THE YEAR OF DREAMING DANGEROUSLY - SLAVOJ ŽIŽEK
A problem that Slavoj Žižek has is that even though his public profile is pretty large, nobody actually reads his books. This then begs a few questions: is it just that the mediums of television, YouTube and public speaking are more suitable for him and what they provide to the public discourse? If so, does that mean those mediums are the most effective in terms of communication? If so, does that then mean the effectiveness of books as tools for communication has now been surpassed? And does it actually even matter because is it all not just entertainment at the end of the day, anyway? Is Slavoj Žižek essentially just entertainment for the high-browed?
To understand what Žižek is talking about half the time it helps if you have prior awareness of Hegel, Kant, Marx, Lacan and a few others that he's always referring to. If you do indeed know these great writers and philosophers then it probably means you've read them or at least read of them? If this is the case then we can all probably agree that Hegel, for example, isn't really very entertaining. He's important without any question but he's a bit of a slog. A bit light on the having a laugh level. In comparison to Hegel, Žižek is one of the funniest men in the world which perhaps explains rather than books why the platforms of stage, television and YouTube are more suited to him and his peculiar brand of entertainment?
The Year Of Dreaming Dangerously is Slavoj Žižek ruminating over the events of 2011, from the Arab Spring, to the Occupy Wall Street movement, to the riots in the UK triggered by the killing of Mark Duggan. All water under the bridge now, you might say? Things have moved on a bit since then. And yes, things have moved on but in terms of significance to the modern era, Žižek puts it very well by citing an old Persian expression - war nam nihadan - which means 'to murder somebody, bury his body, then grow flowers over the body to conceal it'. And isn't that just a wonderful expression? Isn't that just the way the world is these days? Isn't that just a wonderfully entertaining expression?
Nobody seems to point out that it's the application of austerity that is one of the prime drivers to social discontent, and in the case of the events of 2011 one of the prime causes of the urban riots that swept the UK, the student riots and the attempted storming of Conservative Party HQ in London the year previously, the riots in Greece, and to some extent the emergence of the Occupy movement. Nobody seems to point out that it's austerity that acts as a catalyst for the Far Right to rise within Western Europe. Nobody, that is, apart from Žižek and a few other like-minded political thinkers.
Of course, it's not as black and white as that - to simply lay the blame entirely upon austerity - and if we're talking Slavoj Žižek then nothing is ever black and white because with him everything always comes with multiple tangents and off-shoots.
Žižek's strength is in his capacity to throw up ideas and insights regarding geopolitics and culture, quite often simultaneously and in tandem. It's not mine to diminish such a strength and in fact it's one that I applaud and appreciate. This strength, however, is limited to just that. There are really no avenues open for Žižek to take his ideas and insights, which means they remain on the platforms from which he generates them, as in upon the stages on which he's invited to speak and the media channels viewed by - what is in the scheme of things - his limited audience. Which means that when Žižek says something insightful such as 'the culture war is a class war in a displaced mode', it goes no further than his own estate, serving ultimately only to add to his profile as a man of ideas, and going no further. It's a problem that Žižek never addresses so he remains stuck in aspic as a novel but niche entertainment. As the world goes by outside.
The irony is that Žižek recognises this very same thing in others, for example in the Occupy Wall Street movement where his critique of it is spot-on. In what is one of the best sections of The Year Of Dreaming Dangerously, Žižek highlights a danger the Occupy protesters face: that of falling in love with themselves, with the fun they are having in the 'occupied' zones. 'Carnivals come cheap,' Žižek writes 'but the true test of their worth is what happens the day after, how our everyday life has changed or is to be changed'.
Does Žižek not recognise this in himself? In love with his position as a political philosopher, enjoying the acclaim and the plaudits from his fellow travellers? Surely he does. To step out of and beyond it, however, is no easy thing. There are no immediate answers, not helped by the fact that it's an ongoing process. As with the Occupy movement, Žižek offers a formal gesture of rejection that initially is more important than any positive content because only such a gesture opens up the space for a new content.
Žižek's gestures of rejection, however, are failing to open up such a space and just as with the Occupy protesters when they were physically removed from their occupied zones by baton-wielding police - it's a painful truth to face up to when after all the words, the world has not changed one iota and if anything, continues to get worse as the engine of capitalism drives it inexorably towards its own grave. Entertaining and amusing us all to death in the process.
John Serpico
