The verdict: If the objective is to win tenure or other academic favor brilliantly successful/a vile atrocity from the perspective of class struggle (i.e., the struggle for empowerment and emancipation for imperial forces).
The true purpose of the article is reveled right at the start, the second paragraph begins: "Of course Žižek is wrong, often, but he’s a lot more entertaining than your favorite academic leftist* (our fan club is also more “hip” and probably a lot better looking too)." As soon being entertaining, hip and good looking is given priority over the truth we know we are in trouble (by the way, "hip" has become a derogatory remark that prudent liberal-leftists seek not to have applied these day).
The general conclusion of the article is that Zizek has little of substance to say, apart from worn Marxist cliches, but does a charismatic job of the saying. And there is the usual canard--with citation of a conspicuously Jewish-sounding, probably pro-Israel scholar-- about religico-political suffering in the Arab world being do to a "post-Fordian" paradigm shift in economic tectonics and not, at least in significant part, to Western especially (with especially Israeli connivance) US imperial interference; the role the recent US invasion of Iraq may have played, a major event not to mention, is completely out of sight.
Only two good things about it come to mind: it makes me feel good about my prima facie dismissal of Zizek as a douche bag (and it turns out, a hipster too!) and it gives me a reference I can refer others to, who don't have the privilege I do of direct experience, as an example of the typical quality of contemporary academic writing: i.e., evasive, irresponsible, flippant about human suffering and outright dishonest in places.
If one article could encapsulate all that I hate about left-liberal-intellectuals this is the one.
--------
*Presumably Noam Chomsky being a prominent one in mind. The author does of course have the tact not to criticism the man too harshly doubtless appreciating how well respected he is and not wanting to cause offense, in spite of the fact the article is contra everything he stands for.
> From: bhaskar.sunkara at gmail.com
> Date: Sat, 25 Jul 2009 15:14:37 -0400
> To: marxism at lists.econ.utah.edu; lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Subject: [lbo-talk] The "Vulture Theory" of Socialism
>
> http://theactivist.org/blog/the-vulture-theory-of-socialism
> This article came to fruition after I fused together a few disparate rough
> drafts. Wouldn't mind criticisms (it makes me feel self-important).
>
> ~ Bhaskar
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
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