Zizek on Democracy Now

Link: Democracy Now! | "Everybody in the World Except US Citizens Should Be Allowed to Vote and Elect the American Government" - Leading Intellectual Slavoj Žižek.

SLAVOJ ZIZEK: It’s like, by chance, I was very young at that point. I was in Prague. But OK, so that we don’t lose time—there is something really tragic about Prague ’68, namely—let’s be very frank, and it’s something very hard to swallow for a leftist. What if the Soviet intervention was a blessing in disguise? It saved the myth that if the Soviets were not to intervene, there would have been some flowering authentic democratic socialism and so on. I’m a little bit more of a pessimist there. I think that the Soviets—it’s a very sad lesson—by their intervention, saved the myth. Imagine no Soviet intervention. In that ideological constellation, it would have been either, sooner or later, just joining the West or, nonetheless, at a certain point, the government is still in power, would have to put the brakes. It’s always the same story. It’s the same in—now you see my conservative, skeptical leftist side.

It’s the same in China, Tiananmen. I will tell you something horrible. Imagine the Communists in power giving way to the demonstrators. I claim—it’s very sad things to say, but if Tiananmen demonstrations were to succeed, like the Communist Party allowing for true democratic reforms and so on, it would have been probably a chaos in China. No, I’m not saying now that we should opt for dictatorship or some kind of a strong arm as the only solution; just let’s not dwell in safe illusions.

I think all too often today’s left falls into this play, which is why they like to lose. And I think this is the original sin of the left, from the very beginning. I—and I still consider myself, I’m sorry to tell you, a Marxist and a Communist, but I couldn’t help noticing how all the best Marxist analyses are always analyses of a failure. They have this incredible—like, why did Paris Commune go wrong? Trotskyites. Why did the October Revolution go wrong? And so on. You know, this deep satisfaction—OK, we screwed it up, but we can give the best theory why it had to happen. I mean, this is what my title, the title of tonight’s talk, implicitly refers to, this comfortable position of resistance. Don’t mess with power. This is today’s slogan of the left. Don’t play with power. Power corrupts you. Resist, resist, withdraw and resist from a safe moralistic position. I found this very sad.

Comments

[patrick j. mullins]

Thanks for posting this, which has more howlers per square whatever than anything I've read of his yet. I could never take a single word of his seriously after this interview.

He won't be able to stay in business if this is the way things are going to go, but I did enjoy 'Don't mess with power' because it rhymes with 'Don't mess with Texas.' He then corrects himself gently to 'play' instead of 'mess.' There were many choice tidbits, but this is possibly the best (although there were at least 10 other unbelievable moments, especially the report on contemporary masturbation): "But going seriously, no, of course, I am—my god, it’s stupid to say—for Barack and so on."

That contains convolutions George W. Bush hasn't been able to surpass. Well, I agree, it sure was 'stupid to say', but got even more howlerish with the 'and so on.' What codes!

[Nathan]

Patrick,

I'm not sure what text you've read of his, but you might want to consider reading his Academic Ramspringa chapter in _The Parallax View_. His elucidation on Democracy Now is quite consistent with his attack against (moral) resistance practices, especially Critchley's infinitely demanding notion, which Zizek considers to be an Amish-like gesture par excellence.

[patrick j. mullins]

"but you might want to consider reading his Academic Ramspringa chapter in _The Parallax View_."

No thank you, Zizek makes nothing but Amish-like gestures himself, while calling it something else (and not all that firmly anymore either; he just sounds like a student by now.)

[Michael F.]

This is the guy who's pissy because the boulder didn't move when he shouted at it back in the day.

[Charlie Bertsch]

The preceding comments aside, not to mention the vast quantities of Zizek commentary, pro and con, I think this is a pretty apt assessment of the actually existing Left, now and since the 1960s and, with more qualifications, since the wake of 1848. The attachment to failure -- I always think of Wendy Brown's wonderful States of Injury in that context -- is something I experienced viscerally growing up politically on and around the UC Berkeley campus. The desire that I and some of my compatriots had to critique it sympathetically is what led us to found Bad Subjects: Political Education for Everyday Life.

[Alain]

While Zizek's point about the Left's problem with power is legitimate, the rest of these comments are absurd. He is assuming that if any of the referenced uprisings had succeeded, they would necessarily have to (eventually) fail. Is this not simply asserting what he would need to demonstrate (either logically or empirically)?

[Jodi]

Alain, I would think that his empirical argument would refer to the triumph of capitalism after 1989. The uprisings would have inserted the country into the capitalist orbit. Logically, his point would likely be that the result of any revolution is the installation of a new order (Lacan's point on '68 and a new master). It's not the case that revolutions produce heaven on earth, perfect societies, or even live up to the goals of revolutionaries--ever. And the problem of the left is that we (and I insert myself in this) end up wallowing in this failure rather than using it as a incitement to regroup, reorganize, try again. Or, when portions of the left do this (by cooperating with capitalism, embracing technology as the solution to all the problems of democracy, etc) the rest of trash them as intolerable traitors. To my mind, one of Zizek's contributions is his insight into this process, an insight that he then doesn't use as fodder for a fantasy of the Real revolution that would ultimately solve all problems.

[Alain]

Jodi, as always thank you for articulating Zizek's point better than he can (or chooses to)? Your explanation makes good sense to me - but I read his comments and did not see that. Leaving Zizek aside for the moment, I think you are right - the left is always either licking its wounds or bemoaning the treachery of those who choose to engage. Unfortunately, my sense from Zizek - especially in his informal comments during interviews and public talks - is that he is not able to think past or through this failure of the left. Perhaps your next book will address this? Thanks again.

[Jodi]

Hi Alain,
unfortunately, the book that's coming out with Duke is more of this voicing of failure and frustration. my hope is that by doing this I'm getting it out of my system and can try to get past it to someplace else--and that maybe if I can't the book would at least stimulate others to go further. I sometimes wonder if thinking past it won't be possible for anyone who was formed during the Cold War. I mean that totally seriously--too much of my thinking and perspective was installed through that binary. or maybe it doesn't have to be someone necessarily substantially younger but maybe from a place or experience where the cold war and the capitalist/communist opposition wasn't primary. And now that I say that perhaps I get a sense of what folks see in Obama, that he represents--or wants to represent--some newness in this respect.

[Alain]

Thanks again Jodi. I definitely see your point about the cold war - even within the confines of what passes for political discourse in the United States, it is this binary that has not yet been surpassed. Even the tiresome "war on terror," seems to merely have attempted to replace one "evil empire" with another "axis of evil." Of course the attempt to map the old paradigm fails because the world is clearly not that any longer. But how to articulate what it is or could possibly be, that is the struggle.

And even if you are next book is more "voicing of failure and frustration," I still look forward to it.

[Andrew]

The reification of "the left" is rather extreme in Z's comments. Coupled with his moralistic psychologizing - the left likes to lose, the left's "original sin" - this doesn't seem much more than aloof meta-wallowing. Wallowing about how "the left" wallows. A 2nd-order Beautiful Soul for the theorist. "The left," Z seems to emphasize, is animated by resentement and a nostalgically oriented victim complex.

As a 29-year-old in grad school in the U.S., what strikes me is not the defeatism of the left but its objective defeat. The left has been pulverized. And this seems to include those in the academy to a significant degree. Frankly, I find the defeatism and quietism of former leftists among senior faculty (whose job security is nearly unparalleled in modern life) stunning.

I saw Zizek speak last week, and in an America where the return of xenophobic anti-immigrant hysteria is ascendant, and in a time when the European Union is acknowledging a future when *a fifth* of the world's total population may soon be "climate change refugees," he was performing his pat, anti-multiculturalist "we all have our own struggles - I don't care about your (non-Western) history or culture" intervention - which *might* have been radical 15 or 20 years ago, when the Marxian left was perhaps even more oblivious to climate change and ecology than it is now, when liberals and scientists, deluded and socio-theoretically stupefied respectively, are at least on the ball.

My sense is that either the left reinvents itself around the call of climate change, which is to say around universal SURVIVAL (which means winning over scientists, who, despite themselves, are desperate for the structural, ideological, and socio-theoretical analysis we offer), or we give the lie to our own claims for *global* relevance and universalism.

At the end of the day, if "the left" is using (or continues to use) continental theory (etc.) not simply as an escape from organizing and active political commitment but to bury its head from the Real of global catastrophe, then in the final instance all truly is lost: we have failed in our own historical present. We rise neither to urgency or opportunity.

[Barret]

That's all absurd, Andrew.

[Jodi]

I'm with Barret.

Why is continental theory figured as an escape from political commitment?

Zizek's anti-multiculturalism point is that the continuation of this politics requires politicizing the economy. I would add that this means good old Marxist political economy. And without that, the politics of climate change will too easily be neoliberalized--as it seems to be in the UK and threatens to be in the US; consumer solutions, individualized approached, let the market solve the problems. A politics of climate change, then, has to be accompanied by a rejection of capitalism. Also, Zizek in his early books, Tarrying with the Negative is a good example here, mentions environmental concerns regularly (when it wasn't trendy).

[Barret]

Yes exactly. Here in Canada the only party that leans in a left direction is the federal NDP, who is basically treated by the government as part of the ministry of environment (you know, we, the government, will tolerate your opposition as long as you enunciate 'positive' solutions (that we, the government, can incorporate into our policy). There has to be a broader base than a single issue, or any opposition becomes a glorified or 'official' 'interest group' like all the others.

[Barret]

Plus the part about the left saving the world is a bit too much. Why does the left have to stand for everyone, to be the moral authority on how capitalism ought to function, while the right can be particular, focusing in on privatizing government, ensuring that the empire has access to cheap raw materials, and that everyone pay for their own healthcare, and on and on?

[Andrew]

I meant the left has to be global ("international" in the old parlance) . Further, the old Marxian meta-narratives and critiques aren't about to take root or reawaken just because Zizek and others hold onto them. In *practice*, Zizek is not particularly interested in political-economy, as such (by his own logic it suggests he doesn't "believe" in it - after all he travels the world making fantastic money discussing Kant, Hegel, and Lacan, above all). It's like Spivak, who genuflects to "the international division of labor," when her intellectual investments are much less oriented to labor than to representation and so on. I love Zizek and believe he merits the attention he receives, but the lack of engagement with *critical* multiculturalism and performative disavowal of feminism in his talks bothers me (constantly leaning on sexist jokes and analogies to further non-feminist arguments, e.g.).

On climate, if one reads climatologists, many conclude their books with a "political" chapter that is completely at odds with the "pragmatism" of procedural liberalism. The left should run with this! Confronting climate change effectively and necessarily means politicizing the economy. And if the left doesn't seize this fact, it will be a historic failure. The kinds of transformation climatologists are calling for in global and national regulation, in infrastructural and industrial transformation, etc, objectively call for a left. Liberals (like Obama) calling for market solutions are transparently making things much worse (.e.g., the debacle of biofuels). Adequately interpreted, there is now brute, scientific consensus that capitalization and accumulation are an existential and imminent threat to humanity, as such. This has not previously been the case.

As for Z's anti-multiculturalism, my point was that one speaks in a certain place, in a given time, and when immigration, xenophobic nationalism, etc, are tremendous forces (and guaranteed to increase as such), it seems irresponsible to retread the 19th-century Marxian attitude that historical and cultural difference are beneath serious thought (irrelevant).

The NDP, meanwhile, are essentially welfare-capitalist in orientation. All the talk of "neoliberalism" has the side-effect of valorizing the pre-neoliberal period. It can be nostalgic and arguably reactionary - a call to turn back the clock to an older, gentler (often industrial productivist) capitalism.

[Andrew]

And my jab at continental theory, while stupid, arises from my realization that many theoretical heavyweights (tenured faculty making 6-figure incomes at private institutions) could not be less interested in the regimes of labor on campus (academic precarity, etc, etc.) - nevermind non-academic campus labor. It's a "vulgar" critique, I know. But when faculty line up with the Admin instead of with adjuncts and grad students, they enact vulgar priorities.

[Barret]

Hi Andrew - thanks for your response.

I still think that it is much more useful to speak in particularities than it is to speak of "faculty" who "line up with the Admin" for example. Which faculty, which admin? Where? When? in what context? etc...

This extends as well to the notion of 'international'.

Although I partially agree that Zizek can be too general in his criticism - you know, 'the po. mo. left','muliculturalism', those who deny the need for antagonism and so on - he usually speaks about particular debates and issues. What I am saying is that zizek is more engaged in the world than you suggest. The importance of his work isn't the time he spends in airplanes making 'fanastic amounts of money' (as you wrote), but what he actually says about the issues. Try reading the content of his statements, as opposed to speculating about how much money he is supposedly making. How can you testify to how much money Zizek is making? Why not read his work? What does he means exactly about 'politicizing the economy'; this sort of reading would be opposed to automatically assuming that zizek (in this case) is simply making formal statements without content to promote his own career. When someone says they are intersted in politicizing the economy, why would you take this to mean exactly the opposite? This is what confuses me...

[patrick j. mullins]

"Try reading the content of his statements, as opposed to speculating about how much money he is supposedly making. "

That's condescending and silly. If you are sold on what somebody is saying, you don't care if they are 'promoting their own career' as well. When there is an accumulation of 'formal statements', especially when they are also so informal, that make you certain you would never take someone seriously ever again, then you start looking at their personal details. I don't care about Zizek's myself, he's a mini-celeb if there ever was one, but in the theory world he's got clout, and so students have to deal with him.

"arises from my realization that many theoretical heavyweights (tenured faculty making 6-figure incomes at private institutions) could not be less interested in the regimes of labor on campus (academic precarity, etc, etc.) - nevermind non-academic campus labor...But when faculty line up with the Admin instead of with adjuncts and grad students, they enact vulgar priorities."

And this is not useless, even to those of us like me (as opposed to Andrew) who don't think the hypocrisy is especially perverted or unnatural (it's obvious that the higher-ups line up with the even-higher-ups in private even if not at public ceremonies, but to pretend that it should be otherwise is not quite as odious as preetending that it IS otherwise.) I think he has said this well, given that he says he is 'making a vulgar critique', but then points out the 'enactment of vulgar priorities' that does occur. That you might be more qualified to judge how he ought to look at within the academic world is, of course, true--and that would be lining up with the higher-ups in the academic world, of which Zizek is unquestionably a part. This is not supposed to be seen, but it is hardly invisible.

It's a matter of do you believe Zizek is sincere AND extraodinarily intelligent or neither? If you can answer no to both of those, then you don't have to worry about any of it. If you think he's worth listening to even when he says things that could be termed quite as 'absurd' as you've termed Andrew's original post, which is itself not nearly all absurd, although the focus on the climate issues is too emphasized.

"What I am saying is that zizek is more engaged in the world than you suggest. '

Anyone who might think that Zizek is not engaged in the world would truly have problems. Do I think Zizek is not engaged in the world? Hardly, he has managed to become quite worldly under the circumstances. Is he worth listening to, and does he offer much wisdom on what we must now do in terms of coming to terms with 'what might have happened if this big world event didn't happen the way it did and the frightful prospect of what might have been the result if Tianenman had not happened--oh yes, AS IT DID'? You think so, yes. Talking about what would have happened if earth-shattering events had taken another turn is almost always just a lot of necrotic tissue, but it is not usually done except by students. One could hear about what might or might not have happened if that so-called genocide of the Native Americans hadn't occurred--I mean, we could hear about it again, or maybe it would be the first time, because it usually is just some sophomoric thing leftists bring up and call it 'genocide' without 'dwelling on personal details' of life in modern-day Indianapolis and the miracle that is Microsoft. The 'saved myth' provided by the Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia, the possibility that 'democratic' whatever might have 'caused a chaos' in China is TEXT. If one has read other Zizek texts does not even matter (and I have) in order to see how ridiculous this sort of thing is--not the least coincidental he brings up masturbation, however clunkily.

But yes, who cares about the money he's making. I don't. The 'money' is the idea that it is 'compelling' to say "Everybody in the World Except US Citizens Should Be Allowed to Vote and Elect the American Government". This is one of the stupidest, most reached-for and desperate things I have ever read from anyone anywhere, and those who pay attention to such 100% horseshit deserve that and more.

[Barret]

I'm probably guilty of being condescending and silly... no ill regard intended...

"It's a matter of do you believe Zizek is sincere AND extraodinarily intelligent or neither? If you can answer no to both of those, then you don't have to worry about any of it."

My point wasn't so much to register in the ongoing debate about whether Zizek is in or out, nor whether he has made a significant enough contribution to theory or the left to warrant our respect. Rather, it was only to say that Zizek is making specific arguments that should be taken seriously outright, whether or not you agree with how he gets paid. This is not a take it or leave it issue, such as: I'm going to pretend [insert theorist here] doesn't exist because I don't like where he works. I'm suggesting that either his ideas command a certain amount of attention or they do not. Zizek's do, but unfortunately he is more widely known for his comments about multiculturalism and political correctness, than his critique of ideology or enjoyment or democracy.

[Andrew]

Thanks for responses Barret and Patrick. In your final sentence, Barret, you mention Zizek's critique of ideology.

A crucial element in Z's critique is his insistence that ideology is practiced, more than thought. Hence, when he writes (persuasively to my mind) that many people understand climate change - they know about it, but nonetheless they walk outside, see the grass and the trees, drive to work, etc, everything seems fine - but they don't *believe* in climate change. Because, for Zizek, to believe in climate change means to experience it in practice.

If I have that right, my argument about Zizek's relation to non-capitalist political-economy is not a matter of his lecture fees or his willingness to be an intellectual-gun-for-hire, much less one who writes ad copy for
Abercrombie & Fitch.

(From a Boston Globe article:

"Zizek bristled at the suggestion that there was anything unseemly about an internationally renowned intellectual writing copy for a clothing catalog. ''If I were asked to choose between doing things like this to earn money and becoming fully employed as an American academic, kissing ass to get a tenured post,'' he growled, ''I would with pleasure choose writing for such journals!'')

Rather, the question is whether Zizek engages in social relations and forms of organization which enact his formal statements, i.e., does he believe in them?

Here is a friend of mine, discussing his involvement in the I.W.W.:

"It's time that we developed ideas not only of what should be done and what the world should be, but of how our ideas relate to the people we are, organized in the ways we are organized, relating to other people in the ways we really and potentially relate to them. It's time that we asked how people could participate in remaking our ideas and in changing the world with them. It's time, in short, that we took to heart the realization of Feuerbach that “even in thinking and in being a philosopher, I am a man among men.”

It is not just that Leftists should act humanely to other people, but that we should understand ourselves as a part of the people, in specific social relations that structure our actions and ideas. We should study our own sociality and transform it as we transform society around us. And we should organize as people who aim for a world governed not by the Left, but by us all."

Finally, Barret, you have suggested that there is a specificity to Z's arguments. That's fine. But I have suggested that he recycles his material (as is well known) to reinforce ideological positions regardless of the national and political contexts in which he does so. Far from addressing this point, your reply was both condescending and lacking any countervailing evidence.

E.g.,

"How can you testify to how much money Zizek is making? Why not read his work?"

As it happens I know exactly how much he was paid to give the lecture at my university and attend a weekend conference, and it amounts to more than I make in a year. But that is entirely beside the point (and I was delighted and privileged to hear him speak - he was fantastic!). I also know he makes "appearances" for which he is paid little or nothing (the DN! interview likely being one).

More to the point is what forms of political and organizational solidarity, if any, does Zizek evince? And on what hierarchies and divisions of labor are his career dependent? And to what extent are these accepted, taken for granted, de facto embraced? It is not a question of hypocrisy (which is banal), but of belief, in the Zizekian sense.

[Andrew]

Sorry, sentence should have read:

*Hence, he writes (persuasively to my mind) that many people understand climate change and they know about it, but nonetheless they walk outside, see the grass and the trees, drive to work, etc - and so they don't *believe* in climate change.*

[Jodi]

Zizek has written specifically in support of the Party as well as in support of psychoanalytic collectives. He also is not against law.

With respect to hierarchies and divisions of labor: he is extraordinarily generous and does not play the academic hierarchy game (Charles Taylor is also generous in this way). One of the first things he asked when I met him was whether my position was secure or not (with the implication that he would help in whatever way he could although he is not part of the US academic institutional hierarchy). He has agreed to give talks for little to nothing in places that would not add to his reputation or career. If a place is in a position to pay him well, then why shouldn't he be paid for his work?

He is not consumerist in the least. When he visited upstate NY, he didn't want to be taken to any place 'fancy' but just have a quick lunch at a local diner.

To be frank, I can barely get my head around the judgmental nature of Andrew's remarks. The implication is that he, Andrew, is the wise, politically correct person in the position of judging Zizek's life. Andrew is the one who has thought deeply and well about hierarchy and dependence, about people working in connection with others, as if Zizek has not. This is ignorance on stilts.

[Barret]

I can't resist; there must be a Zizek joke here somewhere. It might go like this: Yes, I may be condescending and silly, but at least I'm not vulgar and jealous!

In any case, Patrick may be right: my argument is oriented towards an academic criticism. Andrew your use of sources, in this case anyhow, is poor. You have yet to quote Zizek from any of his books or articles (and there are nearly thousands to choose from!). I don't think the opinion of your "friend" from IWW adds anything whatsoever to your point, but rather illustrates my exact problem with your position: you will do anything but actually read Zizek. You have decided apriori that he isn't worth it. You can quote from the Boston Globe a thousand times and that won't help either. You can testify to how great he is and how much you love him. But it doesn't change the fact. It is this sort of dismissal that I completely disagree with. Try doing that with Derrida or Levinas. You wouldn't make it past your next conference.

[patrick j. mullins]

"I can't resist; there must be a Zizek joke here somewhere. It might go like this: Yes, I may be condescending and silly, but at least I'm not vulgar and jealous! "

Yes, he's not very funny. Was I also supposed to imagine the 'everybody voting for the U.S. govt. except American citizens as a 'Zizek joke?' I wouldn't know, since I don't find him funny.

Why does Andrew have to prove his read certain texts, of course he can if he wants to. If he heard him speak and read the post here, that is already text. Over three years alone, you wouldn't have had to actively seek out Zizek texts, although many did, given that the new op-ed pieces are always put up here and elsewhere. Maybe they are effective in some ways, but there is no reason why one has to think so, nor do they. It is also the case that after consuming a good number of them, you can see similarities. It surely must be from the idiosyncrasies of a writer that one finds whether one is going to use him in any important way or not. Once I finally digested, over a period of 6 years, his discussion of 'impossible actions' done in Israel in 'Welcome to the Desert of the Real' and leadership by Europe in 'whatever', plus primarily made the distinction in his essays in that same book between his version of Baudrillard's hyperreal and Virilio's cybermonde, all that talk of the 'virtual' becoming dominant, you see the sci-fi workings of all of these future-oriented things as you see them not coming to pass. Was his more toxic than B's or V's? I thought so, because it was made intense momentarily, then left behind for other pursuits after it had left its damage behind. It wouldn't then reappear unless it was trendy. There is too much attempt to make things sound new and compelling for me to think it's not passe. But it's this very 'new and compelling' that sells (I don't care whether for cash or not, how can that matter? nor whether he wanted no fancy food; if not, one wonders if he made a point of not wanting it to distract from more important matters; if so, he might as well have shaved some truffles), not that the 'impossible actions' haven't occurred.

[patrick j. mullins]

"I can't resist; there must be a Zizek joke here somewhere. It might go like this: Yes, I may be condescending and silly, but at least I'm not vulgar and jealous! "

It's interesting that you would find this lame sort of humour a 'Zizek joke'. I've seen it recently among other self-styled 'thinker-types' in their attempts to throw out superficial declarations of superiority at the expense of all reserve. Of course, such a remark would be vulgar, albeit only in the social not Marxist sense.

[patrick j. mullins]

But it's this very 'new and compelling' that sells (I don't care whether for cash or not, how can that matter? nor whether he wanted no fancy food; if not, one wonders if he made a point of not wanting it to distract from more important matters; if so, he might as well have shaved some truffles), not that the 'impossible actions' haven't occurred.

should read "NOW that the 'impossible actions' haven't occurred." I suppose you could say that was a Freudian slip if you were making a 'Zizek joke.'

[aidan]

One wonders (quite seriously) about the differences between impossible actions now occurred, not now occurred and not not now occurred.

[Barret]

I guess that means you didn't find it funny, Patrick.