Zizek on victims

In his self-interview at the end of Metastases of Enjoyment, Zizek considers the 'ambiguous attitude towards the victim' that is

inscribed into the very foundations of modern American culture; it is discernible in John Ford's Searchers as well as Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver: in both cases the hero endeavors to deliver the feminine victim from the clutches of the evil Other (American Indians, the corrupted pimp) yet the victim seems to resist her own deliverance, as if she finds and incomprehensible enjoyment in her very suffering. Is not de Niro's (Travis's) violent passage a lacte in Taxi Driver an outburst by means of which the subject circumvents the deadlock of a victim that resists the imposed deliverance? Is not the same libidinal deadlock at the roots of the trauma of Vietnam, where the Vietnamese also somehow resisted American help?

Zizek continues by claiming that the 'universalization of the notion of the victim' condenses two aspects: victims of 'local warlords-fanatics-fundamentalists' and liberal-democratic subjectvity as pathological narcissism.

I wonder whether the war on terror collapses of the two-sides of the notion into each other even more dramatically. I'll consider this first indirectly: Iraq seems to demonstrate the same libidinal deadlock. From the unsurprising failure to welcome 'shock and awe' with open arms to the persistent 'insurgency,' Iraqis seem quite resistant to heroic American efforts to deliver them from evil. This resistance thus seems as a deadlock confronting the 'hero,' a deadlock produced by a fantasy of fighting evil (one of the great comic book fantasies and one remarkably well done in the new Batman Begins). That is, it's too easy to say that the Iraqis, like the Vietnamese or Jodi Foster, resist help because to accept it would be to occupy the symbolic position of victims, that accepting help comes at the cost of a kind of forced choice. This is too easy because there actually isn't a choice; there actually isn't an option; as victims, they are included simply as objects within the hero's libidinal economy. And, from the perspective of the hero, this is fine: if they somehow figured as Others with desires, as Others to be listened to, then they wouldn't need to be rescued or delivered. The hero wouldn't be a hero; he'd be an equal, which is definitely a step down from hero.

What, then, about the universalized victim? More than the pathological Narcissist' threatened by secondary smoke, the liberal-democratic citizen has been figured as the victim of terrorism. (Someone recently mocked Bush's offering of condolescences to victims of the London bombings on the grounds that they were dead; in addition to the obvious response that no everyone injured died, Bush's remarks mark the way that in the logic of the 'war on terrorism,' everyone who is not on the side of the terrorists is a victim.) To be 'civilized' in this equation is to be a victim; to be at risk is to be a victim, a victim of fear and terror. Thus, surveillance efforts, homeland security, the Patriot Act, airport protocols, changes in the experience of everyday life brought about by baracades, guards, security measures. These are some of the 'heroic' efforts to deliver the victims of terror from the evil terrorists.

Yet, the victims of evil are also supposed to fight the war on terror, to be vigilant, to support the war, to stop it from happening again. 'America' is fighting the war. 'America' is strong. 'America is resilient, unwavering.' And, this same America is the one of victims: victim-hero; hero-victim.

There are ways to bridge or connect these two sides. Perhaps the most common is the revenge scenario. Yet, revenge isn't satisfying: the successful avenger has to dissolve; once his desire is satisfied, he no longer needs revenge. To avoid this death, the typical response is becoming an 'avenger,' the desire turning into drive.

Is there an America or in America a resistance to the promised deliverance from the war on terror? And, if so, what might the traumatic acting out in response look like? Or, does it make sense to read the last several years of DC politics in terms of this libidinal structure insofar as any failure to comply with measures taken in the context of the war on terror (that is, any resistance at all to anything proposed by the Bush administration and its allies) is experienced as incomprehensible enjoyment of suffering or victimhood (if not downright cooperation with the terrorists). Perhaps torture is the response--the elaborate scenarios, the dressing up and theatrics, the excessive, fantastic elements of the interrogations--might be a kind of acting out. But, there are likely other forms and it is likely to get worse.

Comments

[Alain]

Jodi

This is a great post. I think you are absolutely right that "we" are the victims now, and that the war on terror relies on this for its continued support. The irony that it is a right-wing promotion of victimhood is often overlooked.

But I wonder if you could not take this one step further. Not only is the United States now the victim, angry and scorned by the Iraqis, but most Americans seem to largely ignore the human cost to the Iraqis civilian population. The fact that we are not even able to protect them, the fact that over 100 civilians died this weekend aone in suicide bombings, gets mostly a shrug and "aren't those terrorists awful" as a response.

[Jodi]

Alain, thanks--your remarks on the Iraqi victims are provocative. They made me think that insofar as 'everyone is a victim' and the Iraqis don't count/aren't counted that they aren't even
'bare life.' That they don't register as living or having lived or as a form of life. So, 'we' Americans remain the victims and somehow American lives are what is at stake.

[Alain]

Jodi

That is exactly right. We always hear about how many Americans have died (though we are not allowed to see the coffins) but the United States insists that it does not keep count of civilian casualties (though I have read that they do but choose not to release it). So it is left to foreign new outlets, NGO's, etc to estimate to Iraqi loss of life (128,000 was posted at Matt's site). It just disgusts me. And I understand that many of the casualties are produced by the insurgency, but the fact is the United States is responsible for the situation, we created it. And it seems we are unable or unwilling to do more to stop it.

[Jodi]

Unable or unwilling? Unable because unwilling? Unwilling because unable? Unable and unwilling? I think the last one, probably. We created a horrible mess. If we leave, will it get better for the people who live there or will there be even more violence and civil war? I now get a better sense as to why Bush said he wasn't interested in nation building: his focus is on destruction. Shock and awe.

[R.Mutt]

To me this post reads as a variation on a theme from Badiou's Ethics (on which Zizek may have relied).

"We have seen that ethics subordinates the identification of this subject to the universal recognition of the evil that is done to him. Ethics thus defines man as a victim. It will be objected: 'No! You are forgetting the active subject, the one that intervenes against barbarism!' So let us be precise: man is the being who is capable of recognizing himself as a victim."

(To avoid confusion, Badiou of course rejects this type of "ethics".)

[Alain]

Jodi

Unfortunately I think it would be a blood bath if we pulled out now. But one can only wonder if it can get much worse?

[Jodi]

RMutt--thanks for the Badiou cite. Does seem like Z is reiterating B's theme.

Alain: it doesn't seem like we are doing any good at all, even slightly; so, I guess I'm on the side of full withdrawal.

[R.Mutt]

What can be more fun that fantasizing you're a victim?

"What if today's anti-war Liberals were in charge of the American government and had been since 9/11? What would that society look like in the year 2021? What would be the results of fighting "a more sensitive war on terror" and looking to the corrupt United Nations to solve all of America's problems? In Liberality For All, the reader sees a vision of that future where there is only one justified type of war... the war against Conservatives and their ideals."
http://accstudios.com/index.htm

"It is 2021, tomorrow is the 20th anniversary of 9/11. America is under oppression by ultra-liberal extremists which have yielded governing authority to the United Nations. It is up to an underground conservative group (known as F.O.I.L.) led by Sean Hannity, G. Gordon Liddy and Oliver North to thwart Ambassador Usama Bin Laden's plans to nuke New York City."
http://accstudios.com/f/comicpreview_page_12.htm