Now, Zizek doesn’t feel any need to self-censor: “In the history of philosophy (or Western philosophy, which amounts to the same thing). . .”

Prepare to be bugged with quotes from Zizek now.

Zizek rules, people. The very first sentence of his new book is: “There are two opposed types of stupidity.” Isn’t that the best first line for a huge book on philosophy ever?

You know what I have noticed recently? I have started to self-censor. Here, on my own blog.

I go through the scheduled posts and delete those of them that I know some people will find objectionable. I avoid writing on certain topics because I know that reader A will be upset, reader B will write an angry email, reader C will leave a comment saying “Enough already on this topic”, etc. I edit the posts before publishing them, softening the language and removing anything that might cause people to start having a fit right here on the blog.

As a result, I have started to feel tongue-tied and boring.

The blog has started to turn into a community which, by definition, requires that its members castrate themselves, lop off parts of themselves in order to fit in. I have to say, the community is kind of pleasant to have. But if I have to self-censor and silence myself in return, then fuck that shit. The entire point of having a blog was to say whatever I wanted to say. And now I don’t do that for fear of sounding too harsh and hurting somebody’s sensibilities. It also feels easier to self-censor than to face yet another round of emails telling me how I would attract more allies by being less aggressive or comments saying “I really loved your blog but now you have offended my sacred cow and I’m traumatized.”

This is a road to nowhere, people. There are more than enough blogs in existence whose authors publish inane, super-PC, supremely boring swill. Why should I join their ranks?

So I have decided to stop doing this. The preceding post is my first step in the direction away from self-censorship.

I will say what I want and express myself in the manner that suits my fancy.

Please understand that I have no obligation to be a mirror of your beliefs and opinions. All I can do here is express what I think. And if you find the idea that there is somebody in the world who disagrees with you about something too traumatizing, nobody forces you to stick around.

Have you heard of people who have started calling themselves “demisexuals“? These are folks who claim they are being oppressed for only being able to desire sexually people whose personalities they like and with whom they want to have a romantic relationship.

Everybody is now bashing such folks for daring to claim they are oppressed but I wanted to point out that, as ridiculous as the idea of society persecuting these “demisexuals” is, these are people who are suffering from a sexual problem. They expect their sexuality to service their social needs which, if you think about it, is not that different from expecting your food intake to service same social needs. Do you consider to be completely healthy those people who eat not when they are hungry but when it is socially acceptable?

To be a “demisexual” you have got to be a person who has interiorized the idea that sex is bad and dirty and who needs to justify his or her sexual desires as being at the service of some socially acceptable goal (e.g. finding a stable relationship.) Such people deserve our compassion whether or not they make idiots out of themselves  by claiming to be oppressed.

The problem with treating them compassionately, however, is that such folks with stunted sexualities are extremely likely to act as an oppressive force. These are the people who have fits of hysteria when they realize that others might be having sex just for the sake of enjoyment. Anti-choicers, anti-contraception folks, anti-pornography and anti-masturbation crowd – these are all people who have stunted their own sexualities and hate everybody else for not doing the same.

It seems like a blogger is walking around convinced that I reported his blog to WordPress as a result of which the blog has been suspended.

I’m sorry that the blog was suspended but I have nothing whatsoever to do with this. I respect the freedom of speech and have never in my life petitioned for any blog to be closed.

Unlike many other people, I never investigated bloggers I disagreed with, never harassed or threatened them, and never even followed them back to their blogs to continue arguing. The idea that I would want to close somebody down for disagreeing with me is ridiculous.

I hope this misunderstanding is clarified soon and the blogger in question gets his blog back.

P.S. Seriously, people, don’t you know me enough to realize I’d never do something like this?

OK, why did nobody tell me that a new book by Zizek has been released over a month ago?

Amazon really surprises me, people. Based on the number of Zizek’s books I bought from them, it would make a lot of sense to recommend this new and hugely expensive volume to me. Yet, Amazon never informed me of its existence.

At the same time, it keeps recommending this stupid Fifty Shades of Grey crapola, even though there is absolutely nothing in my buying history that would make Amazon think I might buy it.

In any case, I will be lying on the beach reading my new 1,000+ pages long Zizek book in less than two weeks.

Life is good.

I always keep wondering why my indolence doesn’t prevent me from getting so much done and being so productive. A great article I just read has an answer:

Idleness is not just a vacation, an indulgence or a vice; it is as indispensable to the brain as vitamin D is to the body, and deprived of it we suffer a mental affliction as disfiguring as rickets. The space and quiet that idleness provides is a necessary condition for standing back from life and seeing it whole, for making unexpected connections and waiting for the wild summer lightning strikes of inspiration — it is, paradoxically, necessary to getting any work done.

I always feel like I need to conceal from people how much time I spend indulging myself and having fun. I even started to play the busyness game, too.

“I’m SO BUSY!” a colleague would complain.

“Me, too!” I say, trying to look appropriately miserable and exhausted. I feel bad about confessing that I spend hours blogging, reading, walking, cooking, taking baths, etc. and still have a lot of time left over to to get all of the work done.

When N. and I started our relationship, I lived in Canada and he lived in Indiana. He couldn’t cross the border because of his visa issues, so I came to stay with him in Indiana. One thing I really loved about his apartment was this amazing bathroom mirror. It looked a little ratty because the entire apartment was a cheap, grad student kind of place.

But that ratty mirror showed me the best reflection of myself I had ever seen. Whenever I looked into it, I saw a stunning movie-star-like person with luminous eyes, amazing body, and perfect hair.

All I wanted was to find a mirror like that for my own apartment in Montreal but I couldn’t find anything of the kind no matter how much I searched in Canadian stores.

Then N. graduated and moved to Baltimore for his new job. I was sorry to leave our apartment in Lafayette, Indiana. It especially pained me to leave the magical mirror behind.

However, the moment we walked into N.’s Baltimore apartment, I realized that the mirror there was as perfect as the one we’d left in Lafayette. Once again, I saw this impossibly beautiful reflection of myself that mirrors elsewhere were incapable of providing.

That was when I realized that I looked so good in those mirrors because N. was around to make me feel more beautiful than I did anywhere else. He was turning the mirrors magical for me.

And it turned out that I was doing the same to his reflection.

You can find the first chapter of Betty Friedan’s powerful The Feminine Mystique here. The second chapter is here.

Do read if you haven’t yet. This is what feminism is really about.

The scary thing is that the book hasn’t nearly lost its relevance decades after its publication.

Seventeen years ago I read The Feminine Mystique at the British Council library back in Ukraine and discovered feminism It was as if a lamp  suddenly turned on in my head.