Beans, Balkans and Breeze

Meet Slavoj Zizek

We’ve buttoned up the cottage for Winter, although we’ll hopefully be back before Christmas. Our old cottage is on the west side of the lake, which means we are privileged to enjoy the sunrise.

Everyone is necessarily talking about the weather with Hurricane Milton threatening the Florida Peninsula today. We’ve been enjoying a spectacular Fall here in Michigan and Northeastern Indiana, with blue skies, warm temperatures and gentle winds.

Most of the soybeans have been harvested in southern Michigan and they are starting to bring in the corn crop. The USDA reports that the harvest is ahead of schedule in Michigan, Ohio and Indiana for both beans and corn. A farmer couldn’t ask for better weather right now, with perfect drying and harvesting conditions, but Milton may eventually give us a bit of rain up here.

I’ve been trying to get ready for our trip by reading up on the history of the Balkans. Oh my, is it complicated! One thing I learned is that the term “Balkans” really has some negative connotations. The term “Balkan Peninsula” is really a misnomer, as it’s not true peninsula.

Let’s start with this map, which shows the Danube as the northern border of the “peninsula.” A better term would be “Southeast Europe.” The definition of “peninsula” requires that the land connection be shorter than the sea coast. For example, looking at Iberia or Italy, you can see that the neck of the land is shorter than the long sea coast. But unless the Danube is considered a coast line, the Balkans are not a peninsula. Some definitions have even included Romania.

And even the term “Balkans” has come under criticism. I found this amazing article: The Spectre of Balkan, by Slavoj Zizek, Slovenian philosopher, cultural theorist, and public intellectual. Please excuse this long quote, but it is well-worth reading and impossible to condense:

Coming from Slovenia, a part of ex-Yugoslavia, I seem type-cast to speak about nationalism: is Balkan not the very epitome of national identity going awry, of the vortex of dark and self-destructive ethnic passions that form the very contrast, almost a kind of photographic negative, of the tolerant co-existence of different ethnic communities? Here, the usual alibi of a Slovene would be: no, Slovenia is not part of Balkan, we are Mitteleuropa, Balkan is down there, it starts with Croatia or Bosnia. We Slovenes, on the contrary, are the last threshold and barrier of the truly west-European civilization against the Balkan madness.

This very alibi confronts us with the first of many paradoxes concerning Balkan: its geographic delimitation was never precise. It is as if one can never receive a definitive answer to the question, "Where does it begin?" For Serbs, it begins down there in Kosovo or Bosnia, and they defend the Christian civilization against this Europe's Other. For Croats, it begins with the Orthodox, despotic, Byzantine Serbia, against which Croatia defends the values of democratic Western civilization. For Slovenes, it begins with Croatia, and we Slovenes are the last outpost of the peaceful Mitteleuropa. For Italians and Austrians, it begins with Slovenia, where the reign of the Slavic hordes starts. For Germans, Austria itself, on account of its historic connections, is already tainted by the Balkanic corruption and inefficiency. For some arrogant Frenchmen, Germany is associated with the Balkanian Eastern savagery — up to the extreme case of some conservative anti-European-Union Englishmen for whom, in an implicit way, it is ultimately the whole of continental Europe itself that functions as a kind of Balkan Turkish global empire with Brussels as the new Constantinople, the capricious despotic center threatening English freedom and sovereignty. So Balkan is always the Other: it lies somewhere else, always a little bit more to the southeast, with the paradox that, when we reach the very bottom of the Balkan peninsula, we again magically escape Balkan. Greece is no longer Balkan proper, but the cradle of our Western civilization

So from now on I will try NOT to use the term “Balkans” to describe Southeast Europe! This fellow Zizek, or Žižek, is really interesting. I am going to have to add him to my reading list. I can’t fully verbalize the complete argument that he makes in this article without basically rewriting it, but it is fascinating and provides a perspective different from our Western European perch.

I love his description of the conservative Anti EU Englishman who believes that Brussels, de facto capital of the EU, is the “new Constantinople, the capricious despotic center threatening English freedom and sovereignty.”

I will NOT get in to US politics, but I can see that same view being expressed by the conservative American, who would claim that the entire continent of Europe, and even the Northeast United States and everything south of the Rio Grande and north of the U.S. border has become Balkanized, threatening the freedom of the Wild West from whom they claim descent.

In The Pervert's Guide to Ideology, Zizek suggests that "the only way to be an Atheist is through Christianity." He argues that incarnation brings God down from the 'beyond' and onto earth, into human affairs. It’s a bit beyond my pay grade to delve into the details just yet, but it does make some sense in that through Christ, God is brought down to the human level. And once that happens, it is a small step to accepting that man is God.

Well the sun is up and I need to get moving! Thanks for traveling along!