Super!Geek, 2/18, Žižek

As I was getting ready to write this blog I decided to turn on my TV. It was likely a procrastination tool, the television would have distracted me until I got too fed up with not being productive and turned it off. The anxiety of not writing a decent blog in the allotted time would have prompted me to write a semi-decent blog with a few moments to spare. If Žižek were to categorize it, he would say it was all the the blog with little of the real thought, more stream of conscious than concise ideas. So of course, I turned on, only to have The Matrix greet me. Seriously. And in a move that made me actually question if I was in the Matrix or not, the scene we viewed in class on Tuesday was playing. In it the character of Morpheus states, "You've been living in a dream world, Neo. This is the world as it exists today. Welcome to the desert of the real." I feel like this essay just might have been the 'desert of the real' for me.

To say Zizek blew my mind might be an understatement. Of all the theorists we have read so far, it is Zizek who has truly captured my attention; beyond just reading the text, it spoke to me. Simply put, within the 21st century, we live in a world of fantasy. It is what we are inundated with on a regular basis, and it is upon the principles of each fantasy that we lead our lives. Our construction of what is real and unreal is predicated upon the systems put forth by the fantasy. But because the fantasy is so deeply engrained in us, it actually functions as our reality. Zizek’s illustrates this idea in his discussion of the 9/11 attacks and the images we saw of it in the following days. In describing our reaction to the attacks, Zizek states, “It is not that reality entered our image: the image entered and shattered our reality (i.e. the symbolic coordinates which determine what we experience as reality.)” In moments where we are faced with real, tangible tragedy or strife, it is common that we react in shock. Yet the shock of the moment is truly powerful in that it makes us realize how detached we actually were from reality before the tragedy occurred.

The discussion of the WTC attacks made me reconsider what I remembered from that period of time. What particularly struck me as I re-examined my memory of those broadcasts was that the images we viewed were almost always of the WTC. Occasionally, CNN would show the Pentagon or the field in Pennsylvania where Flight 93 went down, but the overwhelming majority of those images where of the planes hitting the towers then crashing down. Those images resonated so deeply in a way because it led to the realization that we were not untouchable, contrary to what the fantasy told us. But the fantasy may also be interpreted differently by each generation and subset viewing it. In reading Zizek, I also found myself thinking about what we watch on the news. We are constantly berated with stories of rapist, missing children, and shootings. Yet those in this generation and the one prior to it, do not truly fear being affected by these maladies. Even though many would claim we live in the era of ‘the culture of fear’ the reality of that statement is questionable. Yes, many lead paranoid lives by standards of the past, but for the Millennial, real terror does not seem to exist. Are idea of reality is founded in part upon images of destruction and mayhem. To us, random and persistent crime, murder, and even poverty are norms rather than aberrations. Zizek ends his essay by stating that we should take a deeper examination of where we have seen images like 9/11 before. We must look beyond the surface of each moment to see what the foundation of it is. Those who created the tragedy did so for the pure spectacle of it, to see how we would react to a new reality. Yet the spectacle was not new and it is likely not the last time we will see it. All we have to do is see the ‘Jason’ movie or The Dark Knight to recapture it again and again.