Zizek on Anatoly

By David Capps

I keep watching these youtube videos, you know, the ones of the janitor in the gym, Anatoly, who, in reality—in the reality we know when we are, you know, not watching youtube—he is a professional body-builder, he can lift, you know, as much as anyone, he can squat as much as anyone, and so on. But here, in this context, he is a janitor—no, not a janitor, but he has the look, the baggy one-suit (how do you call) outfit, carrying always a mop, his headphones on, and he is doing as janitors do, cleaning, mopping the floor—and it doesn’t need to be mopped, why is he there—no one ever questions this. Then, he enters this world where he does not belong, where you have these big, muscle guys, I don’t know, like Schwarzenegger type guys, it doesn’t matter—and here is where I come to a point, these guys, belonging to their world, he belonging to his, they are ones he accuses of deception—this weight, this is fake, I can lift, I can lift, he tells them. And yes, they laugh—remember in Nietzsche the higher men learn to laugh—and then of course we see the heteronormative stance, the gaze and so on, but then—and this is the point, he shows himself, as he truly is, he lifts this weight although he is a janitor, the accuser becomes the accused. And they never say—as rationality would tell you—well, you must not have been a janitor after all—they never say this, because they believe in the uncanny, it is better that this extraordinary thing should happen, which they cannot explain, than it be explained so easily—and this, I claim, is the same phenomenon as occurs in religious believers when they say to each other—no, not to some outside reporter—did you see the miracle, the statue of the Virgin Mary cried, she shed her tears for you.

About the Author

David Capps is a philosophy professor and writer living in New Haven, CT. He is the author of six chapbooks: Poems from the First Voyage (The Nasiona Press, 2019), A Non-Grecian Non-Urn (Yavanika Press, 2019), Colossi (Kelsay Books, 2020), On the Great Duration of Life (Schism Neuronics, 2023), Fever in Bodrum (Bottlecap Press, 2024), and Wheatfield with a Reaper (Akinoga Press, forthcoming).