I read the entire transcript, and I don't see the ass-kicking that Dwayne indicated.
......
The essence of what I playfully called an "ass kicking" was the revelation (for me) that BHL was merely a more polished -- and, to American eyes and ears, exotic -- example of a type I've come to strongly dislike: the liberal do-gooder romantic who comfortably rests on the 'decent left' end of the spectrum.
The reason for my disdain is the deep apoliticality of the 'decent left' position. By elevating gestures which seem political over actual political content and analysis, the 'decent left' serves elite interests by espousing docility masked as dissent.
...
Here's what I wrote in September of 2008, after seeing the debate (or discussion, or free form stream of talk, or what have you):
Although the debating topics were interesting (the legacy of the Paris uprising of 1968, the ideological uses of Zionism and so on) what kept me riveted was the way nearly every moment confirmed BHL's to be little else than a proud and flashy standard bearer for what Adolph Reed, talking to Doug in a different context, called, "goo goo liberal politics."
Time and again Levy spoke in his dream-caught way about 'universal values' the 'light' NGO workers bring to benighted places ("sometimes, they're the only clever, hopeful people around..."), the feeling of 'constant activity and immortality' his generation felt in '68 and the special moral qualities of Israel ("the only nation that tolerates parties which call for the state's destruction"). He spoke, in other words, like a more elegant version of a standard American liberal, a baby boomer with an inflated sense of his role in history.
Zizek, by contrast, showed that he's a truly radical thinker and, contrary to his image as a dirty joke telling clown, too fond of digressions and pop culture flights of fancy, a hard headed materialist of deep scholarship with little time for political fictions. His objections to Levy's positions did not come in an adolescent package -- i.e., whatever you say I will refute to appear different -- but fundamentally, as the result of thinking through the implications of ideology to a depth orders of magnitude greater than anything BHL seems capable of.
[...]
full --
<http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/2008/2008-September/015636.html>
And now, let's turn to examples from the transcript.
Regarding Paris in '68 BHL said:
...the originality of May '68 is that it was a sort of reversal in act of the old political philosophy; it happens that the whole philosophical tradition can be reversed by an event. The whole philosophical tradition said, what is—asked the question, What is the relationship between those who govern and those who are governed, should we reverse the relationship? Should we reform the relationship? Would the people who are governed take the place of those who govern? And so on and so forth. These were the philosophical questions since Aristotle to Hegel to the dialectical of the slave and the master.
May '68 for me was the first time, during a few weeks, when it was said, "We want a world where there is—the very relationship explodes, the very relationship is suppressed. The universe, a world of pure," to speak it again, in the categories of the philosophy, and of Spinoza, for example, "a society where there will be no passivity, only activity. Where everybody will be active; not everybody will be a master, not everybody will be a chief, no. Everybody will be, pure intensity, others would say, pure affirmation.
[...]
full at --
<http://www.nypl.org/research/calendar/imagesprog/levy091608.pdf>
This is a perfect example of liberal romanticism. BHL celebrates youthful protest in 1968 as 'pure movement' as if this movement itself constituted significant resistance to existing hierarchies. What BHL fails to understand (but what Zizek clearly sees) is that the same lack of political content he applauds leads to co-option by the power structures the purely moving resisters thought they were circumventing.
In reply to BHL, Zizek says:
I'm the first to agree with you that [the events of '68 produced some] real achievements, we shouldn't make fun of them, like gay rights, feminism, even the way authority functions, and so on, but nonetheless it fascinates me how—and again I'm here referring vaguely, not only to then, but to the famous book The New Spirit of Capitalism by Luc Boltanski and so on. In what—how ideally the new—how ideally May '68, that's for me a kind of Hegelian cunning of reason, helped to give a new push to capitalism and I'm not saying this is bad, I'm just saying as a diagnosis. It's not only new freedoms, it's the entire new logic, I claim, of marketing.
PAUL HOLDENGRÄBER: You said it's not necessarily bad.
SLAVOJ ZIZEK: No, it's just a new phase, I mean, everything in the world, most of the things, okay, are bad and good, I mean, that's the paradox. But let me make the point I want to make. The way—how—how—Let me go here to the United States. How do we consume today? When you have a commodity to buy, it's no longer the primitive level—buy this car because it's the best, uses less gasoline, whatever. It's also no longer the competitive logic of keeping up with the Jonases, like status symbol. Isn't it that today that we are more and more addressed even by publicity as "buy this car because for example, it's a Land Rover, you can drive into nature, you can realize your authentic self, it's part of self-realization, and so on and so on. (laughter)
[...]
Whether you agree or disagree with Zizek's interpretation of May '68 isn't important. The important thing is to note the stark difference between BHL's fuzzy headed liberal celebration -- reminiscent of the hagiographical marketing campaigns for everything from coffee to retirement plans which feature real or simulated grainy color films of tie dye t-shirted kids dancing on beaches or grassy fields in the late 1960s -- and Zizek's unsentimental analysis of the ways BHL's bacchanal of "pure movement" melted into air. Absorbed by capital.
In short, Ziek is thinking about Power, who has it, how it's exercised, the forms it takes. While BHL, in that typical late 20th, early 21st century liberal way, speaks as if power can be achieved through correct feeling and do-gooderism. This is the heart of muffin minded phrases such as "another world is possible."
Of course, it is, but how do we build it? Answering that question requires hard work and may demand even harder answers. Perhaps a Robespierre will be needed from time to time. But BHL (and those like him) seems unable to understand this.
.d.
-- "'I'm diluting your brand' is the new 'I'm crushing your head.'"
La Cieca .............................. http://monroelab.net/blog/