In his piece for the London Review of Books, “Berlusconi in Tehran,” about the danger of authoritarian power within democracies, Slavoj Zizek examines the possible similarities between the victorious Iranian Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
In light of the recent unsettling events in Tehran, Zizek challenges readers to confront the possible flaws in parliamentary representative democracy and cites Walter Lippman’s coined term ‘manufactured consent’ to describe democratic elections based on supposed free will.
According to Zizek, while voters in a democracy act as though they are free, they are still dependent on an elite to tell them what to do and think. In a sense, an election merely asks people to pretend that those in power aren’t already so and then to ‘freely’ grant them power again.
Unfortunately, this may mean that true democracy is losing power while authoritarian capitalism is gaining it. As Zizek sees it, just as Berlusconi may be ruling Italy with popular support, his actions have increasingly neglected democratic principles.
2 responses
Typical, almost formulaic Zizek. His basic argument, as always, that “yes, but post-capitalism is bad too’ minimizes the bravery of so many anonymous, unheralded Iranian citizens against a brutal theo-military regime. Zizek has always been a romantic anti-humanist. Thank God that in Iran today–and during humanistic revolutions throughout history–there have been those souls brave enough to speak truth to power, which requires a rhetorical clarity and bravery sadly absent in Zizek’s writing.
so, zizek has problem with the people in italy, iran , china, syngapoor, france etc. By accusing the people of populist and to whom they vote as fachist-populist, you loose more and more the people that in their own soul and subjectiv life and history has their own reasons to not vote for your friends in theses contries. you do not like that the people prefere to had hard economic life instead of giving his soul and vote to the progressist left (because all are the childrens of bourgeois who had studied marxism in your continent). marwism is a foreign ideology for us even for justice and equality . We have our own ideology of justice and equality and do not need to your left brothers in our countries. we never give power to this childrens of bourgeois europeanised or even not. You should waite long time before the people forget the social class and social basic of your friends left in muslim countries. long time. it is tto sson because populace has seen what the left for equality has done with simple people. So stop to transfer your problems , mistake or not , to the people. We are good why you do not like us. Why you prefere berlusconi or ahmadi nejad or sarkozy or le pen or …to us. a littl shame is not bad for you and borther and few sisters. if we prefer todie instead of giving power to left because we do not feel they are from us, it is if you are really theoricien your problem but you can not resolve or echap from it by accusing every body even stalin and mao lenin or marx but not you, you the live left brothers. we do not want you. point. You should know what a honest italien leftman hs said: I prefere a fachist from populace to a progressist left person.(I think he is pasolini) .
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