Žižek and politics : a critical introduction

265 Pages·2010·3.174 MB·English

by  Sharpe, Matthew

ZIZEK AND POLITICS

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A CRITICAL INTRODUCTION Z
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MATTHEw SHARPE GEOff BOUCHER
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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
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has had an enormous impact on contemporary philosophy, social theory, cultural O
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studies and communications departments. Žižek’s thought is driven by the need to
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find an alternative to the problems of globalisation and the supposed end of
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ideology in the advanced democracies. His insights into popular culture and C
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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
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In Žižek and Politics, Geoff Boucher and Matthew Sharpe go beyond standard C
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introductions to spell out a new approach to reading Žižek, one that can be highly
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critical as well as deeply appreciative. They show that Žižek has a raft of
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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
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why Žižek’s confrontation with thinkers such as Derrida, Foucault and Deleuze has
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so radically changed how we think about society. They then go on to track Žižek’s D
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own intellectual development during the last twenty years, as he has grappled with
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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

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Matthew Sharpe lectures in philosophy and psychoanalytic studies at Deakin
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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
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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
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Traversing the Fantasy: Critical Essays on Slavoj Žižek (2005). He has also O
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written The Charmed Circle of Ideology (2008) on the post-Marxism of Butler,
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Žižek, Laclau and Mouffe. H
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Cover design: Jonathan Williams E
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Edinburgh University Press IN
22 George Square B
Edinburgh EH8 9LF U
www.euppublishing.com R
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ISBN 978 0 7486 3804 8
zizek.indd 1 21/09/2009 12:05
Žižek and Politics
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ŽIŽEK AND POLITICS
A CRITICAL INTRODUCTION
2
Matthew Sharpe and Geoff Boucher
Edinburgh University Press
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© 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.
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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