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I think Zizek is a good example of why leftists tend to be (and should be) suspicious of "hero" figures in general.
Sure he had some good ideas and helped people discover their unexamined ideologies that influenced their lives, but as the meme about Darth Plagueis put it, he could save others from unexamined ideology, but not himself. :unlimited-power:
he was never good. his ideological baggage goes back 30 years. it's not merely his recent hot takes. he worked actively to privatize yugoslavia in the 90s and ran for president in a neoliberal party.
Next I'm going to find out he was instrumental in the hostile takeover of ZA/UM. :kitsuragi-depress:
this counterpunch article on him is so good because it demonstrates in excruciating detail how a self-labeled "communist" ended up getting repeatedly platformed by prominent neoliberals in the west. I first found out about Zizek in 2010 through a "Royal Society of the Arts" animated video. They were always willing to platform him because his policies were always pro-EU and pro-NATO and his "communism" was always anti-USSR.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/01/02/capitalisms-court-jester-slavoj-zizek/
Mein Gott. :zizek:
There is a very good reason that Jordan Peterson accepted a 'debate' with him, even while zonked through the gourd on benzos. Zizek is ultimately, like Jordan Peterson, a culture critic. Not an academic. Not an activist. Not a revolutionary. Basically the dumb smart guys equivalent of a YouTube movie reviewer. As such, they both understand that in the world of criticism, content is king. That doesn't mean quality of content or quality of engagement, that means the most eyeballs on your content at all time, in whatever form possible, with the major goal to get them to buy your book(s) and tickets to your debates, because that is where you really make your money. Like the only reason Peterson fell off as much as he did was because he went into a coma for nearly a year and people moved on to guys like Andrew Tate.
I have a soft spot for Zizek as a pipeline for leftists, the trashcan of ideology is a fantastic metaphor for modern media consumption, but I am also very glad I didn't seriously engage with any of his works until after I seriously read through most of Marx, Lenin, Nietzsche, Camus, Popper, Hegel, Kant, McLuhan, Sartre, de Beauvoir, Baudrialluad, Butler, Foucault, Shelley, etc and other assorted histories of socialism and socialist states. Otherwise he would have been overwhelmingly smart to me and I likely would have just taken him at his word.
The reason for this is that Zizek is an incredibly well read, far more than me, but due to his own life experiences, deeply unserious person, even by continental philosopher standards. His method of surviving the collapse of the USSR as a public intellectual has basically been to be a 'Marxist' who tells liberals that they were right about everything, even in the face of overwhelming evidence, by deflecting with incredibly obscure and empirically unprovable theories. Occasionally, he will have a correct point, such as 'people get off on being outraged as much if not more as they get off on being happy' as a way to make fun of first world activists, but then ignores the fact that material stability is empirically dropping everywhere but China and China is one of the few places in the world that is experiencing a rise in general happiness. Sure, maybe people prefer to be outraged, but clearly people become happier regardless with material stability and losing that makes it easier to 'indulge' in outrage.
deeply unserious person, even by continental philosopher standards.
cries THAT'S NOT POSSIBLE!
I guess he chose personal profit over communism. Sad to think people would do it, especially after they’ve learnt so much.
Also:
I seriously read through most of Marx, Lenin, Nietzsche, Camus, Popper, Hegel, Kant, McLuhan, Sartre, de Beauvoir, Baudrialluad, Butler, Foucault, Shelley, etc
Holy motherfucking shit.
No, he recognized what his material interests were and has unabashedly followed them. This is a point he himself reiterates over and over again throughout his works. Make hay while the sun shines. He is ironically and absurdly as, if not more, pragmatic than Stalin, because at least Stalin still tried to work and think within the framework of the Soviet councils. Zizek is wholely libertarian in that regard.
With Zizek though, it is difficult to say if he himself believes his own ideology (hence why I consider him unserious) given how many times he has contradicted himself. I will not praise him for it, but I continue to have a soft spot for him regardless of this Nazi turn because he is literal embodiment, an avatar of proof, of the ideological genuflection you have to do to be considered a Marxist AND still be published within mainstream government circles. He is literally Parenti's "Inventing Reality", as a Slovenian raccoon man who probably did way too much cocaine after the fall of the Soviet Union. Fucking hilarious regardless if it's intentional or not.
However, in order to really get this joke you also have to read a stupid amount of old books, so idk if it's worth it. But also, it's not really that impressive imo, I'm pretty old by online western leftist standards.
Edit: I honestly should be nicer here. I'm just a very tired person most of the time. While technically correct, thinking like a Marxist means that"abandoning communism" is not really something you can do. Communism is a theoretical state of production that subsumes and overtakes capitalism, you can't abandon it, it just happens eventually.
If you are a Marxist-Leninist you can either try to accelerate the process or do damage control (depending on the overarching situation) on the fallout of the inevitable crisises that occur within capitalism, but material interests still dominate ideology, and the entire Western part of the world is designed to insulate itself from the fallout of those issues. That being said, the treats are starting to get abit more expensive and the majority of U.S. has zero idea of what it's like to live like the rest of the world. Potentially a very explosive, likely reactionary, situation. Idk though, I just know my area is generally financially fine, so if the cities go off like they usually do during a cost of living crisis, alot of people are gonna be willing to shoot their poorer fellow citizens and that is a recipe for disaster for long term civil stability.
Leftism shouldn't be reactionary, just because Jordan Peterson sucks doesn't mean everyone who dunks on him is good
How’s he reactionary? I’m serious. I don’t know shit about him other than the memes but this is like suddenly hearing Chomsky or Parenti are reactionary anti-commies.
Chomsky is anti-communist.
I'm not calling Zizek reactionary, I'm saying that if we like him for dunking on Peterson in a vacuum without looking at the bigger picture we're being kinda reactionary
Like :funny-clown-hammer: has debated and dunked on fascists before but we still hate him for being a neoliberal pedo
Similarly supporting the Democrats just because they oppose the Republicans is barely any less reactionary than chuds supporting Republicans for trolling the libs
The entire political spectrum in :amerikkka: is reactionary because no one actually stands for anything other than trolling their enemies and it's easy to fall into that kind of thought
Then again I don't really know what the fuck I'm talking about, someone else can probably say this better than I
That doesn't sound like reaction in the reactionary sense, it sounds like just partisanship or contrarianism.