The Kettle Logic of Islam

Much discussion has already taken place (here and here among others) regarding Zizek's recent Op-Ed piece in the NY Times.  And of course, as everyone suspected, the op ed is actually a cut and paste from a longer piece entitled The Antinomies of Tolerant Reason. What I think is striking is that it is one of few times Zizek succinctly (and somewhat persuasively) analyzes a current situation - in this case the violent Muslim response to the Danish cartoons.  What I found particularly convincing is his re-appropriation of the Freudian kettle logic, this time for the purpose of deconstructing Islamists denials of the holocaust:

1) [The] Holocaust did not happen. (2) It did happen, but the Jews deserved it. (3) The Jews did not deserve it, but they themselves lost the right to complain by doing to Palestinians what the Nazis did to them.

Zizek also goes on to make his classic case that multi-culturalism and fundamentalism form a dialectical unity, one that plays itself out with "tolerant liberals" condescendingly defending the righteous anger of the Muslim protesters.  But what I think is the most audacious part of the argument is Zizek's attempt to apply the Lacanian symbolic to the passionate anger in the streets:

What we should always bear in mind is the fact that the protests (and the very real violence accompanying them) were triggered by means of representation, by words and images (caricatures, which a large majority of those protesting did not see, but just read or heard about). The Muslim crowds did not react to caricatures as such; they reacted to the complex figure/image of the “West” that was perceived as the attitude behind the caricatures. Those who proposed the term “Occidentalism” as the counterpart to Edward Said’s “Orientalism” were up to a point right: what we get in Muslim countries is a certain ideological image of the West which distorts Western reality no less (although in a different way) than the Orientalist image of the Orient. What exploded in violence was a complex cobweb of symbols, images and attitudes (Western imperialism, godless materialism and hedonism, the suffering of Palestinians, etc.etc.) that became attached to Danish caricatures, which is why the hatred expanded from caricatures to Denmark as a country, to Scandinavian countries, to Europe, to the West – it was as if all these humiliations and frustrations got condensed in the caricatures. And, again, one should bear in mind that this condensation is a fact of language, of constructing and imposing a certain symbolic field.

What I find astounding in this description is the laundry list of symbols and images: Western Imperialismm, godless materialism, suffering Palestinians.  While clearly there is a form of consciousness one could describe as "Occidentalism,"  I am uneasy with the suggestion that it is a certain "linguisitic displacement" (my words not Zizek's)  that is responsible for Muslim humiliation and resentment, and not the real terror and exploitation that they experience in their lives everyday. This is not to say that ideology isn't important to how one interprets and reacts to symbols - but I am very cautious not to minimize the "real" violence being perpetrated by the west (and Israel) against the muslim world. Would the cartoons have evoked the same reaction if they were not published within the context of the current "War on Terror?"  Even those under the delusion of collective fantasies can tell when they are the subjects of attempted domination.

What I also find strange is that in the very next passage, Zizek takes on the Habermasian notion of communicative rationality.  He makes the Derridean point that all linguistic representation is a form of violence and that we cannot hope to find peaceful co-existence in more respectful, transparent forms of dialogue.  This sets up his conclusion:

Reality in itself, in its stupid facticity, is never intolerable: it is language, its symbolization, which makes it such. So precisely when we are dealing with the scene of a furious crowd, attacking and burning buildings and cars, lynching people, etc., we should never forget the placards they are carrying, the words sustaining and justifying their acts.

While I agree that experience is always mediated by language, and that such mediation always implies a certain violence, is it really the case that "Reality... is never intolerable?"  This seems to be a dubious conclusion to an otherwise provocative essay.

Comments

[chabert]

You're answer is opaque. So you are saying, Matt, that it is or is not an option in China?

Or that Zizek is *not* saying "What makes modern Europe unique is that it is the first and only civilization in which atheism is a fully legitimate option, not an obstacle to any public postdern Europe" but "only" is a typo? And it was the first?

[josef k.]

Hmmm...well, okay Charbet - you have no particular imperative to convince me, one particular person. But presumably (I can only imagine) you would like to construct persuasive arguments capable of convincing somebody - this is to say, people other than yourself. Or do such people do not exist in your universe?

On this occasion, I am simply pointing out to you the regrettable fact that you have failed to do so. I am sorry. But there is no need to get nasty. And a little sad as well. That the best you can come up with here is just a torrent of abuse.

All I want to know is what positive program you are actually advancing which lurks behind all these invective diatribes of yours. I am beginning to suspect that you don't know.

[Matt]

Of course I'm not saying any of those things, and neither, so far as I can tell, is Zizek.

Really, one need only bear in mind that he's writing for a popular (not to mention distinctly American(ized)) audience. Last time I checked, we didn't have many openly atheistic Presidents in the United States, and certainly not without their "full legitimacy" being somewhat challenged.

The need to distinguish between description and prescription also comes somewhat to mind.

[Matt]

That was a response to your previous comment, btw.

It's really very simple, isn't it? Zizek is commenting on the stigma facing political atheism generally, and invoking, for the sake of a broader future, a certain legacy that is indeed somewhat unique to Europe. You misread him as making exclusive claims, which is understandable given the trademark rhetorical flourishes of which we have become so fondly tired.

[chabert]

Matt you are being annouyingly evasive. You say the distortion is "grotesque." Explain yourself; explain this distortion. What is Zizek's point about Europe and Atheism? What did he mean by "first and only" if not "first" (chronologiucally) and "only" (at present)? Do YOU think 'modern Europe' is a distinct civilization? What lies outside it? What other civilizations co exist with it? Do you think it was the first where atheism posed to obstacle to public office? When was this, precisely? Do you think it is the only 'civilization' in which atheism poses no obstacle to public office today?

[Matt]

Haha, and are you being drunk?

Do I think the word 'Europe' may be used to describe a legacy that is, while complicated, nevertheless in some sense unique? Sure. If this sounds vague to you, I'm sorry. In addition to public responsibility, I have this odd hunch that not qualifying with some care will result in sharp objects getting twisted and shoved down my throat.

But now if you'll forgive, I must go make some pasta; ciao.

[josef k.]

Incidentally - one fact which is certainly true, Charbet, is that politics and religion are indistinguishable according to Islamic ethics. As for China - under Confucianism the idea of atheism per se did not exist, and it wouldn't make sense to use it: Mandarin bureaucracy is distinct from modern bureaucracy in this respect, in that it operated according to a system of direct imperial appointment. See Max Weber for further details. In contemporary China, meanwhile, there is no possibility whatsoever for gaining significant office, or indeed status, if one is not a member of the communist party. The major capitalists in China are all members.

[josef k.]

Furthermore: "or Japan, or India or South Africa or Haiti or Cuba or Palestine" - These are all states which bear the hallmarks of colonialism/westernization - for better or for worse, and thus which are all definitely and undeniably marked by the European Enlightenment legacy - which for Zizek includes the legacy of atheism.

I seriously recommend you read up on some history, Charbet. I think it would help you.

[chabert]

"Do I think the word 'Europe' may be used to describe a legacy that is, while complicated, nevertheless in some sense unique? Sure."

terrific. Ask yourself an idiotic question, and answer it. Bravo. You could write for the Times.

[Matt]

Oh, shucks. As if Zizek were the only one debating a future of 'Europe'.

[chabert]

pasta's getting cold.

[chabert]

Obviously Zizek was the first and only person debating the future of Europe. It's what makes him unique.

[chabert]

and the Romans were not 'European'; they were Roman. The inheritors of their civilization are not exclusively Europeans.

and joseph k, global culture, if global, is not european. If Palestinian culture is 'europeanized' so must european culture be 'palestinianized'. It isn't that we have a world in which all the nice things are European and all the nasty things UnEuropean. Europe doesn't get to call 'religious tolerance' for its team and assign the Orient 'torture and despotism.' There's a word for that manoeuvre.

As for the 'civilization' of 'modern Europe', that is a propaganda fiction. To assume that such a locution is meaningful is to tell, in a compact way, a cluster of white supremacist lies. That one tells these lies only to an "American(ized) audience" is scarcely a mitigation; rather an aggravation of the offense.

[warszawa]

josef k: "Furthermore: "or Japan, or India or South Africa or Haiti or Cuba or Palestine" - These are all states which bear the hallmarks of colonialism/westernization - for better or for worse, and thus which are all definitely and undeniably marked by the European Enlightenment legacy - which for Zizek includes the legacy of atheism."

And the Middle East and Indonesia aren't?

More power to your pen, chabert. Alain asks the essential question in his original post: "Would the cartoons have evoked the same reaction if they were not published within the context of the current 'War on Terror?'" To which the answer is painfully obvious, and therefore carefully avoided in Zizek's cogitation."Reality in itself, in its stupid facticity, is never intolerable.". On the lecture circuit, perhaps not. But maybe he should take note of the humourless Muslims attempting suicide by the dozen in Guantanamo or the man beating his head off that stupidly factual iron door in Abu Graibh.

(I was also struck by Zizek's bizarre reference to David Hume as "a believer". If Hume was a believer, then George Bush is a Quaker.)

[Matt]

Obviously Zizek was the first and only person debating the future of Europe. It's what makes him unique.

maybe you two should get together:)

[hollowentry]

Something I'm working on is this quarantining of global history onto 'europe', and the abjection of what Europe must not be. I think this involves at least three displacements:

1) that somehow 'Europeans' believe 18th c. classicists or 19th c. nationalists who claim Sparta or Athens or Rome as European, and who quarantine everything abject onto foreigners. This relatively recent imagined community is a history of colonialism and nationalism. Perhaps more relevant to the academic literati here, these differences were codified in the 19th century through linguists like von Humboldt, Renan, and Saussure, and this is still manifest in poststructural theorists who repeat the structures of linguistic morphology even as they question them. For instance, Foucault and Derrida each, in a tradition of comparative morphology (structuralism), present their own critiques as if Chinese writing and thought is completely alien (Order of things and of grammatology respectively). Most linguists don't believe this anymore.

2)that somehow elite writing, renan, saussure, etc... is representative of European thought. That there is such a thing as a European thought. This ellision, of class, counter-communities like regionalist ones, of HUMAN BEINGS etc.., is a perfectly colonialist (internal to European frontiers and external) one again.

3) that 'Europe changed the world' through colonization. This is the most fatuous and most repeated cliche of all. Colonization created nation-states, not vice versa. And as if romantics were not taught by the Indian intellectuals, or a text like the Bhagavad Gita, as if Renan was not in debate with al-Afghani, as if as if as if. If one is stupid enough to follow the rules of this European quarantine of thought, it means erasing how people come up with ideas. If someone who is Muslim (who could even be from continental Europe) cites, for instance, David Hume, then they must be borrowing from European thought, becoming Europeanized. If a European (who might be born in India) cites, for instance, al Ghazali, then they are engaging in a European critique of foreign ideas, and making them European.

This is really fucking stupid. This elision is compounded by frequently imagining other places as out-of-time, that their ideas are as if from a museum (my what a european idea) that should be made rational, or true, or relevant to European people, another colonial and primitivist illusion.

Josef, you throw around Western civ. university survey sound-bites as if they explain anything.

[hollowentry]

Matt: "Do I think the word 'Europe' may be used to describe a legacy that is, while complicated, nevertheless in some sense unique? Sure. If this sounds vague to you, I'm sorry."

Do I think the words 'white supremacy' may be used to describe this same legacy? Sure. If this sounds equally racist to you, I'm sorry.

[hollowentry]

'The West', European thought, etc... are made up. They are not real things. They are not a borg-like machine. There is no European thought bubble. This european tradition, is really a repetitive, boring, over-simplified, and racist tradition of quarantining anything that might be foreign sounding, and/or domesticating it within a racist and supremacist canon.

[Matt]

Yes, there are lots of ways of describing Europe's legacy. Some more courageous and hopeful than others. So glad we had this conversation.

[hollowentry]

Why don't you describe one of these courageous legacies of this existing 'Europe' Matt, and tell me how it is unique to Europe?

[chabert]

alas, one really oughtn't scratch the surface of this laboriously ambiguous style of radical 'critique'; because a hymn to European Virtue and the Europeanness of Virtue is what one usually finds one thin layer down.

Leibniz and Marcus Aurelius belong to Slavoj and Matt, didn'tcha know? The nice parts I mean, not the little mistakes. Paws off you dreadful furriners! The good stuff's ours.

I love this: Freude! Freude! Freu-eu-eu de...Freude schoner gotterfunken tochter aus elysium...So lucky we have stringed musical instruments, no? Good thing the Really Creative People 'Europeanized' our aural commons. If only they can get their mits on the oil, fight off that fundamentalist fanatic dragon sittin' on it, everything will be charming. Because Improooooovement is Our Middle Name, and THAT'S 'a legacy worth fighting for.'

(Of course NY Times readers welcome any sage reminders of other elements of our legacy - or other people's assets - WORTH FIGHTING FOR, in these dark times for Our Civilization.)

[Christoph]

Zizek has got you exactly where he wants you.

Denying Europeanness is very European.

[hollowentry]

Chrisoph, I hope that's a joke.

Besides a vague statement, what does this mean? That someone who critiques some essential categories of community is being uniquely European? Seriously?

[hollowentry]

Apologies if I didn't get the joke.

[chabert]

Denying the Europeanness of the Roman Empire? Or the Europeanness of potato salad? Or denying the Europeanness of chess? Or the Europeanness of Jews? Or denying the Europeanness of Auschwitz? Or the Europeanness of Mao? Are these typically and equally European gestures?

Is there something one can name that _isn't_ European, or Europeanized, this minute, besides FanaticoIslamoFascism and its trappings?