Our influence, beginning in the mid-eighties, was at that time incredible large, specially the philosophers, sociologists, literary theoreticians. But this was a special, very limited conjunction. Now there is the pure ignorance of the regime, who is simply not interested in ideological questions. I feel sorry for those countries in which writes nowadays play an important role. Take Serbia, where this nationalist madness was fabricated by writers. Even in Slovenia it’s the same with the nationalist writers, although they do not have much influence.
(link)
-Zizek, an interview transcribed. He’s talking about the role of the “intellectual” in government or social functions.
My comments: To be perfectly honest, I pity the countries where the intellectual does not play any important role. In the USA, it seems that the intellectual is almost romanticized as a completely ignored genius, who always has all the right answers, but to whom no one in power ever listens. This is seen especially in our movies, as it’s extremely popular for the “smart nerd” to be the one ignored, or brushed aside by the military, or the president when he/she tries to explain about some impeding disaster. This in fact is actually the entire PREMISE of most of our popular disaster movies and tv-shows. Didn’t you see The Day After Tomorrow? The X-files? Stargate? These movies usually resolve themselves with the realization that the “nerd” was right all along, and in some cases, the government or the “dumb people in power” come to realize this and it’s implied that they are going to change their ways. (The Day After Tomorrow is a great example of this.) But in others, this romantic and essentially overly-optimistic resolution is merely alluded to, and strongly denied during the Season Finale because that kind of nerd-teasing is a very effective cliff-hanger in the US for some reason. (I’m thinking of the x-files here)
Tangent: is this saying that we all are nerd-wannabes at heart? not necessarily. Fans of the x-files or science-fiction disaster movies aren’t specifically responding to the struggle that the intellectual protagonist goes through. They are responding to themes of personal struggle that are more universal. It’s the same themes that are present in most super-hero mythologies… the underestimated and isolated individual turns out to be the one who saves the world all the time. Same thing with Harry Potter, or Karate Kid, or anything else with a theme of “maturation” that goes beyond merely maturation and into a fantastic medium of some kind.
The thing that this intellectual-themed sub-thread of this trend shows is that the “intellectual” being denied their powers of effective and applicable reason is simply a very effective one of several. There is a very strong audience in the US who want to believe that the government and the people with power over them are stupid, ineffective, and that when some huge disaster strikes, we will be allowed to blame it on their ignorance. It’s romantic. It’s comforting to think of this. But all of this really does reflect on the apparent relationship between the Powers that be and the Intellectuals in our society.
Again, I think that the US is a country where this fantasy (either begot by the attitudes, or vice versa) exists. And I think it’s clear that the attitudes and tastes of our popular culture in entertainment is an integral part of this and reflects on (and is reflected by) this.
