Zizek’s Refusal

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• Reader Comments (2)

  Page 1 of 1 pages

  I’ve only studied Zizek’s work in fragments, so I’m not qualified to render a judgment about his work. I have yet to read “Parallax View” but after reading this review, I think I will pick up a copy.

  I have always been fascinated with the way academics focus on the “in-between” to address the ways in which we offer “temporary” solutions or resistance to ongoing struggles. For example, it is interesting how the human voice is used to mediate the boundaries between concepts and their formal representations, or even how a “sign” can function as a kind of mediation that exposes the tension between the finite existence of something, that is particular and specific to a given situation, and what is possible, thus given rise to a host of other “signs” as potentials fields of contested terrains.

  As the author suggested, this approach can be, at first, discouraging in a time when we so desperately long for radical change. For example, a Marxist perspective on dialectical materialism would prefer that we expose the contradictions in society in order to bring about an “actual” change, rather than locate ourselves in between everything (recalling Marx’s famous statement: “we have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it..”) Yet, this model seemed possible when there was a belief (and some still feel this way) that everything constituting societal divisions and excesses were based purely on capitalism and the class struggle.

  The psychology of human beings has dominated contemporary scholarship, which has expanded our understanding of conflict to include ideology, which is deeply informed by psychological underpinnings that buttress conceptions of self and nation.

  The self and society has been deemd an unfinished project caught in the interstices of conscious and unconscious moments, temporal moments and infinite time. I think Zizek and the author of this review are suggesting that each moment embodies a tension that is held together by a fictional binary structure that must be continually “worked through” to sustain our hope as human beings.

  Posted by Epistrophy on Apr 25, 2006 at 12:12 PM

  I have not picked up Parallax yet.

  It’s funny Kotsko describes the end of Z’s book as anticlimactic when it’s precisely Z’s comment on the Matrix trilogy’s anticlimax that he quotes…

  What leads to this deadlock is that, in a typical ideological short-circuit, the Matrix functions as a double allegory: for the Capital (machines sucking energy out of us) and for the Other, the symbolic order as such.

  Perhaps, however - and this would be the only way to (partially, at least) redeem Revolutions - there is a sobering message in this very failure of the conclusion of the Matrix series. There is no final solution on the horizon today, Capital is here to stay, and all we can hope for is a temporary truce. That is to say, undoubtedly worse than this deadlock would have been a pseudo-Deleuzian celebration of the successful revolt of the multitude.

  Is Z claiming, as Kotsko seems to think, that the ending of the Matrix trilogy with the truce is the only thing we can hope for? Is temporary truce secret Lacanian code for temporary truce? Anyway, following the thought, the truce represents an acceptance of extant reality. What is our reality like?

  Besides the fact that we accept capital sucking energy out of us, we accept it (and us) sucking energy out of the planet. And I’d think this is what would determine the duration of any such truce.

  We are not in a state of truce with capital. We think we are; but its mechanisms seem to involve us in a never-ending assault upon our environment and so, ultimately, upon ourselves. Capital is not a rational, thinking agent. It’s not human. It does not need an environment to live in or consider, because it is not alive. We do not actually parlay with capital, we simply choose to accept it as rational or not. If we choose to see it as rational, then we choose to believe our ecocidal behaviour at its behest is too.

  What truce?

  Z’s angle on the Matrix is interesting because he points out it’s possible Neo’s revolution is actually part of the Matrix’s grand design, orchestrated by some of its agents, assuring its survival in the end. It may not really be a revolution at all. Maybe it functions socially like a valve on a pressure cooker. Also (and what I think the point is here) the truce in question is made between two Matrix programs about the fate of some humans, not between the programs and the humans. The humans are not a party to the treaty and do not have a say. It’s a choice made for others by the force that eats them. So when Kotsko asks “what such a thorough-going [Bartlebyian] refusal might mean,” I’d say it’s refusing that kind of pact’s legitimacy.

  Posted by TheoPapathanasis on May 1, 2006 at 5:04 AM

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• Zizek’s Refusal