“A critical analysis of the present global constellation – one which offers no clear solution, no 'practical' advice on what to do, and provides no light at the end of the tunnel, since one is well aware that this light might belong to a train crashing towards us – usually meets with reproach: 'Do you mean we should do nothing? Just sit and wait?' One should gather the courage to answer: 'YES, precisely that!' There are situations when the only truly 'practical' thing to do is to resist the temptation to engage immediately and to 'wait and see' by means of a patient, critical analysis. . . .
“Is this not exactly what Lenin did after the catastrophe of 1914? He withdrew to a lonely place in Switzerland, where he 'learned, learned, and learned,' reading Hegel's logic. And this is what we should do today when we find ourselves bombarded with mediatic images of violence. We need to 'learn, learn, and learn' what causes this violence.”
Slavoj Zizek, Violence: Six Sideways Reflections, Picador 2008.
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