PERSPECTIVE
World according to Zizek
R. KRISHNAKUMAR
Slavoj Zizek claims that there is only one Utopia today, and it is to
believe that things will go on without change indefinitely.
IT seems he has a habit of saying it, ever so casually, when you least
expect him to – "Now, don't misunderstand me, but I am trying to
provoke you" or "Now I will calmly wait for you to counter-attack".
But, to be fair, eventually, he took a swipe at the mike only once,
despite all the well-known grimaces, contortions, gesticulations, and
invocations before it during the 130 minutes of his highly engaging
talk in pure Slovenian English before a fascinated audience in Kochi
on January 9.
Slavoj Zizek, the Slovenian-born philosopher and cultural theorist who
is often described as an "intellectual rock star" and "the West's most
controversial philosopher", was the biggest draw at "Kochi Life 2010",
an inaugural "international festival of letters" organised by the
Kochi Arts and Letters Foundation with a theme that was just right for
him, especially: "Whither Left?"
There were several distinguished speakers before him at the event on
related subjects on the Left, among them philosopher Akeel Bilgrami on
"Value, Agency and Alienation"; Professor Gopal Guru, who spoke
revealingly on the relationship between the Left and Dalits in India;
Professor Prabhat Patnaik on the vanishing of the spectre of socialism
as an alternative to capitalism and the dangers of its replacement by
reformism; social activist Gail Omvedt on "Caste and Reconstruction of
the Left"; and Professor Javeed Alam on "Life after Secularism".
But it was Zizek, who was on the last leg of his first tour of India,
who stole the show. He told his new audience in Left-ruled Kerala,
"Don't be afraid, I'm on your side. More than ever we need communism.
But let's look, nonetheless, at this defeat of the Left."
Zizek said that one of the sure signs of capitalism's ideological
triumph today was the disappearance of the very term "capitalism" and
the dangerous temptation of the anti-globalisation movements to
transform a critique of capitalism ("which ought to be centred on
economic mechanisms, forms of work participation and profit
extraction, and so on") into a critique of imperialism.
By doing this, "by personalising the enemy" thus by talking about
"American imperialism", for example, instead of "capitalism", he said,
"you sustain a very dangerous dream – the potentially reactionary
dream of ultra-modernity that the Americans or the West Europeans did
it their way, this liberal, exploitative, individualist capitalism,
but, surely, we can do it in a different way, without the problems,
the quarrels, struggles and wars generated by it.
Now I am sceptical about this, because, we know what such
ultra-modernity produced in Europe, throughout, or at least in the
first half of the 20th century: fascism. Fascism is precisely a
project of ultra-modernity."
Every now and then during his talk, Zizek reassured his audience that
he was "not a crazy radical leftist who dreams". "I am not saying, let
us reject capitalism. I am aware of the constellation we are in. But
what I am saying is that we should be aware that the antagonisms, or
contradictions, to use an old Marxist term, are not in the wrong
application or in any local culturally conditioned version of
capitalism, but in capitalism as such. So today we have different
versions of capitalism, capitalism with Asian values, Latin American
or Italian capitalism and so on. But by just changing the forum from
the West you do not get rid of capitalist antagonisms as such. The
problem is not there."
So in what sense was he calling it a defeat of the Left? "In the sense
that when I was young, most of us were dreaming about the so-called
socialism with a human face, without the Stalinist distortion and so
on. But it seems to me as if, most of us today, even those who
proclaim to be leftists, are really dreaming only about global
capitalism with a human face... the same [capitalist] system, but one
with a little less racism, sexism and so on."
He said there was a whole spectrum of versions of the Left's reaction
to this "historical defeat" in the world today, all which he found
"very suspicious". For example, he said, some leftists say, "Okay,
capitalism won, now let us play within its rules", or, "Yes,
capitalism won and is here for some time to stay, so let's withdraw
and wait, but, you know, wait with the pleasure of knowing that you do
not really risk anything." Some, he said, accept the futility of all
struggles in the current context or claim that the crisis is not only
because of capitalism, but that it is a deeper, metaphysically
grounded one; some suggest organising local communities and gradually
undermining power without directly attacking it. Some want the Left to
merely open up to the whole multiplicity of struggles taking place
around us. Yet another section maintains that in this era of
post-industrial capitalism, where the shift is more and more towards
intellectual work and so on, the communist vision is closer than ever
to realisation. Or, according to them, "we are there already, but we
just don't know it".
Zizek cautioned his audience that it was important not to claim that
the above examples are some "wrong versions" or "deviations". "[The
question is] deviations from what? I don't see today any convincing
global vision... I will put it in old Stalinist terms here, we have
all the 'deviations', 'revisions', but we do not know what the main
party line is."
So what is his message? Is it that capitalism is here to stay and that
it has an incredible capacity to return from every catastrophe even
stronger?
"Precisely not," he said. "You know, recently we celebrated the 20th
anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. But one should know that
people did not want what they got. Let's look at the most triumphant
case: Poland. If you look at what the workers of the Solidarity trade
union wanted, to put it in a very naive and empirical sense, we see
they had wanted some kind of solidarity, some kind of justice, they
wanted to lead their lives outside state control, to come together and
talk as they pleased, they wanted to lead a life of simple honesty and
sincerity, a life without the prevailing cynical hypocrisy and so on.
Some observers have noticed that what they had wanted was in some
paradoxical way close to the official ideology itself, at least if we
read it literally. But then people were disappointed. How are we to
read this disappointment?"
Ultimately what Zizek was driving at was that liberal capitalism was a
failure and, to our peril it was, in most places, leading to the rise
of fundamentalist nationalism. "It is very popular in many East
European countries today to claim that Western capitalism is no better
than communism, that they are both the same side of the same decadence
and that we should return to our proud national traditions and so on."
And as the death of the communist Left in 1989 and of its twin, the
social democratic Left, in the 20 years that followed, indicate, he
said, "we are approaching an era where the only organised, large
political force that successfully gives voice to this discontent and
uneasiness with liberal capitalism is the fundamentalist, racist
nationalism. And that is an incredibly sad and dangerous phenomenon."
Beginning from the beginning
PHOTOGRAPH: VIPIN CHANDRAN
A poster of the event.
According to Zizek the only way to break out of all this was, as he
suggested at the beginning of his lecture invoking Lenin, "to begin
from the beginning". "It is a standard thing to say how 1989 meant the
end of utopias. It is over now, and they say capitalism is the only
thing that functions. But I think if there is a meaning to the
September 11 attacks and the global financial crisis it is that the
Fukuyama utopia is dying. My point is that we may all laugh at
Fukuyama's 'End of History' [the notion that liberal democracy
together with market economy represents the ultimate evolutionary
direction for modern societies], but know secretly that a large
majority of our leftists today are Fukuyama leftists. Nobody even
talks today about the problems we were all talking about 30-40 years
ago: Is capitalism here to stay? Or will there be another society? Is
the state here to stay? It is as if these 'basic things' are here to
stay.... You cannot even imagine a change of capitalism."
Zizek said, therefore, the crucial question we all face today is: If
capitalism is here to stay, will it be possible for capitalism – even
if it is a bit transformed – to contain, if not resolve, its
contradictions, complexities and antagonisms? Or are we facing today
problems and antagonisms that will prevent the indefinite production
or reproduction of capitalism?
We could list many problems, but the most important among them, Zizek
argued, were the looming threat of ecological catastrophe, the
inappropriateness of the institutions of private property in relation
to the so-called intellectual labour, the socio-ethical issues created
by the new techno-scientific developments, especially bio-genetics –
very serious antagonisms that cannot be solved within the liberal
capitalist framework.
Fight for the commons
But what has all this to do with communism? According to Zizek it is
here that we need to return to the old Marxist idea of "enclosure of
the commons", commons in the sense of what should be protected out
there as our substance, something that belongs to all of us. Ecology
deals with "external nature, air, water and so on, which should be
there for all of us". Biogenetics deals with "the commons of our inner
nature like genetic identity, inheritance and so on". And intellectual
property deals with "our symbolic commons". These commons were
increasingly being privatised at the expense of the proletarianised
majority.
"In all these three areas we can identify a terrifying, forthcoming
proletarian position.... But I feel these three fields of struggles
are not enough. We need a fourth crucial struggle, the struggle
against new inner divisions, new walls, which are emerging all round
us. The reality in various countries is that globalisation means
stronger divisions between those who are in and those who are out,
different forms of exclusion and so on within communities. That is why
I claim that if you do not link the other three struggles in ecology,
biogenetics, intellectual property to this struggle of inner
separation, divisions, exclusions, then you solve nothing. The key
task for the Left is to establish a chain of all these struggles."
"Where do I see the difference between the classical Marxist notion on
working class proletarianism and our position? Marx had the right
intuition, but I think he missed the point when he developed the idea
of what he called 'general intellect'. It is the idea that with the
development of productive forces, knowledge becomes more and more the
key factor of production. Marx develops this vision of how one's
knowledge will become very important and capitalism will simply have
to disintegrate, because knowledge will become the main source of
value. What Marx did not take into account is the possibility of
re-privatising this knowledge. This is why Bill Gates is the richest
man on Earth."
Zizek said he was in agreement with economists who claim that today
capitalism is, in a way, paradoxically, and up to a point, returning
from "profit" to "rent". "I do not think you can play the old Marxist
game of extra profits, extra exploitation here.... I think in the
intellectual property [context] it is an important thing to say that,
after all, Bill Gates does not exploit his workers very much. But why
do we pay him so much for using his program? – because he privatised
part of our intellectual commons. In order to be able to participate
in social space, to communicate with each other, we have to go through
his property, as it were. We have to pay him a rent for his
quasi-monopoly situation."
Zizek asserts that it is a little bit ironic that for Marx, oil is not
a source of value, taking into account how much we have to pay for it.
"But the point is the price we pay for Bill Gates' programs or natural
resources like oil has nothing much to do with the work or money spent
to produce these commodities. The way the price of Microsoft Windows
goes up is not because Bill Gates says, 'Oh! Now I have to pay more
for my programmers, so I'll raise the price.' Similarly, when oil
prices go up, it is not that production costs have gone up and so you
have to charge extra profits. It is the rent."
Three main classes
This leads to a very difficult and dangerous situation where it is not
that we no longer have the working class, but that too many divisions
are created within it, Zizek said. The three main classes that are
systematically generated by today's capitalism are the intellectual
labourers, the old manual working class and then simply, the outcasts,
"those who have to be displaced to get access to mining and so on".
"What is more interesting and the most dangerous development is that
each of these three classes has more and more sub-classes, with their
own life, world, ideology and so on. For example, at least in the
developed West, you can immediately identify a member of the
intellectual class by the food they eat; they don't eat hamburgers,
they eat this disgusting healthy food, you know, a slice of salmon
with two carrots and so on while they are also more open, liberal,
promiscuous, postmodern, they also like fake Buddhism, fake
Orientalism.... The traditional working class is more conservative,
religious usually with old family values and so on. Then you have the
outcasts. It is crucial to take into account these divisions, because
the entire ideological machine today thrives on keeping these three
parts apart, which is why they promote all these cultural walls."
This is why Zizek claims that there is only one Utopia today, and it
is to believe that things will go on without change indefinitely, the
way they are. "I do not think liberal capitalism will go on
indefinitely. The choice is either a gradual change of liberal
capitalism into a more authoritarian capitalism... Or, what I claim is
that the future will be either socialist or communist. But by
socialism I mean a kind of authoritarian, fascist in a way,
organisation of society, for example with ecological control, control
of immigrants and so on through which and other such means capitalism
will try to contain its contradictions. Already there are clear signs
of developed Western democracies getting depoliticised, effectively
more authoritarian. So, I say, more and more, there will be chance for
radical politics. The proof is precisely in what people claim as a
counter-argument: the rise of religious fundamentalism."
The struggles today are all between permissive liberal capitalism and
religious fundamentalism and Zizek said that the first step for the
radical Left is to see that this is not so much a false division as an
imminent conflict of capitalism where both sides "co-depend on each
other". "It is capitalism itself through its dynamics that generates
fundamentalism... as it was clearly the case in Afghanistan, once
perhaps, the most secular Muslim country but today the ultimate
fundamentalist country, and, even, within the U.S., in Kansas, once
the most progressive regions in the U.S. but now its most
fundamentalist Christian Bible-belt state."
The problem with this struggle between liberalism, permissiveness and
so on and fundamentalism is that a third term is missing there,
Radical Left, which alone, Zizek said, can guarantee in the long term
that we still have our freedoms, the freedom of choice, women's
rights, and so on, and without which clearly we are going to witness a
more authoritarian capitalism.
It was not very clear what practical steps Zizek was suggesting for
the Radical Left and the world, but, indeed, he had his caustic
comments and words of caution for the Left too. "We no longer can have
this old Marxist view, what we call the train of history, that history
is on our side or that we work for the historical tendency and so on.
I think I am a pessimist here. History brings an open position, if
anything. If left to itself, the system will move rather towards some
kind of a new catastrophic authoritarianism or whatever. I claim that
we cannot count on any divine agency, even in the Stalinist sense of
claiming that we are just instruments of historical necessity. There
is no necessity guaranteeing anything," he said.
The Left cannot therefore have this comfortable attitude of waiting
for others to do their job or continue being "a Left of excuses", as
it had been in the West in the last 20 years. "We have to be the
change we are looking for. Nobody will do it if we do not do it
ourselves and the liberals who today suspect us of totalitarianism
will see their own freedom being taken away from them [if we are not
there]," he said.
"Rousseau, the philosopher, once said 'all friendly philosophers like
to sympathise with the Mongols because this allows them to ignore the
poor at their own doorstep'. Likewise, [West European] leftist
intellectuals always love an authentic revolution which happens
somewhere far away – Soviet Union, Cuba, Venezuela, you name it –
because it lets them be a radical, keep their hearts warm and full of
empathy, while in their own country they can continue to play the very
same academic games and keep their careers safe.... These games have
to stop.... And the Left has to skip the apologetic attitude of the
past two decades. We do not have to be ashamed. It is our time again!"
he said.
The problem with a riveting Zizek lecture is that the audience may
need to be reminded by him now and then that he "talks too much" for
them to realise it and for him to go on for another hour or more with
his "theoretical spin", his provocative and entertaining anecdotes
and, well, his "obscene jokes". It was a grand finale to the new
initiative, "Kochi Life 2010", planned as an annual event and meant as
a regular platform where "thinking goes public". Indeed, Zizek said he
liked it so much that he would return certainly "like that old uncle
of yours whom you throw out through the front door but then he comes
back through the window".
* * *
OFTEN called the "Elvis of Cultural Theory", Slavoj Zizek is a leftist
philosopher, psycho-analyst and cultural theorist and the author of
more than 50 books, including, most recently, First as Tragedy and
then as Farce. In 1990 he campaigned unsuccessfully to be President of
Slovenia, the first Yugoslav republic to hold a free election. He is
currently International Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the
Humanities, University of London.
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