There are some things I’m quite happy to not know anything about. I hope that doesn’t sound ignorant – even though that’s probably the very definition of ignorance. I’m mostly talking about French theorists after early Foucault. I know enough about Althusser, Deleuze, Derrida and Badiou to confidently say: well, that’s a load of bull.
I’m tempted to see the entire story of their success as a con, though I’m not entirely sure who is conning who. Maybe everybody is conning themselves. Capitalism, amirite!? (Let me also be clear that I’m convinced it’s a load of bull because I have in fact read real Marxist theory.)
Which is to say: when I read Maryam Zaree on the perils of cynicism I’ve found myself mostly in agreement. In agreement with her, not the students. Though they were halfway right when it comes to Žižek: he doesn’t have any answers and his speech impediment *is* funny.
In fact I do a mean Žižek. It’s not that hard: hard r’s, sh-sounds and spout something about Lenin. Which probably I’ve stumbled into his trap: because once you focus on the hissing you ignore just *what* he’s spouting about Lenin.
A while back John N. Gray, well, nailed Žižek in an essay for the NYRB. In a just world nobody would talk about Žižek after that essay – maybe some people brush something off their shoulder from time to time, like “what were we thinking?” And it’s not even that great of an essay – it’s not Leszek Kołakowski on NP Thompson. Not because Gray is no Kołakowski – though that’s true – but because Žižek is no Thompson. Not even Thompson.
Maybe he’s like Capitalism: even parodying him just enforces him, but he himself will bring about his downfall. Writing on the strange case of the sign-language interprter during the Mandela service in the Guardian: “what he confronted us with was the truth about sign language translations for the deaf – it doesn’t really matter if there are any deaf people among the public who need the translation; the translator is there to make us, who do not understand sign language, feel good.”
What he confronted the reader was the truth that has been obvious all along: that he’s full of shit. Whether you’re part of the Deaf community or not: let us listen now to the beautiful sound of an erect middle finger pointed at Žižek.