[lbo-talk] Zizek on Iran

Michael Smith mjs at smithbowen.net
Wed Jun 24 10:07:16 PDT 2009


On Wed, 24 Jun 2009 11:59:07 -0400 Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:


> What I don't get is how a victory for U.S. imperialism - if you accept
> that the fall of the Islamic regime would be such - would be in any
> significant way worse than what Iranians are experiencing now?

Well, this is a point of view. I believe one other contributor to this list -- sorry, I forget who -- has so far candidly expressed a similar thought declaratively rather than interrogatively: i.e. that the fall of the Ahmadinejad regime *would* mean reintegration into the imperial orbit, and that would be on balance a good thing.

There are a couple of angles to consider here. One is the argument Doug makes with reference to the Plain People Of Iran (to adapt a Myles na gCopaleen trope).

Whether they'd be better off or not under renewed imperial tutelage is impossible to say, though the Empire hasn't much of a record of ameliorating ordinary people's lives in the global perihery. (If it's a wash -- i.e. they're just as well off or badly off as before -- then there's no point in changing, right?) On past form, deterioration seems at least as likely and perhaps more likely than amelioration.

But there's another question too: is the world better off with or without cracks in the imperial system and holdouts against it? Is an independent Iran better for the overall world picture than a re-hegemonized one -- even if the independent Iran is less "progressive" and "modern" and "democratic" and secular than we (and no doubt plenty of people in Iran) would like to see?

Personally, I feel strongly that cracks in the imperial system are an unalloyed Good Thing, but here as everywhere, opinions may differ.

Then there's the perennial question whether you can maintain an anti-imperial stance and still have the kind of open free- wheeling socially-liberal political and cultural order that we'd all prefer to live in. It would be awfully nice if you could, but the historical record doesn't give us an existence proof yet, does it? A pessimist might argue that there's a reason for this -- namely, the empire's power to manipulate the institutions of such an open society in order to gain its own ends.

But hey, who wants to be a dreary old pessimist? May Iran prove the shining exception, the true Phoenix, the lapis philosophorum, and show us all how it's done.

--

Michael Smith mjs at smithbowen.net http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org



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