Zizek and Matrix (was: Grumpy lefties and VENONA)

Rob Schaap rws at comserver.canberra.edu.au
Sun Dec 19 03:09:13 PST 1999


G'day Ken,


>I just don't understand why so many people are interested in burning as many
>bridges as they can on their way out of theory. In this I find someone
>like Martin J. Beck Matustik an exemplar of solidarity. His book Specters of
>Liberation is inspiration, because he's willing and interested in human
>liberation, despite theoretical disagreements - and he's looking to find as
>many synthetic connections as possible between divergent theories ...

I'll wear that, Ken. If one doesn't feel someone has done well at making themselves accessible or comprehensible, may one not say so without bridges igniting? When Zizek tells me he disagrees with Marx on the nature of capitalism's self-transforming internal contradiction, I get interested, but then I can't make enough of what he's saying to understand how, where, why he disagrees. So I put him down in a state of confusion. Not just about what he thinks, but also about what I thought Marx thought. So I don't like it, and, as you advise, move the fuck on - jouissancelessly, alas, but for the little thrill I get by blaming him for my incapacity to understand rather than my simple self.

And I hardly think I was firing 'flaming arrows'!

Whingeing a little is all.

Cheers, Rob.



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