TR: Now, you know, I've got another clip I
want you to hear.
I was in Victoria, British Columbia, where
municipal officials from around the province
were debating the decriminalization of marijuana,
and ... take a listen to what one of the speakers
have to say.
'There's a lot of people employed in growing
marijuana, and trafficking it, and transporting.
It also employs an awful lot of police and
probation officers and ... why would you devalue
marijuana by making it decriminalized?
What are all those poor people gonna do?'
TR: Now that of course is tongue-in-cheek
but it's the idea that that system, even a
system that's not good, is actually functioning
in a way that I guess...
Z: Now you said something crucial.
What is maybe the fundamental message when
something appears to be undermining the system
or subverting it, look at it closely, maybe
at the deeper level it's part of the system.
That's the big lesson I took from my socialist
youth.
I mean when I was living in a communist country.
How, you know, black market and all those
things that those in power were officially
fighting - well that's what enabled people
to survive.
Precisely through those illegal activities
the system maintained itself in a viable state.
But another thing, this may shock you, I'm
sceptical about this liberal attempts let's
legalize drugs and so on, because did you
notice how the very same people who are for
legalization at least of soft drugs, are fanatical
about even being more tough on smoking and
...
TR: I've wondered about that myself.
Z: Yeah like why is smoking elevated to almost,
I would say, the absolute sin.
I think today there are two sins: paedophilia
and smoking.
I don't smoke and I am for all the tough measures
against tobacco companies.
But still I think, I'm sorry to tell you that,
maybe, just maybe, drugs are nonetheless generally
more dangerous.
What is for us so irritating, as if we feel
threatened by the figure of a chain smoker?
I think it's ideology.
I think smoking is a nice proof of how we
don't really believe in a consumerist society.
We are solicited to consume, but in a safe
way.
That's my mantra.
This idea of having the pleasure provided
by a product, but deprived of it's dangerous
affect ...
TR: In fact in New York they want to ban soft
drinks of a certain size.
So what do you make of our society with those
kinds of contradictions?
Z: We want to be limitless consumerist but
we want to do it in the safe way.
And what I'm afraid of here is how this narcissistic
economy - like, enjoy, do it, but safely - is
an expression of new type of subjectivity
that I don't like.
Even in the matter of sex.
I know noticed passionate love is considered
too risky.
You know, like, the idea is 'ok, change partners,
but take it easy.'
It's all this Buddhist pseudo-hedonist logic
of 'don't get too involved with things.'
Do know that dating and marriage agencies
in France and in English language domain,
the verb we use is to fall, to fall in love.
They both based their propaganda, their publicity
sorry, by playing with this words and their
slogan is 'we will enable you to find yourself
in love without the fall.'
But what disappears in this way is the very
magic of love.
For me, passionate love is the fall.
TR: I'm gonna bring this all the way back
to Occupy.
You seem to be saying that there may not be
a way to change, that the people who are asking
for change, don't know what that changes and
so there will not be the change that ...
Z: But I'm a little bit more of an optimist
precisely, paradoxically, because I’m even
more pessimist.
But the world is changing, I mean capitalism
today is no longer capitalism 20 years ago.
So my first thing when people say 'things
cannot change' my answer to them is 'but they
are changing like crazy all around the world.'
TR: Let me ask you something else though.
A lot of people like the status quo.
I mean a lot of people didn't take part in
Occupy, but if you looked at the demonstrations
in Tahrir Square, if you went along the edges,
you could talk to people in Egypt who were
opposed to what was happening.
I'm not judging, I'm just saying that existed,
right.
Isn't that part of the struggle that in fact
those who take to the streets think they represent
everyone, but they don't.
Z: I mean let's be frank here, and I'm for
the radical left.
In the radical movement for change and revolution,
in the most ecstatic moments, there were never
more than ten, maybe twenty percent of the
people.
But what fascinated me in New York is how
many people nonetheless silently sympathized.
Two days after my speech there on Zuccotti
Park, real Wall Street banker approached me
and said: 'You know, I work in a big bank
there, but you are onto something.
I see the problem you're describing, you are
right there.'
You know, like this is for me the true success
of the movement ...
TR: Well let me ask you ...
Z: This silent solidarity ...
TR: That speaks to something else.
We tend to like to label people, in the media
especially, right?
But is it time to forget this left and right
divide?
Is that the wrong language now?
Is something changing?
Z: It depends on what we mean by left and
right.
If we mean this standard struggle in the last
200 years, then yes, I agree.
We will have to think over this standard divides.
Yes ...
TR: You're not looking for the answer, you're
asking us to think about what the answers
could be.
Z: Yes, even you know, ironically when people
ask me am I still a Marxist?
I say yes, on condition that you turn around,
you know the famous thesis 11 on Feuerbach
'philosophers we're interpreting too much
the world the time is to change it.'
I claim maybe the lesson for us now is the
opposite one.
Maybe in the 20th century, we tried to change
the world too much too quickly and the time
has come to think to interpret it again
TR: And you're making us to, thank you for
coming in.
Z: I was very glad to be here, thank you very
much.
