Zizek = the Third Way (was Re: Zizek on Haider)

Yoshie Furuhashi furuhashi.1 at osu.edu
Thu Feb 10 19:58:49 PST 2000


Ken:


>On Thu, 10 Feb 2000 21:08:25 -0500 Yoshie Furuhashi
><furuhashi.1 at osu.edu> wrote:
>
>> Peter Dews writes in _The Limits of Disenchantment_ (London: Verso, 1995):
>>
>> ***** ...Zizek is ultimately a 'Right Hegelian' masquerading -- albeit
>> unwittingly -- as a 'Left Hegelian'. He views the modern individual as
>> caught in the dichotomy between his or her universal status as a member of
>> civil society, and the particularistic attachments of ethnicity, nation and
>> tradition, and this duality is reflected in his own ambiguous political
>> profile -- _marxisant_ cultural critic on the international stage, member
>> of a neo-liberal and nationalistically inclined governing party back home.
>> (252) *****
>
>Second, there is little *theoretical* difference between Dews
>and Zizek.

I entirely agree. Dews & Zizek are politically close as well. You know my view of Habermas, the Frankfurt school, etc. already; my assessment of Dews is basically the same. Still & all, it is true that Zizek _is_ the Third Way who plays a "_marxisant_ cultural critic" for Verso, the Nation, etc., and Dews neatly summarizes Zizek in a nutshell above.

BTW, "Doug before Butler" told me once that Zizek is only slightly to the left of Clinton. Given Zizek's embrace of the KLA, he may now be even to the right of Clinton on some issues.

Yoshie



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