The present desert of the real

From Eurozine, a Zizek-based discussion of 9-11, Iraq, and Katrina.

In short, when the American concept of "civilization as we know it" broke down, with it went what little superego was left in the US population. Ivan Karamazov said, "esli Boga net -- znachit, vsio pozvoleno" -- "if there is no God, then everything is permissible". Lacan argued that the reverse was the case: if there is no God, nothing is permissible, because without the Name-of-the-Father, there is nobody to give permission for anything. In practical terms, this means it is dog-eat-dog universe, without any kind of order. When this is the case, there is nobody to declare "Thou shalt not kill" -- one is not even "permitted" to live. This is exactly what happened in New Orleans, with one small difference: what was missing in the days of Katrina was not God, but "civilization", or, in clearer terms, the basic infrastructure of capitalism....