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Politics
Uncut transcript of a recent interview of Zizek is available on New Statesman:
As I like to emphasise here in the States, there are freedoms of choice which I am glad to renounce. I like to do a parallel between healthcare and water and electricity. Yes, you can say I don’t have a choice in choosing my water provider. It’s imposed by where I live. But, my god, I gladly renounce this choice. I prefer to have some basic choices made by society – water, electricity, and some elementary healthcare. This precisely opens up the choice, opens up the freedom for other choices.
5 Years After: Portugal’s Drug Decriminalization Policy Shows Positive Results
Time Magazine Reports on The State of The American Woman
Again, the issue is not whether government acts, but whether it acts with an awareness of the limits of its knowledge. Sometimes we seem to have a government with no sense of those limits, no sense that perhaps government officials don’t know how to restructure General Motors, pick the most promising battery technology, re-engineer the health care system from the top, or fine-tune the complex system of executive pay.
In particular, one of the most compelling arguments against more troops rests on this stunning trade-off: For the cost of a single additional soldier stationed in Afghanistan for one year, we could build roughly 20 schools there….
Since 9/11, the United States has spent $15 billion in Pakistan, mostly on military support, and today Pakistan is more unstable than ever. In contrast, Bangladesh, which until 1971 was a part of Pakistan, has focused on education in a way that Pakistan never did… Those educated Bangladeshi women joined the labor force, laying the foundation for a garment industry and working in civil society groups like BRAC and Grameen Bank. That led to a virtuous spiral of development, jobs, lower birth rates, education and stability. That’s one reason Al Qaeda is holed up in Pakistan, not in Bangladesh, and it’s a reminder that education can transform societies.
Regarding the need for education in the Middle East, I agree (I actually wrote something to this effect three years ago here: http://dariusteichroew.blogspot.com/2007/01/modern-islam-oxymoron.html). However, one cannot keep those schools open unless they have a military presence, since the Taliban is against education (particularly for girls). Just building a bunch of schools and abandoning the country to the Taliban would be stupid, since those schools would quickly be deserted or used for other means than educating the local youth.
Furthermore, one must realize that education itself is no cure-all. Many of the masterminds who lead Al Qaeda are rich and educated. Education doesn’t make one better, it just makes him more efficient. Education and infrastructure primarily serves as a method to prove to the local population that we’re there to care for them as opposed to their Taliban leaders who only want to oppress them.