Haider Haider Haider

[kelley]

well no one commented on that paper i forwarded either, angela, so
whatever.  it looked like a pretty damned good analysis of the politics and
events leading up to it all.  anyway,  i think the problem is that several
people noted that they saw nothing particularly spectacular in zizek's
analysis, nothing that's not been said here in other contexts.  the
reasoning behind it, that clinton, blur et al., are using it to solidify
support for third way programs by naming Haider the evil enemy in order to
make them look good is, as i pointed out first thing, pretty ordinary and
very old.  it is not clear to me that we can apply a general "law"
specifying how we should react based on this analysis.  that's my beef with
such an approach:  there are far too many specific processes and dynamics
we need to ask about before we go rushing to the conclusion that the
repressive Law is always productive of an identification with/desire for
that which has been denied.  as i pointed out when ken and i debated this
issue re anti-racism last fall, it isn't clear to me that i or anyone
should be "quiet" about racism/racialization as if somehow poiting it out
can only and always invariably lead to groups emerging to support
racism/racialization.   finally, the uproar was over a general analysis of
anti-racism as founded on that psychic dynamic.  you, yourself, have
suggested reservations to ken's account.  and yes, i do agree that the
all-round denunciations of ken/zizek/etc were a manifestation of this
phenom, in part.  but then, what makes that symptom any different than
anyone else's?  donning the mantle of a supercilious i can see what you
can't see, as zizek does, is prompted by the very same dynamic.