Zizek

I just unearthed this interesting interview with Slavoj Zizek that took place a few months after 9/11. I like the part where he talks about Nietzsche's Last Man. It felt like he was talking directly about me:

"This post-political world still seems to retain the tension between what we usually refer to as tolerant liberalism versus multiculturalism. But for me - though I never liked Friedrich Nietzsche - if there is a definition that really fits, it is Nietzsche's old opposition between active and passive nihilism. Active nihilism, in the sense of wanting nothing itself, is this active self-destruction which would be precisely the passion of the real - the idea that, in order to live fully and authentically, you must engage in self-destruction. On the other hand, there is passive nihilism, what Nietzsche called 'The last man' - just living a stupid, self-satisfied life without great passions"

There are no more struggles for me. Only self-satisfaction. The happier i am the more I ebb towards this pasive nihilism. The more I have the less I am prepared to die. I think this idea was also voiced in Barbarian Invasions, where the dying father says something about how the young are always ready to die for a cause, but the old has gotten used to life and are more unwilling to part with it.

At the moment it just feels like I am, and all my planning focusses on everyday and small improvements in the quality of my meaningless life, more The Man After The Last Man.