Slavoj Žižek, “God without the Sacred.”
Watching this talk before going to Manhattan recently, I was struck by how nice it was below ground where the subway station was called “World Trade Center,” while above ground folks said, “Ground Zero.” Of course, “WTC” has got its own ideological baggage, but not nearly that of “GZ.” This ideological character was especially obvious in the context of a to-do list of a woman on the sidewalk outside the new WTC construction site. She was leading her family around the city to various sites, each of which she written in sharpie on a large piece of paper, a check-off box beside each name.
Statue of Liberty, Times Square, Ground Zero, Empire State Building… I couldn’t help but imagine similar lists in the hands of the faithful in Jerusalem and Mecca. Now, “WTC” would have made a similar point, but “Ground Zero” put such a sharp point on the sacred character of what this family was doing that day.
Oh yea, “United Nations” wasn’t on the list.
(Source: nypl.org)
