Conscientious Marxists take any thinker seriously who is obviously having an impact on intellectual and political debates, regardless of whether they pass a political litmus test.

What this entails is actually trying to understand the key elements of a thinker’s arguments and the ways in which they have developed over time. This is best accomplished by actually reading the thinker’s substantial work for oneself rather than pre-definiing a position, seeking others to confirm your position, then proclaiming a verdict.

The point is not to “defend” or “support” Zizek and every single position he takes, but to support the project of expanding the Marxist theoretical terrain, and break out of intellectual deadlocks, of which he is a part. You don’t have to agree with his politics, but your opinion is supported only by superficial cherry-picking on your part. I suspect no amount of evidence will change your mind since you’ve already decided that it was “uninteresting.” Unfortunately, this kind of “investigation” seems all to familiar. It reminds me of an article in an old RCP journal, The Communist titled “Plato: Classical Philosopher of Reaction.” The notion that political agreement determines the substance of ideas reflects a habit of thinking resistant to ideological challenge.

The real problem is not that Marxists take Zizek seriously, but that not enough Marxists take theory seriously.

Moreover, this rubbish of not being able to call a fascist a fascist and a liberal a liberal is bullshit. Hamas’s ideology does, in fact, fit the profile of fascism. Israel is, in fact, a liberal state.

The only reasons for not being able to say this:
• An ideological desire to rehabilitate liberalism (as if we are for liberalism!)
• A straying from materialist analysis of fascism and its historic role (as the “passive revolution” against liberalism, that never quite unseats it).
• A right-opportunist willingness to sell revolution short: since when are we content to take crumbs off of the table of fascism OR liberalism?

Zizek writes, “No, the first thing they were burning were their own mosques and so on.” That never happened. (Early on
the police threw tear gas bombs at a mosque. 19 days into the rioting, fire bombs were thrown at a Saint-Chamond mosque, but it did not burn.) Zizek is lying, and you’re repeating the lie.

The rest of what you write is such nonsense I imagine you must yourself be aware of it. Zizek is an opponent of national
liberation, and seeks a third way between imperialism and national liberation. It’s comical that you claim opposing national
liberation is supporting national liberation. Taking Zizek to task for accusing Hamas of intending genocide is not
equivalent to forbidding “any criticism or critique of Islamism.” Your babbling about the SWP and national liberation struggles and Zizek’s favorite bogeyman, “liberal multiculturalism,” is so much obfuscation. Any idiocies the SWP may be
responsible for are irrelevant to the merit of the various critiques offered; if ad hominem arguments are to be permitted,
then Zizek ought to be held to account for his continuing role in Slovenia.

I agree with these comments:

“The fact is, on one hand Z says comparisons of Israeli domination to Nazism are crazy and obscene and on the other his go-to analogy for Hamas and Hezbollah is fascism. He buoys his rambling on a sea of cliches and MSM straw men. I.e., letting a minority strand of polemics stand-in for criticism of Israel (“they’re Nazis”), so as to knock it down, and then making fascism his go-to comparison for Hezbollah and Hamas, while perpetuating the myth that they’re genocidal maniacs. This clarifies nothing. It’s parasitic contrarianism presented as “Socratic” wisdom. Like intelligent leftists really need to be disabused of the notion that Israelis are Nazis and that Hamas and Hezbollah are unproblematic freedom fighters. His singular critique more or less arrives at nothing other than left-liberal common sense (at best).

“So why does he take this hackneyed line?

“After all, if there is consensus in leftist rhetoric about Israel it’s with the Apartheid analogy, not this ‘Israelis are Nazis’ line. Everyone from Norman Finkelstein and Ilan Pappe to Jimmy Carter and Desmond Tutu has, with clear qualifications and varying degrees of sophistication, appealed to the Apartheid analogy.

“… Why instead does he reiterate (wholly) the standard US liberal (imperialist) obfuscations (I.e., the Israeli State is a civilized western democracy and Hezbollah and Hamas may be lumped together as fascists)?

“There is only one answer. By lending force to the critique of Israel as an apartheid state, Zizek could in no way distinguish *himself*. Such solidarity with people like Pappe and Finkletsein, who have devoted their academic lives to this subject(at personal costs greater than Z has ever known), would have no contrarian cache for the preeminent gadfly.

“He is a fucking egotist. And when it leads him into further degrading the level of public thought and discourse on something as devastating and vexed as the Israel/Palestine conflict–while claiming explicitly that he brings the clarity only a philosopher can–it’s despicable.

“And as someone active in Palestinian solidarity politics and not simply an academic convinced that debunking “liberal multiculturalism” is the great fight of our day, it makes me furious. His comments on the Paris riots were equally grotesque, but you can visit the Lenin’s Tomb comments on that. Likewise the contrast between his active politics and Badiou’s (a no less sophisticated philosopher who actually deigns to engage in immigration and anti-racist struggles) in those comments is instructive.

“Seriously, Zizek is a self-serving blowhard, whose reactionary tendencies ought to be taken to task–and he just shut the fuck up about the Middle East. He’s becoming an outright liability and threat to (internationalist) leftist politics.”

http://jdeanicite.typepad.com/i_cite/2008/05/zizek-on-democr.html

Just so that we’re not unclear here: the Lenin’s Tomb blog is a mouthpiece of the SWP (UK). As such, it’s clear that their politics are (unfortunately) in command here, particularly in the section discussing the uprising of the Paris suburbs.

Clearly, the SWP have had a muddled line at best on oppressed nations and nationalities, and of national liberation in general. I’ve brought it up time and time again: wherever there’s been a genuinely Left national liberation struggle, the SWP (and their across the water brethren the ISO) they pretty much stuck to the pattern familiar to those who’ve read “Left in Form, Right in Essence” by Carl Davidson — that is, they’ll produce volumes of literature *condemning* national liberation struggles such as in Vietnam or China.

Of course, flash forward to today and the SWP’s in alliance with George Galloway who needs some Muslim votes to get in Parliament — ah, now here’s the denkverbot on any criticism or critique of Islamism (or Islam in general).

The particular essay Lenin’s Tomb apparently decides to call Zizek an “Islamophobe” for was an essay on the uprising of the Parisian suburbs. Now, here’s the rub: Zizek didn’t condemn the rioters for rioting. In fact, in “On Violence” (the book where it most recently appeared in the UK) he considers it the most ground-level form of protest (he invokes Benjamin’s use of the term “Divine Violence” for the suddenness of it all).

Lenin’s Tomb takes a particular passage of Zizek pointing out that the uprising in the Parisian suburbs burning an area mosque, and attempts to say that this is just Zizek’s Eurocentrism/racism coming out. Wrong and wrong. Zizek pointed this out to belie the common misconception of the uprising as a phenomenon of Islam, or of some nonexistant radical clergy in France, when in fact it was a much more proletarian and lumpen in character.

Therein lies part of the problem. In accepting the liberal multiculturalism of Great Britain — apparently, everyone is entitled to their own ghetto to control, so long as it’s all focused on enforcement of reactionary mores — and attempting to force a sort of bizarrely anti-materialist (feudal even!) analysis of things, the SWP once again show themselves unable to understand questions of nation and nationality.

Does support for Žižek represent a real line of demarcation for Marxists? Maybe so, since his social chauvinism, his
[Slovenian] nationalism, his support for the dismemberment and invasion of Yugoslavia, his Eurocentrism, his Islamophobia,
his advocacy of “humanitarian intervention,” his libels of Socialism, are all common errors that divide liberalism from
the revolutionary left.

RNK’s comment on “The Marxist Lord of Misrule” on revleft.com is instructive:
“It seems to me like an enormous waste of time. The author is obviously quite literate and articulate, but overall the entire article is more abstract philosophy, witty phrases and the expression of personal quirks and eccentricities than any materialistic attempt to analyse the Chinese revolutionary experience.

“The last paragraph said it all for me –

“Quote:
“the extension ad absurdum of Mao’s ruthless decision to starve tens of millions to death in the late 1950s
“This if anything is the tell-tale sign of crap. I mean, it’s a shame that such a wonderfully-written article happens to be based on crap, though I’m sure there are legions of communists who’d flock to its defense. It’s an extension of the misconception, even outright lie that Mao ‘decided’ to ‘starve millions to death’. Anyone who was even remotely interested in fact would be well able to realize that there was no totalitarian decision – the accusation is nothing more than a feeble attempt to seduce gullible-minded anti-authoritarians. Oh, Mao starved millions! No, circumstance starved millions; Mao tried to prevent it, and although he may have had a role in its inception (indirectly), he did not sign some Final Solution decree, nor did anyone else.”

Millions died, and it’s a shame; the bigger shame is not realizing the truth behind it, so that it can be prevented and avoided as much as possible in the future. An even bigger shame is how even apparent intellectuals can be goaded by the deluge of misinformation and anti-communist rhetoric. Here’s a good example of why “if you say it enough times, it becomes as good as fact” is a serious strategy utilized by capitalist intelligence agencies the world over.
__________________

Contra Marx:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/01/23.htm

Note this passage: In America we have witnessed the conquest of Mexico and have rejoiced at it. It is also an advance when a country which has hitherto been exclusively wrapped up in its own affairs, perpetually rent with civil wars, and completely hindered in its development, a country whose best prospect had been to become industrially subject to Britain — when such a country is forcibly drawn into the historical process.

I don’t bring this up to paint Marx as a Eurocentric colonialist, but to point out the shallowness of this method of attack. If you have a substantial critique, post it, but pointing out where Zizek takes questionable, or even bad, positions is hardly enough to invalidate a whole body of work.

Marx reversed his position on Mexico in later years and considering that Zizek is still alive, there’s no reason to believe he isn’t capable of the same.

I agree completely. (Although I’d still note that “ideology” is a somewhat vexed word, and you can’t simply take it to have an obvious and unambiguous meaning, in the Marx/Engels context or any other.)

On Zizek – In the documentary “Zizek!” he mentions some of his earlier writings with some embarrassment, at one point, as being “liberal.” He also expressed anger at the condescension of Euro-American leftists who would tell him what was “really” going on in the former Yugoslavia and how it should be interpreted (he’s probably referring to the early ’90s). It’s obvious in any case that Zizek is very much a work in progress, and that his thinking has moved and developed very rapidly. Even more than is true for most people, it’s a mistake to try to freeze him into a position or category. My own problem has been to have trouble seeing him as representing a consistent view overall, as opposed to slotting him.

Is he consistent? Probably not — certainly not, if you take his work over the past 15 years altogether. Is he a Marxist? Certainly (Marxism is a big house). But the more relevant questions would be: Is he valuable politically? Is he valuable for our thinking? (And here I’m referring particularly to the sort of rethinking and reconceiving that’s pointed to in the Nine Letters.) Yes, yes, and again yes!

I’ve almost never come away from reading Zizek without being provoked, both theoretically and politically. Also inspired, both by the brilliance of his thinking (not the same as correctness, obviously) and his willingness to take chances. (I may also come away with some frustration, a flash of anger at something he said….) I take that to be very valuable, especially now, when so much in contemporary thinking and theory is stultified and sterile. And anyone who thinks his attacks on the academic left and its orthodoxies is not politically valuable, has not been paying attention to the way these orthodoxies have played out.

As to his appeal, which was the question from Paul that started off this round on Zizek – Well, if someone asked whether you wanted to read (or hear) a brilliant and original thinker who would draw all kinds of unexpected connections and challenge many standard categories, but who might be sometimes inconsistent or maybe even incorrect — what would you say?