Nietzsche and stuff

Miles Jackson cqmv at odin.cc.pdx.edu
Sun Aug 8 12:25:40 PDT 1999


rc-am wrote:


> > Miles Jackson wrote:
>
> > >The more I read Fred, the more I question the
> > >originality of most of the recent pomo literature (e.g.,
> > >Zizek, Butler).
>
> doug wrote:
>
> > But you're reading him backwards, through them.
>
> miles,
>
> remind me of when either butler or zizek claimed their stuff was
> original. and, more specifically, i think you couldn't actually have
> read much zizek, since he consistently declaims against 'postmodernism'.
> but doug's point still stands: you can't read nietzsche now without
> bouncing his work through (what perhaps is still a fantastic) reading of
> butler and zizek, or some imagined 'postmodernism'. in any case, zizek
> is not a nihilist -- far from it.
>
> Angela
> _________

Actually, I read N. long before I had ever heard of "postmodernism". It's just the opposite way around for me: I read Butler et al. through Fred. I guess I sounded snottier than I meant to be with my 'originality' aside; I like a lot of pomo stuff, Butler especially, but I hate the way some of her fans overemphasize the originality of her analyses (e.g., symbolic interactionists and ethnomethodologists in sociology have been making her "gender as performative" argument for decades!).

True, I'm no Zizek scholar. But isn't N's stuff on the multiplicity of subject and will related to Zizek's perspective? What does Z think of Fred?

And lastly, who brought up nihilism? I don't consider anybody mentioned above a nihilist. Or is anyone that interrogates realist philosophical assumptions a nihilist?

Miles



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