The Paradox Of The Chocolate Laxative

Last night I finally got around to watching Ben Wright’s documentary, “Slavoj Zizek: The Reality of the Virtual.” (Though I wouldn’t call it a documentary; it was more a 90 minute unscripted and tangential Zizek lecture.) Who is Slavoj, you ask? Why, he’s only the preeminent Slovenian orthodox Lacanian Stalinist, of course!

It’s not that I’m actively furthering my characterization as dork incarnate; usually I keep these sorts of things to myself. We all have our vices and it seems that I can’t resist the tangled web of an esoteric documentary. But two words in last night’s movie caught my attention and elicited this exposing:

CHOCOLATE LAXATIVES

It is a great paradox. Chocolate, a natural cause of constipation, is now being marketed as its own remedy. What better way to cure constipation than by indulging in it! Zizek reveals this fact, then launches into a ten-minute reflection that examines the chocolate/laxative structure through a landscape of capitalism, politics, and ethics.

George Soros and Bill Gates are, according to Zizek, chocolate laxatives personified. Soros stands for ruthless financial exploitation but at the same time is one of the world’s well-known humanitarians. He spends half his day speculating on how to make money through financial exploits, and the other half of his day giving a portion of it back in the form of charity. The morning is chocolate, the afternoon is laxative.

On Bill Gates:

“The two faces of Bill Gates are exactly like the two faces of Soros: on the one hand, a cruel businessman, destroying or buying out competitors, aiming at a virtual monopoly; on the other, the great philanthropist who makes a point of saying: “What does it serve to have computers if people do not have enough to eat?” – (Slavoj Zizek, “Nobody Has To Be Vile,” 2006)”

Zizek also asks that we think about this in the context of today’s wars, those that are declared as wars for peace. The United States’ war in Iraq was not advertised as an establishing of a hegemonic presence in an unstable part of the world, but was rather about the helping of an Iraqi people devoid of the joys and pleasures of democracy. What better image of a chocolate laxative is there than the dropping of parachutes of food and medicine to a war-ravaged people after their destruction through an operation of war?

(Other chocolate laxatives in the world? Decaf coffee and Marijuana, which Zizek describes as “Opium without Opium”.)

We used to live in a world where ethics told us to repress, to control oneself, to do things in moderation. Think unsexy thoughts, think unsexy thoughts. We used to feel guilty when we indulged in pleasure. Now, the ethical injunction is to go to the end of the pleasure scale. We feel guilty when we can’t enjoy a pleasure. Please yourself like there’s no tomorrow!

And all because of chocolate laxatives