Political Economists #2? nah, just some Zizek
Ok, I was planning to write about Antonio Gramsci, as I promised earlier, but I will do that next week instead. The reason? Well, I visited a lecture by Rene ten Bos about Sjavoj Zizek, the selfproclaimed communist that not only reminds one of Lasse (they share a special love for beautiful girls and Hegel) but has also been named THE leading philosopher of the Occupy movement, at least by mainstream media. What I will do in this post is give a very basic outline of some of the central points in his theory and then give my opinion about one of the most recognisable characteristic Zizek has: his ability to be very, very provocative.
First, it is important to realise that Zizek is much indebted to Marx, but differs with him when it comes to the level of awareness of exploitation. Where Marx sees a revolutionary potential as a consequence of the working class in capitalism that does not realise it is being extorted (hence they can be waken up when told), Zizek claims that they actually do know this but are all cynics (thus they cant be woken up since they want to be asleep). In order to understand this he uses Marx’ understanding of ideology, only to say that Marx and neo-Marxists today don’t realise how deep this ideology is rooted. Thus, the truth is not enough for enlightenment.
A lot of my friends were confused by Zizek’s statement that there is no objective reality, everything is subjective (“I secretly think reality exists so that we can speculate about it”). In particular, this seemed strange as Zizek claims communism is better than capitalism, a claim necessarily subjective (I hope this is a good enough representation of their criticism). For me, as a more practical person, this is not really a problem. Even though I have to agree that everything is subjective, I hold on to that which I find objective enough. I guess the truth is not enough for me either 😉
Last, Zizek has made name by being very very provocative. For example he states that Hitler was not violent enough. Many are repulsed by this style. However, I can imagine very well it is deliberate. The effect is that people who want to oppose him do not even read what he really means and thus make themselves ridiculous for insiders, while those who hold a more positive attitude towards him are challenged to read further in order to make sure Zizek is not too crazy. And last, not unimportant in this commercial world, it draws attention.
BETWEEN HEGEMONY AND CHANGE 
Well, Bart, though no-one doubts my love of Hegel and beautiful women the latter needs some elaboration. Though Zizek doesn’t imho succesfully overcome, or care to overcome, the ontological subject-object divide I do agree with him in part on subjectivity in aesthetics. Hegemonic aesthetics of taste (and in part symmetry) is not my view of beauty (and equating aesthetics and beauty in people is also dubious). Beauty is in the flaws, ideosyncracies and persona. Within this framework I love — and is at the same time intimidated by — beautiful women.
Actually my love for Hegel needs some elaboration for those who haven’t discussed theory with me. It struck me that being seen online as anachronistically a Hegelian disciple, may be worse than womaniser — oh, how the geek in me comes to the fore! :p
It’s an open-ended understanding of Hegel’s philosophy of history in stark contrast to Hegel’s conclusion of Prussia as the pinnacle of humanity (repeated again by Fukuyama drawing on Hegelian philosophy of history). It is a, though not truly Hegelian, aporetic and open-ended yet still possibly teleological application of his thought.
Well, luckily ‘love for’ is not the same as ‘agree with’. This would also be a problem with a lot of beautiful women 😉
Why cant I ‘like’ comments? :-p
You can’t ‘like’ comments because this isn’t Facebook…I believe that Zizek has in fact chided the Occupy movement for a lack of ideas. I think his point is that protesting is fine, but if the movement isn’t organised fairly quickly into a political project with defined ideals and objectives, it loses momentum and potency.
What are the writers’ thoughts on that? Interestingly, Zizek seems to be adopting the role of ‘cynic’ that he ascribes to the proles – ‘you’re not actually doing anything, so I don’t think I can get behind you’.
Haha.. proles. You make me chuckle chris 🙂
Now, I am on thin ice, but wasn’t it Zizek very early on (or someone else???) that said once the movement had defined ideas (within hegemonic discourse) it would lose and fizzle out into nothing? Though something very poststruct and political (sort of odd Lacan plus quasi-Arendt) had to happen… but very cerful to not have defined (dead and static by definition :p) ideas?
Sorry for the very late response Chris. I think you are right, although I think it is more realistic to think of occupy as a movement that can inspire/reproduce other movements that one that can become a political force on its own, although many are talking about such a development.
In the Netherlands a famous member of the Christian-Democratic party just launched an idea with at his think tank regarding major reforms in the bank sector. The fact that these kind of ideas are now somewhat mainstream cannot be seen apart from the success of Occupy and the massive support for them, especially in the US.
About Zizek and occupy: If one thing, Zizek is famous for being very hard on his ‘friends’. According to him, ‘tough love’ is the only answer to developments in South-America and other developments that are vaguely similar to his own ideas. I think his critique has to be seen in this perspective, and chided might be the right word for that, but cynic is not. The question that is prior to his critique, however, is whether or not occupy has to become more than it is today. As stated above, I dont think it has to.