Quantum History by Slavoj Žižek

Author:Slavoj Žižek
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.
Published: 2025-11-10T00:00:00+00:00

However, is god not exposing us to temptation already in paradise where he warns Adam and Eve not to eat the apple from the tree of knowledge—but why did he put this tree there in the first place, and then even drew attention to it? This is why Saint Theresa of Avila was right when she wrote: “More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones.” Was god not aware that human ethics can arise only after the Fall? Many of the most insightful theologians and Christian writers, from Kierkegaard to Paul Claudel, were fully aware that, at its most basic, temptation arises in the form of the Good—or, as Kierkegaard put it apropos Abraham, when he is ordered to slaughter Isaac, his predicament “is an ordeal such that, please note, the ethical is the temptation.”19 Is the temptation of the (false) Good not what characterizes all forms of religious fundamentalism? And we should openly confront the paradoxes implied by true ethics. Although John le Carré’s Russia House is not among his best works, it contains an immensely powerful chapter. The book’s hero, Barley, the head of a small British publishing house, visits the USSR in the years of perestroika to attend a writers’ retreat near Peredelkino. There he encounters a man called Goethe, in fact a renowned physicist who has secretly written a manuscript detailing the Soviet’s nuclear missile capabilities. Goethe’s goal is to convince the West that USSR does not pose a real military threat (its military capacities are much less developed than it appears) and, in this way, to facilitate the end of the Cold War. When the CIA learns of Goethe’s manuscript, it is concerned because the manuscript states that the Soviet nuclear missile program is in complete disarray, and therefore there’s no real reason for an arms race to continue. Instead of rejoicing, they panic, perceiving a danger for their military complex, so they try to prove that Goethe’s manuscript is a Soviet plot to delude the West. They invite Barley to the US where they subject him to a long humiliating and aggressive interrogation. Barley appears to play the game, but he ultimately breaks down, becomes disgusted with the situation, and decides to offer his services to the KGB … The long chapter which details Barley’s interrogation and his utter and painful disillusionment with CIA is by far the strongest in the book, a true lesson in ethical integrity and in how, sometimes, betrayal (of one’s own side) is the only way to act ethically.

This brings us to the nihil obstat apropos the appearance of Mary in Medjugorje. It is easy to discern its noble purpose: why prevent the goodness of the spiritual fruits from Medjugorje from freely spreading and being shared even if they are based on a lie? However, such a culturalization of Christianity, treating it as a cultural phenomenon with no unconditional truth value, inexorably leads us to censor the basic Christian texts themselves if they don’t fit the prescribed task of spreading around the goodness of its spiritual fruits.

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