ZIZEK AND POLITICS Z I A CRITICAL INTRODUCTION Z E K MATTHEw SHARPE GEOff BOUCHER A N Slavoj Žižek is probably the most important figure in contemporary theory since D Michel Foucault. Politically urgent as well as intellectually engaging, Žižek’s writing P has had an enormous impact on contemporary philosophy, social theory, cultural O L studies and communications departments. Žižek’s thought is driven by the need to I T find an alternative to the problems of globalisation and the supposed end of I ideology in the advanced democracies. His insights into popular culture and C S political life internationally have made him a ‘must read’ for anybody serious about understanding the condition the world is in today. Yet his works have often seemed A an intellectual roller-coaster, to be enjoyed and admired, but not emulated or C critically engaged. R I T I In Žižek and Politics, Geoff Boucher and Matthew Sharpe go beyond standard C A introductions to spell out a new approach to reading Žižek, one that can be highly L critical as well as deeply appreciative. They show that Žižek has a raft of I fundamental positions that enable his theoretical positions to be put to work on N practical problems. Explaining these positions with clear examples, they outline T R why Žižek’s confrontation with thinkers such as Derrida, Foucault and Deleuze has O so radically changed how we think about society. They then go on to track Žižek’s D U own intellectual development during the last twenty years, as he has grappled with C theoretical problems and the political climate of the War on Terror. This book is T a major addition to the literature on Žižek and a crucial critical introduction to his IO thought. N S Matthew Sharpe lectures in philosophy and psychoanalytic studies at Deakin H University. He has published Slavoj Zizek: A Little Piece of the Real and is A co-editor of Traversing the Fantasy: Critical Essays on Slavok Žižek (2005). R P E Geoff Boucher lectures in literary studies and psychoanalytic studies at Deakin University. He has published articles on Žižek in Telos and is co-editor of B Traversing the Fantasy: Critical Essays on Slavoj Žižek (2005). He has also O U written The Charmed Circle of Ideology (2008) on the post-Marxism of Butler, C Žižek, Laclau and Mouffe. H E R Cover design: Jonathan Williams E D Edinburgh University Press IN 22 George Square B Edinburgh EH8 9LF U www.euppublishing.com R G H ISBN 978 0 7486 3804 8 zizek.indd 1 21/09/2009 12:05 Žižek and Politics MM22111100 -- SSHHAARRPPEE PPRREELLIIMMSS..iinndddd ii 55//33//1100 1155::2266::4466 MM22111100 -- SSHHAARRPPEE PPRREELLIIMMSS..iinndddd iiii 55//33//1100 1155::2266::4466 ŽIŽEK AND POLITICS A CRITICAL INTRODUCTION 2 Matthew Sharpe and Geoff Boucher Edinburgh University Press MM22111100 -- SSHHAARRPPEE PPRREELLIIMMSS..iinndddd iiiiii 55//33//1100 1155::2266::4466 © Matthew Sharpe and Geoff Boucher, 2010 Edinburgh University Press Ltd 22 George Square, Edinburgh www.euppublishing.com Typeset in Sabon by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire, and printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 0 7486 3803 1 (hardback) ISBN 978 0 7486 3804 8 (paperback) The right of Matthew Sharpe and Geoff Boucher to be identifi ed as authors of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. MM22111100 -- SSHHAARRPPEE PPRREELLIIMMSS..iinndddd iivv 55//33//1100 1155::2266::4466 Contents Expanded Contents List vi Abbreviations ix Introduction 1 Part One. Žižek 1 1 Žižek and the Radical-D emocratic Critique of Ideology 31 2 Retrieving the Subject: Žižek’s Theoretical Politics 60 3 Did Žižek Say Democracy? 86 Inter-c hapter. Žižek’s Vanishing Mediation 112 Part Two. Žižek 2 4 Postmodernity and the Society of Generalised Perversion 139 5 Žižek’s Vanguard Politics 165 6 Religion and the Politics of Universal Truth 194 Conclusion 219 References 234 Index 249 MM22111100 -- SSHHAARRPPEE PPRREELLIIMMSS..iinndddd vv 55//33//1100 1155::2266::4466 Expanded Contents List Abbreviations ix Introduction 1 Žižek and Politics 1 So Who is Slavoj Žižek? 2 The Dilemmas of Enjoyment as a Political Factor 7 A Critical Introduction 14 Our Method: Žižek and Political Philosophy 17 Reading Žižek: The Politics of Žižek’s Style 20 The Two Žižeks 24 Part One. Žižek 1 1 Žižek and the Radical-D emocratic Critique of Ideology 31 Looking Ahead 31 Slavoj Žižek and the New World Order 31 The Spirit is a Bone, Globalisation is Fundamentalism 35 From Hegel to Psychoanalysis 41 Ideological Identifi cation and its Vicissitudes 44 Ideological Fantasy: The Others Supposed to Believe and Enjoy 53 2 Retrieving the Subject: Žižek’s Theoretical Politics 60 Introduction: Žižek’s Ticklish Subject 60 Žižek’s Criticism of ‘Post-S tructuralism’ 64 Changing the (Cartesian) Subject: Cogito, not Sum 74 From the Sublime to the Subject, Aesthetics to Politics 77 The Substance is Subject: The Inner Hegelian Kernel of Žižek’s Dialectics 79 Counting Ourselves in: Žižek’s Hegel 80 Concluding: The Subject of Politics 81 MM22111100 -- SSHHAARRPPEE PPRREELLIIMMSS..iinndddd vvii 55//33//1100 1155::2266::4466 expanded contents list 3 Did Žižek Say Democracy? 86 Placing Žižek’s Typology of Different Regimes 86 Revolution, Quarter or Half Turn? 89 Challenging ‘Totalitarianism’ 94 Whither Žižek , then? Is Žižek a Democratic Theorist? 100 1 From Žižek towards Žižek 109 1 2 Inter-c hapter. Žižek’s Vanishing Mediation 112 The Turn to Schelling: Žižek’s Vanishing Mediations 112 God as Subject; the Subject as a God: Žižek’s Schelling 117 The Paratactic View: What’s God to Žižek’s Political Philosophy? 119 Žižek’s Embrace of Schelling’s Identical Subject–O bject 123 Political Theology and the Subject–O bject 127 What is Capitalism? Žižek’s Evasion of Economics 131 Part Two. Žižek 2 4 Postmodernity and the Society of Generalised Perversion 139 Introduction 139 Refl exive Modernity 141 Pathological Narcissism 144 Ambivalent Diagnosis 146 Superego Enjoyment and Generalised Psychosis? 152 The Decline of Symbolic Authority and Generalised Perversion 155 Generalised Perversion and Commodity Fetishism 159 Some Theoretical and Cultural Concerns 162 5 Žižek’s Vanguard Politics 165 A Paradoxical View 165 Post-P olitics in the Age of Generalised Perversion 166 So What was Politics Proper? 170 The Theoretical Left and its Disavowals 172 Žižek’s Push towards the Act 180 After the Act, or Repeating Sorel? No Thanks! 188 6 Religion and the Politics of Universal Truth 194 Why Political Theology? 194 Introducing Democratic Fundamentalism 197 vii MM22111100 -- SSHHAARRPPEE PPRREELLIIMMSS..iinndddd vviiii 55//33//1100 1155::2266::4466 žižek and politics Into the Heart of Darkness: Žižek’s Romantic Dalliance with Orthodoxy 201 Love thy Neighbour? Yes Please! Žižek’s Participatory Christianity 204 Nasty, Brutish and Short: Meet the Neighbours 210 Repeating Hobbes: The Vanishing Other and the Authoritarian Solution 213 Conclusion 219 Quilting Points 219 To Anticipate 223 Repeating Lenin, an Infantile Disorder? 225 For Multi- Dimensional Political Theory 228 References 234 Index 249 viii MM22111100 -- SSHHAARRPPEE PPRREELLIIMMSS..iinndddd vviiiiii 55//33//1100 1155::2266::4466 Abbreviations AF Slavoj Žižek, ‘The Abyss of Freedom’, in S. Žižek and F. W. J. Schelling (eds), The Abyss of Freedom/Ages of the World (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997) CHU Slavoj Žižek (with Judith Butler and Ernesto Laclau), Contingency, Hegemony, Universality (London: Verso, 2000) CND Slavoj Žižek, ‘Concesso non dato’, in Matthew Sharpe, Geoff Boucher and Jason Glynos (eds), Traversing the Fantasy: Critical Responses to Slavoj Žižek (London: Ashgate, 2005), pp. 219–56 CS Slavoj Žižek, ‘Carl Schmitt in the Age of Post- Politics’, in Chantal Mouffe (ed.), The Challenge of Carl Schmitt (London: Verso, 1999), pp. 18–37 DSST Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism? On the Abuses of a Term (London: Verso, 2001) ES Slavoj Žižek, Enjoy your Symptom! Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and Out, 2nd edn (London and New York: Routledge, 2001 [1992]) FA Slavoj Žižek, The Fragile Absolute – Or, Why Is the Christian Legacy Worth Fighting For? (London and New York: Verso, 2000) FP Slavoj Žižek, ‘The Fetish of the Party’, in W. Apollon and R. Feldstein (eds), Lacan, Politics, Aesthetics (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1996) FRT S lavoj Žižek, The Fright of Real Tears: Krzysztof Kieslowski between Theory and Post-t heory. London British Film Institute Publishing, 2001) FTKN Slavoj Žižek, For They Know Not What They Do: Enjoyment as a Political Factor (London and New York: Verso, 1991; 2nd edn, 2002) HH Slavoj Žižek, ‘Herschaftsstruktur Heute’, in Hugh Silverman and M. Vögt (eds), Über Žižek: Perspektiven und Kritiken (Vienna: Turia, 2004), pp. 210–30 ix MM22111100 -- SSHHAARRPPEE PPRREELLIIMMSS..iinndddd iixx 55//33//1100 1155::2266::4466