[P2P-F] [WSF-Discuss] Slavoj Žižek on Greece: the courage of hopelessness

Mon Aug 3 16:01:17 CEST 2015

Thanks John for this, and apologies from all again, for not avoiding to reflect upon personal negativeness and attacking ideas or thoughts (of Roberto, Zizek and others) instead of providing useful reactions that would contribute to hopefulness. 

What I would have liked to say instead or express was the historically increased potential, of course not totally realized yet but surely exist, first time in the long history of human struggle for emancipating from oppressive structures and agencies. 

To move forward and turn the tide it is a key to foster and spread positive exchanges on and between hope giving 'practices' -in material,  analytical, institutional, political, cultural, scientific so on senses. It is therefore important also to struggle, within individual, as well as on collective spaces, against those 'thoughts' that are encouraging hopelessness, of those willingly or willingly aim to harvest political and social power out of fear and hopelessness. All could do this out of temporary or structural weaknesses, including myself. So important to stay alert and give positive feedbacks. 

In terms of creating, building upon, and growing hope, if thought is courage practice and praxis is where the solution lies. There is no point, and totally destructive to feed in as Zizek does, thoughts against hope giving practices. And suggesting, posing, absolute political and discursive (only mental labour/thought/analysis based) arguments. 

In this spirit I think this quote John you make, and your response to it, touches the point I wanted to make. So thanks again! 

Best, 
Orsan

> On 03 Aug 2015, at 15:04, John Holloway <johnholloway at prodigy.net.mx> wrote:
> 
> Dear Peter,
> 
>    Yes, I agree, but I don¹t know how to interpret your ³Wauw!² The article
> is certainly stimulating and annoying, annoying and stimulating. A crucial
> paragraph seems to me to be:
> 
>    >Then there are calls for Syriza to return to its roots: it should not
> become just another governing parliamentary party; the true change can
> only come from grass roots, from the people themselves, from their
> self-organisation, not from the state apparatuses . . . another case of
> empty posturing, because it avoids the crucial problem, which is how to
> deal with the international pressure concerning debt, or, more generally,
> how to exert power and run a state. Grass-roots self-organisation cannot
> replace the state, and the question is how to reorganise the state
> apparatus to make it function differently.<
> 
> 
>    That is surely the central point and and locks him in to his admiration
> for the ³authentic greatness² of Syriza. It is an argument that seems to
> be shared by a lot of the ³left² commentaries I¹ve been reading - the Boa
> de SS, Balibar Mezzadra and Wolf, Gindin and Panitch, etc. Once we lock
> ourselves in to the inevitability of capitalism, the rest follows -
> hopelessness.
> 
>    
>    Best, John
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> http://www.johnholloway.com.mx/
> 
> 
> 
> 
> El 03/08/15 02:46, "Peter Waterman" <peterwaterman1936 at gmail.com> escribió:
> 
>> Wauw! Or not wauw? I think it is pretty much Wauw!
>> 
>> http://www.newstatesman.com/print/node/228649
>> 
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