3/29/23, 3:43 PM The Orgy at the End of the World by Slavoj Žižek - Project Syndicate

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The Orgy at the End of the World

Oct 27, 2022 |SLAVOJ ŽIŽEK

LJUBLJANA – With Ukrainian forces reclaiming territory and sending Russia’s demoralized
occupiers scurrying in retreat, Russian President Vladimir Putin has escalated his threat to use
nuclear weapons. Politicians have issued stern warnings to the Kremlin, and commentators have
compared the current moment to the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and other episodes of high
tension that could have ended in nuclear Armageddon. But some 15,000 Ukrainians have met the
prospect of annihilation in a less abstract way: They have reportedly signed up for a massive sex
party.
Participants in “Orgy on Shchekavystsa: Official” outside Kyiv are expected to “decorate their
hands with stripes denoting their sexual preference. People interested in anal sex have been asked
to draw three stripes; those interested in oral sex have been asked to display four stripes.” Similar
groups have popped up elsewhere, including one announcing an orgy on Derybasivska Street in
Odessa.
Why, after eight months of Russian bombardment and brutal fighting, would anyone be interested
in such an event? According to one eager participant: “It’s the opposite of despair. Even in the
worst-case scenario, people will look for something good. That’s the mega-optimism of
Ukrainians.”
One should accept this testimony on its face. In a time of extreme anguish, an orgy can be a life-
affirming project. There is no need for a “deeper” pseudo-Freudian explanation in which
collective trauma precipitates the disintegration of individual inhibitions and conventional social
norms. The truly uncivilized sex acts are those being committed by Russian soldiers and their
leaders. According to Pramila Patten, the United Nations special representative on sexual
violence, Russian commanders are dispensing Viagra to their troops. Sexual assault of Ukrainian
women is a “deliberate tactic to dehumanize the victims,” she told Agence France-Presse.
Sadly, other outside observers have effectively toed the Russian line. Much to my own country’s
shame, Matjaž Gams, a member of the Slovenian state council, reacted to the orgy story by
suggesting that when a civilization enters its period of decay, “strange, morbid ideas” appear. But,
again, which is stranger and more morbid: a sex party (where all activity is voluntary and
consensual), or Russia’s indiscriminate attacks on civil infrastructure and civilians (including the
use of systemic rape as a military tactic)?
Putin’s latest nuclear threats were accompanied by his illegal annexation of four Ukrainian
territories that he does not fully control, but which the Kremlin insists “are inalienable parts of the
Russian Federation … Their security is provided for at the same level as the rest of Russia’s
territory.” The implication, of course, is that Ukraine is already deserving of a nuclear strike,
because it is making gains in territories that supposedly fall under Russia’s nuclear umbrella. No
wonder online betting sites are offering odds on Russia carrying out a nuclear attack this year,
with thousands putting money on “yes.”
Lending additional credibility to the threat, Russian officials have ordered an evacuation of
Kherson, which is now almost encircled by Ukrainian forces. The intended message seems clear:

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3/29/23, 3:43 PM The Orgy at the End of the World by Slavoj Žižek - Project Syndicate

If Ukrainians retake the city, they will be a perfect target for a nuclear bomb. In the struggle
against “Satanism,” as Putin recently put it, everything is permitted.
But equally morbid is the Western peacenik argument that Europe should send a big delegation to
Russia to start negotiating the terms of peace. Obviously, we should do everything possible to
prevent a new world war; but to achieve that, we must begin with a realistic appreciation of what
Russia has become. That means abandoning the idea of Eurasian unity and rejecting the argument
that Europe should form a power bloc with Russia to avoid becoming a junior partner to the US
in its conflict with China. At this point, it is Russia, not China, that poses the greater threat to
Europe.
Moreover, for Europe to pursue negotiations with Russia, it also would have to pressure Ukraine
to accept a compromise. That is precisely what the Kremlin wants; it would reinforce Putin’s own
argument that Ukraine is merely a Western proxy, rather than a real country with its own agency.
What is to be done? Since Russia obviously cannot be ignored, the best option is to reach out to
those in Russia and in its satellites who oppose the war. As Sławomir Sierakowski recently
pointed out, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s administration has a natural ally in the
Belarusian opposition, which has been quietly doing what it can to frustrate the Russian war
effort. And yet, no alliance has emerged. Instead, Ukrainian officials have publicly shown
contempt for Belarusians, depicting them as “wimps and conformists.” As Sierakowski points
out, this is not only immoral, but also “politically stupid.”
Russian opponents of the war find themselves in the same predicament, criticized by Putin’s
establishment as traitors and by Ukraine as Russians. In this way, the meaning of the Ukrainian
war is obfuscated. It is not a struggle between “European truth” and “Russian truth,” as both
Putin’s ideologist Aleksandr Dugin and some Ukrainians are claiming. Ukraine is a front in the
global struggle against the new nationalist fundamentalism that is gaining strength everywhere,
including in the United States, India, and China.
If there is anywhere that Ukrainians have ceded a sliver of the moral high ground, it is here, in the
failure to universalize their fight, not in any Dionysian dissipation outside Kyiv.

SLAVOJ ŽIŽEK
Slavoj Žižek, Professor of Philosophy at the European Graduate School, is International Director
of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities at the University of London and the author, most
recently, of Heaven in Disorder (OR Books, 2021).

https://prosyn.org/Rn9WM6W

 
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