Philosopher Jersey Flight Corrects Žižek on Human Nature

"We are all basically evil, egotistical, disgusting. Take torture, for instance. I am a realist. If I had a daughter and someone kidnapped her, and I found a friend of the kidnapper, I cannot say I wouldn’t torture that guy." Disparities by Slavoj Žižek


Žižek speaks like an impulsive philosopher, because he is an impulsive philosopher in a time of impulsive living. This largely summarizes the entire phenomena we call Žižek. He is the cult of personality, but this is not saying much, when all artists and figures are cults of personality. There is nothing wrong with enjoying a unique personality, but one must not substitute it for thought.

"We are all basically evil, egotistical, disgusting."  

Evil we are not, egotistical we are.

The only reason I chose to comment on what Žižek said is because I believe his view of human nature insinuates a false metaphysical pessimism (something dangerous to the formation of humanitarian revolutionaries). That is to say, what hope is there for mankind if human nature is evil? If there is no hope in the premise there can be no hope in the conclusion. Žižek proves that he is tainted by Christianity; he needs to go back and sit at the feet of Nietzsche. He declares man's metaphysical-moral-disposition to be futile. Is Žižek then waiting for a future Messiah? It would seem he has not yet surmounted the false moral projections of Christianity. 

My friends, we are fools if we think something or someone will save us. Our existential plight is precisely that we must save ourselves or go extinct! How can Žižek be relevant if he does not know this?

Take torture, for instance. If a child saw a man being tortured, he would be terrified, he would experience strong, positive feelings of morality. This is exceedingly significant because it means our nature is not evil! All of us, as children, had to be unnaturally conditioned (that is, conditioned against our moral instincts) to accept violence. Children do not naturally gravitate to violence, and this tells us something beautiful and powerful about ourselves:

Žižek is wrong. We are not basically evil, we are basically good!

What about disgust? When I hear this word I take caution, this is a moral word! Beware what you call disgusting lest you illegitimately condition yourself against yourself. I wonder... he that speaks of disgust, is it possible that he tells us about his ability to cope with reality? Everything hinges on how we define the word. Nay, this is false, everything hinges on our moral presuppositions!

In sexuality the creature has been slandered and demonized, the act of sexuality has been falsely moralized! [sexuality is amoral] Many of these false moralizers use the word disgust when they speak of human sexuality. The truth is that these people are impaired. They are ashamed of what they are and what their bodies do. Their insecurity, at being what they are, manifests itself in the form of violence and persecution toward those who do enjoy the body. 

I agree that a society infiltrated with capitalist propaganda, in order to create consumers, produces a disgusting, mindless human being. But we must be cautious when we call ourselves disgusting lest we insinuate a confused and contrary moral emphasis.   

We need a bigger vision of the potential of man because the one that has been offered is too small. I did not say we need a bigger vision of man, I said we need a bigger vision of his potential! Though man lives in a world of violence, he does not have to mimic the chaos of nature. 

There is hope for mankind insofar as there is hope for the flourishing of the natural instincts of the child. 

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