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Zizek is wrong: Previous socialism was not just failure
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Intro note from Mike Ely:
Given that we have often engaged with Zizek's ideas here on Kasama, I think it is valuable to share this criticism of one of his biggest problems: His blanket dismissal of previous socialism as purely negative, as a failure. I won't list everything I think here... but I have a quote positive view of the revolutionary attempts of the twentieth century (what they achieved, what they teach, what we can build on) -- in ways that clashes intensely with the dismissal from Zizek (and even at times from Badiou). We Maoists have always made a distinction between "defeat" and "failure." And in the wave-like motion of history, we don't assume that setbacks and reversals negate the advances.
The twentieth century included events that make us celebrate and that make us grieve. There were serious and protracted attempts to develop socialist societies -- and to find a road toward communism. Hundreds of millions of people threw their lot in with the red flag... they dreamed communist dreams, they sacrificed, and they deployed their best understandings.
Just because the advance wasn't linear, just because that wave of world revolution receded -- that doesn't make it a failure. After all, whatever comes now is built on that experience (on the positive and negative). And the world today was transformed in profound ways by that wave of revolution and its repeated assaults on capitalism and oppression.
The following piece by Karlo Mikhail first appeared on Karlo's blog. I don't agree with its (too familiar) logic that quickly relegates Zizek into being "an apologist of the ruling order."
I'm also skeptical of the way Karlo assumes that Lenin's theory of imperialism applies today -- when clearly the increasing integration and penentration of capitalism is giving rise to new dynamics (and when the "highest stage" of capitalism that Lenin analyzed has gone through major new developments and leaps over the last century, and especially the last 25 years.)
Zizek is a provocateur, an instigator, a blizzard of ideas and sparks. His field is not revolutionary strategy or political economy (but rather philosophy)... and we can't judge him simply on his more explicitly political statements. But.... But... it is worth raising and understanding the dangers of any sweepingly pessimist summation of our communist past, and a dangers of a parallel skepticism toward the possibility of future positive radical turns within modern society.
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SLAVOJ ŽIŽEK: A “RADICAL” APOLOGIST FOR IMPERIALISM
The Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek has a reputation for lashing out against the “postmodern” and “social democratic” Left, rightly pointing out that this hodgepodge are advocates of capitalism with a human face and not of genuine revolutionary change. A closer look at the political positions taken by Žižek, however, would show that he is no different from the quarters that have been at the receiving end of his attacks.
I have keenly followed the zigzags of Žižek’s school of thought in the past five years and even defended him on some occasions. His infusion of Lacanian psychoanalysis into the concept of ideology, his defense of revolutionary violence against the objective violence of the ruling system, his humorous diatribes, and his appropriation of popular culture references to enhance his arguments seemed refreshing for a time.
However, it would seem that Žižek’s trajectory only seeks to lead the emergent social movements away from the path of a clear and organized struggle to smash the present system and replace it with a new and liberating one. Žižek’s regressive views are particularly crystallized in an interview by Haseeb Ahmed and Chris Cutrone at thePlatypus Review entitled “The Occupy Movement, a renascent Left, and Marxism Today: An Interview with Slavoj Žižek.”
FROM KAUTSKY TO ŽIŽEK
“There is no longer the metropolis screwing the Third World countries,” declares Žižek. Eschewing the theory of uneven development and the fundamental contradiction between the imperialist powers and the oppressed nation, he posits that the globalization of capital has erased the divide between industrial capitalist powers and their client-states.
Global capitalism has, in this view, transformed the entire world into “colonies” of an all-powerful international capital that is not beholden to any nation. “American capital cannot be considered that of the U.S.,” Žižek boldly proclaims. “Capitalism is really universal today,” he adds. It has become, as Hardt and Negri describes it, a “Global Empire.”
In this regard, Žižek is no different from present-day anarchists and postmodern leftists such as Hardt and Negri who rail against what they perceive as an amorphous and increasingly anonymous multinational or transnational capitalism lorded over by octopus corporations that have transcended the nation as their base.
Žižek, in short, simply rehashes the ideas of Karl Kautsky and his disciples in the social democratic Second International. For them, the investment of surplus capital in the Third World by the industrial powers would provide the basis for the peaceful transition of the whole world to capitalism. In this theory of “ultraimperialism,” the peripheries would gradually acquire the capacity for industrial production in exchange for their raw resources and cheap labor.
While there is no question about the global scope of the world capitalist system, what is questionable about Žižek’s foray into political economy is the analysis of the relationship between the different parts of this system, of how the prosperity and abundance in the United States, Western Europe, and Japan rests on the superexploitation of the rest of the world through a chain of sweatshops, agricultural plantations, call centers, logging and mining concessions, and export processing zones.
In this setup, we have the imperialist nations on the one side and their direct colonies and semi-colonies on the other. The advanced industrial powers maintain their political, economic, and cultural hold on these subordinate states for the plunder of raw products, natural resources, and cheap labor as well as captive markets for the disposing of their manufactured goods and surplus capital.
The so-called “outsourcing” that he bandies about loosely has its limits and does not lead to the industrial development of Third World countries. Even now we are already seeing how U.S. Barrack Obama threatened to withdraw the business process outsourcing centers outside the U.S. when he spoke in his January 2012 State of the Nation Address.
Even the newly industrialized countries like South Korea and Taiwan did not progress out of the benevolence of the imperialist powers or the whim of an anonymous global capitalist system that simply saw the profitability of investment in these regions.
The development of these countries was based on the implementation of genuine agrarian reform and the liberation of millions of poor peasants which became the basis for further industrial development. These minor exceptions were allowed by the geopolitical considerations of countering the “red menace of North Korea and Mao’s China.
APOLOGIA FOR IMPERIALISM
Žižek has a reputation for bandying about the name of Lenin in his avowed aim of resuscitating the late revolutionary’s legacy in works such as Repeating Lenin, A Plea for Leninist Tolerance, Revolution at the Gates, etc. What comes as a surprise is Žižek’s complete disregard for the same Lenin who wrote Imperialism: the Highest Stage of Capitalism.
Production and capital is now more concentrated than ever in the hands of monopolies based in the imperialist nations. The financial oligarchy sitting on the merger of industrial and financial capital has grown in leaps and bounds, especially with the financialization of the global economy. The export of capital has become more extensive than ever, with the most powerful imperialist nations having divided the whole world for themselves.
The fundamental features of the world capitalist system as described by Lenin remain all the more true today. And to Žižek’s distorted political economy, Lenin would have said: “is ‘ultraimperialism’ possible, or is it ultra-nonsense?” It is precisely this nonsense that leads Žižek to take some of the most reactionary positions.
Žižek has on various occasions taken the role of the apologist of imperialism like in his support for the U.S.-led imperialist war of aggression in the Balkans in the 90s in the guise of humanitarian missions.
He even alludes to supporting the U.S. puppet regime in occupied Iraq in the pretext of supporting the so-called Iraqi “Left”. Because of his eschewing of the theory of imperialism, he absurdly forwards the idea that the U.S. occupation is needed because the Iraqi people cannot liberate themselves on their own.
But is it not that the events in Egypt and Tunisia effectively contradict his assertions? The same could have happened in Iraq on its own if not for the U.S. intervention:
The racist Western left’s view was that the only way you can mobilize the stupid Arabs was through anti-Semitism, religious fundamentalism, or nationalism. But here we had secular democratic protest that was not anti-Semitic, not Islamic fundamentalist, or even nationalist.
He even idolizes Nelson Mandela for pushing neoliberal policies in favor of foreign monopoly capitalist interests and in betrayal of the South African masses. “Mandela was not a traitor,” declares Žižek, saying that the alternative would have been a disastrous repetition of what he calls “a Zimbabwe fiasco.”
So any effort, for Žižek, to independently chart out one’s national development outside the auspices of the world capitalist system inevitably ends in certain failure. Isn’t this line any different from his criticism of the fear that all revolutions lead to the establishment of even more oppressive and exploitative conditions?
STALINIST BOGEYMAN
Žižek testifies: “isn’t the tragedy of 20th century Stalinism that precisely they tried to suspend, not money, but the market, and what was the result? The re-assertion of brutal direct domination.”
Echoing the standard reactionary narrative against Russia under Stalin and China under Mao, he comes up with the one-sided notion that these experiments in socialist revolution and construction were “total failures.”
“This is the lesson of the 20th century,” Žižek pronounces. “The lessons are only negative: We learn what not to do. This is very important. Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t see positive lessons. I am an honest pessimist.”
The fact that the Chinese revolution as led by Mao liberated millions of poor Chinese peasants and workers from the shackles of imperialist domination and feudal subjugation is overlooked. The victorious advance of a poor war-torn country relying solely on its own people and resources in order to develop step by step its agriculture and industry and raise the standard of living of its people is disregarded.
In fact, Mao’s socialist regime that Žižek maliciously accuse as a “total failure” presided over the emancipation of women and minorities from gender and national oppression, the elimination of exploitation by the old comprador-landlord classes, and the provision of the material needs of the people, including food, healthcare, water, shelter, and education.
The Great Leap Forward, which Žižek paints in the vilest colors as a mega-tragedy causing the death of millions due to famine and starvation, actually endeavored to collective agriculture, close the gap between urban and rural areas, and lay down the foundation for the satisfaction of human needs and industrial development for the people.
The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution meanwhile brought further development to the masses by bringing millions of youth to the countryside to provide education and health care and help in the management of agri-industrial production in the grassroots. This in turn helped remoulded these youth to make them more dedicated servants of the people.
The conscious struggle against the capitalist-roaders in the state bureaucracy and the party hierarchy empowered millions of Chinese masses, a process that was unfortunately reversed with the death of Mao and the capitalist restoration.
Stalin did commit errors in the form of a tendency towards an overgrown bureaucracy, the premature announcement of the withering away of classes and class struggle, and excesses in the struggle against enemies of the people. But the Žižekian “only negative” verdict ignores real gains in the construction of socialism, the gigantic leaps in the soviet economy, the social welfare system, and the heroic defense against fascism in the Second World War.
All these were achieved in spite of the imperialist encirclement and intervention, the various schemes by the former ruling classes and the bourgeois elements inside the Soviet party to regain power, and the real limits posed by the vestiges of the old czarist society from whose womb the new Soviet state emerged.
RADICAL FACADE
It comes as no surprise that Žižek, who aligns himself with Trotsky and other rightwing figures and renegades who he considers “brutal realist,” eschews all forms of resistance to the present order:
Not only state socialism and the social-democratic welfare state, but also, I would add, the deepest hope of the utopian left, “horizontal organization,” local communities, direct democracy, self-organization—all this, I don’t think it works.
For all the lip service on how doing nothing will lead to even greater global catastrophes, all he coughs up is another version of the reactionary Fukuyama conclusion that there is no alternative to capitalism.
In a time when the whole world is up in arms against the oppressive and exploitative system and social movements are advancing towards ever greater heights, we are all, as Mao puts it, faced with three alternatives: “To march at their head and lead them? To trail behind them, gesticulating and criticizing? Or to stand in their way and oppose them?”
It has become increasingly clear where Žižek stands on this question. Far from representing a truly revolutionary alternative, he only exposes himself as an apologist of the ruling order hidden behind a radical façade.
REFERENCES
Armando Liwanag, “Hinggil sa Monopolyo-Kapitalistang ‘Globalisasyon’”
Armando Liwanag, “Stand for Socialism against Modern Revisionism”
Haseeb Ahmed and Chris Cutrone, “The Occupy Movement, a renascent Left, and Marxism Today: An Interview with Slavoj Žižek”
Julieta De Lima-Sison, “Si Jose Ma. Sison tungkol sa Moda ng Produksyon”
Mao Zedong, “Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan”
Pao-yu Ching, “China: Socialist Development and Capitalist Restoration”
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Comment last edited on about 3 months ago by NPC NPCThis article appears as if it's being posted as a serious article that engages with Zizek, but it's just another symptomatic slander piece. I'm concerned that it's not exactly presented as such.
In these usual dismissive critiques of Zizek, it's always notable when the author uses as their primary source AN INTERIVEW and for whatever reason refuses entirely to engage with Zizek's primary texts on, say, the revolutionary cycle of the 20th century. Here that text would be In Defense of Lost Causes, but also the book-length foreword he wrote to the collection of Lenin's 1917 writings, the recent foreword written for "In Defence of the Terror," as well as plenty of his passing comments and analysis in pretty much every other major text.
Zizek is a notoriously bad interviewer, in the sense that he says all kinds of stupid shit for shock value, posturing this way and that way and then later retracting/correct himself in his actual theory. Like reviewers that look at Zizek's jokes and say: my god, look, the man is sexist, racist, homophobic! In this same way, reviews like this extract entire philosophies from one-liners stated in an interview somewhere, refusing to engage with what's being said by Zizek directly.
The introduction (and article) seem to infer that Zizek relegates all past revolutions to "Just failures." I cannot possibly understand this, as Zizek is amply clear in his actual writings that this is not the case.
Here are a few examples from In Defense of Lost Causes:
"the ultimate factual result of the Cultural Revolution, its catastrophic failure and reversal into the recent capitalist transformation, does not exhaust the real of the Cultural Revolution: the eternal Idea of the Cultural Revolution survives its defeat in socio-historical reality, it continues to lead an underground spectral life of the ghosts of failed utopias which haunt the future generations, patientily awaiting their next resurrection" (p.207)
He also gets into detail about locating the failure within the process:
"It is at this level that one should search for the decisive moment of a revolutionary process: say, in the case of the October Revolution, not the explosion of 1917-1918, not even the civil war that followed, but the intense experimentation of the early 1920s, the (desperate, often ridiculous) attempts to invent new rituals of daily life [...]
It is at this level of what, as opposed to the 'abstract terror' of the 'great' political revolution, one is tempted to call the 'concrete terror' of imposing a new order on quotidian reality, that the Jacobins and both the Soviet and the Chinese revolutions ultimately failed" (pp.174-175)
He maintains the very pragmatic mirroring of history and the present:
"Nowhere is the dictum 'every history is a history of the present' more true than in the case of the French Revolution: its historiographical reception has always closely mirrored the twists and turns of political struggles." (p.158)
etc. etc.
I think that Zizek can be engaged with and challenged on these points, sure, but one has to do it in an even-handed, intelligent and reasonable manner, not level dumb accusations based on asides in an interview, which is what this article does. Badiou's Open Letter to Zizek, printed as the last chapter in The Communist Hypothesis, is a good example of an article that does this same sort of critique, but an a higher, more appropriate level.
If the author, for instance, wants to actually critique where Zizek does approach (however vaguely) diagnoses of today's capitalism, he could take the later sections of In Defense of Lost Causes, which argue that there is an increasing global surplus population entirely "excluded" from the "normal" functioning of capital -- and this is empirically verifiable, it's been the focus of a recent issue (53 I think?) of Antipode, an academic geography journal, which makes largely the same argument but adds empirical basis for the claims, such as analysis of the Mae-Sot border region between Thailand and Burma, while also noting also that this very statement of "exclusion" has a colonial/racial character, but arguing also that the "old" imperialism IS (as a matter of fact empirically) being displaced by new centres of accumulation and fundamentally changed by urbanization patterns in the "third world" -- the global role of China's Development Bank ought to be more than enough evidence of this.
Similarly, there is a real difference of opinion here, and Zizek can be said to be the node of it -- it's a difference of WHAT "negation" is and means. It's basically a competition between the vulgar-Hegelian notion of affirmative Synthesis and the really Hegelian notion of the Negation of the Negation. Often when Zizek is speaking of Negation, and particularly of the "negative act," he is speaking (of course as a Hegelian) of a type of negation which can negate negation. I think we ought to have THIS discussion, where the real point of philosophical difference seems to lie -- but that's not as possible in context of a skeletal slander piece such as this. I think it would be much more relevant, for example, when we discuss something like Dean's notion of Communist Desire -- this seems to be rooted in the same dif. with Zizek, though now in the form of desire v. drive rather than synthesis v. negation of negation.
But the author here does not seem to want to get into actual philosophical OR material analysis. Instead, the author simply wants to take the half-quoted statements of an often difficult to understand philosopher, package *everything that's wrong with the kids these days* into those statements and build a nice little straw man to burn.
Again, this article forces us to have a discussion focused more on THE EXISTENCE of articles *like this* and how to confront them than it does with the actual issues that are presented by Zizek.0 Like -
I think you misunderstand, NPC: I didn't post this piece because I agree with it. I posted it because the stand of Zizek is one we need to explore and understand more deeply. And I mentioned my own views (briefly) in the introduction.
I often post things that I believe "plop an issue on the table" (often pieces that I don't agree with). I realize that is sometimes confusing -- but, I suspect as our discussions proceed it will (hopefully) become less confusing. And yes, the argumentation against Zizek is precisely what is said by more rigid and dogmatic thinking that doesn't see the context or nuance of what Zizek is saying (but that does raise statements and themse in Zizek that we DO need to evaluate).
I am not aware of a more sophisticated critique of Zizek on these matters (or I would have posted that). But I would like to open the discussion here, so that we can sketch out the basis for an understanding.
As for my own views, let me state add a bit here:
There is an expression in German "Trotz allem." Despite everything. (It is a quote from the early communist Karl Liebknecht who asserts we will win, despite everything -- including the heavy gathering repression that soon murdered him.)
Now, after the experience of 1917-1976 -- the rise of socialist states and the capitalist restoration in them -- there is our own mood (in some corners) of "Kommunismus trotz allem" -- meaning: that our presentation should be that, *despite* the apparent verdict of history, we affirm this: The Communist Hypothesis. Well, i think we should challenge the one-sided negativism of that. (And we can debate whether Zizek is a representative....)
There are things we grieve in our history, but also things we celebrate. And I believe we should make that distinction between failure and defeat (without being petty and semantic about it).
And defeat and setback are not the same as failure. You know, at the end, everyone dies. But that does not make each life (ultimately) a failure at the end. Often conservatives learn about a divorce and ask "why did the marriage fail?" -- when in fact the marriage might have been wonderful, and a divorce might be a reasonable transition to something else.
In the end, every idea divides into two -- and even the best insights show the strain of time and become exhausted. But that doesn't make their development and evangelization a failure.
I too recognize the complexity and nuance in Zizek's thought. I understand the context he speaks from, and the tides he is going against. But I am simply saying that, for our purposes, he bends the stick too far.
I also think, btw, that Badiou is a bit too negative on the Cultural Revolution, and that this comes out in a periodization of the Cultural Revolution that cuts it short with the end of the most dramatic mass eruptions... while in fact this historic class struggle continued in many forms for years afterwards (before its final defeat in the mid 70s). That is another issue, perhaps, than Zizek, and more subtle (i believe) than many of Zizek's statements (including the ones on Mao that Joe mentioned above), and run into some major and substantive questions.0 Like -
I'll just repost what I put on Facebook in response to this same statement there:
Yes, that is a real disagreement that ought to be debated -- and it should be debated in the context of Zizek's actual position toward history, which is VERY DIFFERENT from what that article portrays it as -- and what you seem to think it is.
His position is absolutely NOT simply "DESPITE all of this, we affirm communism" it's more "we affirm communism not ONLY despite its history, but THROUGH its history -- our affirmation is the spectre of THAT VERY HISTORY haunting the present and THAT is central to our project"
Badiou makes this distinction clearly in his critique [from the last chapter of communist hypothesis]. But you seem to be conflating Zizek's nuanced notion of what failure itself means into a much more simple schema of failure or defeat, as if it were just a case of lost battles in one war.
Zizek's approach to failure, for instance, can't be understood without engaging with his notion of what repetition is, and what it means to repeat with a minimal difference -- this taken from Deleuze and developed as a unique theory (in In Defense of Lost Causes) of political potentialities, the role of utopia as a reflexive category of praxis rather than idealism, etc. He states repeatedly that communist action today will be a repetition of these past struggles, from Mao to Lenin to the Jacobins, etc. They repeat the "spirit" of communism, but remember that spirit is also a MATERIAL category for Zizek -- that means that repeating the "spirit" also means engaging with direct repetitions of material practice where they are suited, which also includes understanding the empirical detail of those previous attempts, the empirical detail of contemporary capitalism and having the intuition to know what to take from the past and what to leave there.0 Like -
Comment last edited on about 3 months ago by Mike Ely Mike Ely
I'd like to respond to your admonishment separately (since we generally discourage the kind of personalization you weave through your comments):
"Again, this article is far under the analytical level that I would expect of Kasama -- or you personally, Mike. Unless we want to post some sad Trotskyist critique of Badiou as a metaphysical mathematical warlock next?"
Look this was put up to simulate this discussion. Not to end it. The article I posted is not particularly nuanced -- and I mentioned my own disagreement with its method.
I posted it, not as a model of approach, and not to endorse its argument, but as a way of plopping the issue on the table.
Why don't you engage it to help us all understand more, rather than protest its existence?
And to repeat what I said above: I often post things I don't agree with (or endorse) -- because I think a piece concentrates a point of view we should engage (answer, explore, debunk, embrace...) I know that is confusing some times... especially in a political culture where people only promote things they embrace.
As for my own (tentative) views, expressed in the intro (not in the posted article): This is what I believe based on a very initial engagement with Zizek's work). It is open for disputation.
But Just because I express a view you don't agree with, I don't think it is fair to say that such expression (itself, by its nature) lowers the level of discussion.
And I look forward to learning from an exploration of what (precisely) Zizek is saying, and a debate over whether we should agree.0 Like -
Comment last edited on about 3 months ago by Mike Ely Mike Ely
Sighs >> I confess. Just once I would like to open a controversial question on Kasama, without someone showing up immediately to say we shouldn't have that discussion. That the very idea of discussing that thing is stupid.
People seem to think their views are obvious, and opposing views should just be disallowed. Well, I don't agree.
There is something about the inherited climate of the left (or is it in the water we drink), where people constantly jump to shout at each other to "Shut up!" and "Don't say that!" -- in the place of actually turning disagreements into explorations.
I just don't share that sensibility. We should stick our fingers into the very places where the controversies make people jump -- that is the very lifeblood of Kasama.
And, to be clear: I understand well that there is a stupid attack going on against Zizek by dogmatic leftists. And I am opening that matter for discussion here. In hopes both that we refute the stupidity, and develop our own nuanced assessment. And to open that, I added my own (rather different and rather initial) impressions.
You may not see what I am doing, which is fine. but I have every right to post things you loath, and open them for refutation. And I don't see any reason to denounce the mere opening of that discussion.
Why don't you just join that discussoin-- and contribute to it -- without denouncing its existence? Or if you can't stand the discussion, don't.0 Like -
Comment last edited on about 3 months ago by NPC NPC
This isn't an issue of misunderstanding that you're posting something for discussion. It's an issue of what is actually up to the level of discussion (i.e., DOES the article actually make valid points that need to be discussed, or should we discuss just the existence of the article itself, WHY do these attacks exist, for instance) and the FRAMING of proposing that for discussion.
One problem is that reposting things that are not done in good faith or are clearly based on slander/fallacy, etc. WITHOUT actually marking that clearly can miscommunicate the point and offer them a certain parasitic legitimacy -- and honestly I think that is frequently the function of the original postings, to get website hits by posting on popular subjects like Zizek with no willingness to actually ENGAGE with Zizek.
Now, like I said, there are REAL issues to be brought up with Zizek, real controversial issues. But the ISSUES are NOT controversial here, what IS controversial is the fact that the article is just a blatant piece of slander which adds NOTHING substantial to the debate, since its ONLY aim is to muddy the waters of that debate. This is why I responded so strongly to the original posting of the article -- because this is precisely an article which just DIVERTS real debate about the actual issues into a labyrinthine debate circling around a straw man.
So: in proposing articles like this. IS the function to debate the issues (again, this is not the article for that, as it doesn't speak to the real issues but to false ones). OR is the function to just have a circular condemnation of this sort of cultish dogmatic critique -- even though we've made a good critique of that phenomenon previously.0 Like -
Comment last edited on about 3 months ago by Mike Ely Mike Ely
NPC writes in support of a policy of
"basically do not engaged with the ISO, RCP or any of the other microsects. We don't repost their writings, we don't accept invitations to debate and we don't put their positions up as serious things to be discussed."
You are free to pursue any policy you want. If you don't want to engage these ideas, don't.
But do you really want to insist that I can't engage those ideas? Or that I can't express ideas you don't agree with?
Again: People often think their views are obviously right -- and that the views of others are obviously stupid. This is a conceit that (uh) tends to undermine discussion.
You seem new to the Kasama site, so let me share with you OUR policy:
a) People are free to express their views and not be insulted for it. (Your personalizing of this discussion is not the tone we encourage).
b) We try to engage the controversies that exist -- and clearly the fact that you and i disagree (apparently) is a sign that this is a real controvesy here (not in some remote "microsect" world.)
c) I generally don't inhabit a world of lefties, and I generally think the distinction silos of most older groups are exhausted.
But I certainly don't think we should forbid (!) mention of them or their views on our site (or especially in this open thread).
We have often posted articles by many organized left groups (AWTW, the Socialist Worker, writings of the RCP, exposures by Workers World and PSL, and so on.) Sometimes we post them because their articles have value, sometimes we post them because we want to critically engage what they say.
d) Generally we discourage hogging the threads to debate moderator policy. I suppose we need a place for that (perhaps a group on the social media side).0 Like -
what seems a bit dogmatic to me is refusing to engage with certain trends a priori because you think that deigning to speak to them legitimizes their existence. we engage plenty of ideas here on kasama (e.g. communization theory) which are entertained by far fewer people than the membership of some of the microsects you mention.
NPC, you also seem to assume this dividing line where you have the correct ideas/practice, and these Others are always wrong and can never bring forward truths or do important work (and should not even exist). let's also try not to make personal attacks on others: we have to maintain a modicum of civility for debate and discussion.
that being said, this critique by Karlo Mikhail is horrible and seems plain wrong on many aspects re: what Zizek has actually said. i agree with NPC that its method - not using citations but taking statements of Zizek out of context and piecing together a narrative that makes him look like a neoconservative reactionary, and uncritically upholding everything about the past against Zizek's criticisms - is bad and the opposite of what we would want to promote in a place like Kasama.
it seems one of the big differences with Zizek (as a Lacanian communist) versus Marxists is that often what he says in his statements is not the same as what he intends to evoke as meaning for his audience. he points to the unsaid or the unwritten (as he does in the first few minutes of the video i posted here on Kasama of Zizek's speech in Sydney, Australia) as something that can contain more meaning than explicit communication. for this reason a strict textual analysis often falls short of capturing what is proposed.
sometimes i feel Zizek plays this role for the communist movement akin to the Oracle in The Matrix: he might not be telling us the truth, but he's telling us what we need to hear. we learn what not to do from the 20th century revolutions, but in understanding that, we can find the path to the revolutions of the 21st century.0 Like -
Comment last edited on about 3 months ago by Mike Ely Mike Ely
I'm saying two things: First we need to engage the stupid attacks on Zizek (and on Badiou).
And second, I personally believes Zizek actually does "bend the stick" too much in concessions to anti-communism (and that too is rather easily documented in some notorious statements). Including on Mao (who I think is a remarkably positive character) but also on Stalin (who I believe is a very mixed legacy, that should be treated as a mixed legacy.)
And yes you are conflating my views with the article (that is one mistake)-- and (second mistake) you are implying that posting an article (whose method and verdict I don't agree with) is promoting its method and verdict.0 Like -
On moderation:
We have created an "open discussion" group on Kasama's Social Media side. If you want to discuss moderation (including raise issues about our policies), please put them there.
Among our very few rules is that we don't want the discussion threads clogged with (sometimes long and stubborn) complaints from people being moderated. And we (gently and patiently) moderate routinely, all the time, to maintain the site. And we don't want that process to filibuster the discussion threads.0 Like -
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PermalinkI disagree. I appreciate Red Spark but I think it should be engaging with groups like the ISO and the RCP. Now is the time for those exchanges. While this is getting off topic, I feel like responding because this week Socialist Worker ran a criticism of Kshama Sawant from Socialist Alternative. I'm sure most of you know her at this point. After the elections, SA claimed ISO ignored them, and the ISO retorted with a really pathetic set of objections: SA are reformist (true, no dispute), SA didn't give us enough time to collaborate (pathetic, in my opinion), SA is 'point scoring'- etc, etc, etc. Reformism isn't going to do the job; we aaaalllll agree on that basically, but I have to say simply refusing to congratulate the SA for their localized accomplishment, provide ANY representation of their project on Socialist Worker, and then acting taciturn when criticized really bothered me. We have to stick together right now even if we're arguing over method, even if the identity of these embroilments wont be spirited away simply through goodwill. We cannot treat other communists in this fashion.
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it bothered me the ISO refused to congratulate or provide any form of public support (even if just representation for a view they may not agree with) for Kshama Sawant and the SA for their presence in Washington over the elections. when they finally did, and it was with a big sigh and a roll of the eyes. what arrogance, and it is so detrimental to an emerging movement. i think socialists and communists of all walks ought to be engaged. we have to stick together even when we deeply disagree.
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What does this have to do with the Zizek article?
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If the critique of Zizek is too poor to be engaged with, why not find a stronger critique of Zizek and engage with that? Sure, you can engage with bad critique, but this discussion makes it rather obvious that engaging with a bad critique will lead you to debate about it's poor quality rather than engage in a critical discussion about Zizek.
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Comment last edited on about 3 months ago by Mike Ely Mike Ely
Oathboard wrote:
"If the critique of Zizek is too poor to be engaged with, why not find a stronger critique of Zizek and engage with that? Sure, you can engage with bad critique, but this discussion makes it rather obvious that engaging with a bad critique will lead you to debate about it's poor quality rather than engage in a critical discussion about Zizek."
ok, good question.... let me respond to that:
First, it is unfortunately true that bad critiques are often influential. There are quite a number of decent people (in the U.S. and quite often around the world) who don't understand the value and contribution of theory produced by people like Zizek and Badiou. This is particularly true in the global communist movement -- where a defacto view of "closed system" has taken hold (i.e. the assumption that our philosophy is fixed and known, and that other philosophical work is judged against that closed system.)
There is great value in answering (repeatedly and convincingly) why we can't approach communist theory as a closed system.
And the argument by Karlo above is quite typical and quite influential: I.e. Lenin explained imperialism in 1916. He described the global capitalism of his time as "the highest stage of capitalism." He polemicized against Kautsky's ultra-imperialism. So we can (supposedly) judge the views of people today (including here Zizek) against a checklist of Lenin's points and verdicts.
Now, on one level, it is rather startling that such "closed system" thinking has such influence. First, because there were forces within the international communist movement (most notably the Comintern increasingly over its life) fighting to "codify" and fix Marxism, and then promote it as a definitive and closed system. But second (and important for our purposes), new people coming to communism are often (understandably and correctly) impressed by the coherence and power of previous communist synthesis. The first time you read the "classics" of Marxism-Leninism there is often the breathless excitement of discovering a coherent answer to the many infuriating philosophical and political "standard" thinking of capitalism. And it takes a while for many people to see communist theory as a contradictory and moving thing -- more like a bush than a layer cake (as we have put it).
So for example Lenin's "Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism" is often seen as the final word on many questions -- even though you can see (if you look at Lenin's methodology in that work) how he himself used and synthesized many creative analysts of his day, including many who were (obviously) not communists. In other words, the lesson of the best communists we study is precisely that they drew from many contemporary sources and treated their own theory as an open system. (And Lenin's Imperialism was a major rupture with the inherited marxism of his day -- a rupture with Marx and Engels, and with those who, in an orthodox way, clung to Marx's verdicts in a new time.)
My view is that we need to engage views that are influential or interesting. Not just the ones that are most interesting and sophisticated... but also sometimes bad theories that are influential.
Like you, I think we should post and share high level engagements with key questions (including, in this case, people who engage Zizek in a sophisticated way). And we ourselves should engage (in these threads) in such a sophisticated way (when we can).
But I also think we should engage influential views, even when they are not particularly sophisticated -- for reasons that should be obvious. And my hope, in posting Karlo's essay was to make that possible.
Unfortiunately, that has not been possible so far, largely because we have had (instead) a debate over whether we (here on Kasama) have a right to even post such a work (!) because its misunderstandings of Zizek veer so far.
I think that is unfortunate. And I am frustrated that our thread here is not about Zizek, but about whether Kasama can even debate bad ideas.
But perhaps we can (out of this conversation) get some common ground on the importance of engaging both influential and interesting views.
Now, some people may not believe that orthodox Marxisms are influential -- sometimes arguing "no one I know cares about those people." Or "anyone who believes such things should not be respected in our plans."
That is largely (in my opinion) a problem of "frog in a well" localism. If you were with Liam and Natalio in Nepal right now, you would suddenly become aware (talking to even the best communists there, and from around the world) how powerful the influence of some theories of orthodoxy still are.
We are internationalists (or at least we should be). We don't limit our discussion (on Kasama) simply to what is relevant in our own immediate or personal practice (with the few specific people right around us).
Finally, I just want to express again my frustration that we have rarely opened a complex topic on Kasama, without someone running in, angry or offended, to announced that we have no right to have this discussion. It is amazing to me.
But taking angry offense at the ideas of others is (as we all know) very often a default mode of entering discussion in many parts of today's U.S. left. It is a terrible practice. The tangents caused by such drama is a repeated obstruction to productive discussions everywhere.
And there are several arguments raised in such protests here on Kasama:
Sometimes people believe that their own views are so obviously correct that it is offensive and stupid to engage the differing views of others. I.e. that Karlos is so obviously wrong that his arguments can't be worth dissecting.
Another argument raised is that if you post and discuss a "wrong idea" you are just advertising it, giving it more reach, and you must (in fact) be wanting to promote it. If you allow a bad idea to be discussed on Kasama, you must secretly agree with it.
Let me be clear on this: This is essentially an argument against scientific inquiry and open discussion. It says that people allowing ideas to be dissected must agree with those ideas.
If i post (for discussion) a wooden critique of Zizek, then I must (in the views of some people) want to promote woodenness (not critique of woodenness).
The disturbing implication of this view is (after you have run into it for a while) to demand all kinds of discussion to simply be shouted down.
For exmaple: The views of backward among the people can't be engaged (racism, sexism, individualism, patriotism etc.) -- they must simply be denounced with great offense (in small "safe spaces" of subcultures). O r orthodox and conservative forms of communism can't be discussed because they are (supposedly) beneath contempt. And so on.
I don't agree. I will never agree.
I think we should engage wrong ideas, we should dissect them, we teach ourselves how to answer wrong ideas in deep ways, and we should even expect learn from ideas that we dont' agree with. (Mao says even shit serves as fertilizer....)
Just shouting down wrong ideas (or demanding that they be ignored) doesn't arm anyone to defeat wrong ideas (where they really must ultimately be defeated.... in the minds of humans).
I hope we can get to a political culture where the first impulse (at the sight of new controversy) is for people to announce they are "offended" and to tell others to just shut up. I want us to fight for such a culture among us.0 Like -
But isn't there a little more room for movement than that? I.e. -- aren't those two options not really the only two options?
Can't we, for instance, see a difference between articles like this, which are actually doing everything you say--looking at these bad critiques, engaging with them in a productive fashion, etc. etc. And articles like the one above, which is presented in an entirely different fashion. There is clearly a difference in presentation between the two articles.
Someone can clearly say, yes, let's include these articles for debate in the FIRST form, but not in the SECOND, if there is risk of miscommunicating -- i.e., of seeming to ENDORSE that wrong idea, or even just aspects drawn from the very poor method used in the above article. We ought to engage with wrong ideas, certainly -- but I'd hope not in a way that makes it seem as if we are endorsing any aspect of them (in the same way that we don't want to take racism, for example, and say, here's an example of a bad idea -- but doesn't THIS PART have a point? Well, no, it doesn't, because the basic logical structure is flawed) That's of course a harsh example for comparison, but I use it because the above comment mentions racism as an example of a similar "wrong idea" to be engaged.
If we want to talk about Zizek, for instance -- as is hinted in the introduction, the focus might be around Zizek's notion of the historical "failure" of past revolutionary cycles. The problem, though, is that the article does NOT talk about Zizek's notion of historical failure, it talks about a particularly bad and quite (possibly intentionally so) slanderous version of that argument which bears no resemblance to Zizek's actual argumentation.
If we want a better article that discusses that, Alain Badiou's open letter to Zizek on Zizek's critique of the Cultural Revolution would be a much more relevant piece.
If we want to talk about the function of articles like THIS, though -- where that "wrong idea" comes from, then we have to talk about that. We can't have our cake and eat it -- we can't say "yes, this is a wrong idea, a bad article, logically flawed, slanderous, based on misquotation, etc." and THEN say, "But I agree with the first of its two main points!" These features are no separate. But this IS what the introduction (seems to me) to be doing.0 Like -
If i post (for discussion) a wooden critique of Zizek, then I must (in the views of some people) want to promote woodenness (not critique of woodenness).
I'd repeat my point. I could learn a lot from this discussion about the need to engage with wood. So far there has been more discussion about the wooden critique rather than the part about Zizek, should we change the subjective engagement with wood or replace the wood itself?0 Like -
Zizek supported the NATO war on the Balkans as a humanitarian intervention?! All previous attempts toward communism were a total failure and negative?! That's enough for me. His credibility is shit. I've become deeply suspicious of all these celebrity intellectuals anyway. They have clearly been rewarded by, and assimilated into, the capitalist system. Along with figures like Chomsky and Zinn, while there might actually be some things we can learn from these folks, when it comes to organizing and growing our movement and figuring out what to actually DO - these celebrity scholars come up short. I don't think the ruling class cares if a small minority of people figure out the truth, so long as they don't represent a clear and present danger to the system.
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Comment last edited on about 3 months ago by Mike Ely Mike Ely
NPC in some earlier comments implies that I am mistaken in implying that Zizek makes too negative a summation of previously existing socialist countries.
I wrote (explaining my view):
"I too recognize the complexity and nuance in Zizek's thought. I understand the context he speaks from, and the tides he is going against. But I am simply saying that, for our purposes, he bends the stick too far."
However, I do believe he does bend the stick too far.
Let me give one (rather notorious) example, from his essay "Mao Zedong -- the Marxist Lord of Misrule."
In that essay, Zizek writes:
" If one is to believe Mao's latest biography, [11] he caused the greatest famine in history by exporting food to Russia to buy nuclear and arms industries: 38 million people were starved and slave-driven to death in 1958-61. Mao knew exactly what was happening, saying: "half of China may well have to die." This is instrumental attitude at its most radical: killing as part of a ruthless attempt to realize goal, reducing people to disposable means - and what one should bear in mind is that the Nazi holocaust was NOT the same: the killing of the Jews not part of a rational strategy, but a self-goal, a meticulously planned "irrational" excess (recall the deportation of the last Jews from Greek islands in 1944, just before the German retreat, or the massive use of trains for transporting Jews instead of war materials in 1944). This is why Heidegger is wrong when he reduces holocaust to the industrial production of corpses: it was NOT that, Stalinist Communism was that. [12]"
Now, the open is an escape clause "If one is to believe Mao's latest biography..." But in fact, Zizek is quoting from a notorious hatchet job by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, Mao: The Unknown Story. It is a work that has been dissected and exposed in many ways. And the controversy has included claims like "he caused the greatest famine in history by exporting food to Russia " and that he "knew exactly what was happening."
So first of all: this biography is not to be believed, and certainly not to be casually and publicly promoted as credible by responsible and radical people.
But, second, Zizek's use of this claim is not incidental to his argument... it is central. And he is arguing that central to Mao is a kind of ruthlessness that is willing to kill large parts of the people.
In fact he ends on this very point (it is the main and central point of the essay) when he writes:
"It is all too easy to dismiss these lines as empty posturing of a leader ready to sacrifice millions for his political goals (the extension ad absurdum of Mao's ruthless decision to starve tens of millions to death in the late 1950s) - the other side of this dismissive attitude is the basic message: "we should not be afraid." Is this not the only correct attitude apropos war: "first, we are against it; second, we are not afraid of it"? There is definitely something terrifying about this attitude - however, this terror is nothing less than the condition of freedom."
Note that here, in his concluding paragraph, he doesn't bother to even insert some small print escape clause... he is portraying as fact this claim that Mao deliberately starved tens of millions of people to pay for nukes. It is a factual assumption now seamlessly (and centrally) marshaled for his point about the nature of terrifying ruthlessness.
There may be more to say on this historical controversy. But I just wanted to point out a clear example of what I am calling out: an example of "bending the stick" too far in accepting anticommunist claims as true.
* * * * * * * * ** *
There is a moment in Apocalypse Now, when its main theme comes out. Kurtz is describing how the Vientamese revolutionaries came into a village after an innoculation done by U.S. medics, and chopped off the arms of all the kids. They claimed (in the film) that this innoculation has been poison, and they were saving the lives of the kids. And in this act of ruthless deceit, made political points against the U.S., and for their own cause, by committing an atrocity.
By telling this story, Kurtz is making the point about needing a terrifying ruthlessness to win in this ugly world. (And it is a moment when a viewer might realize that Apocalypse Now is not as simply progressive or antiwar as one might think -- and when we realize that the killer-mercenary-dead-squad Kurtz is speaking the message of the film.)
Well, the fact is that this atrocity is invented. It is fiction. The National Liberation Front in Vietnam did not commit such atrocities -- and (as you might imagine) it is in the nature of irregular guerrilla forces that committing atrocities (rape, amputation of children's arms, massacre of villages etc.) runs contrary to the logic of a peoples war and a popular revolution.
However the creators of Apocalypse Now invented this faux atrocity because it gave them the ability to make their point (through Kurtz.) That was troubling at the time (and its troubling now) -- because many viewers watching this may not know it was untrue, and may not realize it is fictional license, and it reinforces terrible anti-communist assumptions.
But I am pointing out that Zizek has done something quite similar here -- in an essay which is not fiction, and does not pretend to be fiction. And (even while we take a nuanced and appreciative approach to his larger work) we do need to point out that this is wrong -- and damaging to a serious, sober assessment of the twentieth century.0 Like -
Comment last edited on about 3 months ago by Mike Ely Mike Ely
Part 2 on Zizek's bending of sticks:
Note: Zizek describes Maoist China as a society of people " starved and slave-driven to death," and then ends that paragraph with this:
"This is why Heidegger is wrong when he reduces holocaust to the industrial production of corpses: it was NOT that, Stalinist Communism was that."
In other words, Zizek is seamlessly subordinating Mao and Maoism to the category "Stalinism." Without even bothering to justify it, or explain it. Such assumptions are, after all, in the air. They are casually believed (in Europe, in those left circles). And so the assumption is slipped into Zizek's argument in passing (!) -- without any embarrassment or self-consciousness.
This is a very common sleight of hand -- especially in European politics. In other words, the real deal (in Europe) is almost always seen to be European (and Russian) communism. And events outside of Europe (like the historic liberation of a quarter of humanity) is presented and viewed as a sub-set of some European event. What is Maoism, in that view? A kind of "Stalinism." And once you have a verdict on Stalin and Stalinism, from your European experience.... well you have (by simply arithmetic logic and extension) a verdict on its Maoist subset.
This is a terrible logic, and it (quite candidly) a form of European chauvinism. It is quite common among many European leftists (and gets special expression within anarchism and Trotskyism, which each often have some especially glaring Euro-centric preoccupations).
(Eastern Europe is its own arena for this -- because people there widely believe they know what communism is all about (because they assume that the regimes they lived under were real and existing socialism. And they are very impatient with anyone who asserts there have been and is a more real socialism somewhere else that is liberatory and genuinely popular. It is hard to argue with such deeply rooted verdicts, but we don't have to adopt them or tail them.)
In fact (in reality, in history) Maoism is not essentially a subset of Stalinism -- but a break off. It is a complex new synthesis including both continuity and rupture with previous forms of communism. And it broke off early -- starting before 1935.
And in this point too, Zizek is going with the tide, not against the tide, to make his own idiosyncratic points.0 Like -
Part 3 of Zizek's bending sticks:
I'm genuinely not sure that things are this simple: that Zizek is simply misunderstood when he says "communism was a failure" or that we all agree that it was not a failure.
I believe that many people (on the left, even on the communist left) actually believe that the twentieth century is a history of failure.
I think people often have a negative summation of Lenin, and even more negative summation of Stalin. And i find that many people have opinions about the Chinese revolution without any serious investigation of the other great revolution of the twentieth century (including the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, which is a unique and towering event for the world revolutinoary cause).
Included within that: I think there is controversy (and active disbelief) over whether it is possible to have a socialist transition period between capitalist class society and communist classless society. And I encounter people who (while claiming to be communists) think that attempts at socialism were necessarily a "failure" because the whole concept is (in there opinion) misguided. And who argue that there has never been any socialism and that it is a myth always covering for new forms of capitalism. (Again: this is a theory that suggests that the revolutions of the twentieth century were failures.)
So really, I believe there is real and deep controversy over whether previous communism was a "failure" -- and it is not just a matter of misunderstandings.0 Like -
Part 4 on Zizek bending the stick:
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
Finally, I would be eager to see a substantive discussion here on what Zizek's view of failure is. Why complain (over and over) that this posted essay is wrong on Zizek's view of failure without providing a concise description of what you believe Zizek is saying? Isn't that the needed response?
Why don't we post some passages from "In Defense of Lost Causes" and explore them?
Can someone suggest which passage from his work best capture it?
If Zizek has been superficially judged by the popular meanings of "failure" -- then it would be worth while clarifying what his small print actually says he means by that.
But even here, i want to talk about "bending the stick" too much: if the conservative forces of the world have been running around for decades proclaiming "communism is a failure" -- and you rise (as a prominent left voice for communism) and also declare "communism has been a failure" -- well then you need to take responsibility for the fact that the world will see and hear that as an echo and validation of quite standard and incorrect views.
We don't just have a responsibility for what we say, but also for how we are heard.
We should (here and elsewhere) be armed with an understanding of his own declared and nuanced meaning of Zizek's concepts. But we can also criticize him for a presentation that "bends the stick" in ways that reinforce anticommunist summations in other and larger arenas.0 Like -
I noted elsewhere that this point of Zizek's flippant use of often reactionary sources, especially in reference to Maoism, seems to be the more substantive issue when it comes to problems with his interpretations of previous revolutionary cycles. In that same thread (the one on J. Ramsey's facebook), we noted that the best critique of this phenomenon is actually Badiou's open letter to Zizek, printed as the last chapter of The Communist Hypothesis.
But it's interesting, because Badiou, in that critique, does NOT conflate Zizek's misuse of data (a too-flippant use which makes it SEEM like he's endorsing it), with his theories of revolutionary failure. In fact, that essay opens with just the opposite statement:
"Your comments on the negation of the negation are remarkable. You explain, probably for the first time, the underlying reasons why Stalin and Mao reject that 'law'. They fail, that is, to understand its real Hegelian meaning: any immanent negation is, in its essence, a negation of the negation that it is."
Badiou strongly separates Zizek's theory of failure/negation from his problematic take on the Chinese experience -- precisely because Badiou identifies that Zizek's problematic take is NOT rooted in his theory of failure/negation, but rather in his flippant rhetorical style, which cedes too much to the enemy.
Now, Zizek will constantly use this style of saying: "Well, let's ASSUME that all the worst they say is correct... well, EVEN THEN can't we still endorse the basic project, the basic goal?" In this case, he's basically doing the same thing, though maybe making it a little less clear that that's the rhetorical turn he's using (I think it is perfectly clear, however, precisely from the statements you quote).
But Badiou's critique is also spot-on -- Zizek does not seem to realize the kind of false advertisement he is giving for that kind of shoddy "history," he's just using it in an offhanded way, even though it really is very dangerous. And there may be something deeper at the base of that, some sort of anti-communist sentiment that comes from growing up in an Eastern Bloc country, a European chauvinism, whatever -- but WHATEVER it is, it is NOT rooted in his actual political philosophy. You would be very hard-pressed, I think, to find Zizek saying "communism is a failure" with no qualifiers, no dialectical turn in the next sentence, etc. etc. in any of his major philosophical works -- though he certainly maybe ought to be MORE aware of how most people will MISREAD what he is saying, especially in the above-cited case of Mao. And I certainly think it notable that the above examples do NOT actually show Zizek saying anything of the sort--that communism (or even socialism) is an irredeemable failure... again, I think this is just sheer misperception based on his uncomfortable style of writing, and it is of course ironic that, if you talk to someone on the right, they'll probably think the exact opposite based on reading the same books--that Zizek is saying we should go through it all again!
Another issue is simply that Zizek points to the fact that the failures of the actually existing socialist parties are embedded in their basic structures, not in some poisonous "external" corruption (whether that be embodied in the figure of Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Deng, whoever), but that it's a basic flaw with the real sources they were using, a failure in Marxism itself (Zizek points particularly to the areas such as Critique of the Gotha Programme, where Marx actually begins to give hints of "transition" a "socialist stage," etc.) and an ideological failure--not the failure to get the ideology "right" but a failure in abandoning the anti-ideological essence of dialectical communist thought--basically this urge to build a new "positive" ideology, as if the space of ideology were itself neutral and needed to simply be filled with "good, proletariat" contents instead of "bad, bourgeois" ones.
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Re: the question of that selections to use.
The problem with pulling out selections from Zizek is that it can be notoriously difficult to find contained selections which are not heavily dependant on what came before or after them (his writing style is, after all, very dialectical). It would also depend -- because I very much doubt that you will find what you want stated in the terms that you want it, since the root of Zizek's theory of failure actually comes more in his discussions of Difference and Repetition, the category of utopia, and the category of "determinate negaton," versus a dialectical negation.
The other problem is that I think evidence against the "communism is just failure" thesis is so abundant that you could basically take ANYTHING of substance that Zizek has written and find plenty of elements which contradict this thesis.
But, trying to pare it down to where he talks about the notion of negation/negativity, failure and repreition, based on a quick skim, I would suggest:
1. Maybe a section (or possibly the whole cut into sections) of his introduction to Lenin's 1917 writings, which talks a little bit more directly but also falls into many of the same issues that Badiou critiques him for.
2. There may be worthwhile selections (possibly from the 3rd chapter and the 2nd appendix) in Adrian Johnston's "Badiou, Zizek and Political Transformations." Johnston is the premier scholar on Zizek, and is able to discuss his major points straightforwardly and without Zizek's own rhetorical confusions. The problem is that he tries to focus more on Zizek's core philosphical ideas and a lot less on Zizek's often offhanded statemtents about culture, history or the structure of contemporary capitalism. But there are certainly worthwhile passages in that 3rd chapter, it would just be an effort of finding/compiling them.
3. Chapter 4 of In Defense of Lost Causes is probably one of the better ones to draw from -- but it's a long chapter. The sections "The Limits of Mao's dialectics" (p. 181) and "Cultural Revolution and Power" (p.193) are sort of a better-written version of that intro to the Mao book -- though again it will be hard to read them correctly when you take them out of the chapter's actual context.
4. Chapter 7, "The Crisis of Determinate Negation," is probably actually MORE important when looking at the actual mechanics of Zizek's political philosophy -- but again it's a large chapter and this one probably cannot be pieced apart at all without creating a lot of confusion.
5. There are several other points that could be focused on -- maybe Zizek's major early engagements with Badiou in The Ticklish Subject -- but I think these might not address the question as directly.0 Like
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Kasama is a communist project for the forcible overthrow and transformation of all existing social conditions. We are open to learning, unafraid to admit our own uncertainties. We will not shrink from what we do know: the solutions cannot be found within the current world order or the choices it provides. We are for revolution. We seek to find the forms of organization and action for the people most dispossessed by this system to free themselves and all humanity.
To take this road, we need a fearless, open-eyed debate, discussion and engagement. We need fresh analyses of the rapid changes shaping the world around us. We need to sum up a century of revolutionary strategies and attempts, victories and defeats – instead of the conventional wisdom and facile verdicts that paralyze our movements. We need to re-imagine a radical politics that can take life among people and move mountains.
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