Zizek within the limits of mere reason

kenneth.mackendrick at utoronto.ca kenneth.mackendrick at utoronto.ca
Sat Dec 18 05:37:53 PST 1999


On Fri, 17 Dec 1999 19:22:58 -0500 Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu> wrote:


> Zizek helped to secure the support for ideology of humanitarian bombings even
more effectively than otherwise.

I doubt it. Do you really think anyone read his essay on the Double Blackmail and left with the impression, "Zizek is just like a NATO fighter pilot."


> Considering this fact, I think Zizek should thank paranoid conspiracy
theorists. There's nothing like the menace of an ultra-right nationalist victory -- its real power is created by right-wing paranoia, and its mythical power is projected by liberal paranoia -- that helps to shore up Zizek's politics.

I suppose you'd rather have had the fascists win, eh? I'll take left of centre feminist and eco-liberals to fascists every single time, without a moment of hesitation. You think he should have run for the communists? (you think they had a chance?)(isn't this precisely the kind of idealism that Zizek finds deplorable - because it basks in either its jouissance of victimhood and powerlessness or its self-righteous Marxo-Heideggerian jargon?)


> In other words, Zizek is a beneficiary of the vicious dialectical twins of
right-wing and liberal conspiracy theories. BTW, the Reform Party is an apt name, given Zizek's politics and pop culture gluttony. What's next? A performative intervention in pro-wrestling?

Nope, the abuse of Lacanian psychoanalysis in film theory.

ken



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