Recycling is, in theory, the limitation of waste byproduct created by the human populus through mediation and partial reappropriation of the original energy stored within a given spent commodity or resource. The attack on micro-organization of ecological predicatments, which Zizek is purporting comes as a fragmenting projectile of notions concealed within one soundbite.

1. We must look at Recycling in the same scope as Zizek’s critique of charity in the sense that when we look towards supplementational band-aid responses to problems, it not only perpetuates a certain symptom, but often mystifies the cause of the problem. For charity, the problem may be that charities do nothing to augment the circumstances in which poverty is born, such as the exploitation of international labor via capitalism, but rather they see a person who can’t find food for themselves and give them a fish, rather than teach them to fish. The same may occur in recycling, where the recycling itself slows the pain of the destruction of rampantly accumulating waste materials, but the actual source of this problem may be in issues such as regulation of manufacturing for commodities.

The shift in focus lies is a seperation of kind (from the band-aid to the cause) but not of degree (as in one person vs. many.)

2. The important thing to remember about activity at the individual level is that, if every individual did recycle — or for our updated understanding of attacking the cause of a problem– if society found a way of organizing itself so that regulation of manufacture eliminated the need for recycling, everything would be great right?

Zizek’s suspicion towards the act of the individual is most certainly not that individual activity is irrelevant, but that it is nothing without a notion of cohesiveness with other individuals, as to increase it’s impact. To take cohesive behavior beyond a mere mimicry of activity is to have a transeding theory regarding any action, of which all the participators are aware. To go beyond that, Zizek knows that this teaching of “how to fish” is not enough. We must teach the public that knowing how to fish is good, and there may be better ways to fish, or maybe fishing just went out of style. The point being, to inspire a resolve for revolutionary thought, as such.

But should I stop recycling???

http://backdoorbroadcasting.net/2009/11/slavoj-zizek-apocalyptic-times/

–mm