Occasionally I hear about reportedly rebellious intellectuals with good platforms. Of course, always turns out that the reason these rebellious intellectuals have good platforms is that they are given these good platforms by power, e.g., they are on the left’s payroll. Observe what happened to Milo, who refused to be on the left’s payroll, while Jordan Peterson happily accepted fat cheques signed by the left.
So, all these intellectuals and philosophers are, without exception, cookie-cutter leftists. They all sell the same leftism, merely in slightly different flavors.
I was wondering what flavor Zizek was selling. This video seems pretty representative.
OK, ok. Zizek is a cocaine commie. That was easy.
When Zizek says ‘this is not communist propaganda’ he means: ‘this is communist propaganda’. He is pretty obvious about it. His entire point on communist leaders clapping along with their own ovation is, after all, that fascist leaders are egomaniacs, while communist leaders are part of a greater cause. Ergo, communism is better.
Nonsense. Both fascism and communism are nuts.
What is important during an ovation of any leader is not whether the leader claps along, it is that the leader receives an ovation. That ritual is the showcase of power, and Zizek’s claim that the leader clapping along with his own ovation somehow negates the hierarchy of power is nonsense. In fact, pretty sure that if someone did not clap along during an ovation of Stalin, much more likely to be executed than someone not clapping along during an ovation of Hitler. Zizek is selling us that the murderers in the 10/10 no pressure video are actually genuinely interested in protecting the environment, not at all in murdering people.
He then goes on to defend communism by saying that ‘prisoners in communism are allowed to totally objectively pass judgment on their own betrayal.’ I first thought he was being sarcastic, but he continues: ‘this is a consequence of dialectic enlightenment‘. What? When he calls the system of communism ‘universal reason‘ I am officially out. Slavoj Zizek is a murderous liar.
There is no dialectic enlightenment in Marxism, only insofar the French enlightenment was a total lie, for the so-called revolution of the proletariat and the assumed recent rise of capitalism are lies and nonsense the commie uses to convince the peasant with one cow to murder the peasant with two cows, after which the commie will murder the peasant with one cow. The commie is aware of his lies, as Zizek is aware of his lies, demonstrated in the ease with which he switches from ‘I am not defending communism’ to ‘communism is the language of universal reason’.
Now, you don’t need to be a rightist geek such as myself to figure out that communism is thoroughly evil, but when a slobbering man claims that communism is dialectical enlightenment, you can be pretty sure he is out to murder you. Add to that the fact that he is relatively high on the left’s payroll and you would be correct to conclude that the left is out to murder you.
I quite like Zizek. His actual concrete politics, insofar as he has admitted to them, are indistinguishable from the Intellectual Dark Web, which of course doesn’t preclude him from being a murderous commie. What’s good about him is the hilarious way real hard lefties keep inviting him to talks and laughing along with his jokes and anecdotes when he’s on 7 layers of irony and is obviously (to anyone who isn’t a lefty) mocking them.
He is easy on the ears.
I hadn’t really heard about Zizek until his debate with Jordan Peterson, whom I don’t follow either but which everyone else was talking about. In that debate, I did not see what other people on the “left” or “right” saw at all. I saw an apparently popular left-wing intellectual firing off one reactionary red pill after another, with his Marxist fan base cheering him on and the basic-bitch conservatives (including Peterson himself) being predictably confused and making their usual excuses. No surprise, since actual reactionary philosophy is completely alien to both groups.
Even the basic-bitch conservatives who watched the aforementioned debate learned two very important things: first, that Jordan Peterson is an intellectual lightweight who can only “win” scripted debates against cardboard-cutout SJWs in freshman classes and TV studios; and second, that leftists really do just want to kill you and take your stuff, and aren’t the least bit ashamed of it. Peterson didn’t prove that; Zizek did.
What eternal anglo says about being “on 7 layers of irony” is correct in my opinion. Think about what he’s actually saying in the passages you quote: communism springs forth from liberalism, if they aren’t literally the same thing. Violent revolutionary communism is just the logical, rational endpoint of enlightenment philosophy. Where is the lie? Isn’t this what reactionaries have been saying since Moldbug first sprung onto the scene, or even earlier?
Zizek is completely correct: communism is what you get when you throw away tradition, social norms, and the intellectual and religious foundations developed over millennia, and replace them all with a secular ideology based solely around “reason”. It’s a very short hop from liberalism to Marxism, and an even shorter hop from Marxism to totalitarianism and sectarian violence.
Does he actually intend to troll the establishment this way, or is it Poe’s Law in action? I don’t know, but he’s not doing them any favors.
When a reactionary ironically remarks that women are not angels, that communism is murderous, or that capitalism is ancient, he is slandered, fired, ridiculed. The reactionary after all, is not doing the establishment any favors.
When a commie ironically remarks that communism is murderous, which he may occasionally do, because, well, everybody knows communism is murderous, he is really establishing dominance: ‘I am part of a murderous group’, he says, ‘and we will kill you, *wink wink*.’ Which is what the establishment intends as well: they are on the same line, even if the establishment is not cool enough to add an ironic wink.
Post-restoration, Zizek will find himself back on the fringe where he belongs, with enough money to snort coke once a month instead of everyday.