FLASH
Shkruar nga Slavoj Žižek
What if the real end of the world is not a mega-catastrophe, but the endless repetition of the same moment postponed indefinitely.
Doomsday images, imagined and otherwise, permeate our media. Alenka Zupančič pointed out with irony that one should not expect too much from the end of the world - it might disappoint us. I offer a similar sentiment, only worded slightly differently: don't worry, sooner or later the end will come. This reassurance addresses the underlying belief that, if we talk and worry enough about the end of the world, it might not happen. This naturally leads to the question: What if the real end of the world is not a mega-catastrophe, but the endless repetition of the same moment postponed indefinitely.
A moment embodied by the standard code in an episode of a television show, asking us to wait for the next week or in the life of the broadcast, just the next episode for the story to continue - to quote Alessandro Sbordoni: "How often does the end come closer , it seems more like it hasn't come yet'. So maybe we're already living (at) the end of the world. An end that stretches endlessly, with no possible solution.
Russian-born French philosopher Alexandre Kojève, the great interpreter of Hegel in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, saw the 'end of history', the highest form of social order, as occurring first in Stalinist Russia and then in contemporary Japan . A Korean friend, Alex Taek-Gwang Lee, told me that, if Kojève were alive today, he would have chosen South Korea as an example of a country where history had also ended.
Why? It is impossible to answer this question without considering North Korea as well as South Korea, such is the nature of their hopeless entanglement. It is not just South Korea that represents the end of history, but the two Koreas together in their interweaving.
Entanglement is at the heart of quantum physics and future quantum technologies. Like other aspects of quantum science, the phenomenon of entanglement is discovered at very small, subatomic scales. Aren't South and North Korea entangled in a similar way, don't they function like some particles, embodying the poles of our global world, the two directions in which history can be said to have trended, developed until their extreme?
It is not just South Korea that represents the end of history, but the two Koreas together in their entanglement. Therefore, the end of history is not a global peace, but the point of extreme and potentially self-destructive tension.
South Korea can be painted as the land of free choice – not politically, but in the sense of everyday life, especially among the depoliticized younger generation. The choice we're talking about is the indifferent choice of moderate everyday pleasures, the choice between options that don't really matter: what to wear that day, where to eat that evening, how to spend a lazy weekend.
One could argue that the emerging generation largely does not care about big issues like human rights and freedoms or the threat of war – while the world still pays attention to the aggressive statements of the North Korean regime accompanied by nuclear threats, most South Korea simply ignores these threats. Since the standard of living of the vast majority is relatively high, one can live comfortably in a bubble. The ritual consistency and slow, predictable rhythms of such a post-political, disengaged individual, steeped in the complacency that tomorrow will be much like today, were perfectly depicted by a recent Wim Wenders film, Perfect Days (coincidentally a Japanese-German co-production).
The protagonist, Hirayama (Kōji Yakusho), works as a toilet cleaner in Tokyo, completely content with the simplicity of his life. He follows a daily ritualized rhythm at work, listening to music in his free time, reading before bed every night. Japanese history and culture abounds in the benefits of slowness and tranquility. Even the hugely popular Japanese eco-Marxist Kohei Saito (discussed in more detail elsewhere in this book) advocates slowing down (indeed his last book was called Slow Down).
The basic opposition between North and South, of course, remains intact: enemy mobilization versus quiet indifference. However, both extremes exist within their own bubble: what they both exclude is a real politicization, a commitment to confront the global factors that threaten our survival.
North Korea is the exact opposite of this weightless stability and variety: perpetual mobilization, a constant state of emergency, no free choice, life centered on how to confront the enemy.
*Note: This essay is taken from Slavoj Žižek's latest book Against Progress, part of the new Žižek Essays series, which was published on October 31 by Bloomsbury.
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