Zizek on Haider

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Fri Feb 11 12:10:49 PST 2000


Michael Pollak wrote:


>And frankly, I don't think this is that morally pure. When Austrian
>denounce Haider, and more power to them, it's a means of remembering and
>of coming to terms with their history.

Speaking of Austria & Zizek, one of Z's great political insights was his comment on Kurt Waldheim's run for the presidency some years ago. When good liberals denounced him for equivocating about his Nazi past, his poll numbers went up. Zizek's conclusion was that Austrians wanted to equivocate about their Nazi past, and completely identified with Waldheim. I think that mechanism explains Clinton's rising poll numbers during the Monica months - Americans want to equivocate about adultery.

Doug



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