RSA Animate - First as Tragedy, Then as Farce

It is quite disingenuous to suggest that Zizek is promoting a return to Stalinism. What he is suggesting is that, whilst he may stand alongside the Liberal in fighting poverty, racism and inequality, etc, it should be made clear to the Liberal that they are every bit a part of the problem in that they uphold a system in which these inenqualities take place. As for the dissonance of him partaking in the system by selling his cultural commodities, I find this weak ad hominum attack plainly ridiculous. I am in agreement with C Wit in that wooly liberal thinking about the inherent cruelty of denying charity is really an inability to examine the consequences of our own sentimental attitudes in the West. Whilst I remain unsure whether Zizek has anything to offer in terms of a positive critique, his assessment of our current malaise is one that is both challenging and provoking.

From your blog:

"Much disagreement occurs because the arguments are about different things. “Foolish critical-theoretical nonsense.” says Nathan. No it isn’t, says someone else, and off the argument goes, completely missing each other’s points, arguing from a position of ego, not humility towads understanding the other’s position."

Until I just now posted a response to Nathan, no one had criticised him. Your magnanimity and objectivity is a pose. It is exactly this hollow bourgeois magnanimity that the lecture seeks to offend and expose. And not by turning one's cheek, but by giving the other person a good slap.

No - Zizek's argument makes perfect sense if your locus is revolution. It's a nice piece of polemic, and a little bit of a shock to Liberal values. It's not, you know, a major advancement. It's not, in fact, an abstract theoretical discussion. No, it's an argument based squarely and concretely in contemporary lived experince. Does he use as an example, say, some obscure quotation from Herder? No, he uses Starbucks - and in a precise and immediately applicable way. What person is there who doesn't sense the contradictions and, to be blunt, hypocrisy of "ethical consumption" in its current manifestation? Or the hypocisy of the Cameronian "Big Society", or the paucity of Labour's "welfare"/workfare? Plainly, you are the one dealing in abstractions.

I've posted a response on my blog, http://www.greenman.co.za/blog...

I agree with you Nathan. This is not new it merely asserts that short of revolution no political action is possible. The beggar might quite like to live but must be sacrificed for the big idea – back to Stalinism. A bit of reflexivity might come in useful for him. In his own terms what is he doing but selling cultural commodities and buying his redemption in the same act by ‘thinking a world where poverty is impossible’? If there is any hypocrisy it resides in him.