A soldier surrounded by enemies, if he is to cut his way out, needs to combine a strong desire for living with a strange carelessness about dying. He must not merely cling to life, for then he will be a coward, and will not escape. He must not merely wait for death, for then he will be a suicide, and will not escape. He must seek his life in a spirit of furious indifference to it; he must desire life like water and yet drink death like wine."
--Slavoj Žižek. "From Homo Sucker to Homo Sacer." Welcome to the Desert of the Real.
This is an excerpt from Žižek's essay, which is ostensibly an admonition for the radical left to invigorate its stance; to 'step outside of the box' so to speak; to earn the designation 'radical.' This specific excerpt reads as a description of Nietzsche's Overman in contrast to the Last Man (which Zizek argues that we in advanced capitalist societies are [which is terrifying to me because, unlike Nietzsche, I am not so optimistic and do not look forward to the type of Overman that a society such as ours will usher in]).
For Žižek, this strand of reason (the above excerpt) is the logical corollary to his argument which simultaneously conflates and denounces global-capitalist/hegemonic/Western fundamentalism on the one hand and Islamic religious fundamentalism on the other hand. However, his argument is in itself fundamentalist and conservative. Perhaps this is a case of (assuming the political spectrum is cyclical) swinging so far left that one arrives on the right.
The imagery in the Chesterton reference (soldiers, enemies, recklessness, the duality between courage and cowardice, drinking death like Socrates drank hemlock) appeals to a classical sort of masculinity. It draws upon the same ideological sentiments that the Western Right appeal to when it inveigles young men to die for their country and that the Islamic Right appeal to when it asks young believers to die for its cause. Only in Žižek's case, the radical left is meant to place this "excess of life" in service of a (correct) cause. (But perhaps this hyperconviction is what makes their stances so radical?)
There's a reason Nietzsche prophesied through the mouth of Zarathustra and not his own: The most efficacious rhetorical framework for conveying his message was thus far the domain of the prophets. And because his was a counterargument to Judeo-Christianity he had to reach to the opposite pole (Eastern, specifically Persian, tradition) to find an analogue. It is difficult to imagine Nietzche's philosophy being delivered with the dry, rational, post-enlightenment vocabulary of his day.
All of that is to say that Žižek's argument (not in general but in this specific instance is conservative).*
But my main problem with his argument is that as this socialized being called "woman," Žižek provides me no point of entry. Even in countries that allow women to serve in the armed forces, women are universally prohibited from combat roles. The role of soldier is not one what we have a direct relation to. So for woman, Žižek's soldier metaphor can never transcend the level of metaphor. Secondly, the excess of life he refers to as " 'freedom', 'honour', 'dignity', 'autonomy', etc." is not even absolute for men. Their expression of it is limited by society and the state. But for women, in general, this expression is even more proscribed, making it less readily accessible as a mechanism for transcendence. Lastly, the recklessness he appeals to as a the fuel of this radical leftist stance is, socially, the domain of testosterone charged adolescent boys. Not only are women (not inherently, but by socialization) alienated from this space, men of a certain age are as well.
To clarify, this is not a feminist argument per se. While what Žižek argues, specifically in this excerpt, is overtly phallogocentric, I am not asking for an écriture féminine translation. I have a problem with essentialist assertions like this by Luce Irigaray:
That is except for this particular excerpt by Žižek.
All of that being said, Pervert's Guide to Cinema is still my second all-time favorite movie and I hope we can still be friends.
*Some would argue that this contradiction in Žižek's thought should come as no surprise as his primary orientation is no orientation at all. They argue that he is one of those postmodern intellectual acrobats, deconstructing and shape-shifting for the pure fun of the exercise and to demonstrate his intellectual agility. However, he states on p. 49 of Welcome to the Desert of the Real, that the dilemma of Cultural Studies is whether (post-9/11) they will "stick to the same topics, directly admitting that their fight against oppression is a fight within first world capitalism's universe—which means that, in the wider conflict between the Western first world and the outside threat to it, one should reassert one's fidelity to the basic American liberal-democratic framework? Or will they risk taking the step into radicalizing their critical stance; will they problematize this framework itself?"
For Žižek, this strand of reason (the above excerpt) is the logical corollary to his argument which simultaneously conflates and denounces global-capitalist/hegemonic/Western fundamentalism on the one hand and Islamic religious fundamentalism on the other hand. However, his argument is in itself fundamentalist and conservative. Perhaps this is a case of (assuming the political spectrum is cyclical) swinging so far left that one arrives on the right.
The imagery in the Chesterton reference (soldiers, enemies, recklessness, the duality between courage and cowardice, drinking death like Socrates drank hemlock) appeals to a classical sort of masculinity. It draws upon the same ideological sentiments that the Western Right appeal to when it inveigles young men to die for their country and that the Islamic Right appeal to when it asks young believers to die for its cause. Only in Žižek's case, the radical left is meant to place this "excess of life" in service of a (correct) cause. (But perhaps this hyperconviction is what makes their stances so radical?)
There's a reason Nietzsche prophesied through the mouth of Zarathustra and not his own: The most efficacious rhetorical framework for conveying his message was thus far the domain of the prophets. And because his was a counterargument to Judeo-Christianity he had to reach to the opposite pole (Eastern, specifically Persian, tradition) to find an analogue. It is difficult to imagine Nietzche's philosophy being delivered with the dry, rational, post-enlightenment vocabulary of his day.
All of that is to say that Žižek's argument (not in general but in this specific instance is conservative).*
But my main problem with his argument is that as this socialized being called "woman," Žižek provides me no point of entry. Even in countries that allow women to serve in the armed forces, women are universally prohibited from combat roles. The role of soldier is not one what we have a direct relation to. So for woman, Žižek's soldier metaphor can never transcend the level of metaphor. Secondly, the excess of life he refers to as " 'freedom', 'honour', 'dignity', 'autonomy', etc." is not even absolute for men. Their expression of it is limited by society and the state. But for women, in general, this expression is even more proscribed, making it less readily accessible as a mechanism for transcendence. Lastly, the recklessness he appeals to as a the fuel of this radical leftist stance is, socially, the domain of testosterone charged adolescent boys. Not only are women (not inherently, but by socialization) alienated from this space, men of a certain age are as well.
To clarify, this is not a feminist argument per se. While what Žižek argues, specifically in this excerpt, is overtly phallogocentric, I am not asking for an écriture féminine translation. I have a problem with essentialist assertions like this by Luce Irigaray:
"woman has sex organs just about everywhere...feminine language is more diffusive than its 'masculine counterpart'. That is undoubtedly the reason...her language...goes off in all directions and...he is unable to discern the coherence."Or this by Rosmarie Putnam Tong:
"male sexuality, which centers on what Cixous called the "big dick", is ultimately boring in its pointedness and singularity. Like male sexuality, masculine writing, which Cixous usually termed phallogocentric writing, is also ultimately boring" and furthermore, that "stamped with the official seal of social approval, masculine writing is too weighted down to move or change"Statments like these depend upon a reimagining/falsification of history as well as a flattening of what it means to be a woman. Perhaps I'm a "self-hating woman" a la de Beauvoir but, in general, I find "masculine writing" fascinating, exciting and revolutionary.
That is except for this particular excerpt by Žižek.
All of that being said, Pervert's Guide to Cinema is still my second all-time favorite movie and I hope we can still be friends.
*Some would argue that this contradiction in Žižek's thought should come as no surprise as his primary orientation is no orientation at all. They argue that he is one of those postmodern intellectual acrobats, deconstructing and shape-shifting for the pure fun of the exercise and to demonstrate his intellectual agility. However, he states on p. 49 of Welcome to the Desert of the Real, that the dilemma of Cultural Studies is whether (post-9/11) they will "stick to the same topics, directly admitting that their fight against oppression is a fight within first world capitalism's universe—which means that, in the wider conflict between the Western first world and the outside threat to it, one should reassert one's fidelity to the basic American liberal-democratic framework? Or will they risk taking the step into radicalizing their critical stance; will they problematize this framework itself?"
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