Slavoj Zisek writes:
> So the lesson is that the alternative between the New World
Order
>and the neoracist nationalists opposing it is a false one: these are
the two sides
>of the same coin - the New World Order itself breeds monstrosities
that it
>fights. Which is why the protests against bombing from the reformed
>Communist parties all around Europe, inclusive of PDS, are totally
>misdirected: these false protesters against the NATO bombardment of
Serbia
>are like the caricaturized pseudo-Leftists who oppose the trial
against a
>drug dealer, claiming that his crime is the result of social
pathology of
>the capitalist system. The way to fight the capitalist New World
Order is
>not by supporting local proto-Fascist resistances to it, but to focus
on
>the only serious question today: how to build TRANSNATIONAL political
>movements and institutions strong enough to seriously constraint the
>unlimited rule of the capital, and to render visible and politically
>relevant the fact that the local fundamentalist resistances against
the New
>World Order, from Milosevic to le Pen and the extreme Right in
Europe, are
>part of it?
I confess myself puzzled and troubled by this. It may very well be
that the corporate "New World Order" and the "neoracist nationalists"
or "local fundamentalist resistances" against it are indeed "two sides
of the same coin". What is to make us sure that "TRANSNATIONAL
political movements and institutions strong enough to seriously
constraint the unlimited rule of the capital" may not themselves be
yet another side of the same coin? Or that it might not be "the other
side" of the "New World Order" or "neoracist nationalist" coin, if we
don't accept Zisek's equation of the two?
It's not so much that I disagree with Zisek, I just think his language
gets sloppy here and that he doesn't prove his points. To say A is B
may make a telling effect, but it's not clear that C evades being A or
B or A/B. I've seen this article many times on several different
mailing-lists and in different languages, so I finally thought I'd
ask. Ought not readers of Foucault, for example, to be suspicious of
such hypothesized "TRANSNATIONAL" movements, institutions, and methods
of control? To argue that, in the opposition between capitalist
consumerism on the one hand and fundamentalism or nationalism on the
other, neither side is wholly right is quite correct. Indeed, both
sides may be very wrong, but why should Zisek's barely sketched
alternative avoid the negative features of the other two, or bring
greater weaknesses or disadvantages of its own. One can understand
offering a vague third alternative to two bad choices. That's
anyone's right and the critic's prerogative, but Zisek seems so
dogmatic in his A = B, oughtn't he to be held to the same standards as
the supporters of A or B?
_______________________________________________________________
Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com
> So the lesson is that the alternative between the New World
Order
>and the neoracist nationalists opposing it is a false one: these are
the two sides
>of the same coin - the New World Order itself breeds monstrosities
that it
>fights. Which is why the protests against bombing from the reformed
>Communist parties all around Europe, inclusive of PDS, are totally
>misdirected: these false protesters against the NATO bombardment of
Serbia
>are like the caricaturized pseudo-Leftists who oppose the trial
against a
>drug dealer, claiming that his crime is the result of social
pathology of
>the capitalist system. The way to fight the capitalist New World
Order is
>not by supporting local proto-Fascist resistances to it, but to focus
on
>the only serious question today: how to build TRANSNATIONAL political
>movements and institutions strong enough to seriously constraint the
>unlimited rule of the capital, and to render visible and politically
>relevant the fact that the local fundamentalist resistances against
the New
>World Order, from Milosevic to le Pen and the extreme Right in
Europe, are
>part of it?
I confess myself puzzled and troubled by this. It may very well be
that the corporate "New World Order" and the "neoracist nationalists"
or "local fundamentalist resistances" against it are indeed "two sides
of the same coin". What is to make us sure that "TRANSNATIONAL
political movements and institutions strong enough to seriously
constraint the unlimited rule of the capital" may not themselves be
yet another side of the same coin? Or that it might not be "the other
side" of the "New World Order" or "neoracist nationalist" coin, if we
don't accept Zisek's equation of the two?
It's not so much that I disagree with Zisek, I just think his language
gets sloppy here and that he doesn't prove his points. To say A is B
may make a telling effect, but it's not clear that C evades being A or
B or A/B. I've seen this article many times on several different
mailing-lists and in different languages, so I finally thought I'd
ask. Ought not readers of Foucault, for example, to be suspicious of
such hypothesized "TRANSNATIONAL" movements, institutions, and methods
of control? To argue that, in the opposition between capitalist
consumerism on the one hand and fundamentalism or nationalism on the
other, neither side is wholly right is quite correct. Indeed, both
sides may be very wrong, but why should Zisek's barely sketched
alternative avoid the negative features of the other two, or bring
greater weaknesses or disadvantages of its own. One can understand
offering a vague third alternative to two bad choices. That's
anyone's right and the critic's prerogative, but Zisek seems so
dogmatic in his A = B, oughtn't he to be held to the same standards as
the supporters of A or B?
_______________________________________________________________
Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com