WHY I AM A "STRANGE MARXIST?" 1/2

 The reference is from the Peterson vs Zizek debate where Peterson calls Zizek a "Strange Marxist" as a taunt to which, typically of Zizek and my own behavior, He gracefully accepted that. He said, he is more and more convinced that he is a "Strange Marxist!". He posited that he is a Marxist in the sense, because he begins with Freud's Death Drive, or Todestrieb, which is the negativity intrinsic of life itself, and using Death drive, rehabilitated Hegelian Idealism, and hence Dialectical materialism. 

To explain in simple terms, Let us break it down. 

Death Drive, what do you think it is? Salman Akhtar says it is related to Nirvana and desire to annihilate yourself into an inorganic non-living state. 

I respect Salman a lot, but academically speaking, it is nothing more than Salaman's Indian Philosophy romanticism. Death drive has nothing to do with a death wish. Rather, It is an inevitable, rather normal condition of negativity that the Individual feels in his own self. This is the inherent contradiction of life. To live is to die properly in every moment. To die a symbolic death in order to live authentically. Shakespeare said, "Cowards die many times before their death." Even the brave dies many times, in opinion of Lacan and Freud, but the nature of these two deaths differs. Cowards die, as in their selves get humiliated. They die psychologically a sort of death while living, leaving them in a zombie or undead state. Whenever you see a Coward, and it is not difficult to find one, most of them, are in fact cowards, anyone who compromises with the basic life principles for either self-pleasure or societal acceptance, is a textbook coward, you will see a strange undead state they are in, you start listening to them, and a foul smell of complaints, angst, and ego stinks come out of their mouths. As if, they turn on their zombie mode and keep puking about how they are so hurt by the world. But, if you just probe them a little further, like use a knife to cut their skin, you will find no blood there. They have no real content; their angst is their fault. Their complains are their lack of agency. These are the cowards, the zombies. 

The Braves are those, who understand that there is no moral relativism in life. Life runs on basic principles, which our ancestors used to call Dharma, Taoists call the ultimate Tao, and so on, and then he sticks to it. Period. Then he cares nothing about, whether it is socially acceptable, where his friends will like what he is doing, whether he will like it, yes, he does not care about himself also. He, in a way, externalizes his existence to this abstract reality, called "Truth", and he is ready to sacrifice his life for it. 

 Let me explain with the help of an example. 

Suppose someone wishes to be an IAS officer. First of all, he wants to do some addition to his self. So, there are three Negatives, or Negatiff  as described by Lacan here. 

1. First the acceptance of the non-existent self: That is, he has to accept that he is currently not an IAS. That is a difficult task already for a coward. Because, it is so satisfying for him to declare, that he is an aspirant. It gives him respect in society. It gives him validation. It releases dopamine. But, he does not realize that every drop of dopamine extracted from society, Society takes your blood double of that amount. Tomorrow, when he will fail, people will come to beat the dead horse, because when he got dopamine by telling them that he is an aspirant, they suffered from the lack of being an aspirant. 

A brave man tries to hide what he wishes to become. The reason is obvious. He is not currently that thing. So, to just get unjust dopamine, is not correct. In a way, the brave man, as in Amitabh Bachan's fillm "Kooli", "Apne Haq ka Khata hai" or he takes dopamine which he deserves, not any dopamine. 

2. Constantly rejecting the present self: an internal battle continues in the headspace of the brave. He rejects himself. Because he wants to become something that he is currently not, he has to negate his present self. He lives in seclusion. He understands isolation. He constantly learns. His learnings transform him into a newer version which is closer to being an IAS. 

3. Negate the Negation: Finally, The brave has to even negate the negation since, One day, he will become what he wanted to. His self will be the self he wanted. That self would require affirmation. So, he is in a kind of superposition of selves, where he constantly affirms and denies the self. 

These three mechanisms of negation occurs, which can be called the "Death drive".

In a nutshell, The self has to die a symbolic death in order to live in reality. You have to negate being an IAS, if you want to become an IAS. You will wish to isolate and study, removing who you are from the social space, nobody would know, where you have been, what you have been studying, unless the results come out. 

To apply it to Marxism is where the genius of Zizek is. Marx's Materialism drives on matter being active and constantly moving forward in history. To drive one form of matter to death, is to constantly negate it to generate a new form of matter to life. For example, The Dinasaur's had to die and become Petroleum for us to live. 

My Strangeness comes in picture when I mix Adhyatmika principles to this mix of Death Drive and Marxism. 

Which I will explain in next blog.