11/10/2017

Soyez un peu mieux égoïste s'il vous plait (ZIZEK)

"The actual effect of global capitalism is to generate a kind of, lets call it very naively in old fashion terms, moral vacuum. How is this moral vacuum structured? Reactionary moralist, even some liberal are telling us its clear: Its egotism, post-modern hedonism, permissivity, “we have no higher moral values”, etc.

I tend to violently disagree with this version. Look at the ideal, I’m speaking now in Max Webber’s terms, the ideal type, how does an ideal, typical capitalist work? He or she is absolutely not an egotist, on the contrary! Usually they work day and night, they ruin their happiness, it’s almost like Walter Benjamin said that capitalism is effectively a kind of perverted religion. A true capitalist is not a hedonist. A true capitalist cannot even sleep, works 20 hours per days, he’s all possessed, he’s ready to ruin his family happiness whatever, just so that capitalism circulates further.

So I hate it when false ecologist are trying to make us feel guilty in the sense of “oh you’re hedonist / egotist, you see only immediate pleasures…” No! What we need to fight for ecological cause is precisely more rational egoism. This is I think the perversity of so-called consumerism. Consumerism is not really egotistic, it’s like you are caught in a certain, what in psychoanalyses we call an super-ego injunction “do it, consume, blab la” which has nothing to do with the rational reflection of what is good for you, of enlightened egotism. So this is for me maybe the best metaphor of let’s call it, excessively maybe, the ethical madness of our times. You know that it’s not only that we don’t leave in egotist time where we only care for ourselves, and so on.

I claim almost the most difficult thing to do today is to be a truly rational egotist. Rational egotism is our ally, because competition is precisely the greatest enemy of egotism. A classical egalitarian like Jean Jacques Rousseau knew this. He opposed between Amour de soi and amour propre, two types of egotism. Amour de soi which is “you simply like yourself, you want the best for yourself.” He says there nothing bad in it because you soon establish that what is good for you is mostly good for the others, and so on. But he says the true danger is Amour propre, a perverted egotism where you perceive others as obstacles, but then destroying the other means to you more than your own happiness."

Slavoj Zizek - retranscription d'une partie de ceci. (7:14 and so on)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLVadEHSboc

 
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