Demanding the Impossible (15 page)

At certain levels, things we think of as possible are probably not possible: all those dreams of immortality or whatever. And at certain levels, what economists are telling us is impossible is possible. The impossible happens: not impossible in the sense of religious miracles, but in the sense of something we don’t consider possible within our coordinates. This is why Lacan’s formula for overcoming an ideological impossibility is not “everything is possible,” but “the impossible happens.” The Lacanian impossible-real is not an a priori limitation, which needs to be realistically taken into account, but the domain of action. An act is more than an intervention into the domain of the possible – an act changes the very coordinates of what is possible and thus retroactively creates its own conditions of possibility. Like in Egypt, the impossible happened, no one expected it was possible. Without clear limitations between the possible and the impossible, you cannot have a minimal stability that is probably needed for normal regular life.

People who just like the events, as in Egypt, used to say that we cannot live in this situation all the time. This is also Mubarak’s dirty strategy. He wanted to prolong it and to make things more painful for people ; he expected them to say: “OK, that’s enough. Mubarak, come back and give us peace.” For me, again, the many reactionaries, today’s conservatives at least, like these moments of revolution, but then they say: “The game is over and we must return.” But do we really have to return? I think changes are possible.

What is impossible? Our answer should be a paradox which turns around the one with which I began:
soyons réalistes, demandons l’impossible
. The only realist option is to do what appears impossible within this system. This is how the impossible becomes possible.

This is what cynics are telling us: “Yes, we need revolutionary upheaval every 30 years so that people can see that you cannot really change everything in the long term and you must return to the old game.” For example, there is no conservative today in France who’s point of pride is to say “I was there in ’68, and I was demonstrating but later I became a realist.” No! One must blur the line between what is possible and what is impossible and
redefine
it in a new way. So this would be for me the great task of thinking today: to
redefine
and
rethink
the limits of the possible and the impossible.