SLAVOJ ZIZEK on Torture & Homo Sacer
Knight of the Living Dead by ZIZEK;
Published 3/24/07 in the New York Times, Slavoj Zizek cuts to the chase on how far we have fallen as a nation, our moral compass has broken, we have retreated to the dark past of the middle ages when the value torture was argued in the public sphere. The U.S. has created a gray world protected by the law but not regulated by these laws.
The case of Mr. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed is well know by now by most of us, a terrible terrorist who confessed (under the torture of waterboarding) to many heinous crimes including planning the 9/11 attack. Mr. Mohammed has become what Zizek calls a “homo sacer” a person who is excluded from all civil rights, he is now outside legality.
Reading this essay by Slavoj Zizek is like turning on a light. Please read it, we seem to be stumbling in the dark.
Something a little lighter and entertaining, ZIZEK’S review of Children of Men by Alfonso Cuaron