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What Does Europe Want?

On May 1, eight new countries were welcomed into the European Union—but which “Europe” will they find there?

By Slavoj Zizek

In the months before Slovenia’s entry to the European Union, whenever a foreign journalist asked me what new dimension would Slovenia contribute to Europe, my answer was instant and unambiguous: NOTHING. Slovene culture is obsessed with the notion that, although a small nation, we are a cultural superpower: We possess some agalma, a hidden intimate treasure of cultural masterpieces that… return to article

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    Page 1 of 1 pages

    Mr. Zizek need not fear I’ll look down on him as a country bumpkin. All through my life public intellectuals have held this or that Eastern European author as a revelation of real literature. I’m more likely to resent Europeans, like Mr. Zizek, sneering at my nation as a cultural wasteland. Just because America’s conservative artistic patrons/foundation heads prefer anything European to anything American and the academy slavishly follows their taste, doesn’t mean America lacks art. But Europe has always adored American pop culture and patronised American artists.

    As I’ve done a fairish amount of reading in Victorian social culture, I can tell you that most 19th century Europeans sneered at the Britain of Dickens, Thatckery, Elliot, Hardy, Wilde, Shaw, Tennyson, Browning, and Carlye, as a cultural wasteland. Poor nations which fear they are going to be swamped by richer nations generally tell themselves how culturally superior they are. It’s boringly commonplace. The US, because we are wealthy and powerful, is going to be slandered as a poisonous cultural wasteland. Unless we are broken, ruined, and a thousand years in the past, no one will ever say anything fair or just about us. Unless of course they need something out of us. Which is also typical. 

    United States Posted by Thomas Devine on May 2, 2004 at 9:11 PM

    There is only one way out… join the NSK state and listen to Laibach.

    www.nskstate.com

    United States Posted by Strelnikov on May 5, 2004 at 1:48 AM

    Then why don’t Mr. Devine resent those “conservative artistic patron” in your country? Why resent the European if you say they themselves love Pop’s etc? By the way, it’s not the European who helped in publicize those cheap soap of US as their mass culture, right?
    (And I tell you, most of the British sneered at Amerian culture not until Washington Irving. That doesn’t mean before Irving there’s no good writers in US. And nobody is looking down on US’s literature at present. How’s that? Because real culture speaks for itself, if they’re good enough.)

    Hong Kong Posted by Arreinia on May 5, 2004 at 8:53 PM
    Page 1 of 1 pages

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