Volodymyr Zelenskyy (SA/2022)
Based on his official presidential portrait (2019)
The problem of the actor-politician has long concerned me -
their constant need to play a role, to assume a mask, to post on social media ... [1]
I.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine is a classic manifestation of macrophysical violence which has developed in the tension between two states that share a border, i.e., something that divides people into those within (friends and fellow citizens) and those without (foreign enemies).
Such violence, which allows neither for mediation nor conciliation, "exposes the interior to an exterior that defies the interior structure of order and meaning" [2] in an often explosive and deadly manner - as we see today in various Ukranian cities - robbing victims of their lives whilst denying those who survive any room to manoeuver (ultimately, they can only flee).
II.
Of course, there's no shame in fleeing; discretion being the greater part of valour and he who turns and runs away, lives to fight another day, etc.
The Ukranians could simply have allowed the Russians to enter their land and introduce a different system of order and meaning, replacing one form of government, one way of life, by another. In other words, they could have accepted regime change with a certain stoic indifference.
And there's an argument to be made that non-violent resistance and civil disobedience to Russian rule might have been - strategically and pragmatically - the wiser option. After all, 70-year-old Putin won't be in charge at the Kremlin forever (his resorting to military violence is in fact a sign of his declining power).
Thus, one can't help wondering whether Volodymyr Zelenskyy's decision to encourage his people to take up arms in a war that cannot be won and at an enormous cost in terms of lives and infrastructure, might have been mistaken.
Indeed, I'm tempted to also ask whether Zelenskyy's defiant stand against the Red Army might be viewed as a vainglorious gesture on the part of a performer who loves being in the media spotlight and commanding the world stage, rather than as an act of heroism.
Behind every comic actor, they say, is a great tragedian dying to get out. But WWIII seems an exorbitant price to pay for the chance to see Zelenskyy in his greatest role and I really don't know if we should give him ammunition or an Academy Award.
Note:
[1] Readers familiar with Nietzsche will know that I'm paraphrasing here from V. 361 of The Gay Science, a section entitled Vom Probleme des Schauspielers. As Nietzsche says, a good actor can easily pass themselves off as a good politician; and a good politician is free at any time to become a good actor.
Interestingly, it might be noted that Zelenskyy is also Jewish and Nietzsche claims that the Jews are the people who best possess the art of adaptability, which is why - following this slightly dubious line of argument - so many great actors are Jewish.
[2] Byung-Chul Han, Topology of Violence, trans. Amanda DeMarco, (Polity Press, 2018), p. 64.
Once again, Chan's sophisticated analysis is philosophically irrelevant to the actual operation of the Russian war machine, which has bene murdering Ukrainians, ethnic Russians, men, women and children, regardless of Putin's revisionist rhetoric. Missiles don't tend to be that politically discriminating.
ReplyDeleteOf course, however we analyse Zelenskyy's role (or, as dubiously as the poster concedes, his Jewishness), all politicians are performers or actors in the non-dramatic sense of the word, as we all are ('the world is a stage', as Wilde put it with Hamletian sympathy, 'but the play is badly cast'). Laying the prospect of WWIII at his door is preposterous, either way. Rather, let's see Russian fascism for what it is and cut it out like the insatiable tumour it's turned into.
Dear Simon,
DeleteThanks for this third response to what might be read as a trilogy of recent posts on the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Let's see Russian fascism ‘for what it is’, you say, and, yes, I’m all for historical analysis in terms of geopolitics, rather than speaking of archetypal possession by the Great Mother, which only makes me think of AnnaLynne McCord’s poem for Putin.
But then I’m not too comfortable using medical metaphors either; ideas of cutting out cancerous growths in order to restore health to the body politic, reminds me of the language used by Hitler in ‘Mein Kampf’.
Is it preposterous to think that Zelenskyy wishes to widen the conflict with Russia, turning it into a European war, or one involving NATO (of which, let me remind you, Ukraine is not a member). What else would his outrageous call – echoed by idiots in the West – for the imposition of a no-fly zone over Ukraine result in? If the RAF start shooting down Russian fighter jets and bombers then we are a major step along the road to a new world war.
Finally, two other brief points:
(a) I don’t know how familiar Vladimir Putin is with Shakespeare, but it’s clear from interviews that he’s quite widely read (and seems proficient in English as well as fluent in German). He’s not a fool and neither, I believe, is he a madman (even if the Western media like to portray him as such).
(b) It’s Byung-Chul HAN – not Chan (an easy mistake to make, but an unfortunate one as it does bring to mind the fictional figure of Charlie Chan).
Thanks again for commenting - SA
SA - good point about Zelenskyy wishing to widen the conflict. To borrow from trauma theory, the recipient of trauma is not only angry with the perpetrator but also with those who they perceive as failing to intervene. So it's understandable that, in response to the West not joining the war in the full sense, Z would be angry with the West and want it to 'feel his pain' - i.e. it would not be surprising for Z to want the West to share in the experience of having bombs dropped on it.
DeleteThanks - v. interesting remarks on trauma theory.
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