______,
Thanks for inciting me to put my thoughts and criticisms of Žižek’s output on the Iranian election in (slightly) more coherent and nuanced form than “Me no like!” which maybe isn’t the strongest possible way to attack a piece with which I disagree. I’ll also stipulate that of the various countries of the world of which I know nothing, Italy is pretty high up on the list, roughly alongside the rest of Western Europe, about which I know next-to-nothing. I’m also inter-weaving another response to Žižek into this [an unlikely-to-be-published reply to his LRB piece]; you’ll notice when there’s a brief, over-wrought, verbosely empyrean passage in the midst of the typos and hurried invective. Furthermore, I have little to say on Žižek’s thoughts on Berlusconi or authoritarian capitalism. I’m here concerned with Iran. With what said:
Žižek opens with the anecdote about
A single demonstrator [who] refused to budge when a policeman shouted at him to move, and the embarrassed policeman withdrew. Within a couple of hours, all Tehran had heard about the incident, and although the street fighting carried on for weeks, everyone somehow knew it was all over. Is something similar happening now?
Rhetorical question? Yes. Answer? No. This is important, because the IRI commands a substantial residue of real legitimacy, as Ervand Abrahamian outlines in this MERIP piece. Ahmadinejad may or may not personally command that degree of legitimacy, although his charismatic “populism” [that ugly signifier again!] suggests that he does in fact command some legitimacy; large social sectors supported him electorally. Certainly a substantial plurality of the Iranian electorate did so; I suspect a majority, as does, for example, Juan Cole, no Ahmadinejad partisan. Furthermore, despite the hype, the evidence of fraud is at the margins, and there is thus far little evidence that it was determinative.[1] Additionally, substantial sectors of the protesters rallied behind both demands that would have reinforced the institutional legitimacy of the IRI—e.g. demands for recounts, re-votes, various modalities of review—or Mousavi/Rafsanjani. This is not 1979, at least—I don’t think so.
Here we have his foil:
There are many versions of last month’s events in Tehran. Some see in the protests the culmination of the pro-Western ‘reform movement’, something along the lines of the colour-coded revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia. They support the protests as a secular reaction to the Khomeini revolution, as the first step towards a new liberal-democratic Iran freed from Muslim fundamentalism.
Yes—this is, for example, Hamid Dabashi’s line, although given that these sectors are lining up behind Mousavi and his puppet-master, Rafsanjani, it’s not at all clear to me why these protests are a “secular reaction.” “Secular,” for Žižek , is just another posturing word anyway, twinned to its evil reverse, “religious,” at least, until he forgets what he’s talking about, which he does shortly. Žižek continues:
They are countered by sceptics who think that Ahmadinejad actually won, that he is the voice of the majority, while Mousavi’s support comes from the middle classes and their gilded youth. Let’s face facts, they say: in Ahmadinejad, Iran has the president it deserves.
Bizarre. No people “deserve” their or any leader [“We are all leaders,” screamed the Wobblies on the Verona!]. The Terror Free Tomorrow poll has been beaten to death, but at least one segment of the analysis merits quotation: “The only demographic groups in which our survey found Mousavi leading or competitive with Ahmadinejad were university students and graduates, and the highest-income Iranians.” Which I think suggests that rather than quavering at the prospect of providing us with something resembling a materialistic or class-analysis, Žižek could have mentioned that this view of Mousavi’s based of support coming from somewhat richer, somewhat younger, somewhat more liberal sectors at least should be mildly endorsed, since that is where the evidence points.
Then Žižek wheels hard left (after all, internecine warfare and impotent posturing are as ever the main priorities):
Finally, and saddest of all, are the leftist supporters of Ahmadinejad. What is at stake for them is Iranian freedom from imperialism. Ahmadinejad won because he stood up for the country’s independence, exposed corruption among the elite and used Iran’s oil wealth to boost the incomes of the poor majority. This, we are told, is the true Ahmadinejad: the Holocaust-denying fanatic is a creation of the Western media. In this view, what’s been happening in Iran is a repetition of the 1953 overthrow of Mossadegh – a coup, financed by the West, against the legitimate premier. This not only ignores the facts (the high electoral turnout, up from the usual 55 to 85 per cent, can be explained only as a protest vote), it also assumes, patronisingly, that Ahmadinejad is good enough for the backward Iranians: they aren’t yet sufficiently mature to be ruled by a secular left.
This is non-sense top-to-bottom. The “leftist supporters” of Ahmadinejad, the real supporters, are a tiny sub-sector of the Western left, barely noticeable, and it’s hard to imagine that Žižek has devoted this paragraph to dissecting the apologetics of the WSWS; I suspect that he’s reacting, for example, to what MRZine has produced, which I’ve been following piece-by-piece and has been solid, representing a broad range of views including heterodox interpretations that haven’t made it into the mainstream or even progressive outlets. Basically, my suspicion, although I can’t prove it, is that Žižek is conflating a number of dissident sectors into one mass, the better to cast aspersions on it.
Anyway, consider his caricature of the “the leftist supporters of Ahmadinejad.” These dull automatons “assume, patronisingly, that Ahmadinejad is good enough for the backward Iranians: they aren’t yet sufficiently mature to be ruled by a secular left.” Personally, I am no “leftist supporter of Ahmadinejad,” although I can imagine who Žižek refers to. But why are we talking about Ahmadinejad’s “Western supporters”? I think that Ahmadinejad probably won a numerical majority of the votes cast, not withstanding totally legitimate complaints about the actual margin of victory, the counting process, and post-election violence. Many suspect that the votes were never counted, and while I’m sympathetic to their concerns—after all that’s what Ervand Abrahamian writes—I haven’t seen proof of this yet, which is curious.
Returning to Žižek, consider another facet of his caricature: the question of whether Iranians merit a “secular” leftist. Žižek has to my knowledge refrained from putting it to Bolivarian Venezuela, or the amazing Landless Workers’ Movement’s partisans. The prevalence of Christian liberation theology across the Latin America left has not to my knowledge incited Žižekian concern about “secular leaders” in that region. Why the hostility to Muslim religiosity? Žižek is quick to berate, but who is being funny-headed in lecturing a people as to the amount of religion they may or may not include in their politics?
Then consider this piece of analysis:
The green colours adopted by the Mousavi supporters and the cries of ‘Allahu akbar!’ that resonated from the roofs of Tehran in the evening darkness suggested that the protesters saw themselves as returning to the roots of the 1979 Khomeini revolution, and cancelling out the corruption that followed it. This was evident in the way the crowds behaved: the emphatic unity of the people, their creative self-organisation and improvised forms of protest, the unique mixture of spontaneity and discipline. Picture the march: thousands of men and women demonstrating in complete silence. This was a genuine popular uprising on the part of the deceived partisans of the Khomeini revolution.
Well, the “green colours” of Mousavi’s supporters were worn well before the protests started. As one source notes, “Another campaign novelty introduced by…Mousavi’s supporters is bringing colour symbolism into Iran’s election campaign scene. His campaign recently asked supporters to wear green T-shirts, head or wrist bands and shawls.” The green may have religious symbolism viz. Islam/ism, but the symbolism of the color green in Iranian culture is an altogether different thing than Žižek’s interpretation of it as manifesting a return to 1979. Likely it has more to do with partisans of a particular political figure doing what they’re told, although this is less beguilingly romantic than he’d prefer.
I don’t pretend to expertise on the 1979 revolution [I stick to pretending to expertise on the last 2 months of Iranian history], and will merely quote from this Iranian leftist I’ve been corresponding with [and the internal citation from a friend of hers inside Iran]: "’Iranians in Iran know what they don't want, but they don't know what they want.’ This is such an accurate description and even extends to those living outside Iran.” Žižek may or may not be right (I don’t think he’s right) but on what is he basing these massive sociological assertions? The “emphatic unity” of the people? Their “creative self-organisation”? Sorry; this isn’t the Salt March.
Then there’s this:
Two crucial observations follow. First, Ahmadinejad is not the hero of the Islamist poor, but a corrupt Islamofascist populist, a kind of Iranian Berlusconi whose mixture of clownish posturing and ruthless power politics is causing unease even among the ayatollahs. His demagogic distribution of crumbs to the poor shouldn’t deceive us.
So about this last statement: that “Ahmadinejad is not the hero of the Islamist poor, but a corrupt Islamofascist populist,” along with this fulmination on why his “demagogic distribution of crumbs to the poor shouldn’t deceive us.” I wonder, who is “us”? I don’t recall casting a ballot in Shiraz last month. It’s clear enough who did: the Iranian people. Ahmadinejad might be “corrupt,” an “Islamofascist,” or a “populist,” but surely someone voted for him. Why?
Iranian economist Djavad Salehi-Isfahani offers some insight. In 2006-2007, the first year for which it could plausibly be suggested that Ahmadinejad’s economic policies could have had an effect, inequality decreased: expenditures for the lower deciles were increased at twice the rate of those of the higher deciles. So is Ahmadinejad a populist? Apparently. I was anyway unaware that the term was an insult. Would Žižek have preferred it had Ahmadinejad made the poor hate him through willful immiseration?
No matter: this is mere “distribution of crumbs,” says Žižek. But by what right do the affluent and the powerful decide what policy or political choice is proper for those living in penury? Why is the issue whether or not “we” are deceived, when the real issue is the choice of the Iranian people? And why is it so categorically impossible to extend our empathy to those who for whatever reason voted for Ahmadinejad, the silent majority that didn’t rush to the streets in protest, and, perhaps, the silent majority that, one suspects, feels that one more time, the world cares not a whit about the democratic decisions of a tawny band of Muslims in the Middle East? Žižek continues, recalling 1979:
Now is the time to remember the effervescence that followed the revolution, the explosion of political and social creativity, organisational experiments and debates among students and ordinary people. That this explosion had to be stifled demonstrates that the revolution was an authentic political event, an opening that unleashed altogether new forces of social transformation: a moment in which ‘everything seemed possible.’ What followed was a gradual closing-down of possibilities as the Islamic establishment took political control. To put it in Freudian terms, today’s protest movement is the ‘return of the repressed’ of the Khomeini revolution.
Again, there’s the facile psycho-theoretical gloss, but what’s it glossing? A very meager knowledge of the underlying sociology of the protests [not Žižek’s fault, since it’s hard to know the truth about such things from afar] current sentiment within Iranian society, societal support for—or against—Ahmadinejad, the composition of the protesters, etc., who may not know what they want, but thank goodness, have Žižek to inform them: it is the “return of the repressed.” Strange, since the prevalence of young/liberal support for Mousavi, even if liberally mixed with the support of lower-classes, has been pretty universally noted. Those young folks weren’t alive during the Khomeini revolution—fully 70 percent of the population wasn’t—so unless Žižek wants to digress from Lacanian and Freudian pop-psychology to invoking Jungian archetypes and the collective human unconscious (I think probably not exactly what he has in mind) what he’s saying is really off.
Now, I actually reflected when I wrote you that earlier e-mail assailing Žižek that you’d look at it and think, well, seriously, what the fuck is Max talking about, since he doesn’t cite anything and is genetically and so atavistically hostile to “theory”?? So here it is: just one more place for a flurry of performative prose. On this count, Dabashi does get it right: “For people like Žižek, social upheavals in what they call the Third World are a matter of theoretical entertainment.”
In this context Abrahamian’s line is far superior to Žižek’s, situating the current protests in their social and historical context:
The regime appears to have weathered the storm, at least for the time being. The revolt has not turned into a revolution, even though these events have much in common with those of 1979; similar rallies, similar slogans (“God is great”), similar tactics and similar griping about “foreign interference”. But there are major differences: the monarchy had almost no support, but the republic has a solid base: the 25 per cent of the population who consider themselves true believers. The shah had lost the allegiance of the armed forces. The republic is fully equipped with three million Revolutionary Guards and Basijis, trained to deal with civil disturbances. The monarchy had been challenged by a mass revolutionary movement. The Islamic Republic faces a mass reform movement that wants to strengthen its democratic features at the expense of its theocratic ones.
Žižek bizarrely goes on to note,
What all this means is that there is a genuinely liberatory potential in Islam: we don’t have to go back to the tenth century to find a ‘good’ Islam, we have it right here, in front of us. The future is uncertain – the popular explosion has been contained, and the regime will regain ground. However, it will no longer be seen the same way: it will be just one more corrupt authoritarian government.
In other words the rhetorical question he uses as a set-up man to poetically start the piece is just that: this is not 1979. Is there “genuinely liberatory potential in Islam”? I guess so, whatever that means—it’s he and not the Iranians who are hostile to religiosity, and how he can prattle about “secular leaders” in the beginning of the essay and then write of “genuinely liberatory potential in Islam” later is curious, too.
As for the “corrupt” part, I’ll give you another impressionistic account (of course it’s all impressionistic but the hope is to gather the data-points into something coherent):
Before the debates, Mousavi had a strong chance, at least in Tehran. But it was like a see-change. After the debates, a lot of people who were going to vote for Mousavi came out for Ahmadinejad. A lot of people….Because of Mousavi’s Rafsanjani connection. And you have to understand something. [Ahmadinejad] sways people. He says certain things — he says certain truths. He is not a thief. He is a horrible, horrible person, but he is not a thief. He says things directly.
Ahmadinejad may be corrupt, but at least—again citing the Terror Free Tomorrow poll—that doesn’t seem to be what Iranians prioritized: “Iranians do not seem to hold him responsible for the weakening economy. While a plurality sees the Iranian economy as declining, Iranian are evenly split on whether President Ahmadinejad’s policies have succeeded in reducing unemployment and inflation.” [I’m here reading off corruption from economic management/mismanagement; this may be totally fatuous but seems to make a sort of sense; I guess corruption can be overlooked when people increasingly trust economic management?] An increasing percentage think Ahmadinejad’s policies have succeeded in reducing unemployment and inflation, too.
I’m recalling Frank Herbert’s aphorism of power not so much as corrupting but attracting the corruptible, which I’ve been reflecting upon as I think of the in-a-way banal analyses of James Petras, the Latin American left, and Chavez. Petras’s line is that governments corrupt leftist leaders, and one needn’t have a complex Marxist sociology-of-power to access this simple truth. But if they do so because they attract the corruptible, there’ll be perforce sociological exceptions—Chavez. The Venezuelan right is normally reliable only in its stupidity, but more astute sectors note that he “believes his own bullshit,” which I think is true—and thank god he does! A radical leader who believes his own bullshit about liberation, liberation theology, socialism and Bolivarianism is a pretty good catch for an under-developed country [separate issues of the “condensation” of class forces as influencing/molding Chavez are a related issue, and the other half of the explanation]. Anyway, back to Iran:
So what does this add up to? Not that Žižek is stupid, not that at all, but that Žižek is writing stupidly, from a great distance, and hasn’t done any of the scut work of figuring out what’s going on over there in Iran before dropping the Green uprising into his pre-fab theoretical schema. Gets kind of annoying after a while.
*One of the more constructive and thoughtful commenters to visit this web-site took a break from calling me "pompous" and a "know-very-little" to offer some valuable insight on Zizek's views on religion, pointing out that Zizek isn't hostile to Christian religiosity. Thanks!
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The Yahoo link however is while neutral, subtly critical of Ahmadinejad or are you just pointing poinitng out Zizek is contributing his own personal thoughts to his analysis? Because I understand the latter.
I think the Yahoo link is a very intelligent article by a well-informed historian of Iran, while Zizek hasn’t done the work of figuring out what’s been going on before interpreting events through his theoretical frame. It’s sloppy, is all.
What I don’t understand is this constant NEED to elevate and raise the status of the protesters, or to crush them.
By “protester” I’m only speaking for Iranians inside Iran, as in comparison, many of the expats should be quite ashamed of themselves — if they had any scruples anyways.
The protester are not millions of highly motivated Princeton and Oxford PhD graduates who have their plans all written and debated, who are bravely out on the streets to change the world and bring freedom, harmony and joy to the the motherland.
They are not a bunch of clueless teenagers who watch CNN and American Idol all day and want nothing but free Levi’s jeans and Heienkens.
That letter from the whimsical grandmother sounded cute, but I’m not sure where the author comes up with that analysis, when PRO-AHMADINEJAD MPs came out and said that they initially thought Ahmadinejad would easily win by a landslide, but the debate changed everything because it brought out massive support for Mousavi.
Practically all commentators (in Iran) agree that the debate galvanized their own base because each candidate performed excellently based on the expectation of their supporters. Mousavi USED numerous clips from that debate in his final campaign documentary and quite a few of his campaign videos. Why would he do that if it wasn’t to his benefit? And this mass protest that came after the election actually came to life that night. Abdi has written of this quite extensively and quite well.
The opposition DOES indeed agree on a minimum: the constitution. And I think that’s what has kept them afloat.
There are millions of Iranians who I’m sure live quite unaware or oblivious to the plight of the so called reformers or opposition. But no one is claiming otherwise. It’s outside Iran where the right and the left work together to create a hodge podge of misinformation and falsehood. It’s outside of Iran where people sing shitty songs like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q42-fW8tFp4&eu...
And make it look like this is the battle of good vs. evil where in fact it is an ultimate battle of two different visions for the future of Iran and two different worldviews both rife with tension and problems.
Pedestrian,
Thank for this reply.
You write that “What I don’t understand is this constant NEED to elevate and raise the status of the protesters, or to crush them”; I actually do understand this need–I think it has a lot to do with the general failure of the Western left to every protest or move or do anything, so we see Middle Easterners protesting against a repressive state, and we’re elated: movement, dissent, democracy. And then we forget to think.
The Zizek piece I attack because I don’t know Iran well-enough to write something perceptive; I don’t speak Farsi and so can’t assay and parse information for myself; I’m not in Tehran or the countryside and can’t see for myself; but having done my best over the last several months to try to access what I can of the “truth” of it, I respond to Zizek because he just plops it into his framework without doing the work, and at the end of the day, all I can do is criticize the flaws and foibles of others’ arguments, especially the arguments of those living in the West.
The “letter to a friend” wasn’t a narrative device; it really is a letter to a friend, lightly edited, that I decided to publish. The grandmother-anecdote I acknowledge was impressionistic; it backed up what in fact I thought had been Hamid Dabashi’s impression of the debates–he a Mousavi man–which was that Ahmadinejad had trounced the other contenders. I hadn’t know about the information you offer–are there any links in English (other languages work, too, but not Farsi yet)?
For the rest, as you know, I agree with you, and it’s those outside Iran who prattle away in august journals, whether or not they (we) know what we’re talking about. I for one think that we have no influence in Iran, and the most important thing is making sure Obama keeps his mouth shut and his hands clean (the NED grants for operations in Iran should be canned instantly, too–of course Obama’s hands are already sullied, but he hasn’t been that bad in his rhetoric about Iran). Just read a typically insane article about game-theory and computer modeling, and the only thing America does that has any influence in Iranian politics is when bellicose rhetoric issues from the White House, which is when the more repressive conservative sectors can justify repression–We Are Under Threat, they can say.
Pedestrian,
Thanks for this reply.
You write that “What I don’t understand is this constant NEED to elevate and raise the status of the protesters, or to crush them”; I actually do understand this need–I think it has a lot to do with the general failure of the Western left to every protest or move or do anything, so we see Middle Easterners protesting against a repressive state, and we’re elated: movement, dissent, democracy. And then we forget to think.
The Zizek piece I attack because I don’t know Iran well-enough to write something perceptive; I don’t speak Farsi and so can’t assay and parse information for myself; I’m not in Tehran or the countryside and can’t see for myself; but having done my best over the last several months to try to access what I can of the “truth” of it, I respond to Zizek because he just plops it into his framework without doing the work, and at the end of the day, all I can do is criticize the flaws and foibles of others’ arguments, especially the arguments of those living in the West.
The “letter to a friend” wasn’t a narrative device; it really is a letter to a friend, lightly edited, that I decided to publish. The grandmother-anecdote I acknowledge was impressionistic; it backed up what in fact I thought had been Hamid Dabashi’s impression of the debates–he a Mousavi man–which was that Ahmadinejad had trounced the other contenders. I hadn’t know about the information you offer–are there any links in English (other languages work, too, but not Farsi yet)?
For the rest, as you know, I agree with you, and it’s those outside Iran who prattle away in august journals, whether or not they (we) know what we’re talking about. I for one think that we have no influence in Iran, and the most important thing is making sure Obama keeps his mouth shut and his hands clean (the NED grants for operations in Iran should be canned instantly, too–of course Obama’s hands are already sullied, but he hasn’t been that bad in his rhetoric about Iran). Just read a typically insane article about game-theory and computer modeling, and the only thing America does that has any influence in Iranian politics is when bellicose rhetoric issues from the White House, which is when the more repressive conservative sectors can justify repression–We Are Under Threat, they can say.
Pedestrian,
Thanks for this reply.
You write that “What I don’t understand is this constant NEED to elevate and raise the status of the protesters, or to crush them”; I actually do understand this need–I think it has a lot to do with the general failure of the Western left to ever protest or move or do anything, so we see Middle Easterners protesting against a repressive state, and we’re elated: movement, dissent, democracy. And then we forget to think.
The Zizek piece I attack because I don’t know Iran well-enough to write something perceptive; I don’t speak Farsi and so can’t assay and parse information for myself; I’m not in Tehran or the countryside and can’t see for myself; but having done my best over the last several months to try to access what I can of the “truth” of it, I respond to Zizek because he just plops it into his framework without doing the work, and at the end of the day, all I can do is criticize the flaws and foibles of others’ arguments, especially the arguments of those living in the West.
The “letter to a friend” wasn’t a narrative device; it really is a letter to a friend, lightly edited, that I decided to publish. The grandmother-anecdote I acknowledge was impressionistic; it backed up what in fact I thought had been Hamid Dabashi’s impression of the debates–he a Mousavi man–which was that Ahmadinejad had trounced the other contenders. I hadn’t know about the information you offer–are there any links in English (other languages work, too, but not Farsi yet)?
For the rest, as you know, I agree with you, and it’s those outside Iran who prattle away in august journals, whether or not they (we) know what we’re talking about. I for one think that we have no influence in Iran, and the most important thing is making sure Obama keeps his mouth shut and his hands clean (the NED grants for operations in Iran should be canned instantly, too–of course Obama’s hands are already sullied, but he hasn’t been that bad in his rhetoric about Iran). Just read a typically insane article about game-theory and computer modeling, and the only thing America does that has any influence in Iranian politics is when bellicose rhetoric issues from the White House, which is when the more repressive conservative sectors can justify repression–We Are Under Threat, they can say.
Max, the only sources I have are in Persian. that comes from pro-ahmadinejad sources like alef, which have been critical of how he handled the situation post-election. I remember reading their analysis post-debate, and it made sense with my own observations. Everyone I knew (and I know quite a number of ahmadinejad supporters) thought that their candidate had done magnificently. Ahmaidnejad was rude, vulgar … to ME … but that only amplified his image as an anti-corruption super hero. Mousavi on the other hand, until that night, was sitting on the sidelines. That night, when he called Ahmadinejad a liar, when he got angry, that brought the tougher streak in him. Mousavi was too much the softy before that night, and he didnt’ even have Khatami’s charm or eloquence.
One thing I have learned, something which I don’t think Dabashi has: stay away from terms like “everyone”, “most people”, “many people”, “a lot of people” etc. What the pro-Ahmadis in Iran have certainly been able to do quite successfully is to confuse us. We have no statistics, we have no way of knowing how many people are in each camp. We have a Persian expression for this: khomari — drunk in confusion.
And the “I don’t undersatnd” was just rhetorical. I DO understand what is to be gained for each side by presenting the protesters in that particular light they try so hard to push them in.
There are a number of problems with this as with your earlier piece on Dabashi, though I’ll just point out one issue as an example. The problem as described below is one of basic logic. You begin with one flawed (actually completely inaccurate) premise and then come to a–predictably–flawed conclusion.
You have decided in reading Zizek’s piece that he is hostile to the “religious,” viewing it as the “evil reverse” of the “secular.” You base this solely, at least in your text, on the phrase “They support the protests as a secular reaction to the Khomeini revolution.” Of course, as the word “they” implies, Zizek is not describing his view there. He is describing the views of those who “see in the protests the culmination of the pro-Western ‘reform movement’”. That is clearly not ZIzek’s view at all, as the rest of the article makes clear, and the very term “secular” here is an idea he is ascribing to others. Yet you criticize him for using it, as though he was embracing this terminology and some kind of secular vs. religious dichotomy, which he clearly is not.
Because you have (oddly) misread a standard “here is the rhetoric of the other side” paragraph as “Zizek agrees with the terminology here described,” you are later flummoxed as to “how he can prattle about “secular leaders” in the beginning of the essay and then write of ‘genuinely liberatory potential in Islam.’” But since he was not prattling about “secular leaders” (he was prattling about other people prattling about that), there is no contradiction as you seem to suggest. Zizek’s point that “the demonstrations show that Islam has a genuine liberating potential to find a “good” Islam. One doesn’t have to go back to the caliphs of the 10th century, we have it right here” is perhaps the central point of the piece, yet it confuses you because you read earlier portions (of what is a very short opinion piece) in a sloppy fashion. (I would also note as an aside that your sentence that invokes the IWW is an even more egregious misreading of what Zizek wrote, as it suggests that a view which he is clearly, clearly criticizing is actually his own.)
On the general point of Zizek’s supposed animosity toward the religious (which is not remotely evident in the article but which you decide to accuse him of anyway), if you were more familiar with Zizek, you’d know that in 2000 he wrote a book called “The Fragile Absolute: Or, Why is the Christian Legacy Worth Fighting For?” As you might be able to guess from the title, it’s hardly a Bertrand Russellesque diatribe against the religion of Peter and Paul. Of course Zizek is an atheist, but when he says in the book that “Christianity and Marxism should fight on the same side of the barricade against the onslaught of new spiritualism” he’s clearly not writing in a manner “hostile to religiosity.”
Though I had a huge problem with your last piece on Dabashi (wherever that was) and said so rather harshly, I’m somewhat shocked at how wantonly you have misread a (rather straightforward) piece like Zizek’s. Whether that’s due to sloppiness or vague intellectual dishonesty or some combination thereof does not really matter–it pretty much destroys the credibility of this either way. Dabashi barely mentioned Zizek’s article in his “Left is wrong on Iran” piece, but he still scored more blows than you did. Enjoy your vacation.
“Dandy,”
A part me of me appreciates this response, since behind the histrionics, condescension, irate rhetoric, non-sense, arguments from authority, and personal insults is an argument, and a point—but one not quite so pointed as you’d wish. It nearly disappears when you don’t read me with such overt hostility, although it’s your privilege to do so—I can’t force you to write, think, or act like a human being.
Going forward, under normal circumstances it’d be pedantic to point out that this comment—
There are a number of problems with this as with your earlier piece on Dabashi, though I’ll just point out one issue as an example. The problem as described below is one of basic logic. You begin with one flawed (actually completely inaccurate) premise and then come to a–predictably–flawed conclusion.
is incoherent, since the problem is with writing rather than logic [strictly speaking some might cast this as a logical fallacy, FYI!] although you “seem” to make the logical error of thinking that because you point out a partial problem with one point, it invalidates everything else—the empirically grounded stuff, you know, the stuff that I wrote and researched.
I also thank you for pointing out to me that in some sections Zizek is glossing the views—a nice euphemism for straw-men—of what he takes to be certain groups. I hadn’t realized that before. You think you have caught me out in writing that it is Zizek “presenting” someone else’s view that “They support the protests as a secular reaction to the Khomeini revolution,” although most don’t make the silly mistake of seeing the protests as a “secular” phenomenon, since portions of the protesters have lined up behind Mousavi and Rafsanjani, not exactly secularists. You might also pay some attention to where the commas are located in the sentences you wish to dismantle. That may help clear up your confusion, which stems from not exactly getting that I’m offering my own gloss of the positions Zizek is holding out and criticizing Zizek. It’s possible to do both.
Regarding the Wobblies quotation, it is Zizek who makes the logical error of inferring that because “skeptics” think Ahmadinejad won, “skeptics” think Iranians have the “leader” they deserve. Nothing is cited, typically, although for someone well-versed in Zizekian ideology you should know that he’s hardly an anarchist in these matters, although what I “suggest” rather than say is for you “egregious.” The parenthetical about my own views on leaders makes sense when you read the post for what it was: “A letter to a friend”; as I’m forced to repeat, not a literary device but a description of what it was.
Anyway, you write, But since he was not prattling about “secular leaders” (he was prattling about other people prattling about that), there is no contradiction as you seem to suggest. I know you have great fun with weasel-words like “seem to suggest,” but I wrote in at least one place of specifically “Muslim” religiosity; it should have been clear enough that there was some confusion in my argument re:Zizek’s hostility-or-not to all religiosity when I pointed out that he refrains from criticizing other religious third-Worlders. A reasonable person would seek to dispel confusion. But you’re right—it was sloppy to write that it’s he and not the Iranians who are hostile to religiosity, and how he can prattle about “secular leaders” in the beginning of the essay and then write of “genuinely liberatory potential in Islam” later is curious, too..
With that said, I am actually granting you a lot of ground, far more than your comment merits. Since you seem exquisitely attuned to the nuances of writers’ tones, you might note the way Zizek spoke of “genuinely liberatory potential in Islam,” as though the Iranians were sitting around waiting for the benediction of Western intellectuals before mobilizing “religiously.” You might secondarily have troubled yourself as to why these are suddenly “liberatory” manifestations of Islamism, since, well, again certain sectors are lining up behind conservative clerics. Some aren’t. You might also have paid a bit of attention to how he phrased this comment: “it also assumes, patronisingly, that Ahmadinejad is good enough for the backward Iranians: they aren’t yet sufficiently mature to be ruled by a secular left.” Now, if you want to parse this—within the logic of the essay—as showing total neutrality viz. “secular” vs. “non-secular” lefts, that’s fine.
As I read it, it’s a bizarre construction: First conjuring up this left of “Ahmadinejad supporters,” a left that as I stipulated is not what Zizek thinks it is unless he’s targeting the WSWS; second misreading what it has written [what I’ve written, since MRZine has published me on Iran], third thinking there’s some order-of-priorities wherein a “secular” left is privileged over a “religious” left within this “mindset” that he’s criticizing; fourth construing Ahmadinejad to be a “leftist,” again a word thrown about heedless of meaning, and finally writing of a synthesis wherein the Green Movement doesn’t comprise a group of human beings with vastly different beliefs, backgrounds, agendas, etc., but rather the utopian incarnation of Zizek’s hopes in a “liberatory” Islam.
Here, you may wish to note that it is Zizek’s “leftist supporters of Ahmadinejad” that is supposedly making “patronizing” assumptions that themselves prioritize secularism over religiosity—assumptions that Zizek has been at pains to dismantle. That’s fine, until you bother to read what they’ve written. Then one is forced to assume that either Zizek is doing the privileging, or that he’s totally incoherent on the point. I hadn’t thought to make this second assumption, assuming rather that there was some hostility to specifically Muslim religiosity. You now tell me there isn’t, on the basis of Zizek’s reaction to Christian religiosity. Arguable, but you haven’t made the argument—and in fact there probably is a certain amount of hostility to Muslim religiosity even in parts of the Left that lionize Latin American liberation theology, or that tacitly, perhaps unthinkingly, embrace it. Supposing your point true, fine—you’ve decimated 7 words in my piece. You rush by these problems, eager to destroy my “credibility.”
But what happens when I delete that phrase? We’ll find out. It looks like actually, nothing happens. That phrase is gone. Everything else remains intact, untouched. You decree that since Zizek’s “central point” remains untarnished, the rest of the response loses “credibility,” not least of all in your eyes—disastrous, if I had an audience of one, some anonymous heckler from Central Brooklyn, who closes off his latest demolition job así:
Though I had a huge problem with your last piece on Dabashi (wherever that was) and said so rather harshly, I’m somewhat shocked at how wantonly you have misread a (rather straightforward) piece like Zizek’s. Whether that’s due to sloppiness or vague intellectual dishonesty or some combination thereof does not really matter–it pretty much destroys the credibility of this either way. Dabashi barely mentioned Zizek’s article in his “Left is wrong on Iran” piece, but he still scored more blows than you did. Enjoy your vacation.
“Wherever that was”; you would know, since you concocted (a) a name and (b) an artificial tone with which to respond to me at one of the sites that published it; you’re now “somewhat shocked” because I mis-wrote one, perhaps two sentences in a several-thousand word reply, which you characterize with steroidal adjectives like “wantonly,” “shocked,” “destroys,” etc. Bizarrely, you seem rather eager to take me down to size, to make sure I know my place, to compel me to change my style, or my tone, or my interests, or seemingly, and preferably, to stop writing.
This is seriously weird of you, and while it may be needless to say, you seem to need things to be spelled out for you sometimes: I don’t plan on indulging you. I don’t normally take things to a personal level, but since you’ve taken the trouble of tracking me down here from elsewhere for the purpose of “discrediting,” I depart from practice. Normally, I do receive some amount of dishonesty, invective, and hostility over here at <a href=“http://www.maxajl.com,” target=“_blank”>www.maxajl.com, but thus far it’s been from Zionist lunatics speculating about my personal life. Hadn’t expected “leftists” to join that circle, but hey, do you.
Though I had a huge problem with your last piece on Dabashi (wherever that was) and said so rather harshly, I’m somewhat shocked at how wantonly you have misread a (rather straightforward) piece like Zizek’s. Whether that’s due to sloppiness or vague intellectual dishonesty or some combination thereof does not really matter–it pretty much destroys the credibility of this either way. Dabashi barely mentioned Zizek’s article in his “Left is wrong on Iran” piece, but he still scored more blows than you did. Enjoy your vacation.
“Wherever that was”; you would know, since you concocted (a) a name and (b) an artificial tone with which to respond to me at one of the sites that published it; you’re now “somewhat shocked” because I mis-wrote one, perhaps two sentences in a several-thousand word reply, which you characterize with steroidal words like “wantonly,” “shocked,” “destroys,” etc. Bizarrely, you seem rather eager to take me down to size, to make sure I know my place, to compel me to change my style, or my tone, or my interests, or seemingly, and preferably, to stop writing.
This is seriously weird of you, and while it may be needless to say, you seem to need things to be spelled out for you sometimes: I don’t plan on indulging you. I don’t normally take things to a personal level, but since you’ve taken the trouble of tracking me down here from elsewhere for the purpose of “discrediting,” I depart from practice. Normally, I do receive some amount of dishonesty, invective, and hostility over here at <a href=“http://www.maxajl.com,” target=“_blank”>www.maxajl.com, but thus far it’s been from Zionist lunatics speculating about my personal life. Hadn’t expected “leftists” to join that circle, but hey, do you.
I did not remember, offhand, the site where we had interacted before. That’s all I was saying. Your blog was linked over there (I still have not checked the name of the other site) which is how I ended up here. Nothing nefarious I’m afraid–just curious to see what you had written lately.
Though you do it in a roundabout fashion, in the end essentially you acknowledge that my point about your point about Zizek’s point(s) was correct. While you really, really dance around the issue, that does count for something. As I said originally I was just pointing out one problem (don’t really have the time or inclination to give your post here a full “Fisking” I’m afraid), but I think it shows you pretty severely misread what Zizek was saying (leaving you confused about his “liberatory Islam” comment) and you do not really refute that. I’m not particularly interested in the things you say in your replies, but to the extent that they make sense to me they seem somewhat beside the point.
You don’t have to force me to act like a human being–I’ve been doing that for over 30 years and so far as I know have never stopped. That was a bit over the top as far as comments go, but I shan’t hold it against you. Leftists criticizing other leftists is par for the course in a major way, so I would have expected you to expect invective and the like. Interestingly, Zizek says he does not trust any leftist who isn’t sectarian (probably somewhat tongue in cheek as often seems to be the case with him). I disagree with that, but unfortunately sectarian disputes are pretty much part of the genetic makeup of the global Left. Consider our interaction exhibit 37,892,441.
I think that Max’s article (obviously only his limbs are on vacation) hit multiple nails on the head. Zizek would have been wise not to engage in an internal battle against a leftist straw man, using ammunition derived from Twitter-based reports, about a subject he clearly knows little about. I am more interested in finding out why Zizek should feel motivated to (1) attack the left, and, (2) attack a familiar American enemy and joining the ranks of Fox News for example. I worry that it is a familiar episode of, “I am the darling dissident, that the elites welcome and reward.”
Zizek is using the opportunity of the protests, and his ignorance of Iran, to create a canvass for painting his fantasy. He would have “scored” the exact same points had he completely left Iran out, left out Islam, left out the Middle East. He needed an opportunity — any opportunity — to erect himself above the leftist pack, by lecturing them on what they really ought to believe, while pretending humanistic sympathy.
His commentary about an Islam good enough for him to tolerate it, and his comment that the bad leftists “assume, patronisingly, that Ahmadinejad is good enough for the backward Iranians: they aren’t yet sufficiently mature to be ruled by a secular left” is Eurocentric rubbish. In other words, they are only our equals when they have what we have, which is what he is implying here quite clearly. They have made progress when they stop looking like themselves and start looking more like us.
The problem that Zizek bypasses — deliberately — is not the anti-imperial left, but the imperial left: those who cheered violent Soviet expansion, or going back further to the writings of Marx, the championing of violent capitalist destruction of local, traditional “barbaric” lifeways because that was a necessary evil on the unlineal path toward communism. One has only to revisit Marx’s commentary on India and Latin America, and wonder if the same could not have been written, less turgidly, by a Rudyard Kipling. From this point of view, Zizek is simply a reincarnation of a very old, very traditional, classic Eurocentric Marxist-Leninism, the kind that has seen his kin chased out from alliances with indigenous peoples in Latin America, and hated with as much passion by the Afghan mujahadeen as they hate American imperialism.
The problem is not that the left is too “anti-imperial” (it is a problem for Zizek, clearly), it’s that it has not yet become anti-imperial enough.
Max,
Thanks for stopping by, and the comment. I agree totally. The editor of MRZine attributes the frenetic internecine warfare over Iran to leftists snarling at and biting one another, fighting over a smaller piece of the leftist pie. True enough I suppose, although in the case of this article rather baser motivations may be the case, as you note–Zizek himself has written of the intense pressure to write and furiously publish, not to the point of exhaustion but, clearly, past it. Others’ frustration with Zizek and his self-position vis-a-vis the “left” came out clearly in an exchange in the LRB w/Chris Harman and David Graeber, regarding Zizek’s “review” of Simon Critchley’s Infinitely Demanding, which I haven’t read but intend to soon:
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n22/zize01_.html
Critchley and Zizek have a worthwhile exchange too:
http://issuu.com/lcredidio/docs/naked_punch_final...
This is to say: he’s not nearly so ecumenical as he would like to think, I think, as you get at quite well.
Max,
Thanks for stopping by, and the comment. I agree totally. The editor of MRZine attributes the frenetic internecine warfare over Iran to leftists snarling at and biting one another, fighting over a smaller piece of the leftist pie. True enough I suppose, although in the case of this article rather baser motivations may be the case, as you note–Zizek himself has written of the intense pressure to write and furiously publish, not to the point of exhaustion but, clearly, past it. Others’ frustration with Zizek and his self-positioning vis-a-vis the “left” came out clearly in an exchange in the LRB w/Chris Harman and David Graeber, regarding Zizek’s “review” of Simon Critchley’s Infinitely Demanding, which I haven’t read but intend to soon:
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n22/zize01_.html
Critchley and Zizek have a worthwhile exchange too:
http://issuu.com/lcredidio/docs/naked_punch_final...
This is to say: he’s not nearly so ecumenical as he would like to think, I think, as you get at quite well.
[…] Ajl has a critique of Zizek’s article on the events in Iran up on his website. I don’t necessarily agree with all his criticisms, but reading it through […]