So, in today’s leftist politics, we seem in effect to be reduced to the choice between the “solid” orthodox attitude of proudly out of principle, sticking to the old (Communist or Social Democratic) tune, although we know its time has passed, and the New Labour “radical centre” attitude of going the “full Monty” in stripping, the last vestiges of proper leftist discourse
Theorist/philosopher Slavoj Zizek in ‘The Ticklish Subject’ (quote pulled from Jose Klein’s thought provoking, if flawed, book review over at Salon)
Zizek not only has good (and important) ideas, but the way he expresses them is nearly as important. He does not run for the cover of dense, overcomplex footnotes and build theory upon layers and layers of incoherent monologue; while he may sometimes be difficult to understand, ultimately his message (both in terms of its content and expression) is the most powerful of any philosopher for decades.
Zizek’s contrarian role in society and in academic discplines is important, certainly, and he openly admits that his role is not to create some universal base of rigid quasi-theological Marxist discourse. That being said, to argue (as some of his critics do) that his flexibility and pragmatism in terms of the ideas that emerge from his experience is not coherent - and is not ideological - is fundamentally fucked. Everything is ideological - trying to argue that one is not ideological, whether for positive or negative reasons, is a petty attempt to escape
Aside from revering his ideology and methodology at building some form of praxis out of it, I identify with Zizek for two personal reasons too: firstly, I have the same ‘problem’ as him, in that people often struggle to understand us (him because of his speech impediment, me because of my speed of speech & both of us because we get over-excited and don’t enunciate properly when talking about subjects that we care about); secondly, Zizek and I are both accused of being difficult to tell as to whether we are being serious or not. People often believe that, when engaging in some farcial defence of the economic benefits of Italian fascism or how North Korea is consciously moving away from Juche, it’s own haphazard and soundly bastardised form of Soviet Marxism-Leninism, toward an absurdist ideology, we are being serious.
Returning to the first of our two ‘identifications’, I feel like making a bit of a digression: popular responses (journalism, reviews, etc) about Zizek more often than not comment on how he speaks and behaves more so than many other philosophers. Sure, this is because he is a bit cooler and different to most other academics, but I also think this is part of the wider cultural acceptance in the West for people to criticise the way others speak, people who talk fast and those who have speech impediments. It’s a cultural blindspot amidst all the liberal talk of accepting people’s differences. Saying to someone, without humour, in anywhere part of the Western world “my God, why does your sight have to be so bad?” if they wear glasses or “Man, do you really have to be in that wheel chair?” if they are in a wheel-chair, is highly culturally offensive. But complaining about someone talking fast or stuttering in what would be an offensive way for many other traits is quite acceptable. It never ceases to amaze (and infuriate) me how people I don’t know find it culturally appropriate to complain about how fast I speak, as if it’s something I’ve never been told before or am not consciously aware of despite being an adult.
Anyway, I digress. Back to Jose Klein,
Zizek’s playfulness makes him nearly impossible to pin down. Even after parsing through jargon that frankly leaves me cold, I still can never be sure just how sincere he’s being at any given moment. Nonetheless, I think it’s all part of Zizek’s point. Irony, here, becomes crucial to his political argument. For just as irony transforms the literal into something radically different, our imagination contains the power to sneak new narratives into the political universe of global capitalism. Moreover, if what he seeks to illustrate is a new type of agency inhering in human selfhood, one that is ticklish rather than rigidly heroic, then shouldn’t he tickle us into understanding, too?
Humour, irony and making it difficult for discern sincerity are very important rhetorical devices if you want to confront issues and challenge people’s ideology. Using hyper-relevant cultural metaphors and similies like Zizek does (owing to his incredibly wide knowledge of film largely) makes what otherwise are boring and self-referential philosophical wanks into tangible, believable statements that are accessible and agreeable for people. I struggle to understand most philosophers, and frankly have never really bothered trying with a lot of them: philosphy, theory, whatever, relies on so many layers of cultural assumptions, edifices built upon edifices, that you need to be part of this grand homogenising tradition (‘literate’ if you will) and accept a seemingly endless array of existing meta-narratives, that I frankly think most philosophy has divorced itself not only from concretely analysing the world and its inhabitants but outlived much of its use and relevance to modern society.
