This post is an object lesson in how a) not to tell a joke, b) to come off as quite closed minded and sectarian and as something of a jerk, and c) to appear both awkward and pretentious all at once. I consider it thus a triple word score in the Scrabble game of life, and I hope a useful tool for anyone seeking to accomplish any of the above.
I just got a mass emailed invitation to a speaking event by the allegedly radical writer Slavoj Zizek. I’ve not really read his work, maybe like an essay or three and some op/ed pieces he’s had in the newspaper. I’ve checked several of his books out of the library, tried to start reading them and either gotten bored or annoyed. Now, some of my favorite books and the ones that have most shaped my ideas are ones that bored or annoyed me or otherwise undermined my motivation to read, so this is not an argument about whether or not anyone should read the guy. I will say that I’ve yet to see a use of his work or a quote or paraphrase of his work that makes him seem worth the trouble, and much of (the little) what I’ve encountered by/about him has bugged the shit out of me. The best argument I’ve heard for reading the guy is that a lot of people I know take him seriously, so if I want to understand these people better I ought to read this guy. Fair argument I suppose.
In a nutshell, I’m ignorant about Zizek, and, dwelling prejudiced in my ignorance, I find him offputting and suspect that he is a distraction at best. (There. I said it.)
As such, I thought this email I got was hilarious. The subject line, actually. It said “Zizek: First as Tragedy, Then as Farce.”
Sticking to my ignorance and prejudice, I wonder, is the temporal sequence here one of either/or or both/and? That is, is it Zizek as tragedy then as no longer tragedy but rather farce, or is it Zizek as tragedy then Zizek as both tragedy and farce? And I wonder if these might offer ways to sort Zizek(ian)’s works (you know, the ones I’ve not read but have still managed to dislike) - the tragic, the farcical, and the both tragic and farcical.
zizek is yet another of the fools looking for “revolutionaries” or new “left masters” to tell them what to think. In fact, we are all told what to think … have you noticed the idiocy of a baby one minute after they are born??? Being told what to think is a given while pretending we are revolutionaries is a delusion that is quite hard to endure
Comment by Dr. Pearson — October 15, 2009 @ 4:56 pm
Funny! I heard the title of that new book the other day (“Zizek: First as Tragedy, Then as Farce.”) and thought the same thing.
Comment by Adam W. — October 21, 2009 @ 6:34 pm
hey Nate,
this is kind of belated but what the hell. I personally thought that the first chapter of Sublime Object of Ideology was a very interesting reading of commodity fetishism. Don’t really care about the film criticism and other aspects of his work that make him popular among the literature students. But I was just glancing at this review by Jameson of one of Zizek’s books:
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n17/fredric-jameson/first-impressions
and I think you might find it interesting for evaluating whether or not there is any good theoretical reason to consort with Zizek. I guess these are fairly trivial things to point out, but Jameson reads him as having a particular reading of the dialectic and also as trying to figure out some of the political consequences of a lacanian theory of (inevitably) split subjectivity. I actually think personally that having a better theory of psychology is an important left theoretical project, both to counter the tedious claims that “human nature is incompatible with communism” and perhaps to better understand some of the problems of human interaction that plague radical utopian experiments (radical pedagogy for instance is always shot through with contradictions, residual forms of authority, newly emergent forms of unhappiness, and so on).
Anyway, about Zizek, it seems only in keeping with someone who advocates non-sovereign and disunified theory of subjectivity to add that perhaps it’s not necessary to have a monolithic opinion of Zizek the Individual; I for one feel comfortable liking certain moments in certain of his texts, disliking others, and not really having the time to read more.
take care, eli
Comment by eli t — November 6, 2009 @ 4:13 am
hi Eli,
From the little I’ve read of him I’ve always found Jameson a bit dull but I’ll look at the interview soon.
I’ve yet to see any political use of psychoanalysis that struck me as compelling, so I’m skeptical. I’ve also never felt a need for a theory of psychology in any of my political work, so this just doesn’t scratch an itch that I have.
I don’t know how to say this without sounding hostile, not my intent, but -
what’s the difference between a “non-sovereign and disunified theory of subjectivity” and a theory that self-contradiction is acceptable? That’s not a rhetorical question, I can’t tell the difference but that may be because I understand the terms differently/misunderstand the terms.
cheers,
Nate
Comment by Nate — November 7, 2009 @ 11:43 am
Hi Nate,
Those are mostly fair points. My impression is that a major mid-century left project was about trying to bring together marxism and psychoanalysis — Fromm and Marcuse are the two main figures — now it seems utterly forgotten, though I am very ignorant and wouldn’t want to defend the project. Psychoanalysis has its problems. And I mean, frankly, I don’t know that I have ever really “felt a need for a theory of psychology” in any political project either, and I’m not claiming to know how one would play out in any practical context, but I will say that, of course, a ‘folk theory of psychology’ (as anthropologists would call it) is immanent in every sort of activism and organizing that aims to persuade or enlist people. Think of how one might say that someone is ‘too attached’ to the status quo or ‘too cynical’ to be involved in politics — that’s already psychology, if you like, and come to think of it, many marxist ideas are also partly psychological or at least have psychological correlates: think of ‘class interest,’ ‘class consciousness,’ ‘ideology’…
It’s cool if you still don’t buy any of this. As for your actual question, which doesn’t sound hostile in the least, here’s a stab at an answer. A ‘disunified theory of subjectivity’ is a descriptive theory saying something like: human mental processes do not necessarily unite into a coherent set of preferences, beliefs or commitments; contradictory desires operate simultaneously; a lot of psychic activity is unconscious, irrational, unruly; one’s consciousness (here’s the nonsovereign part) does not necessarily master the remainder of one’s psychic states.. one can elaborate this in more or less arcane theoretical registers but at any rate, at a basic descriptive level, I find this hard to doubt. (You don’t have to, though!)
A ‘theory that noncontradiction is acceptable’ on the other hand sounds (a) normative and (b) probably addresses either basic logic or some marxist laws of historical dialectics. I don’t know a lot of people who argue that incoherent arguments or contradictory propositions are desirable, though as an empirical matter of course people’s thoughts don’t often satisfy a logician’s criteria of validity. As for historical dialectics, the real debate would seem to be over their existence, rather than their acceptability or desirability (which presupposes their existence). But you don’t strike me as the kind of marxist who’s deeply committed to dialectical logic…?
Anyway, to the extent that there is a normative implication in the above sketch of a ‘disunified’ psychology, it seems to me that it mainly lies in suggesting that it would be pointless for activists (or anyone else) to go around hoping to change people’s minds by purely logical argument. But does any of this make any sense?
Comment by eli t — November 9, 2009 @ 2:43 am
hi Eli,
Nice to hear from you again, I hope you’re well. Did you ever get in touch with my friend Tzuchien?
Anyway, I think it’s fair to say that all attempts to persuade involve what you call a folk theory of psychology, or at least can be said to imply such a theory. I’m not convinced that this sort of theory is a causal factor in those attempts, though. It may be an artifact of the rational reconstruction or description (at the level of theory) of those attempts, and I’m not convinced that addressing the theory of psychology is a way to improve those projects - I’m not convinced of the utility of talking about the folk theory implied in any given project, but I could be moved on that, and I’m much more skeptical about the utility of more high theory sorts of theory of psychololgy in all this.
re: disunified subjects and so on, at the level of description you give here, that makes sense. I think it’s pretty common sensical and fits with a lot my experiences. At the same time, I think that theoretical descriptions of this - elaborations in more or less arcane theoretical registers - that I’ve encountered (in my admittedly minimal exposure to this sort of thing) end up being or at least bordering on apologies for various things that I think are lazy or mistaken, including being too easy on arguments (writers!) who contradict themselves. So, yes, there’s a normative component here. That doesn’t make it wrong per se though (if it did that would itself be [meta]normative in a way that would likely involve a performative contradiction).
I do agree that relying solely on the rails of logic to carry people to propositions expressing one’s ends is silly, but I think we still shouldn’t come off those rails and contradict ourselves. This is probably obvious and banal.
cheers,
Nate
Comment by Nate — November 16, 2009 @ 3:20 am