[KurtFF8]

I guess in a certain way this thread could be seen as the "sequel" to my 2009 thread titled Zizek on Chomsky

[youtube]GWRqPbwwYS0[/youtube]

I find Chomsky's stance to be quite disagreeable, although he brings up a point that even Marxist activists I know bring up: what concrete theory has Zizek produced?

I posted a quote from Zizke about Chomsky a few years ago on this sub-forum. Although Zizek wrote this years before this particular interview, this could be seen as a response to Chomsky, or rather it is quite explicitly a direct attack on Chomsky's method of political intervention.

It is crucial to emphasize this relevant of "high theory" for the most concrete political struggle today, when even such an engaged intellectual as Noam Chomsky likes to underscore how unimportant theoretical knowledge is for progressive political struggle : of what help is studying great philosophical and social-theoretical texts in today's struggle against the neoliberal model of globalization? Is it not that we are dealing either with obvious facts (which simply have to be made public, as Chomsky is doing in his numerous political texts), or with such an incomprehensible complexity that we cannot understand anything? If we wish to argue against this anti-theoretical temptation, it is not enough to draw attention to numerous theoretical presuppositions about freedom, power and society, which also abound in Chomsky's political texts: what is arguably more important is how, today, perhaps for the first time in the history of humankind, our daily experience (of biogenetics, ecology, cyberspace and Virtual Reality) compels all of us to confront basic philosophical issues of the nature of freedom and human identity, and so on.

[Potemkin]

I find Chomsky's stance to be quite disagreeable, although he brings up a point that even Marxist activists I know bring up: what concrete theory has Zizek produced?

Precisely. Zizek is not an original thinker - he's a great populariser of other people's ideas (most notably Hegel, Marx and Lacan). However, Zizek himself makes an important point - reality itself is becoming increasingly theoretical, increasingly abstract. Theory is required, but I'm doubtful whether Zizek is someone who can actually supply it.

[Paradigm]

I can't say I agree with Chomsky's general dismissal of theory, but I would also say that Zizek is more of an entertainer who has the occasionally useful insight. He's closer to a stand-up comedian than a philosopher, IMO(I'd pay to see him do a stand-up special).

[KurtFF8]

Yeah I think Zizek's contribution is mostly that he popularizes ways to combat "hidden" liberalism within the realm of ideology in contemporary popular culture (primarily, although also in the political arena), but when it comes to prescriptions for actual interventions: he fails miserably. Incidentally this makes him an awful Leninist, even though he claims to be inspired by Lenin (although most Leninists don't really take him at his word when it comes to his praise for Lenin).

I've seen him speak twice, and it's usually much better than the popularized talks or TV interviews (although much of his "material" is indeed recycled, but then again what theorists isn't?)

[Red Barn]

I don't think Chomsky dismisses "theory" in and of itself; I just get the impression he's dead bored with the cutesy, cheesy, agonizingly precious crapola that currently passes for "radicality" in way too much of academia (which is about where I've come out myself, so I can certainly sympathize).



Remember the Chomsky/Foucault debate? That was kickass - and fleshes out the "problem" in a beautiful way.

(I swear to God, I think that particular exchange sums up every single thing that's wrong with the universe as we know it. It's just too awesome for words.)

[Ambroise]

I am inclined to agree with Red Barn.

It's also a clash of presentation and a matter of how the two conduct themselves, as well. Chomsky is focused on contemporary political issues and activism, and is a master of details, facts, the scholarly record, and so on; he absorbs everything he can before he forms an analysis, and that's how he considers the issues at hand. Furthermore, although he is undoubtedly rather articulate, and very precise and careful with his words, his vernacular is very straightforward, precise and specific, he isn't pretentious in any sense; he can distill the complex record and details about important issues and he can explain them to just about anyone very well. As Alexander Cockburn said, Chomsky has very written a counter-history of the twentieth century. That's good for deconstructing official narratives. People find that extremely useful; after all, if you're going to be involved in any kind of movement, or devote yourself to any aim, you need to know the facts.

Zizek, in a lot of ways is not that. He is more concerned about the "big picture", and perhaps less worried about the small details that make up the big picture, and his writings (if not also his talks as well) are rather inaccessible to the layman and ordinary people, or even the average activist. Chomsky has always been an admirer of the organic intellectuals, the Howard Zinns of the world, the people who can talk to, organize, and educate workers and ordinary people about the problems that face them now, pursue this with scholarly rigor and meticulous detail, rather than the leftists who sit in the coffee shops waiting for the revolution. Granted, Zizek can't really be reduced to that, but he's a lot closer to that, than he is to the Howard Zinns of the world.

So, yeah, Chomsky and Zizek just don't mix.

[quetzalcoatl]

Neither Chomsky nor Zizek are significant at the most crucial level. That is, neither are able to reveal a likely or even possible path away from neoliberal hegemony. Marx produced a Lenin; what have Chomsky or Zizek produced?

[Ambroise]

Neither Chomsky nor Zizek are significant at the most crucial level. That is, neither are able to reveal a likely or even possible path away from neoliberal hegemony. Marx produced a Lenin; what have Chomsky or Zizek produced?

I'd disagree with you on that as far as Chomsky is concerned. His influence is tremendous, he is amongst the most well-known leftists and intellectuals in the world (he might be the number one, actually). He lectures all over the world to 'sold-out' audiences; indeed, he is booked two years in advance. He is well connected with leftist organizations, movements, and intellectuals all across the world. His efforts are extremely important, as far as deconstructing and exposing the official narrative on any given subject, and his books are filled with references and citations to arcane but important facts. He is quite well-read on the contemporary and the historical, and his range is very versatile: he can talk about neoliberalism, the economics of it, imperialism (just about every case of it, his knowledge is encyclopedic), domestic affairs, media, propaganda, etc. And it helps that he takes a scholarly approach to all of this.

His contribution isn't political theory, but rather a focus on details and deconstruction, as well as analysis.

Surely, amongst all those students, or people, that have read his books, and have attended his lectures, and have been influenced by him (or perhaps converted to some form of socialism or another), there's a Lenin in there somewhere?

Certainly, if Chomsky's influence is not significant at the 'crucial level', that's a very damning indictment of the state of the left, today. I can't really think of any other leftist intellectual alive that comes even remotely close to Chomsky as far influence, prolificness, depth and breadth of knowledge are concerned.

I should make clear, despite my lavish praise for Chomsky, I'm not a devotee, and I certainly have aspects on which I don't agree with him on, but I am very acutely aware of his value to the Left.

[Red Barn]

So, yeah, Chomsky and Zizek just don't mix.

And here I'm inclined to agree with Ambroise.

Zizek makes a pretty fair poster child for exactly the kind of hipsterish "relativism" that Chomsky (just like the more urbane and articulate Bookchin) rejected straight out of hand. They couldn't possibly "mix."

Stated bluntly: no revolutionary movement can grow if its theorists essentially deny Bloch's "principle of hope," which it so needs for an inspired belief in the future; if they deny universal History that affirms sweeping common problems that have besieged humanity over the ages; if they deny the shared interests that give a movement the basis for a common struggle in achieving a rational dispensation of social affairs; if they deny a processual rationality and a growing idea of the Good based on more than personalistic (or "intersubjective" and "consensual") grounds; if they deny the powerful civilizatory dimensions of social development (ironically, dimensions that are in fact so useful to contemporary nihilists in criticizing humanity's failings); and if they deny historical Progress. Yet in present-day theoretics, a series of events replaces History, cultural relativism replaces Civilization, and a basic pessimism replaces a belief in the possibility of Progress. What is more sinister, mythopoesis replaces reason, and dystopia the prospect of a rational society. What is at stake in all these displacements is an intellectual and practical regression of appalling proportions--an especially alarming development today, when theoretical clarity is of the utmost necessity. What our times require is a social-analysis that calls for a revolutionary and ultimately popular movement, not a psycho-analysis that issues self-righteous disclaimers for "beautiful souls," ideologically dressed in cloaks of personal virtue.



History, Civilization, and Progress: Outline for a Criticism of Modern Relativism
http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Ar ... ivpro.html

[KurtFF8]

Slavoj Žižek Responds to Noam Chomsky: ‘I Don’t Know a Guy Who Was So Often Empirically Wrong’

Earlier this month we posted an excerpt from an interview in which linguist Noam Chomsky slams the Slovenian philosopher and cultural critic Slavoj Žižek, along with the late French theorists Jacques Lacan and Jacques Derrida, for cloaking trivial ideas in obscure and inflated language to make them seem profound.

“There’s no ‘theory’ in any of this stuff,” Chomsky says to an interviewer who had asked him about the three continental thinkers, “not in the sense of theory that anyone is familiar with in the sciences or any other serious field. Try to find in all of the work you mentioned some principles from which you can deduce conclusions, empirically testable propositions where it all goes beyond the level of something you can explain in five minutes to a twelve-year-old. See if you can find that when the fancy words are decoded. I can’t. So I’m not interested in that kind of posturing. Žižek is an extreme example of it.”

Chomsky’s remarks sparked a heated debate on Open Culture and elsewhere. Many readers applauded Chomsky; others said he just didn’t get it. On Friday, Žižek addressed some of Chomsky’s criticisms during a panel discussion with a group of colleagues at the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities in London:
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Žižek’s remarks about Chomsky don’t appear until about the one-hour, 30-minute mark, but Sam Burgum, a PhD student at the University of York, has transcribed the pertinent statements and posted them on his site, EsJayBe. Here are the key passages:

What is that about, again, the academy and Chomsky and so on? Well with all deep respect that I do have for Chomsky, my first point is that Chomsky, who always emphasizes how one has to be empirical, accurate, not just some crazy Lacanian speculations and so on… well I don’t think I know a guy who was so often empirically wrong in his descriptions in his whatever! Let’s look… I remember when he defended this demonstration of Khmer Rouge. And he wrote a couple of texts claiming: No, this is Western propaganda. Khmer Rouge are not as horrible as that.” And when later he was compelled to admit that Khmer Rouge were not the nicest guys in the Universe and so on, his defense was quite shocking for me. It was that “No, with the data that we had at that point, I was right. At that point we didn’t yet know enough, so… you know.” But I totally reject this line of reasoning.

For example, concerning Stalinism. The point is not that you have to know, you have photo evidence of gulag or whatever. My God you just have to listen to the public discourse of Stalinism, of Khmer Rouge, to get it that something terrifyingly pathological is going on there. For example, Khmer Rouge: Even if we have no data about their prisons and so on, isn’t it in a perverse way almost fascinating to have a regime which in the first two years (’75 to ’77) behaved towards itself, treated itself, as illegal? You know the regime was nameless. It was called “Angka,” an organization — not communist party of Cambodia — an organization. Leaders were nameless. If you ask “Who is my leader?” your head was chopped off immediately and so on.

Okay, next point about Chomsky, you know the consequence of this attitude of his empirical and so on — and that’s my basic difference with him — and precisely Corey Robinson and some other people talking with him recently confirmed this to me. His idea is today that cynicism of those in power is so open that we don’t need any critique of ideology, you reach symptomatically between the lines, everything is cynically openly admitted. We just have to bring out the facts of people. Like “This company is profiting in Iraq” and so on and so on. Here I violently disagree.

First, more than ever today, our daily life is ideology. how can you doubt ideology when recntly I think Paul Krugman published a relatively good text where he demonstrated how this idea of austerity, this is not even good bourgeois economic theory! It’s a kind of a primordial, common-sense magical thinking when you confront a crisis, “Oh, we must have done something wrong, we spent too much so let’s economize and so on and so on.”

My second point, cynicists are those who are most prone to fall into illusions. Cynicists are not people who see things the way they really are and so on. Think about 2008 and the ongoing financial crisis. It was not cooked up in some crazy welfare state; social democrats who are spending too much. The crisis exploded because of activity of those other cynicists who precisely thought “screw human rights, screw dignity, all that maters is,” and so on and so on.

So as this “problem” of are we studying the facts enough I claim emphatically more than ever “no” today. And as to popularity, I get a little bit annoyed with this idea that we with our deep sophisms are really hegemonic in the humanities. Are people crazy? I mean we are always marginal. No, what is for me real academic hegemony: it’s brutal. Who can get academic posts? Who can get grants, foundations and so on? We are totally marginalized here. I mean look at my position: “Oh yeah, you are a mega-star in United States.” Well, I would like to be because I would like power to brutally use it! But I am far from that. I react so like this because a couple of days ago I got a letter from a friend in United States for whom I wrote a letter of recommendation, and he told me “I didn’t get the job, not in spite of your letter but because of your letter!” He had a spy in the committee and this spy told him “You almost got it, but then somebody says “Oh, if Žižek recommends him it must be something terribly wrong with him.”

So I claim that all these “how popular we are” is really a mask of… remember the large majority of academia are these gray either cognitivists or historians blah blah… and you don’t see them but they are the power. They are the power. On the other hand, why are they in power worried? Because you know… don’t exaggerate this leftist paranoia idea that ”we can all be recuperated” and so on and so on. No! I still quite naively believe in the efficiency of theoretical thinking. It’s not as simple as to recuperate everything in. But you know there are different strategies of how to contain us. I must say that I maybe am not innocent in this, because people like to say about me, “Oh, go and listen to him, he is an amusing clown blah blah blah.” This is another way to say “Don’t take it seriously.”

via Partially Examined Life

[Red Barn]

Chomsky never complains that Zizek is insufficiently "empirical," or that he's "too popular," so this whole "rebuttal" seems a bit off the wall, no?

What C does say is that the crap that currently passes for "theory" lacks substantive and usable theoretical content, and that Z's work is a prime example of this kind of trivial pseudo-theory, which he, C, finds baffling. So. Okay. Zizek counters this with the bit about the Khmer Rouge ( ) and the thing about how he actually feels oppressed by academia and so on and so on, and from this we're supposed to deduce . . . something or other. I dunno. Whatever.



(Thanks for posting that, Comrade Kurt. I really enjoyed it.)

[Potemkin]

What C does say is that the crap that currently passes for "theory" lacks substantive and usable theoretical content, and that Z's work is a prime example of this kind of trivial pseudo-theory, which he, C, finds baffling. So. Okay. Zizek counters this with the bit about the Khmer Rouge ( ) and the thing about how he actually feels oppressed by academia and so on and so on, and from this we're supposed to deduce . . . something or other. I dunno. Whatever.

I agree that Zizek's rebuttal was weak. He seemed to be setting Chomsky up as a straw man and then knocking him down. Chomsky is decidedly not the mediocre empiricist which Zizek seems to be portraying him as. Regarding the Khmer Rouge, Zizek seems to be implying that if only Chomsky had applied Lacanian psycho-analysis to the public discourse of the Khmer Rouge in their early years, then he would have been able to deduce their pathological psychology and thereby his empirical observations about them would have been more on-the-mark (the unspoken implication being that, as Einstein put it, our theories tell us what we can observe). Zizek is implying that Chomsky's simple-minded empiricism misled him regarding the Khmer Rouge. Needless to say, I think this is an uninformed mischaracterisation of Chomsky's methods of analysis. Zizek then goes off on a wild tangent and whines about some sort of conspiracy against him among mainstream academia. He doesn't actually address the issues which Chomsky raised.

[Red Barn]

Whoa. Killer analysis there, Potemkin.

I think you're right on all counts.

[quetzalcoatl]

...there's a Lenin in there somewhere?...Certainly, if Chomsky's influence is not significant at the 'crucial level', that's a very damning indictment of the state of the left, today.

Before there is a revolution there is an organization. This means boots on the ground - many thousands of boots. And these boots are marching, if not to a single drummer, at least operating under a common political analysis supporting some set of unified political goals. Where are the committed leftist operatives in the police, the army, the courts, and the legislature? Where is the left (the real left, not liberals) at the grass roots level of the major parties? Even in academia their influence has dwindled.

Significantly these are all the things that the right has done so successfully over the past three decades. It can't possibly be some kind of secret or surprise to any of you concerning the overwhelming triumph of the rightist counter-revolution.

Lenin, despite his importance, should be viewed as arising from an already existing vital political movement - a movement whose primary focus was on action.

A "damning indictment" of the left is several generations too late. The left is fundamentally unserious, by which I mean it is not committed to action. Meanwhile the banner of ruthless Leninism has been taken up by Karl Rove and the Koch brothers.

[Rei Murasame]

I'm going to take the exact opposite position and say that Zizek is actually really great, and that the left - to their own detriment - probably is not aware of how great he really is.

Zizek understands something that a lot of leftists don't seem to get - something which many far-rightists understand - which is that people have to be taught theory in order to actually get them to undergo internal changes so that they can accept a particular doctrine and perceive the world through that framework. So we're not talking about strategy or tactics or what to think, although that is important, but first and foremost how to think, and how to think about thinking.

Let me present a really far-removed example for you all, so that you can see what I mean by 'doctrine', and then after I do that, I'll switch into a comparison, and it will become clear to you what I'm saying.

Let's suddenly start talking about halberds.

The halberd was inexpensive to produce and very versatile in battle. As the halberd was eventually refined, its point was more fully developed to allow it to better deal with spears and pikes (also able to push back approaching horsemen), as was the hook opposite the axe head, which could be used to pull horsemen to the ground.[3] Additionally, halberds were reinforced with metal rims over the shaft, thus making effective weapons for blocking other weapons such as swords. This capability increased its effectiveness in battle, and expert halberdiers were as deadly as any other weapon masters.

Because you are of a certain theory, you anticipate that when the word halberd is used, that is weapon that is used to strike people and kill them. That is the function, and so when you see someone come out with one, they must be a soldier. Your behaviour toward it is moulded around that anticipation.

But then let's change the theory.

Try this out:

A prop which is held in the hand of the dancer in sacred dance rituals such as kagura. (It can also be written 執物、取物.) It can also refer to the thing the dancer holds when performing a dance to purify the implements to be used in a sacred ritual or dance. Essentially, it has the function of yorishiro. It is believed holding this while dancing will activate the divine power. Also, there are cases where the deity which has descended into the torimono can take possession of the dancer, and the torimono is a means to achieve this state of possession (kamigakari). A Heian court kagura ritual called naishidokoro-no-mikagura is composed of singing various kinds of songs. The opening section, which deals with a possessing deity opens with the singing of torimono songs. There are nine kinds of songs: sakaki (sacred leaves), mitegura (ritual paper object), tsue (rod), sasa (bamboo grass), yumi (bow), tsurugi (sword), hoko (halberd), hisago (ladle), and kazura (vines), all being types of torimono.

Now, isn't that something? If you saw a woman - let's say me - come out with a halberd, and you didn't have the doctrinal framework to understand what was happening, you wouldn't understand what the object really is or what its purpose is. When is a halberd not just a halberd in the way that you were raised to think of it, and how should your behaviour toward it be different in that new context?

You see my point I think. Both those uses are 'true', but only one of them can be in play at a time.

Now I need you to change gears and think about the term 'liberation struggle'.

'Liberation struggle' can mean one of the three following things:

• 1. "Granting, that wages ought to be a little higher than they are - that they ought to be high enough for him that receives them, to be free from that state of absolute dependence due to the want of the necessaries of life - and which is almost that of slavery, a guard against collectivism among any group must still be taken, because any form of social solidarity poses a threat to the freedom of the cidevant masters, the present entrepreneurs."
  
  
• 2. "The source and guarantee of all the partial freedoms is the nationalist freedom, which prevents enslavement and allows for the protection of the wealth of the land from the plunder of the foreigners and our minds and talents from suffocation and distortion. It is the kind of freedom, which allows us to take our destiny into our own hands."
  
  
• 3. "The creation of the dictatorship of the proletariat, a dictatorship that constitutes no more than a transition to the abolition of all classes and to a classless society."

I can't write any of those things without simultaneously revealing the shadow of a "NOT gate" behind them each if them. 'Liberation struggle' can only mean one of those things at a time, it cannot mean all of them at once in one instance.

Theory is important because if you try to have people who are raised and nourished in the doctrinal environment that produced in #1, carry out actions related to #2 or #3, then it will not work. No one will truly understand what they are doing.

To understand #2 or #3 (and in the left's case, clearly they want #3), the mind of the person must become indoctrinated - and I do not use that in a pejorative sense - in a new way.

My view is that people like Zizek exist to popularise the indoctrination process which must take place.

[Potemkin]

My view is that people like Zizek exist to popularise the indoctrination process which must take place.

Agreed. As I said before, theory is important, now more than ever. Chomsky isn't interested in theory or even indoctrination - I think Zizek could have made a good case against Chomsky, but failed to do so. Likewise, he could popularise the indoctrination process which must take place before there can be a successful popular revolution, but he's not doing a very good job of it. Instead, he seems to prefer to play the part of the bearded, eccentric academic 'genius'.

[Red Barn]

My view is that people like Zizek exist to popularise the indoctrination process which must take place.

Okay. But what would Zizek the fluff-meister actually indoctrinate the hapless masses into?

That's really the question, isn't it?

If any of the Chomsky/Bookchin position has value (and I happen to believe it has much too much value to overlook) then it's easy to see how Z's faux-radical pseudo-critique simply indoctrinates people into a particularly unappealing form of intellectual paralysis.

How exactly is that a good idea?

[Rei Murasame]

Agreed. As I said before, theory is important, now more than ever. Chomsky isn't interested in theory or even indoctrination - I think Zizek could have made a good case against Chomsky, but failed to do so. Likewise, he could popularise the indoctrination process which must take place before there can be a successful popular revolution, but he's not doing a very good job of it. Instead, he seems to prefer to play the part of the bearded, eccentric academic 'genius'.

Yes, we agree completely, then. At some point, Zizek is going to have to accept that the way that he's presenting himself is simply not going to work. Whether his eccentricity is a feature of his personality that can't be changed, I don't know, but he needs to really think about changing it.

Okay. But what would Zizek the fluff-meister actually indoctrinate the hapless masses into?

Well, of course he's supposed to equip them with the tools they need to slide leftward, otherwise he'd be failing at his mission.

[Red Barn]

^ I don't think he could equip them with the tools they'd need to make a peanut butter sandwich.

And if he quit sweating and stuttering all of a sudden, he wouldn't get any gigs at all.



Honestly, I think you people are totally barking up the wrong tree with this guy.

[quetzalcoatl]

Disagree with Rei and Potemkin's previous posts.

The theoretical framework for revolution has been ground slowly and exceedingly fine for far too long. Concurrently, whatever was good or hopeful about prospects for positive change in the industrial nations of the West is being surely lost day by day. Everyday that is lost in theoretical contemplation is one more day for the elites to consolidate control of the military and security apparatus. They are looking far ahead to a revolution that, at this rate, will never arrive - and establishing the legal groundwork for a neofeudal state that is being designed to replace an obviously last-stage capitalism.

It is not just the left that has failed. Rei's right (not to be confused with the reactionary right of Koch/Rove/Fox) is just as impotent (if not more so) than the dwindling minions of the left.

If you really must engage in theory, then a far more valuable exercise at this point would be a forensic failure analysis.