When Slavoj Zizek spoke at the London Literature Festival this year, he argued that totalitarian ideologies (fundamentalist religion, nationalism, fascism, communism etc) give you the freedom to commit atrocities.
A friend said to me recently: "I'm glad I have my faith otherwise I would be running around doing all kinds of bad things like killing people or sleeping with anyone I want"
Really? I like to think he would have some sort of internal moral qualm before shooting another human being between the eyes. If it's just religion preventing that murderous rampage, then I need a new set of friends!
There are plenty of agnostics who do not cause social havoc for their own twisted pleasure, even if they sometimes wish they could. If you think about it seriously, people don't just "behave" because they are scared of The Law.
On the contrary, strict rules allow you to do things you would never normally do because you are not responsible for your actions.
If you are disobedient to a law, your punishment is clearly defined and once served, the implication is that you have balanced out your previous wrongdoing.
If you are obedient to a totalitarian ideology, you are free to feel no guilt and think nothing through - you are only acting in the name of "God", "The Fuehrer", "The State", "The Greater Purpose", and so forth.
Zizek said this is how totalitarianism bribes you - everything is permitted. You have to make personal ethical concerns irrelevant in the face of a sacred cause. His thinking was derived from Jacques Lacan, who said: "If there is no God, then everything is prohibited".
Were you to do something that makes you feel truly evil on a deep level - like molest a child - you would be unable to handle the repercussions of guilt if you did not have a higher authority to forgive you and take the weight away.
A shield to protect you from your own responsibility for your actions.
Zizek referred to Stalinists who committed suicide only "when cracks appeared in the ideological shield".
There are hundreds of other examples out there and they stand as a dire warning against a dangerous disregard for your own individual power to change the world.
