| to some extent, anything we can think of can be criminal,
even a cold front or an earthquake. in the 1923
tokyo earthquake, thousands of koreans were killed because they were
thought to be responsible for the disaster. in an intensely
integrated system like ours, everything can have a similar effect of
destabilization. everything drives toward the failure of a system
that claims to be infallible. from our point of view, caught as we
are inside the rational and programmatic controls of this system, we
could even think that the worst catastrophe is actually the
infallibility of the system itself. |
| the fact
that, inside this country alone, all recognized forms of democratic"
freedoms and expressions -- from music and television to the ability
to see a woman's face -- were forbidden, and the possibility that
such a country could take the totally opposite path of what we call
civilization (no matter what religious principles it invoked), were
not acceptable for the "free" world. |
| the universal dimension of
modernity cannot be refused. from the perspective of the west, of its
consensual model, and of its unique way of thinking, it is a crime
not to perceive modernity as the obvious source of the good or as the
natural ideal of humankind. it is also a crime when the universality
of our values and our practices are found suspect by some individuals
who, when they reveal their doubts, are immediately pegged as
fanatics.
only an analysis that emphasizes the logic of symbolic obligation can
make sense of this confrontation between the global and the singular.
to understand the hatred of the rest of the world against the west,
perspectives must be reversed. the hatred of non-western people is
not based on the fact that the west stole everything from them and
never gave anything back. rather, it is based on the fact that they
received everything, but were never allowed to give anything back. |
|
this hatred is not caused by dispossession or exploitation, but
rather by humiliation. and this is precisely the kind of hatred that
explains the september 11 terrorist attacks. these were acts of
humiliation responding to another humiliation.
the worst that can happen to global power is not to be attacked or
destroyed, but to suffer a humiliation. global power was humiliated
on september 11 because the terrorists inflicted something the global
system cannot give back. |
military reprisals were only means of
physical response. war is a response to an aggression, but not to
a symbolic challenge. a symbolic challenge is accepted and removed
when the other is humiliated in return (but this cannot work when the
other is crushed by bombs or locked behind bars in guantanamo). |
| the
fundamental rule of symbolic obligation stipulates that the basis of
any form of domination is the total absence of any counterpart, of
any return. and the
empire of the good, the violence of the good, is precisely to be able
to give without any possible return. or to be in the position of the master who allows the
slave to live in exchange for work (but work is not a symbolic
counterpart, and the slave's only response is eventually to either
rebel or die). god used to allow some space for sacrifice. |
in the
traditional order, it was always possible to give back to god, or to
nature, or to any superior entity by means of sacrifice. that's what
ensured a symbolic equilibrium between beings and things. but today
we no longer have anybody to give back to, to return the symbolic
debt to. it is not that the gift is
impossible, but rather that the counter-gift is. all sacrificial
forms have been neutralized and removed (what's left instead is a
parody of sacrifice, which is visible in all the contemporary
instances of victimization). |
|
we are thus in the irremediable situation of having to receive,
always to receive, no longer from god or nature, but by means of a
technological mechanism of generalized exchange and common
gratification. everything is virtually given to us, and, like it or
not, we have gained a right to everything. |
| we are to
slave whose life has been spared but nonetheless is by
non-repayable debt. this situation can last for because it is
the very basis of in economic order.. .. |
| chief wonton |