Red Ink

The name of this blog comes from a story in Slavoj Žižek's book, Welcome to the Desert of the Real. A German worker in Siberia, knowing his letters would be censored, established a code with his friends: If he writes in blue ink, everything is real; if he writes in red ink, the opposite is true. A month later, a letter arrives written in blue ink: "Everything is wonderful, the stores are full, food is plentiful, Western films are playing in the cinemas, there are beautiful women... Only there's no red ink."

The true meaning of these lines isn't simply a regime's censorship; it's the human loss of the language to express reality, and sometimes even the capacity to think about it. This blog is a space to counter that lack of "red ink": to think about the unspeakable, to express the unthinkable.

This is where the subtlety of literature, the sharpness of politics, and the broad perspective of sociology meet. The goal isn't to repeat ready-made stereotypes; it's to foster intellectual independence, critical thinking, and the courage of thought.