Date: Thu, 4 Mar 2004 13:15:44 -0800 (PST)
From: "J.M. Adams" <ringfingers-AT-yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [postanarchism] The Agreement of Zizek and Katsiafiacas on Multiculturalism 


Responses are below, after the >>

Hmmm. Zizek appears to embrace and reject cultural
studies more or less simulataneously, so we should
understand all of his rejections as at the same time
embraces of some sort...? 

>>No, I said in the specific instance of the Islamic
fundamentalism question, or more broadly, of the
question of 'difference', he is not simply dismissing
difference but is at the same time embracing it, so
long as the Otherness of the Other is really taken
seriously.<<

It is precisely correct that *nowhere* in the text is
coexistence with Islam even the issue. If you wish to
draw out an argument based on other parts of Zizek's
work, then go for it, but it simply *isn't* in the 
text we were discussing. 

>>No single text stands alone, what is seemingly
referred to positively is always negatively invoked,
especially when we are talking about difficult
theorists such as Zizek, so I think it is indeed quite
fair to say that the text I quoted is calling for a
qualified coexistence with Islam, since he is of
course, not speaking in a textual vacuum and I
provided thorough proof that this is indeed his stance
throughout 'Welcome to the Desert of the Real'.<<

To be intolerant of intolerance is hardly strange, is
it - assuming the "other" really is intolerant? At 
issue is whether that intolerance of the other is
real,or whether it simply a manifestation of racism.

>> It depends on whether your intolerance of the
Other's intolerance is converging with and even worse,
directly supporting the liberal democratic consensus
that you claim to be undermining with more radical
anarchist views, due to your unavoidable ignorance of
the real internal plurality of the culture at hand -
its one thing to remotely support internal
transformation away from capitalist fundamentalism
(this might be a good Zizekian or Katsiafician way to
think of what we are calling, but what certainly is
not, Islamic fundamentalism) and towards say, an
Islamic anarchism, but its quite another to insist on
a single worldwide standard for what is right, true
and just.<<



Perhaps "so-called fundamentalism" is a "passion for
the real," but, honestly, so what? Are we going to 
celebrate every act of rupture, however misdirected
or ill-considered?... But then there is the
inescapable waste involved in the act, an expenditure
that opens no new spaces we would want to enter, and
one which none of us can make without stepping over
lines i suspect most anarchists feel the need to hold
onto. 

<<Well just to be very clear, personally when it comes
to the question of political violence I am somewhere
between pacifism, the black bloc and the Zapatistas;
so I don't even support groups like the RAF, as many
anarchists do (much less those that privilege being
militant over being radical to an even greater extent,
such as what we usually call 'terrorists') - but I do
think what Zizek is talking about here about the
'passion for the Real' is an interesting point, its
something that Virilio talks about extensively as
well, in his conceptions of 'popular defense'.
Basically what I see as interesting about this is the
critique of technological mediation that it implies,
and what this means about the kind of society we live
in; for instance as Virilio asks, how much more
violence and bloodshed are people willing to inflict
from behind the safety of a remote computer screen, or
from an aircraft carrier? In face to face combat at
least, both he and Zizek argue, the combatant at least
has to experience every aspect of what is taking
place, there is no simple, privileged, comfortable
escape like there is when you are on the side that
controls the entirety of the technological apparatus
(ICBMs, spy satellite systems, total information
awareness, etc.). You ask if this passion for the Real
leads away from anarchist values, I think you are
right that in Zizek's hands it certainly does (since
he is a Leninist), but in Virilio's it does not (since
he is an anarchist), which is why I prefer the latter
of the two, but am willing to learn from the former.<<



But the question of what happened in Yugoslavia is
not one that can be answered by recourse to categories
like "Jew," "Christian," or "Muslim," or by simple
recourse to greater or lesser degrees of
"tolerance."...That doesn't change the fact that a
recourse to dogmatic, "fundamental" beliefs seems to
have eased to the road to human catastrophe.

<<But as interesting as that subject may be, it was
not what we were talking about, we were talking about
whether Islamic fundamentalism is really as oppressive
as it is understood to be by those of us who are
outside of it - and here, Zizek, like Katsiaficas, has
 shown that in fact Islamic fundamentalism has
historically been far more tolerant of Jews than has
Christianity.<<

There is, i think, some value in noting 
that there are in the world: 

1) Real fundamentalists, who rely for key elements 
of there direction in life on what they believe are
divinely inspired, inerrant doctrines or text. These
may put forth principles that inspire tolerance 
towards others, or they may inspire holy war. What
they clearly don't inspire is radical nonconformity.
Coexistence with these real fundamentalists may be
possible and desirable, for currently existing 
political formations or for anarchist societies. 
That won't be determined by fundamentalism per se,
but by the content of the fundamentals. 

<<agreed, but part of being really free, even in the
anarchist sense, is the freedom to willfully choose to
live in what others might consider 'conformist' forms
of life, such as Islamic fundamentalism - if we agree
on that then apparently we agree on your whole
point.<<



2) Folks identified as "fundamentalist" because they
have beliefs that appear outside the range of 
possibility in our own cultures. To the extent that
these people do not actually espouse a recourse to
fundamentals, we would certainly be doing a good 
thing by correcting and clarifying the mistaken
perception of them as "fundamentalists."

<<okay...<<

Jason




  

===="Being at one is god-like and good, but human, too human, the 
        mania
     Which insists there is only the One, one country, one truth and
         one way."

- Friedrich Hölderlin, 1799

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