their
effect was a wonderful sense of shared, obscene
solidarity.
And I have another proof here.
Do you know that when civil war exploded in
Yugoslavia, early '90s and already before
in the '80s, ethnic tensions.
The first victims were these jokes; they immediately
disappeared.
Because people felt well that, for example,
let’s say I visit another country.
I hate this politically correct respect, oh,
what is your food, what are your cultural
forms.
No, I tell them tell me a dirty joke about
yourself and we will be friends and so on.
It works.
So you see this ambiguity — that’s my
problem with political correctness.
No it’s just a form of self-discipline,
which doesn’t really allow you to overcome
racism.
It’s just oppressed controlled racism.
And the same goes here.
I will tell you a wonderful story, a simple
one.
It happened to me a year ago around the corner
here in the bookstore.
I was signing a book of mine.
Two black guys came, African-Americans, I
don’t like the term.
My black friends also not, because for obvious
reasons it can be even more racist.
But the point is and they asked me to sign
a book and seeing them there I couldn’t
resist the worst racist remark.
When I was returning the books to them I told
them you know, I don’t know which one is
for whom, you know, you blacks like yellow
guys, you look all the same.
They embraced me and they told me you can
call me nigga.
You know when they tell you this it means
we are really close.
They instantly got this.
Another stupid problem I had.
At some talk there was a mute and deaf guy
and he asked if a translator can be there.
And I couldn’t resist it.
In the middle of the talk in front of 200-300
people, I said what are you doing there guys.
My idea was that if you watch the gestures
of the translator it looked to me as if some
obscene messages or what.
The guy laughed so much we became friends.
And some old stupid lady reported me for making
fun of crippled people.
It was so didn’t she see that’s how I
became friends with the guy.
But I’m — wait a minute.
Now I’m not an idiot.
I’m well aware this doesn’t mean we should
just walk around and humiliate each other.
It’s a great art how to do it.
I’m just saying that’s my hypothesis.
Without such a tiny exchange of friendly obscenities
you don’t have a real contact with another.
It remains this cold respect and so on, you
know.
We need this.
We need this to establish a real contact.
This is what is lacking for me in political
correctness.
And then you end up in madness like it’s
not a joke.
I checked with my Australian friend.
You know what happened in Perth, the west
coast Australian city.
It’s not a joke I repeated.
The opera house there prohibited staging of
Carmen.
Opera Carmen, you know why?
Because the first act takes place in front
of a tobacco factory.
I’m not kidding.
I’m not kidding.
I’m just saying that there is something
so fake about political correctness.
It’s — I know it’s better than open
racism, of course.
But I wonder if it works because, you know,
I never, for example, bought all these permanent
replacement, you know.
Niggers are Negros.
Negros are black.
Okay, black are African-Americans.
Maybe — it’s up to them to decide.
The only thing I know is that when I was in
Missoula, Montana, I got engaged in a very
friendly conversation with some Native Americans.
They hate the term and they gave me a wonderful
reason.
They told me Native American and you are a
cultural American so what, we are part of
nature.
They told me we much preferred to be called
Indians.
At least our name is a monument to white men’s
stupidity who thought they are in India when
they come here.
And they had such a wonderful insight into
how all this New Age bullshit, you know, we
white people technologically exploit nature
while natives relate to nature in a dialogic
way like before they dig into earth, they
ask the mountain for permission if they are
mining blah, blah.
They don’t mean that — research shows
that Native Americans, Indians, killed much
more buffalos and burned much more forests
than white people.
You know why this was the correct point.
Like the message was the most racist thing
is to patronizingly elevate us in that, you
know, primitive, organic, living together
with Mother Nature.
No, their fundamental right is to be evil
also.
If we can be evil, why shouldn’t they be
evil and so on.
So again even with racism, one has to be very
precise not to fight racism in a way which
ultimately reproduces, if not directly racism
itself, at least the conditions for racism.
