fredag 25 december 2009

Slavoj Zizek and Zoroastrianism

Having just read Slavoj Zizek's "The Monstrosity of Christ", I really feel I need to get hold of Zizek and introduce him to Zoroastrianism and Mazdayasna philosophy.

Just take a look at the below quotes from the final chapter and conclusion of the book:

"I advocate an ethics without morality - but not in Nietzsche's sense of immoral ethics, enjoining us to remain faithful to ourselves, to persist on our chosen way beyond good and evil. Morality is concerned with the symmetry of my relations to other humans; its zero-level rule is "do not do to me what you do not want me to do to you". Ethics, on the contrary, deals with my consistency with myself, my fidelity to my own desire. This is along the lines of Friedrich Schiller's opposition of Naivety and Sentimentality: Morality is sentimental, it involves others only in the sense that, looking at my myself through others' eyes, I like myself to be good; ethics, on the contrary, is naive - I do what I have to do because it needs to be done, not because of my goodness. This naivety does not exclude reflexivity - it even enables it: a cold, cruel distance towards what one is doing." Slavoj Zizek (2009)

Isn't this PRECISELY what Zoroastrian ethics deals with (although I disagree with Zizek that there is any difference between him and Nietzsche here, Nietzsche's "faithfulness to oneself" is identical with the Zizekian "faithfulness to one's desire")? Zarathushtra's ethics is pure ethics WITHOUT morality, they are to the point, free from second thoughts and moralistic sentimentality: You ARE your thoughts, therefore speak your thoughts and identify with them, act your words and identify with them, this is the INHERENT GOODNESS of your good thoughts, good words, good actions, in that they are YOU and blindly YOU without allowing for any interference whatsoever.

And then look at the consequences, what Zizek advocates as a new ethical ideal, in a globalised post-postmodern world:

"This is how I would love to be: An ethical monster without empathy, doing what is to be done in a weird coincidence of blind spontaneity and reflexive distance, helping others while avoiding their disgusting proximity. With more people like this, the world would be a pleasant place in which sentimentality would be replaced by a cold and cruel passion." Slavoj Zizek (2009)

Where Zizek's point is that "a cold and cruel passion" is the ONLY real passion, the only passion which as its direct consequence CREATES GENUINE warmth between human beings and thereby in the world. Zizek advocates a Christian Atheism, a Christianity which accepts the death of Christ on the cross fully, and sees the resurrection ONLY as the appearance of The Holy Spirit as the Community of Believers. On other words: As Ahura MAZDA!

I really don't know what could possibly be more Zoroastrian than that? Will somebody please tell Zizek???

Ushta
Alexander

1 kommentar:

Anonym sa...

Žižek's (or rather Lacan's) fidelity to desire is not the same as Nietzche's ethics: he makes the effort to distinguish this time and time again. If you claim that it is, you're directly opposing the authors explicit words and bear the burden of demonstrating it..