Notes from the Underground

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I tolerate this century, but I don't enjoy it.

All of the ephemera that is far too trivial to be bothered with elsewhere on this site or, depending on your point of view, a meta-commentary on it. This ephemera includes, but is not limited to art, music and literature. Most of the content here will be discussed in terms that are as abstract as possible, reality being a singularly overrated concept.

Sunday, January 13, 2008

 
Rather unsurprisingly, I have to admit to being somewhat unimpressed by this defence of Slavoj Zizek:

"Philosopher Simon Critchley contends that Zizek is "whistling in the dark" and that his proposals for action amount to nothing more than "vague apocalyptic allusions to violence". Even more to the point is Oliver Marchart’s claim that Zizek advocates "a purely abyssal and decisional act" that Lenin (the very figure whom Zizek urges us to "repeat") would have dismissed as mere "adventurism". In other words, the charge is, once again, that Zizek’s Act is just an act. This brings us to our primary question. All games aside, what is, in fact, the nature of Zizek’s "Act"?

Zizek’s analysis might well give some careless readers the impression that it is groundless, purely spontaneous, and might lead nowhere in particular. For example, he says that the revolution he envisions "ne s'authorise que d'elle meme"" it is its own justification. He also explains that revolutionary action is "exactly like making a leap of faith". But if that's what it is "exactly" like, perhaps one might reasonably conclude that it's no more than a baseless, irrational exercise of will....

Zizek no doubt intends to shock the reader when he praises Robespierre's defense of terror and calls for "repeating Lenin". However, that's not the main point. It's not just a pose; it's a position. He explains that he wants to "repeat Lenin" in a Kierkegaardian sense: "to retrieve the same impulse in today’s constellation". This is the impulse to focus resolutely on the conditions that authorise the Act. Moreover, the legacy of Robespierre that he affirms is also quite specific: his commitment to the necessity of "large-scale collective decisions". So the Act isn’t about the guillotines or the Cheka, but about the ability to envision the possibility of qualitative changes in society and to act on this vision.

ZiZek holds that "there are no innocent bystanders in the crucial moments of revolutionary decision". By "crucial moments" he doesn’t mean only a 1789 or a 1917. There are no "innocent bystanders" now, as various genocides and ecocides are being carried out in our name, and the products of our labour are being used to destroy, exploit, oppress and murder. Despite being on the opposite end of the philosophical spectrum, Zizek has something here in common with a thinker like utilitarian ethicist Peter Singer. How, asks Singer, can I justify squandering wealth on luxuries while others are starving, and I could save many lives with at most a small sacrifice? He concludes that the reallocation of this wealth (and indeed much more) is not "charity" but rather strict justice. Zizek makes a similar point. I am not innocent when I allow preventable atrocities to go on and merely pretend that I'm incapable of acting. This is the ethical grounding of the Act.

Zizek discusses several possible paths for action. At times he stresses the course of indirect action rather heavily. He laments the fact that the options that now seem realistic are those that allow everything to remain fundamentally the same. This is exemplified by the obsession with recycling and Green consumerism, in which gestures that cannot possibly have a significant effect on the underlying problems (global climate change, mass extinction, ecocide) replace the will to act decisively. Other examples include the concern with politically correct language or endless apologies offered to victimised groups. These gestures act as substitutes for concerted action against structural racism or actual genocide. Zizek rejects such illusory forms of action in favour of opposition to global capital through challenging "the hegemonic ideological coordinates". Does this mean that Zizek is willing to settle for "the terrorism of pure theory"? Not at all.

Elsewhere, Zizek is quite specific about what the Act might mean in terms of large-scale political action. He cites what Badiou sees as the four moments of revolutionary justice: first, voluntarism, or the faith in one’s ability to act; second, willingness to use "terror" to "crush the enemy of the people"; third, the will to take "egalitarian justice" as far and as quickly as necessary; and, finally, trust in the people. He explains how a response to the ecological crisis might embody these elements. It would imply a willingness to impose uniform standards everywhere in order to solve the problem; a readiness to inflict "ruthless punishment" on those who resist; a commitment to immediate, large-scale, drastic changes; and faith that "the large majority" will ultimately endorse this course of action.

ZiZek doesn’t say what "ruthless punishment" might mean, but presumably it would include heavy fines and imprisonment. It might also require strong pressure or even coercive means against regimes that resist. Some might say this is harsh. ZiZek’s response is that we should consider the alternative to acting. Decades may pass while debate continues over reaching standards like those of the Kyoto Protocols, which are entirely inadequate to solve the problem. Rising sea levels may inundate lands where hundreds of millions of people now live, and unprecedented social chaos may result. Ruin of agricultural lands may inflict famine on hundreds of millions, if not billions. Which produces the greatest terror, action or inaction?..

Zizek looks to a future beyond the fantasy. He invokes the concept of the passage á l’acte, which in Lacanian psychoanalysis signifies an exit from the fantasy scene. It also means leaving the symbolic, the realm of the Big Other, the realm of domination. It means a confrontation with the real. This could be the real of our own lives or the real of our collective history. Critics who see mere adventurism in Zizek ignore this dimension " his call for the substitution of the "passion for the real" for the passion mobilised and channelled by fantasy and fetishism. The authentic Act cannot be for Zizek a mere revolutionary moment, a new fantasy scene. He endorses what Badiou calls "fidelity to the event", the resolution to create "a new lasting order". The ethical imperative embodied in ZiZek’s concept of the Act requires that that the subjective spirit of revolt find its fulfilment in an objective order of history."


I'm not really sure why the author of this piece wishes to presume that Zizek is simply trying to shock when citing Robespierre and Lenin, that Zizek simply means fines rather than gulags and guillotines when all the evidence seems to point to the contrary; on the whole Zizek has rather more in common with De Sade than with Marx. His Lacanianism demands a concentration on the act and the passion of the real, but the nature of the real seems essentially arbitrary. This shouldn't be surprising; Lacan and Marx are hardly obvious bedfellows. This is why Zizek can write of having more in common with religious conservatives than with the conventional left, because the dimension of power is ultimately of as much importance for him as any programme of political action. It's difficult to see why the sorts of Acts committed by Mussolini or Hitler in the name of an abstract concept of the people would not do as well as those committed by Lenin and Stalin in the name of equally nebulous abstractions. Even if one did conclude it to be a sound practice to dismiss individual rights in favour of collective coercion, and there are few precedents to suggest that it would be, the question of what that action would lead to is largely absent from Zizek. In short, he is effectively concerned with means and not ends. Whereas one knows what Singer's recommendations for animal rights or social equality consist of, Zizek's revolution is an end in its own right.

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posted by Richard 11:36 am