File spoon-archives/postanarchism.archive/postanarchism_2004/postanarchism.0402, message 79


Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 18:08:44 -0800 (PST)
From: villon sasha k <il_frenetico-AT-yahoo.com>
Subject: [postanarchism] Zizek, post-poststructuralism, and totalitarianism


Zizek is interesting.  Newman seems to get a lot of
his reading of Lacan from Zizek, which make a lot of
sense given that one of Zizek’s main points about
Lacan is that he allows us to move beyond
post-structuralism.  Zizek, of course, is militantly
anti-poststructuralist.  So I think it also makes
sense that this list thinks about the present day
Lacanian post-poststructuralists such as Zizek and
Badiou (perhaps Newman somewhat fits here, although he
seems a bit more of a mix).  Look at the introduction
to Zizek’s Tarrying with the Negative for an
explication of Lacan as what allows us to move beyond
poststructuralism/postmodernism.

	My earlier comments on the linkage between the
present stage of capitalism and the ideology of
multiculturalism came not from Jameson but straight
from Zizek.  In fact, one of Zizek’s most stable
targets has been multiculturalism (we could say that
he is also militantly anti-multiculturalism as an
ideology of capitalism).  Zizek would certainly
support the Jamesonian idea that postmodernism is a
symptom of capitalism.  It is worth, I think,
reflecting on the history of the categories we use. 
In the disciplines of social science and history, the
shift to the usage of pre-modern/modern instead of
feudalism/capitalism primarily occurred in the 1950s. 
This was part of a conservative reaction to Marxism
and revolution.  Modernization theory began as an
alternative theory of stages in development, one,
however, that didn’t rely on class struggle as a motor
but on institution building.  We can even see this
shift taking place in the House Un-American Activities
Hearings of the 1950s, in which historians battled
around the very question of whether to use
feudalism/capitalism or pre-modernity/modernity—people
lost their careers and even committed suicide over
this.  Later, in another period of reaction (the
post-1968 period), conservatives introduced into broad
usage the term post-modern.  And then leftists,
Jameson and David Harvey, recuperated the term by
linking it as a symptom of late-capitalism or flexible
accumulation.  Zizek takes part in this later move,
critiquing postmodernism as a sophistry linked to
capitalism.  

	Zizek’s critique of the usage of totalitarianism fits
in here, for the discourse of "totalitarianism", too,
is linked to this conservative move to delink ideology
from an analysis of capitalism.  Again, one of his
main targets of his Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism?
is multiculturalism (but, as always, also
late-capitalism, post-structuralism and liberalism). 
Zizek actually argues for intolerance.  The posted
review was somewhat interesting, but I think most of
the problems Pessoa notes are his not Zizeks.  Pessoa
states: “Deeply sunk into his brilliant
psychoanalytical intellect, however, Zizek makes some
minor historical and theoretical mistakes. First,
there is no reason to grant to Stalinism instead of
Nazism the sole attempt to escape the logic of
Capital. Nazism is commonly known as having asserted a
'third way' between Marxism and Liberalism. Second, if
totalitarianism acts as an ' ideological anti-oxidant'
for liberal-democratic discourse, that says nothing
about capitalism in itself. Throughout his argument,
Zizek makes the common mistake of intrinsically
linking these two discourses together. Nevertheless,
these mistakes are minor and do not affect the overall
aim of the book, which is to reveal the contemporary
and political phobia sustaining liberal-democratic
discourse.”
Of course, Zizek would see, as many people would, that
Fascism is an attempt by capital to save itself and
not outside of capitalism at all (if we are going to
disagree with Zizek here, I think it makes more sense
to say that Stalinism was counter-revolutionary and
part of capitalist modernization as well).  For Zizek,
there is no “third way”.  Pessoa says nothing of why
it is a mistake to link liberal-democratic discourse
to capitalism-—I, following Zizek, Jameson, Harvey and
others, would say it is a mistake not to.  This is no
minor part of the book or of Zizek, of course, it is
one of his main points.  But at least Pessoa notes
that it isn’t just liberalism that Zizek is fighting
against: “This is clear in his repetitive discussion
of Cultural Studies and social movements which Zizek
sees as guilty for allowing liberal-capitalist
discourse to permeate and replicate its
dimensions.”-—it is liberal-capitalist discourse, not
just liberalism that Zizek opposes and he clearly
includes multiculturalism there.  For Zizek, one of
the main problems with “totalitarianism” is that it is
depoliticized, which means that it comes to be
delinked from a critique of capitalism.  Again, we
could look at that term’s history to see the
conservative reaction against revolution at work:
specifically in the discursive split between
“authoritarian” (ok) and “totalitarian” (bad) that is
a founding conservative move.  

	I would also note, bringing us back to the discussion
at hand, that nobody here is calling Islamic
Fundamentalism (I.F.) “totalitarian”.  But certainly
it might be part of everyday discourse to do so,
although I haven’t really heard the term used much in
such a way.  If so, and we want to learn from Zizek,
perhaps it makes the most sense to not use
“totalitarianism” to describe I.F., but to instead
repoliticize the discourse by bringing it back to a
discussion of capitalism and its present ideologies:
e.g. both as a critique of liberal-capitalist
discourse and of I.F. as also a symptom of the time. 
If I remember right, that is just what Zizek does in
his Welcome to the Desert of the Real.  Remember that
the US supported the rise of I.F. in order to fight
the commies in the Mid-east, to keep authoritarian
governments in power such as in Saudi Arabia and keep
the oil flowing, and fight the Soviets.  Israel
originally supported I.F. (they supported Hamas!) in
Palestine in order to combat the leftists in the PLO. 
Of course, everything escapes the intensions
originally laid upon it (we just need to look at what
has happened to Israel and Hamas now).  And, while the
capitalist west has certainly used I.F. in different
ways, this does not mean believers in I.F. have no
agency.  We could look at the interesting case of
Tariq Ramadan here, as I think Jason suggested.  Yet
we need to stay critical and look at this historically
as well; otherwise we will be stuck with a rather
blind, ahistorical view of the world, one in which we
lose all our agency.

	As I suggested in my last—(too much of a
shorthand)—post, perhaps it would be interesting for
us to read some of the Lacanians together.  I would
suggest Badiou’s short Ethics book, since it somewhat
targets the questions we have been dealing with in
recent discussions: universalism, an ethics of
difference, etc..  

best,
  sasha

====-------------

Anarchist Discussion Board -- Also for response to KKA, WD and Aporia: http://pub47.ezboard.com/banarchykka


The Killing King Abacus Page: http://www.geocities.com/kk_abacus

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want.
http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools

   

Driftline Main Page

 

Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005