Page 157 - Šolsko polje, XXXI, 2020, 3-4: Convention on the Rights of the Child: Educational Opportunities and Social Justice, eds. Zdenko Kodelja and Urška Štremfel
P. 157
teršek ■ public universities in post-socialist states could become ‘un-academic’ ...
The practice of not thinking like, not so controversially, is that which
is regarded as being reasonable and accommodative. Isn’t this exactly
how it should not be regarded?
Today, we find ourselves in a desert of thoughtlessness. In this sense,
it is necessary and powerful to speak directly and without mercy. We are
no longer living in times of deception. I do not want to offend Prof. Slavoj
Žižek, but I also do not wish to offend Dr. Milan Brglez, and I do not
want to offend Prof. Mladen Dolar.23 These are passing times. If you want
to do something, to think, to act, especially politically, you have to take
stock. I know that you did not expect this, but I did not come from the
Slovenian seaside for nothing. Ljubljana is where it stinks. This is where
decisions are made, this is hypocrisy, this is where the elite is responsible,
this is where it happens. But here, those I am thinking of are sunbathing
at the same time and they are stars and appear in the media and on televi-
sion. But if you go on TV and start talking the way you should talk, then
the show is banned. If you think that you are living in a democracy and
that the matter is being published, that there is no such or other blockade,
no more censorship, then you are wrong and you do not know where you
are. In short, things are infinitely, infinitely more serious than you think.
They are not bad at all, they are catastrophic! Really. Although I know you
do not believe me.
You now I am not a disbeliever when you take firm stands and speak
your criticism out loud. I do it all the time, so we don’t have a problem
here. But, anyway, is there still something, ‘that thing’ which could le-
gitimately be called discourse in the public space?
This discourse does exist, but is very rare. Let us say that the people we
are talking about here are mostly Heidegger, Hannah Arendt, Guenther
Anders. Heidegger is present, but he is occupied by the Slovenian right
and acts as the blackest point, the black sheep. In this sense, you can-
not get it anywhere at the university. Hannah Arendt cannot come, so to
speak, to the university, she does not fit in. These are the key arguments
of the left scene here. There is no Guenther Anders. In short, it is a com-
pletely new paradigm, and in this sense I said at the beginning that it is
bringing a new wind to Slovenia. It will no longer be an accusation against
Lacan, an accusation against Marx, but something else. Freud is there, but
not as an indictment of Freud, but as something new. What is new is not
so much the speech about the book, but its interpretation. My professor,
Andrej Kirn, for example, who has studied it. But who reads Prof. Kirn
23 See post scriptum at the end.
155
The practice of not thinking like, not so controversially, is that which
is regarded as being reasonable and accommodative. Isn’t this exactly
how it should not be regarded?
Today, we find ourselves in a desert of thoughtlessness. In this sense,
it is necessary and powerful to speak directly and without mercy. We are
no longer living in times of deception. I do not want to offend Prof. Slavoj
Žižek, but I also do not wish to offend Dr. Milan Brglez, and I do not
want to offend Prof. Mladen Dolar.23 These are passing times. If you want
to do something, to think, to act, especially politically, you have to take
stock. I know that you did not expect this, but I did not come from the
Slovenian seaside for nothing. Ljubljana is where it stinks. This is where
decisions are made, this is hypocrisy, this is where the elite is responsible,
this is where it happens. But here, those I am thinking of are sunbathing
at the same time and they are stars and appear in the media and on televi-
sion. But if you go on TV and start talking the way you should talk, then
the show is banned. If you think that you are living in a democracy and
that the matter is being published, that there is no such or other blockade,
no more censorship, then you are wrong and you do not know where you
are. In short, things are infinitely, infinitely more serious than you think.
They are not bad at all, they are catastrophic! Really. Although I know you
do not believe me.
You now I am not a disbeliever when you take firm stands and speak
your criticism out loud. I do it all the time, so we don’t have a problem
here. But, anyway, is there still something, ‘that thing’ which could le-
gitimately be called discourse in the public space?
This discourse does exist, but is very rare. Let us say that the people we
are talking about here are mostly Heidegger, Hannah Arendt, Guenther
Anders. Heidegger is present, but he is occupied by the Slovenian right
and acts as the blackest point, the black sheep. In this sense, you can-
not get it anywhere at the university. Hannah Arendt cannot come, so to
speak, to the university, she does not fit in. These are the key arguments
of the left scene here. There is no Guenther Anders. In short, it is a com-
pletely new paradigm, and in this sense I said at the beginning that it is
bringing a new wind to Slovenia. It will no longer be an accusation against
Lacan, an accusation against Marx, but something else. Freud is there, but
not as an indictment of Freud, but as something new. What is new is not
so much the speech about the book, but its interpretation. My professor,
Andrej Kirn, for example, who has studied it. But who reads Prof. Kirn
23 See post scriptum at the end.
155
