Slavoj Zizek at Occupy Wall Street

I'm amazed by the silence of intellectuals that are failing in doing any kind of anti-establishment activism but I just found out that the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek has been at Occupy Wall Street last Sunday.

He is one of the few that are active and I want to thank him for that. What I like the most about him is exactly what some people don't like: his passion and his inquietude.

I hope that his action helps others to see the importance of guiding the new generation in having a better future. Slavoj is very charismatic and I attribute that to his life experiences. It seems he learned from all he has been through not only intellectually and I don't think he would be satisfied with an academical life.

He would not be happy claiming "I support Occupy Wall Street" in a five minutes video sat on a table with a bookshelf behind him. He went to the Liberty Plaza and spoke to the youth.

He wrote articles using a pen-name criticizing his own book and a book that didn't exist. Read here Robert Boynton's article if you want to know more about Slavoj Zizek.

The two videos and the transcription of what he said is at Occupy Wall Street. I will copy this story he told in part one:

"A guy was sent from East Germany to work in Siberia. He knew his mail would be read by censors. So he told his friends: Let’s establish a code. If the letter you get from me is written in blue ink , it is true what I said. If it is written in red ink, it is false. After a month his friends get a first letter. Everything is in blue. It says, this letter: everything is wonderful here. Stores are full of good food. Movie theaters show good films from the West. Apartments are large and luxurious. The only thing you cannot buy is red ink.

This is how we live. We have all the freedoms we want. But what we are missing is red ink. The language to articulate our non-freedom. The way we are taught to speak about freedom war and terrorism and so on falsifies freedom. And this is what you are doing here: You are giving all of us red ink."

Slavoj Zizek

We need red ink!