This is the thread where we talk about Slavoj Zizek...

i watched his "perverts guide to cinema" off netflix and it was pretty dim

Watched parts - some of his freudian readings of hitchcock seem a little basic since the freudian ideas are so obvious in the films. I found his readings of Lynch more interesting though at times he kind of grasps to avoid not having something to say.

im watching that video, and it is useful that he puts his cards on the table. all forms of "capitalism"
are bad, no matter how ameliorative. (he doesn't begin to define capitalism.) rwanda (or whatever) is less important than the "anti-imperialist struggle". (i don't know where this was taking place in 1994.) we must simply reject capitalism; the rest is a side-issue. he still isn't saying what his communist utopia is, how it is organized.

ah, now capitalism is a "totality" that generates religious fundamentalism because it is responsible for the decline of the secular left in muslim countries. he's talking about female circumcision. which is a "symptom" of global capitalism. i don't think this is true, is it? female circumcision (and other barbaric practices) were part of the debate during the british empire. did the empire "produce" said practices? i can see how it's comforting to think so; but zizek here is just demonstrating his historical ignorance.

(in any case he is brutally simplifying things: can he really account for the taliban *solely* in terms of capitalism? i would have thought that the invasion of the secular leftists of the ussr had at least something to do with it too. but perhaps capitalism is also responsible, in the final analysis, for the corruption of the first communist utopia.)

21 minutes: still no definition of capitalism or explanation of "totality"; no description of his utopia. so only some of his cards on the table. (oh, a rape joke. funny!) he thinks there can be and ought to be a "total" break with "capitalism" because it's a "totality" and any change within "it" is illusory. he simply does not say what lies on the other side of the break.

(ah, just now: "historical forms of capitalism". this is naked idealism.)

Basically Zizek's argument re the decline of secularism in the middle east is that the international success of capitalism politically and economically means that any attempt to rebel against its imposed status quo is now framed in apocalyptic terms.

Can't account entirely for female circumcision (he's being cute if he pretends otherwise) but maybe can account for the way in which communities lean on fundamentalism as a kind of bulwark against what is seen as the west's corruption.

Which is pretty much the same as Terry Eagleton's argument that the recent rise of islamic fundamentalism is due to the US jumping on any kind of left-wing government in the middle east until secular alternatives to the status quo became unviable.

Re this argument, Zizek does have this nice line about how Fukiyama's 'End of History' and Huntington's 'Clash of Civilisations' inadvertently and unwittingly add up to a whole correct picture: in a world where capitalism has "won", conflicts between different interests can only be expressed as these massive non-economic cultural clashes.

zizek is ott but this thing about secularism/capitalism/the middle east is borne out rather nicely in iran in the works of ali shariati and jalal al e ahmad, i think!

and in khomeini's writing for that matter

foucault struggled with some of the same issues when writing about iran too.

it is kind of a fascinating question, i think--to what extent is it possible to critique "the west" using its "own" tools?

John Gray makes basically the same argument as Zizek and Eagleton (so now you'll all conclude it must be wrong!).

zizek is ott but

Probably worth making this some sort of automatic prefix to all posts about dude.

shariati, i should clarify, is not a "fundamentalist" by any stretch of the imagination, but he turns toward islam as a way of articulating a criticism of western imperialism without relying on western thought (i.e. marx)

Which is pretty much the same as Terry Eagleton's argument that the recent rise of islamic fundamentalism is due to the US jumping on any kind of left-wing government in the middle east until secular alternatives to the status quo became unviable.

yeah, it's a fairly prevalent viewpoint. it's not 100% without merit, but it is intensely complicated. the secular left in the third world was dialectically related to the colonial project in the first place. and there's no way of re-running the post-cold war era without US influence in the third world to find out. (or, at least, only with some US interference, e.g., around medical care, but without all the bad stuff. i.e., without the cold war.)

but moreover, it is nonsense to say it was only the capitalist west that prompted the rise of fundamentalism. the communist west was just as "culpable". it's a paranoid delusion to think that the CIA (or... mossad) single-handedly created the muj or the taliban. and it's very easy to deplore everything the US did in the cold war now that it's over, but babytalk to ignore this wider context, as if the *object* of US policy was to create fundamentalist reactionaries. the cold war was real and terrible.

do we think that, had the US left the field (and allowed the communist countries free play in africa) that that scenario would not have inspired a fundamentalist reaction? it's possible to believe it, but i don't.

(sure sure, there are other possible scenarios: a perfect secular left with no soviet interference, the medical revolution, the end of barbaric practices, all achieved without relation to the rich north...)

it is kind of a fascinating question, i think--to what extent is it possible to critique "the west" using its "own" tools?

― max, Tuesday, January 5, 2010 12:46 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark

yeah: this is a book by a non-dickweed that gets into it:

http://www.bolerium.com/bol48/images/items/125848.jpg

re-running the post-cold war

argh: just "post-war".

but moreover, it is nonsense to say it was only the capitalist west that prompted the rise of fundamentalism. the communist west was just as "culpable". it's a paranoid delusion to think that the CIA (or... mossad) single-handedly created the muj or the taliban.

I think this is right. And it's also possible to look at the support of fundamentalisms as a poor choice rather than an inevitable outgrowth of our foreign policy. I mean you can pull the whole "unintended consequences" argument but I don't think you can project some kind of perfect symmetry onto blowback.

So slowly making my way through Violence. I love his insights but at the same time I can't help but feel like it's the same old Marxism in a new package and without a program. He's so good at finding contradictions and identifying evils, but it's never clear where the "good" is in relation to those evils. In one chapter he names "love" as an alternative to solipsistic, masturbatory contemporary culture, but what the hell does he mean by love? You never find out - he's already on to the next thing by the time you ask.

whenever i see this thread title i think it's about this guy

http://www.heroestheseries.com/uploads/2008/10/zeljko-ivanek2.jpg

in the doc they made abt him he says love is evil too tho \0_o?

Right, the whole line about love not as universal love but actually as love of one thing to exclusion of or above others.

But he also says that universal love is fake so maybe he means that real love is "evil" only in a kind of inverted way being as how everything he says is inverted.

well yeah obv

in the doc they made abt him he says love is evil too tho \0_o?

― plaxico (I know, right?), Thursday, January 7, 2010 9:13 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Right, the whole line about love not as universal love but actually as love of one thing to exclusion of or above others.

― pithfork (Hurting 2), Thursday, January 7, 2010 9:40 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

But he also says that universal love is fake so maybe he means that real love is "evil" only in a kind of inverted way being as how everything he says is inverted.

― pithfork (Hurting 2), Thursday, January 7, 2010 9:40 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

this sounds like some self-help bs rather than marxism dunnit?

Not really. Also he's a psychoanalytic theorist and he's not always in total marxist mode.

I think this is right. And it's also possible to look at the support of fundamentalisms as a poor choice rather than an inevitable outgrowth of our foreign policy. I mean you can pull the whole "unintended consequences" argument but I don't think you can project some kind of perfect symmetry onto blowback.

I think he'd probably agree with this. His line on fundamentalism islam is basically a descendent of his similar argument re ethnic nationalism in former Soviet states in Eastern Europe. Obv you can't say "it's the west's fault" as if the very fact of e.g. the former state of Yugoslavia being a communist state is irrelevant. The point is more like: if the struggle as expressed in eco-politico-ideological terms capitalism vs communism is won decisively by the former, the struggle itself does not end so much as mutate into another struggle expressed in non-eco-politico-ideological terms (e.g. racism/religious extremism). He's arguing with neo-liberal smugness w/r/t the triumph of the west - to which most sensible people of various political persuasions would respond, "well, duh!"

think people need to look at a longer historical span than the "neoliberal epoch". im pretty dubious about this characterization anyway -- yes, yes, we all know about what thatcher and reagan did. but within the c. 500-600 year-long history of global capitalism, what they did was not *that* much of a change. within the c. 75-100-year history (in the UK when maggie took over) of big-state intervention, despite the privatizations, we still have an historically very large state, absolutely unthinkable within the boundaries of 19th century liberalism.

but at the same time, i don't think zizek even tries to define capitalism.

you or he would have to give an instance of this "stuggle" mutating -- a concrete example of a communist vs capitalist clash turning into something else. he can't rely on wafty ideas about some ideal struggle finding a concrete form in communism (or whatever) -- that way lies platonism. im just asking, not saying there isn't one. but really, soviet communism did not abolish racism! it was not very friendly towards muslims in central asia, or toward jews (ie in the late 40s purges).

@hurting: im just not seeing how we can found a political movement on zizek's conception of love, hard-hearted materialistic bastard that i am.

if the struggle as expressed in eco-politico-ideological terms capitalism vs communism is won decisively by the former, the struggle itself does not end so much as mutate into another struggle expressed in non-eco-politico-ideological terms

Capitalism won, but the regimes in the Middle East don't look anything like Western capitalist economies, do they? Sure they're mostly client states, but the West has manipulated an authoritarianism and culture of corruption that are to some degree indigenous. Surely the fundamentalists are aiming at that as much as "The West". Bin Laden has a special hatred for the Saudi regime, which is partly a Western client state, but also partly a regional power in its own right.

I think Tim is correct and I think the argument marxists would make and that Zizek does/would make is that capitalism by its nature must exclude many and exploit many in order to power its "freedom" and "wealth" machine. Hence, the argument would go, you have the United States propping up dictators in the middle east in order that it can maintain easy access to their oil. This is done without true regard for the democratic freedoms of those people, and thus the people of those nations become susceptible to some form of radicalization or other. Radical Islam is the form it happens to take.

It's also worth noting that our support for many of those regimes (or insurgent groups in some cases) did in fact arise out of the Cold War and our anything-but-communist foreign policy.

but the roots of the muslim brotherhood -- a pretty important force in islamism -- have almost nothing to do with US influence. it started really making waves when egpyt, under nasser, was cosying up to the USSR. and im not sure that that in itself was their main beef. and besides which egypt, though important, is not an oil state. the narrative of the muslim brotherhood has very little to do with zizek's scenario. and as for "radical islam is the form it happens to take" -- happens to!? "some form of radicalization or other"? this is to ride roughshod over what actually happens in favour of what theory tells us "ought to".

no argument on the the fact that capitalism exploits people, but within the west it has also materially enriched them -- on the whole, and by comparison with other contemporary systems. so in the west you have to propose a superior, non-exploitative system, people being what they are.

no argument on the the fact that capitalism exploits people, but within the west it has also materially enriched them -- on the whole, and by comparison with other contemporary systems. so in the west you have to propose a superior, non-exploitative system, people being what they are.

Enriched people in the west but arguably worsened the situations of the poorest in the "developing world." I agree with you that he doesn't seem to have a better idea, but I think the point is to respond to the argument that if you just keep letting capitalism do what it do, it will eventually make everyone better off.

but the roots of the muslim brotherhood -- a pretty important force in islamism -- have almost nothing to do with US influence. it started really making waves when egpyt, under nasser, was cosying up to the USSR. and im not sure that that in itself was their main beef.

muslim brotherhood was founded well before nasser was in power as a response to british militarism/colonialism

uh the whole problem with this is that "capitalism" doesn't have an easy 1-to-1 relationship to what powerful, rich countries have done to poorer ones

the banal counter example is that the growing wealth of brazil, china, india, etc have done more to upset the anglo-american order than anything else

uh the whole problem with this is that "capitalism" doesn't have an easy 1-to-1 relationship to what powerful, rich countries have done to poorer ones

It depends on whether we're talking about "capitalism" in the Adam Smith sense of an ideal free market system or "capitalism" as it actually practiced in the real world and by the US among others, in which the mantra of "free markets" as this wonderful wealth-creation engine is used to legitimate exploitation, military imperialism, and a whole host of evils.

I do think Zizek fails to acknowledge that capitalism has ANY wealth creation power, which is a problem. Like there's actually a part where he describes capitalism as something that "steals, or 'creates' wealth."

Well, I haven't read him much, tbh. He seems a bit too un-empirical in his approach to my liking. I guess from a purely abstract, theoretical perspective one could argue that capitalism doesn't create wealth it only distributes it more unequally. I guess there's a fundamental difference of opinion about whether inequality is good because it's an incentive to innovate/work hard/etc., or whether there are more egalitarian ways of obtaining good-enough outcomes.

Well I think it's hard to define "wealth" adequately, but I think it's pretty easy to show that there isn't a constant, finite amount of wealth in the world, and that capitalism has probably, at least in the short run, increased the total amount of it in the world, regardless of how it's been distributed. It's kind of an endless argument - I mean you can pull the "never have so many people lived so well" argument, or you can say "look how fast the favelas are growing" but I think you have to at least acknowledge that capitalism has some power to generate wealth beyond just "stealing" resources.

Well I think it's hard to define "wealth" adequately, but I think it's pretty easy to show that there isn't a constant, finite amount of wealth in the world, and that capitalism has probably, at least in the short run, increased the total amount of it in the world, regardless of how it's been distributed

This parts I think iseasy to show: "there isn't a constant, finite amount of wealth in the world".

This part, not so much: "capitalism has ... increased the total amount of it in the world".

The world is not a reproducible experiment where we can add in capitalism and take it out, keeping all other variables constant, and compare the results. Maybe it's been technology that's increased wealth, which happened to coincide with increased capitalism? Or better education, health, human rights, women's suffrage, democracy, etc. Who knows which factor is predominant?

muslim brotherhood was founded well before nasser was in power as a response to british militarism/colonialism

― max, Friday, January 8, 2010 5:15 PM (30 minutes ago) Bookmark

and got much stronger and more militant after the british were kicked out...

it's obviously easier to think of everything from the pov of the west, but the muslim bros were about a lot more than getting rid of the brits. they were against any kind of secular government.

n e way, zizek's argument that islamism is a result of US meddling doesn't stand up. it was also the brits. but i would imagine in the early history of the muslim brotherhood, it was also the collapse of the ottoman empire, and the desire to restore it? or something like it? idk, throwing that one out there, it's important context that helps explain the brits' presence.

Maybe it's been technology that's increased wealth, which happened to coincide with increased capitalism? Or better education, health, human rights, women's suffrage, democracy, etc. Who knows which factor is predominant?

― o. nate, Friday, January 8, 2010 5:49 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

"happened to coincide"? a case could be made, but really a whole lot of technology has come out of capitalist wars. science is a pretty capital-intensive business. it's difficult to separate all these things out, of course, equally difficult to discuss their relations.

marx iirc was about superseding capitalism; zizek treats it like a supernatural evil spirit that has to be destroyed.

a whole lot of technology has come out of capitalist wars

That seems like a strange way to characterize the two World Wars (if that's what you're referring to). Are you saying that only wars between capitalist countries would lead to innovation?

im using trot-speak with a dab of irony, but don't just mean those wars. im saying that war and trade were in lockstep during the scientific revolution, which was also closely related to the advance of bourgeois democracy and protestant religion, in england. it's not a matter of "competition producing innovation" or anything glib like that, more that, unless you have global trade, you don't have much need for super-accurate navigation, or long-range communication. and trade advanced along the lines of private ownership (more or less) because idk long story but that's how it happened.

Your points make sense. I would agree that in the history of the world (the only world we can observe), capitalism, free trade, etc. have gone hand in hand with lots of innovation. But innovation also happened of course before there was anything as economically sophisticated as modern capitalism. I'm not sure about the validity of conflating trade and capitalism, because trade is about as ancient as human civilization, but I don't think we can make the same point about capitalism without making our definition overly broad.

yeah. im not sure if zizek is even thinking about these questions though! i don't know what his definition of capitalism is. im mostly thinking of britain in all this, and while for sure there's always been trade, our move to capitalism -- the concentration of capital, the institution of the large-scale firm, the notion of shareholding, the division of labour -- was intimately related to us "opening up" markets overseas (using guns). the massive profits from overseas trade stimulated industry at home. etc. the role of the state in all this became pretty controversial.

anyway -- these questions are huge and no-one can answer them once and for all. but to my mind they're going to tell us more than zizek's extolling of "love" and suchlike.

Well, it's an interesting question about how we choose to organize ourselves as a society. There's an inherent conflict between our democratic ideals which say that all people are equal, and our capitalist ideals which seem to require the existence of a wealthy class, which tends to perpetuate its existence using, ahem, less than democratic means.

right now and for the next 40 minutes, zizek on "the double death of neo-liberalism" -

http://resonancefm.com

iirc he thinks it died once on 9/11 and once again in autumn 2008.

as, really quite obviously, it did not.

as gone over above, based on the youtube clip, he doesn't actually give a fuck whether we have "neo-liberalism", "liberalism", or (what we have) a "mized economy", or any other form of capitalism. and that pretty obviously has not gone away either.

this serrano bit is basically my thesis, coulda used this this time last yr ziz

ok didn't turn out how i thought

new Verso catalogue lists "Slavoj Zizek’s brand new book Living in the End Times, about the forthcoming apocalypse." Wuh oh.

"Everything You Wanted to Know About Lacan But Were Afraid to Ask Alfred Hitchcock" is pretty funny too

am i right in thinking he's interviewed in the current cahiers du cinema?

http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2010/04/zizek-on-avatar.html

oh i am... and he's now written about avatar twice without seeing it.

blah blah Morbs zing blah blah will this do?