blindpig
03-21-2015, 12:43 PM
How to Not Read Žižek
Paul Bowman[N]ote how many texts in the present volume follow a similarargumentative strategy. First, they impute to me a ridiculously caricaturized position; then, when they are forced to admit that many passages in my work directly contradict the described position, they donot read this discrepancy as what,
prima facie
, it is, a sign of theinadequacy of
their
reading, but as
my own
inconsistency.(Žižek 2007: 201)My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands mefinally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out throughthem, on them, over them. (He must, so to speak, throw away the ladderafter he has climbed up on it.)(Wittgenstein 1922/2005: 189)
Reading the Romance
Žižek’s work is theoretically dense, deft, racy, fast-paced. He is also a theorist whoseems to court controversy with his writings, who seems to try to provoke, by makingoutrageous declarations about all manner of subjects, no matter how delicate.Nothing is off-limits, it appears, to Žižek’s analytical, diagnostic, polemical gaze. Heseems to delight in breaking academic taboos. Surely this is at least part of the reason why he is so widely read.However, to fearlessly speak out, to heroically break taboos (academic taboos,though: so, mock-heroically) and to unashamedly make diagnoses, judgements and
denunciations without worrying about offending sensibilities is one matter. Theethics and politics that one actually puts forward is quite another. This is why AlanJohnson’s new reading of Žižek strikes me as extremely important. For what Johnsondemonstrates in his article, ‘Žižek’s Theory of Revolution: A Critique’, is not only thatthe nuts and bolts of Žižek’s political theory are highly problematic in many respects.(People have been saying this for some time.) It is also that it is in a sense a scandalthat anyone who places themselves on any kind of progressive political left couldcontinue to read Žižek as if Žižek’s work could be placed on any kind of progressivepolitical left.
more...
https://www.academia.edu/597650/How_to_Not_Read_Zizek
Paul Bowman[N]ote how many texts in the present volume follow a similarargumentative strategy. First, they impute to me a ridiculously caricaturized position; then, when they are forced to admit that many passages in my work directly contradict the described position, they donot read this discrepancy as what,
prima facie
, it is, a sign of theinadequacy of
their
reading, but as
my own
inconsistency.(Žižek 2007: 201)My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands mefinally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out throughthem, on them, over them. (He must, so to speak, throw away the ladderafter he has climbed up on it.)(Wittgenstein 1922/2005: 189)
Reading the Romance
Žižek’s work is theoretically dense, deft, racy, fast-paced. He is also a theorist whoseems to court controversy with his writings, who seems to try to provoke, by makingoutrageous declarations about all manner of subjects, no matter how delicate.Nothing is off-limits, it appears, to Žižek’s analytical, diagnostic, polemical gaze. Heseems to delight in breaking academic taboos. Surely this is at least part of the reason why he is so widely read.However, to fearlessly speak out, to heroically break taboos (academic taboos,though: so, mock-heroically) and to unashamedly make diagnoses, judgements and
denunciations without worrying about offending sensibilities is one matter. Theethics and politics that one actually puts forward is quite another. This is why AlanJohnson’s new reading of Žižek strikes me as extremely important. For what Johnsondemonstrates in his article, ‘Žižek’s Theory of Revolution: A Critique’, is not only thatthe nuts and bolts of Žižek’s political theory are highly problematic in many respects.(People have been saying this for some time.) It is also that it is in a sense a scandalthat anyone who places themselves on any kind of progressive political left couldcontinue to read Žižek as if Žižek’s work could be placed on any kind of progressivepolitical left.
more...
https://www.academia.edu/597650/How_to_Not_Read_Zizek