WHY THE REAL DANGER LIES BEYOND THE OBSCENE CLOWN

The master is the one who helps the individual to become subject

Welcome to the desert of the real!

If you desire the comfort of neat conclusions, you are lost in this space. Here, we indulge in the unsettling, the excessive, the paradoxes that define our existence.

So, if you have the means and value writing that both enriches and disturbs, please consider becoming a paid subscriber.

(Illustration by my friend Z - (ZORAN SMILJANIĆ)

Liberal critics regularly accuse Trump of a dictatorial style, characterized by improvised, contingent decisions: Trump proclaimed a state of emergency, which allows him to rule through executive orders, bypassing Congress and the Senate, as well as debates with members of his own party. It is true that he runs the show like a monarch, but I don’t think this is the problem—the problem lies in the nature of the measures he is imposing. In our epoch, when the standard multiparty liberal democracy repeatedly displays its inability to cope with the catastrophic prospects we are all confronting, and when more and more people are retreating into apolitical depression, a dictatorial figure—a new Master—is needed:

“The master is the one who helps the individual to become subject. That is to say, if one admits that the subject emerges in the tension between the individual and universality, then it is obvious that the individual needs mediation and thereby an authority in order to progress on this path. The crisis of the master is a logical consequence of the crisis of the subject. One has to renew the position of the master; it is not true that one can do without it, even and especially in the perspective of emancipation. This capital function of leaders is not compatible with the predominant ‘democratic’ ambience, which is why I am engaged in a bitter struggle against this ambience (after all, one has to begin with ideology).”¹

We have to fully accept this fact: left to ourselves, we are not free but enslaved by our spontaneous prejudices manipulated by mass media. A master is needed—not so much to tell us what we want or what is really good for us—but to deliver a simple message: *“You can!”* You can reach beyond yourself and achieve what appears impossible. The large majority—including myself—wants to remain passive and rely on an efficient state apparatus to guarantee the smooth running of society so that we can pursue our work in peace. Walter Lippmann wrote in *Public Opinion* (1922) that the herd of citizens must be governed by “a specialized class whose interests reach beyond locality.” This elite class acts as a machinery of knowledge that circumvents democracy’s primary defect: the impossible ideal of the "omni-competent citizen."

This is how our democracies function—with our consent. There is no mystery in what Lippmann was saying; it is an obvious fact. The mystery lies in our knowing this yet still playing along. We act as if we are free and freely deciding while silently accepting—indeed demanding—that an invisible injunction (inscribed into our very form of free speech) tells us what to do and think. This is why a proper politician does not merely advocate for people’s interests; it is through him that they discover what they “really want.” For individuals to “reach beyond themselves,” breaking out of representative politics’ passivity and engaging as direct political agents, reference to a Leader becomes necessary—a Leader who enables them to pull themselves out of stagnation like Baron Münchhausen lifting himself by his own hair.