To me it sounds as if Zizek is a bit touched but then I have always found him a hi falutin windbag. Get this:
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/4039/why_cynics_are_wrong/
The position of the cynic is that he alone holds some piece of terrible, unvarnished wisdom. The paradigmatic cynic tells you privately, in a confidential low-key voice: “But don’t you get it that it is all really about (money/power/sex), that all high principles and values are just empty phrases which count for nothing?” What the cynics don’t see is their own naivety, the naivety of their cynical wisdom that ignores the power of illusions.
Why is the cynic a "he" and why need a critic of Obama be a cynic at all. I guess I am a naive Marxist who thinks that principles and values are dialectically related to the mode of production. Obama is capitalist through and through and it is Zizek who ignores the power of illusions. Obamas support among otherwise intelligent leftists is good evidence of this. THere is nothing cynical about all this in my opinion. It is fact and the basis for any realistic assessment of the situation.
cheers k hanly
Blog: http://kenthink7.blogspot.com/index.html Blog: http://kencan7.blogspot.com/index.html
--- On Sat, 11/15/08, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Zizek on Obama
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Date: Saturday, November 15, 2008, 9:12 PM
> On Nov 15, 2008, at 6:46 PM, John E. Norem wrote:
>
> > Why Cynics Are Wrong
> >
> >
> > The sublime shock of Obama’s victory
> >
> >
> > By SLAVOJ ZIZEK
> <http://www.inthesetimes.com/community/profile/70>
> >
> > Obama’s victory is a sign in which the long past
> of slavery and the
> > struggle for its abolition reverberates.
> >
> > Days before the election, Noam Chomsky told
> progressives that they should vote for Obama, but without
> illusions. I fully share Chomsky’s doubts about the real
> consequences of Obama’s victory: From a
> pragmatic-realistic perspective, it is quite possible that
> Obama will just do some minor face-lifting improvements,
> turning out to be “Bush with a human face.” He will
> pursue the same basic politics in a more attractive mode and
> thus effectively even strengthen U.S. hegemony, which has
> been severely damaged by the catastrophe of the Bush years.
> >
> http://voidmanufacturing.wordpress.com/2008/11/14/zizek-on-the-obama-victory/
>
> Touching. Really. I mean that.
>
> Doug
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