>
> Zizek is a stylin' dude, but he either hasn't read his Adorno, who talks
> about nothing *but* the totality of late capitalism, or was too
> busy picking off easy targets like Marcuse. In the past, you could argue
> this was a translation problem, but now there's a legible version of
> Negative Dialectics out there (can't imagine whoever had anything to do
> with that...).
Adorno and the FS are, as you know, far more concerned about fascism than Stalinism, at least in terms of the logic of domination. From Adorno's essay on Freudian theory and fascism to the authoritarian personality, in most instances their critique has to do with the parallel between fascism and liberalist culture, without addressing serious the idea of a Stalinist cultural logic (I'm intrigued by the idea, but I can't say much more than that). As for Zizek's relation to Adorno, he's seems more interested in his musicology, which he quotes or cites more frequently than anything else (although he has given passing nod to Negative Dialectics, Adorno's book on Hegel and the infamous Dialectic of Enlightenment). Metastases of Enjoyment is where Zizek has a short chapter on the FS and Habermas, the most sustained of his engagements so far. There is a problem of compatibility with Zizek's interests and those of the FS. For Zizek, Adorno and the rest harbour an implicit telelogical psychology. When Adorno argues that psychoanalysis is a discipline that is working to eliminate itself (by making analysis irrelevant) he's implicitly positing an idea non-psychological individual. Zizek's topology does away with this through Lacan's supplements to Freud's id, ego, superego (real, imaginary, symbolic).... I think Zizek is correct about this, but I also think that critical theory rails against all kinds of pseudo-reconciliations... in other words, even if a telos is posited, it is defined negatively. Interestingly, Habermas preserves the same teleological difficulty. Communicative action makes instrumental action possible but it is instrumental actions that illuminate blocks in communicative action... the idea of consensus as a telos is in contradiction to the necessary instrumental means through which communicative action can be achieved in a society where communication is distorted....
ken
ps. Please, if anyone knows the answer to this, can you let me know. Zizek mentions that Lacan had no knowledge of Horkheimer and Adorno's essay on Juliette in DofE when he wrote "Kant avec Sade" in 1962. However, in a biography of Lacan, it is indicated that Lacan was highly influenced by H/A's reading (as well as Foucault's). Can anyone confirm any of this? (a reference isn't given in either case).