>But the psychology of these movements are very different. Feminists
>and queers want not to be despised for who they are.
Oh no, not on Ken's logic. Not the ways he's articulated it in the past. He has suggested that anti-racists get a certain enjoyment out of calling out racism -- on LBO he has suggested this.
And i wouldn't homogenize feminism, either. Surely plenty of individual women become feminists in an act of rebellion. and you know perfectly well that there was the whole lesbian-chic and bi-hip stuff that's been going on in the past few years.
Skinheads and
>Nazis like being despised by "respectable" people - it makes them
>feel threatening and credible. Especially if you're a youth trying to
>shock your jaded elders.
that wasn't ken's argument though -- he suggested that the repressive Law of the Father -- the NO--drove them into the arms of the loving Father. Now why isn't the repressive Law of the Father in the disgusting voice of Dr. Laura and Rush, etc driven people to the ranks of the denunciated? Because there's a whole lot more going on here. You can shock your jaded elders by becoming a queer activists, by becoming a feminist, by becoming a union activist, by majoring in sociology. All I'm really arguing is that there needs to be more than the simple analysis that was offered here--that publicity is behind the attrativeness of the movements. I don't freak out about zizek like some on this list do, not for the same reasons anyway. I don't have a prob with psychoanalysis, etc. But I've read the dude and I cannot see what's so novel about what he writes.
as for the worry that he's both banal and obscure, Zizek clearly writes for different audiences. His stuff for an academic audience IS arcane and obscure IF you are not steeped in the philosophical tradition or in lacanian psychoanalytic theory. Once you get a grip on that, most of it is also banal. His analysis of ideology [which ken insisted that I read] was ridiculously old hat -- same was said with considerably more flair by cultural studies/birmingham school types elsewhere. who *were* writing for their working class audience. Now, I've bitched before that Remick et al are silly to expect Butler and others to write for them. PLOP etc weren't written for the masses, so don't ask them to be easy to read or even to deal with everyday problems. They aren't even offered as such by the authors. Furthermore, I think Katha P was right in her analysis: Butler has no voice, no passion; there's no cadence or rhtym in her writing.
When these authors are put forth on this list as screeds to read, it's assumed that most of us participating are far beyond most ordinary folks in the breadth and depth of our reading and these books are offered as a challenge to the established terrain of the debate. But NO ONE in their right mind thinks thse books are supposed to be the equivalent of a _Feminine Mystique_ for a socialist revolution.
Arcane obscure writings for academic audiences are nothing to obsess over. If you want to understand them, go to the library and start reading in the tradition from which Zizek, or anyone else for that matter, writes. When the 'fuser whizzes on this list start jabbering, I'm lost. But I know that all I have to do his hit the stacks or the 'net and I will, eventually, figure it out.
Here, though, is a piece Zizek has written for a popular audience. He avoids jargon. Good. Hard to do, since all disciplines, all traditions have their jargon. For those who pick on authors as too jargonistic you're just revealing how blind you are to your own use of it or the use of it by those you've decided are "allowed" to use jargon {e.g, finance/budget blah blah, 'fuser whiz speak, legalese, etc] For those who defend Butler and Zizek et al: "Get off it". It's jargon, face it. Those of you steeped in certain disciplinary or anit/trans disciplinary traditions, however you define them, y/our writing is distinctively marked by the jargon. You can tell right away when someone is steeped in pomo/poststruc thought, as well as Zizek, just as you can tell Wojtek is steeped in conventional social science speak, Max in economics, etc. You have an obligation to use that jargon with an awareness that not everyone 'gets it', particularly if you're going to point out to everyone, right and left, that they have their own jargon, their own idioms. Effectively, all you do is say, "You do it too; nah nah". Hardly a solution to the problem and you certainly aren't going to convince anyone it's worth their while to take it on and understand it.
So, Zizek has written for popular audience. What he says is banal; what he writes for academic audiences is also banal, as well as arcane. Coming down on Blur and Clinton is a good thing, but let's not kid ourselves and imagine that Zizek is some kind of genius for this.
sheesh
kelley