What is the 'unthought' of Zizek?

What is the 'unthought' of Zizek? Is it possible that there is none? That this question doesn't work in Zizek's case? That his compulsive use of multiple philosophers and examples is an effort to include, willy nilly, that which could be/function as the 'unthought' of his work? Is that why most commentators on and critics of Zizek think that he cannot be systematized? Or that he is fundamentally inconsistent or non-rational?

Or, is the 'unthought' Zizek's own position in communicative capitalism? What enables him to speak is less an institutional position than a certain form of academic celebrity, a kind of spectacle of intellectual performance. This could account for the suspicion of his detractors that he is disingenuous or complicit with the very system of global capital he claims to reject. His travels, multiple books, film, popular writing, are all part of an industry, an industry that produces him as an academic or philosophical figure, as one who acts (acts out) the part of the European intellectual. So, here, the unthought of Zizek would be some kind of celebrity enabled by communicative capitalism.

But perhaps this is too harsh. What if the 'unthought' of Zizek is actually our own 'unthought', that is to say, our inability to think a beyond to 'democratic totalitarianism' (the expression he uses in the afterword to Revolution at the Gates) or neoliberalism? Perhaps this impossibility, one which clearly drives his thought, is the unthought of Zizek.

And, if this impossibility is the unthought of Zizek, does it in fact overlap with the second, celebrity, option? The communicative capitalism that we cannot think beyond is the same that produces/enables Zizek?

Comments

[kevin]

this is prety good on Zizek's "argumentational vortex:"
http://www.iath.virginia.edu/pmc/text-only/issue.998/9.1.r_hurley.txt

[Jodi]

thanks for the link!

[Alain]

Jodi

This post and the previous one are really insightful. I think you really touch on the heart of what is at stake. Referencing the limits of Zizek's analysis, the unthought of his practice, is it really impossible to think what follows after the revolutionary act (see CPROBES response to your post)? I am not sure.

But if it is impossible, Zizek starts to sound even more Hegelian than he may intend. I am reminded of Hegel's famous quip that philosophy is merely "its own time embodied in thought." If all we can do is evaluate, critique, or demystify the present, than what is it that we are hoping to accomplish? Perhaps we can start and lay the groundwork for revealing the limits of communicative capitalism, to think the unthought of the present, in order to free ourselves for a new possibility. And if Zizek can use his celebrity to work toward this goal, than all the better, right?

[name]

(...and if not?)

[pebird]

(...then all the more better!)

[bob]

Sorry, could you just gloss 'unthought'. Does it mean what HAS to remain unthought through, or what in fact is unthought through? Or is that which, outside his thought, prompts it into action??

[Jodi]

Good question--the way I was thinking of it was less in terms of thinking through or not thinking through then as conditioning assumptions: so, what X outside of Z's thought causes his thought to take the shape that it does? What is its unconscious? So, not just prompting it to action, but forming it, causing it.

I fear that this is hopelessly vague and unthought....

[bob]

Isn't this like the 'Real' of his thought? exerting a hidden pressure, bending it in certain directions, but that can't itself be on OBJECT of thought (or can it?). I mean, once the 'conditioning assumptions' become an object of thought, they're no longer the conditioning assumptions.

Anyway, I find it impossible to imagine how a thinker could have NO conditioning assumptions. I don't see how thought could get off teh ground if that were the case.

[Jodi]

Bob--great point. It does make sense to call this the Real of Z's thought. Your description suggests to me that this Real/unthought must be the global capital/communicative capitalism--what he/we can't get beyond.

[RIPope]

Which makes sense, since Zizek argues that capital is the Real of our horizon, across different Symbolic universes...

[micah holmquist]

I don’t recall where for sure -I think it was Welcome of the Desert of the Real- but I remember a passage where Zizek criticizes academics for supporting immigrant rights because if they really got their “way” on this issue, they would lose their lofty status. At the time, I remember thinking that this was similar to if Zizek got his way and those on the “left” stopped taking positions that Zizek disagrees with, that Zizek would lose his cache of being unorthodox.

[aphilosopher]

Forgive the anonymity, but I'm really not all that keen for anything I have to say to be connected to this but, after having read a few of your recent posts on Zizek I felt that I couldn't let this pass without comment.

I'm a philosopher, employed in an analytic department in the United States. As a so-called Continental philosopher I have to struggle on a daily basis against the prejudices of my collegues. Gradually - gradually - they are beginning to accept what I do and to accept, too, that the thinkers I teach and on whom I publish - Hegel, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Levinas, Nancy, etc. - might actually be worth taking seriously. I suspect that many readers of this blog face similar battles. Perhaps you do, too, Jodi. However, it is precisely remarks like "our inability to think a beyond to 'democratic totalitarianism'" or, to quote your remarks from another blog, "the stain necessary for democracy that renders democracy as an empty place impossible and that is disrupted under capitalism," that lead the majority of philosophers today to assume that all continental philosophy is bunk. Having engaged on a regular basis with philosophers of all shades, I'm increasingly of the opinion that the majority are concerned less with making sense and more with speaking a certain language that sounds "intelligent."

Derrida was an extraordinary thinker and a dear friend. However, the fact that he was read by many who never actually bothered to try to understand what he was saying means that it looks like his legacy is going to be a return to obscurantism as a cover for vacuity.

To all who read this and who read continental philosophy: PLEASE, the next time you read a sentence or write one, STOP. And, once you've stopped, don't ask yourself the usual question - Do I sound clever? - but instead ask these two: Does this make sense? and Do I understand it?

[Matt]

Quite an emotional plea, that.

[Matt]

My guess is Rorty.

[Jodi]

Matt, I agree that the remark is quite emotional. I have a hard time knowing what to do with it. I'm particularly puzzled by a remark that focuses on a couple of sentences taken out of context even as it defends prolonged engagement with Derrida. So, on the one hand, I am tempted to respond in ways that are not particularly warm and inviting. On the other hand, the plea and anxiety makes sense to me.

What the heck: here is what bothers me. I read some of the remarks as suggesting that:

1. Some of us who write theory want to sound clever and hence don't ask whether what we say is clear;

2. The ideal audience one should aim to reach is filled with analytic philosophers;

3. Although Derrida may be difficult to read, his difficuly or opacity is somehow different from, and perhaps superior to, Zizek's, as if Zizek's work did not also warrant the work of understanding;

[RIPope]

Moreover, the comment is totally misplaced. If ever there were an example of someone engaging with continental philosophy to NOT simply be clever BUT to have it directly engage the most urgent political situations of the day, Jodi, you would be it.

So it makes the comment, beneath its veneer of 'please, let's be clear', but another rant against the hard work of thinking...

[Jodi]

RIPope--thank you so much for that comment. I really appreciate it. It's easy to fall victim to the plague of self-doubt (as well as to that of misplaced, over-wrought metaphors).

[Matt]

I'm not sure it's necessarily a rant, but more generally here's to the day when anonymous philosophers take the risks of blogging themselves (happening already, of course, but the medium is still--perhaps rightly--widely distrusted among academics).

The comment didn't seem to be reacting defensively to blogs as a threat of course, so much as an acknowledgement of and somewhat naive concern over their growing (indeed, somewhat inflated via google) and international impact.

Jodi's site is indeed an inspiration in this direction, toward a responsible but engaged blogethics (As a side note, I have no idea what that may mean. Well, maybe some idea.)

[Jodi]

Matt--blogethics, cool idea for longsunday!!

[Matt]

How else but through embracing and redefining the potential and calibre of blogs and blog discussions can the apt worry that

"it looks like [Derrida's] legacy is going to be a return to obscurantism as a cover for vacuity"

be addressed? (I mean in addition to traditional publishing, of course.)

I guess what I'm saying is, the blogosphere is what you make it. If you're really concerned, why not join us?

[Matt]

(Yes, we have day jobs too.)