>>What task and why not? What is it exactly that needs explaining and what
>>is Zizek analyzing and what he does he think needs explaining?
>
>People believe, often passionately, things that seem "irrational."
>Why is that? Why do people believe that immigrants are "stealing"
>"our" jobs, or that finance is a conspiracy of Jews? (I picked these
>two examples because they're persistent and powerful and because
>Zizek has good analyses of both.)
Hmmm. I wonder if Zizek has ever written about intellectuals' unwavering, dogmatic adherence to the orthodoxy, whether it be in the name of Adam Smith and Milton Friedman or Karl Marx and Michel Foucault? Has he ever explored why intellectuals irrationally, and easily, succumb to power, either of the established or oppositional variety? Or is it just them asses that get scrutinized?
>I think questions like that are very important for
>understanding politics, but some people don't. For those who don't,
>it's enough to label the phenomenon "mass hysteria," or to blame the
>ruling class for stuffing bad ideas into the heads of the masses.
Here of course you are talking about the vulgar-heads and the pomo bashers. I too think these are important questions, and the aversion to them is exemplified quite tidily in Yoshie's acute phobia of "psychologizing." But the pomoistas aren't interested in trying to answer such questions so much as congratulating themselves for thinking to ask them.* Besides, people *were* discussing these questions long before the pomoers came along, and doing so without all that pomo baggage.
Eric
(see Zizek's "against the double blackmail" comments during Kosovo, wherein he managed to turn thoughts that any teenager capable of basic dualistic thinking could conceive of into the most "profound" and self-satisfied observations.)