Zizek's 'Personal Responsibility' Act (was Re: Of gods and vampires)

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

Ken:
>All three are a variation on the same theme: the GOOD.
>Ethics of the good (communitarianism, aristotelianism,
>republicanism) establish one good as the good.  This is
>negated by ethics of justice (rawls, habermas) which takes
>this good and proceduralize it.  this is negated by
>postmodern ethics of responsibility which supports a
>plurality of narrative strategies.  All fail because each
>one presents an underlying "hard" kernel: the good.
>
>So, with Lacan, a fourth alternative arises: the ethics of
>the Real.  Ethics as a view from the perspective of evil.
>What Lacan's framework possesses that the others lack is an
>awareness of contingency (historical) and finitude.
>Subjectivity is not conceived of as either solid or non
>existent rather, as empty (filled by political, social, and
>historical contradiction).  Nuff said.
>
>In short: only psychoanalysis, thus far, grasps the paradox
>of modern subjectivity as an absent centre.
>
>My point here isn't to lay down an authoritative groundwork
>for the future of critical social theory, not to promote
>psychoanalysis as an exclusive field of inquiry.  Rather,
>to point out that significant theoretical insights are made
>possible from this perspective.  This is not a final word.
>Far from it.  Laclau and Mouffe have also theorized this in
>relatively non-psychoanalytic terms - in terms of political
>antagonism.
<cut & paste from another post by Ken>
>The support for our reality is fantasy. Our fantasies
>facilitate our enjoyment.  The modernist political task
>here is to break the cycle, to interupt the mindless
>process and bring into consciousness the traumatic Real
>that we've been sitting on.  What does this do? Exactly?
>It brings our dirty laundry into dialogue.  Ultimately, the
>entire point of a psychoanalytic intervention is to move
>the conversation along and to encourage subjectivization, a
>taking responsibility for our enjoyment and its excess.

A lesson of 'personal responsibility' (= Zizek's post-critical return to
Kant) seems like an indispensable accompaniment to the ghost of 'social
democracy' in the age of neoliberalism (Laclau & Mouffe).  Not my cup of
tea, but Rob Schaap might like it (despite his dislike of things
postmodern).  To me, it sounds like a Bill Clinton or a Tony Blair with a
Slovenian accent....

Yoshie