Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2000 11:00:44 +1100
From: Russell Grinker <grinker-AT-mweb.co.za> (by way of pmargin-AT-xchange.anarki.net (Steve Wright))
Subject: AUT: Fw: Zizek on Haider


Via the DEBATE list, and Doug Henwood on LBO talk . . .

-----Original Message-----
From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood-AT-panix.com>
To: lbo-talk-AT-lists.panix.com <lbo-talk-AT-lists.panix.com>
Date: Thursday, February 10, 2000 3:46 AM
Subject: Zizek on Haider


>[Here, courtesy of the author, is the English original of an article
>that appeared in German in today's Suddeutsche Zeitung. The Nation
>rejected a version of this.]
>
>WHY DO WE ALL LOVE TO HATE HAIDER?
>
>Slavoj Zizek
>
>
>The prospect of Joerg Haider's Freidemokraten participation in the
>Austrian government aroused horror in the entire spectrum of the
>"legitimate democratic" political block in the Western world: from
>the Social Democratic Left to the Christian conservatives, from
>Chirac to Clinton - not to mention, of course, Israel -, they all
>expressed "worries" and announced at least symbolic measures of
>Austria's diplomatic quarantine, untill this disease disappears or is
>proven not really dangerous.
>
>Some commentators perceive this horror as the proof of how the basic
>post-World-War-II anti-Fascist democratic consensus in Europe still
>holds - are, however, things really so unequivocal? The first thing
>to do here is to recall the well-concealed, but nonetheless
>unmistakable, sigh of relief in the predominant democratic political
>field, when, a decade ago, the Rightist populist parties became a
>serious presence in Europe. The message of this relief was: finally
>the enemy whom we can all together properly hate, whom we can
>sacrifice - excommunicate - in order to demonstrate our democratic
>consensus! This relief is to be read against the background of what
>is usually referred to as the emerging "post-political consensus."
>
>The two-party system, the predominant form of politics in our
>post-political era, is the appearance of a choice where there is
>basically none. Both poles converge on their economic policy - recall
>recent elevations, by Clinton and Blair, of the "tight fiscal policy"
>as the key tenet of the modern Left: the tight fiscal policy sustains
>economic growth, and growth allows us to play a more active social
>policy in our fight for better social security, education and
>health... The difference of the two parties is thus ultimately
>reduced to the opposed cultural attitudes: multiculturalist, sexual
>etc. "openness" versus traditional "family values." And,
>significantly, it is the Rightist option that addresses and attempts
>to mobilize whatever remains of the mainstream working class in our
>Western societies, while the multiculturalist tolerance is becoming
>the motto of new privileged "symbolic classes" (journalists,
>academics, managers...). This political choice - Social Democrat or
>Christian Democrat in Germany, Democrat or Republican... - cannot but
>remind us of our predicament when we want artificial sweetener in an
>American cafeteria: the all-present alternative of Nutra-Sweet Equal
>and High&Low, of blue and red small bags, where almost each person
>has his/her preferences (avoid the red ones, they contain cancerous
>substances, or vice-versa), where this ridiculous sticking to one's
>choice merely accentuates the utter meaninglessness of the
>alternative.
>
>And does the same not go for late TV talk shows, where the "freedom
>to choose" is the choice between Jay Leno and David Letterman? Or for
>the soda drinks: Coke or Pepsi? It is a well-known fact that the
>"Close the door" button in most elevators is a totally disfunctional
>placebo, placed there just to give the individuals the impression
>that they are somehow participating, contributing to the speed of the
>elevator journey - when we push this button, the door closes in
>exactly the same time as when we just pressed the floor button
>without "speeding up" the process by pressing also the "Close the
>door" button. This extreme case of fake participation is an
>appropriate metaphor of the participation of individuals in our
>"postmodern" political process.
>
>And this brings us back to Haider: significantly, the only political
>force with the serious weight which DOES still evoke an antagonistic
>response of Us against Them is the new populist Right - Haider in
>Austria, le Pen in France, Republicans in Germany, Buchanan in the
>US. However, it is precisely for this reason that it plays a key
>structural role in the legitimacy of the new liberal-democratic
>hegemony. They are the negative common denominator of the entire
>center-left liberal spectrum: they are the excluded ones who, through
>this very exclusion (their inacceptability as the party of the
>government) provide the negative legitimacy of the liberal hegemony,
>the proof of their "democratic" attitude. In this way, their
>existence displaces the TRUE focus of the political struggle (which
>is, of course, the stifling of any Leftist radical alternative) to
>the "solidarity" of the entire "democratic" bloc against the racist
>neo-Nazi etc. danger.
>
>Therein resides the ultimate proof of the liberal-democratic hegemony
>of today's ideologico-political scene, the hegemony which was
>accomplished with the emergence of the "Third Way" social democracy.
>The "Third Way" is precisely social democracy under the hegemony of
>liberal-democratic capitalism. i.e. deprived of its minimal
>subversive sting, excluding the last reference to anti-capitalism and
>class struggle.
>
>It is absolutely crucial that the new Rightist populists are the only
>"serious" political force today which addresses the people with the
>anti-capitalist rhetorics, although coated in
>nationalist/racist/religious clothing (multinational corporations who
>"betray" the common decent working people of our nation). At the
>congress of the Front National a couple of years ago, le Pen brought
>to stage an Algerian, an African and a Jew, embraced them all and
>told the gathered public: "They are no less French than I am - it is
>the representatives of the big multinational capital, ignoring their
>duty to France, who are the true danger to our identity!"
>Hypocritical as such statements are, they nonetheless signal how the
>populist Right is moving to occupy the terrain left vacant by the
>Left.
>
>Here, the liberal-democratic Neue Mitte plays a double game: it puts
>forward Righist populists as our common true enemy, while it
>effectively manipulates this Rightist scare in order to hegemonize
>the "democratic" field, i.e. to define the terrain and win over,
>discipline, its true adversary, the radical Left. And in the events
>like Haider's party's participation in the government (which, let us
>not forget, has a precedent in the Fini's neo-Fascist Alleanza
>Nazionale's participation in the Berlusconi government a couple of
>years ago in Italy!), die neue Mitte gets its own message back in its
>inverted - true - form. The participation in the government of the
>far Right is the price the Left is paying for its renunciation of any
>radical political project, for accepting market capitalism as "the
>only game in town".




     --- from list aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---