Long Sunday

IJZS: Zizek's response to Parker

The International Journal of Zizek Studies has posted Zizek's response to a story recounted by Ian Parker:

A SHORT CLARIFICATION
Slavoj Žižek

A new text by Ian Parker is circulating around the net (available, among other sites, at www.discourseunit.com/publications_pages/parker_papers/2004%20PINS%20Zizek.doc), which begins with the claim that, towards the end of the 1980s, when the Communist regime in Yugoslavia was in its death throes, I acted as a »commissar« monitoring and controlling dissident activity – here is the full paragraph:

»Let us start with a true story. In the middle of a crisis and crackdown in Slovenia toward the end of the 1980s Slavoj Žižek telephones an academic colleague in Britain late at night. This is before Slovenia seceded from Yugoslavia and when the League of Slovene Communists was making some last desperate attempts to maintain power. The crackdown was directed at the opposition movement, in which Žižek and the artistic political grouping Neue Slowenische Kunst, were active. So, Žižek is on the phone during this political crisis in an agitated state. He tells his colleague how bad things are, that there is a total clampdown on the opposition. His colleague is sympathetic. Žižek goes on to tell him that things are even worse than that, for in every workplace a ‘commissar’ has been appointed to monitor and control dissident activity. His colleague is very sympathetic, even slightly alarmed by the picture Žižek is painting. And it is even worse than that, Žižek says, for even in the universities, in every department a commissar has been appointed to keep order. His colleague in Britain exclaims that this is indeed dreadful. And, Žižek then informs him that there is only one good thing in the midst of all this. What is that, his colleague asks. In my department, Žižek says, ‘I am the
commissar’.«

One should note the serious implications of these lines: I am accused of nothing less than being an informant of the Communist power against dissidents. Let me be as clear and unequivocal as possible: this »true story« is entirely false, everything in it is a lie. Not only was I never any kind of a »commissar,« I also never boasted – ironically or truthfully – via a phone – or any other – conversation that I am anything like that. The only thing to add is that anyone who knows a little bit about Slovenia in the late 1980s will immediately see that the »true story« doesn't make sense, for two obvious reasons. First, which »department« would be »mine«? In Yugoslavia, I was never employed at any university department - how could I then be active there as a »commissar«? Second, from (at least) the middle of 1980s, the Communist party effectively lost control over the employment politics at the university. At the Institute of Sociology where I was then formally employed (formally, since I already spent most of the time abroad), if a candidate for a job was suspected to be too closely linked to the Communist party circles, he had no chance of getting the job – at the end of the 1980s, to be »against« the regime was already a way to make a career!

(cross-posted from I Cite)

Notes from the Long Sunday Beginning May 17, 2009

Entry 1 – May 19, 2009:  Excerpts published in this month’s Harpers from Werner Herzog’s journals while he filmed in South America in the early eighties have inspired me to commit to short, fifteen minute entries each time I return home from … work over the course of the next year.  H. harangued staff at the Trinity Square Café as I ate lunch with I., a new street outreach volunteer, today.  “I am Satan,” H. menaced, as the cashier-manager attempted to shoo him out of the building.  She turned and instructed a co-worker to call 911 and his anger increased.  “You fucking demon bitch, calling the fucking cops …”  I sat and watched, knowing that entry into the situation would ratchet him up more, reserving the possibility of engagement against physical abuse.   (H. heckled me – “can you believe this asswipe, get some toilet paper” –  from the front row as I officiated my first memorial service a couple of months ago.  Only J.’s presence averted a complete disaster.) I circled the building to witness, advocate if necessary, with the police, but he was nowhere to be seen when they arrived.  I did, however, run into First Nations B. and his brothers …   B., whom I used to see often near King and Jordan, volunteered that he’d like to start coming to [our church] after what happened with St. Mike’s hospital and our advocacy there with respect to the beating by security guards of C. and D.  He was the relative they were visiting and says he will not be going to St. Mike’s hospital anymore. 

A. and E. recounted, in debriefing from their walk, seeing T. shit on the property at [our church].  

Discipline and Punish

Following from Barret's post on interdisciplinarity, one might also wish to enquire into the problem of disciplinarity. In our case - Barret and I are both doctoral students in Canadian sociology departments - our professional association is engaged in a series of "professionalization" measures which, to be sure, are at once also disciplinary (in the sense of imposing discipline on those who call themselves sociologists or who study or teach or research in sociology departments) measures. This comes into close relief in two instances: first, changes to the structure and organization of our annual meeting and, second, larger arguments regarding the structure of the discipline in relation to other disciplines (this is external, boundary policing). In large part, this follows what from what is perceived as a 'coming crisis in English Canadian sociology' (for the most part, there is no communication between French language and English language sociologists in Canada - mostly because English Canadian sociologists can't be bothered to learn to read French and French Canadian sociologists have closer ties with other non-Canadian French language sociologists than they do with Canadian English language sociologists) premised upon the fact that most senior sociologists who presently dominate the discipline in Canada were more or less hired at the same time and will more or less retire at the same time, thus creating a power vacuum. The question, then, becomes what to do with sociology once the old guardians are gone.

For whatever reason, Canadian sociologists tend not to discuss these issues in public - our dirty laundry is aired in unread journals and unread newsletters. (For my part, I have a stack of unopened copies of the Canadian Review of Sociology, formerly the Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology. First boundary policing measure: cut off the few anthropologists who still participate in what was called the Canadian Sociological and Anthropological Association.) Other disciplines, such as English language philosophy, however, enjoy bringing their reasoned debates to the level of a visceral spectacle more commonly found in celebrity gossip blogs, such as the Superficial, and fully, openly and gleefully engage in disciplinary policing right out in the open. (It makes for great reading in the same way that the Superficial does.)

Now, I have no desire to revisit the tired question - fought mainly by those who already control the discipline of philosophy anyway - of analytic vs. continental philosophy and the apparent delegation of the latter into "literary" or "social" or "political" or "cultural" theory housed at the margins of other disciplines... (I am in a sociology department in large part because of two reasons: (1) political theory has a distinctive conservative slant in the major departments in Canada and (2) the generally insular, hostile and venomous atmosphere displayed in English language philosophy.) It seems, the philosophers just can help themselves: endless quantifying of "the most important" or "greatest" philosopher through online polls, endless quantifying of "the most important" or "best" journals, publishers and doctoral programs, and endless disputes over, say, political theory and philosophy. (See here replying to here; and here and here and here and here and here - you get the idea!) Other than reeking simple-minded aristocracy, what do these endless fights - fought mostly on one or two blogs but involving dozens of people - mean, if anything?

Note: I expect John Emerson to step up to the plate on this one.

Truer Words Never Spoken

Bernard Mandeville makes the following observation in the 'Preface' (1714) to his The Fable of the Bees, "every Moment must produce new Filth." Indeed, truer words have never been spoken.

Interdiscipline matters

 Coming from a small Arts and Sciences College in Canada the problem of discipline was never a big deal to me. I didn’t feel restrained by the so-called methodology of the discipline that I was part of, even though Sociology can be a bit of a bummer – it is pretty much mandatory that a method section precede your dissertation or thesis (and, no, 'I will read books and write on them' does not constitute a 'method'). I’m not sure how this plays out in philosophy or the study of languages, but I presume there is an equivalent to the obsession with method that characterizes the social sciences. That’s fine by me – I think it is important to get your metaphysics in order before moving on to analyzing a specific problem or set of issues. 

But my point in this post is to recall how liberating ‘interdisciplinarity’ was to me in my second or third year of studies. Interdisciplinarity had a liberatory ring to it – I was not restrained by discipline any longer! However, as I look back now, I realize that I wasn’t ‘restrained’ in the first place. Yes, the statistics courses were terribly boring (and there were many of them). They were basically irrelevant for what I wanted to do. Methodology didn’t seem very methodical but rather based on some quite elementary assumptions (the world presents normal curves, etc). But the college that I attended was open to students studying in a variety of areas, and it was even required as part of our mandatory course requirements. So, why did interdisciplinarity seem so radical and freeing?

Perhaps I could sense that the institutions were resistant to it and that's what made it feel sub-versive. For instance, in my current university students can enroll in the interdisciplinary program to work between, say, two or three departments. But what they really get is a run-around. The departments with which they are affiliated usually put the interdisciplinary students at the bottom of the list when it comes to funding, supervision, teaching assignments, RAs, etc. In a word, it is risky to be a part of an interdisciplinary research program because you can never be sure what lies around the corner. Precarity becomes the order of the day, which usually happens after the PhD, MA, or BA, not before it.

But, secondly, there has been a wider shift away from interdisciplinarity both at the institutional and individual levels. There is a growing concern about students having a lack of expertise in any one area and a rather summary understanding of a variety of disciplines. The main concern in this regard is that InterD. students have no expertise in particular and no one is really qualified to supervise them. This sort of complaint tends to come from faculty members and committee members who resist interdisciplinarity as being anything even resembling a ‘strength’. It is, on the contrary, a lack (of ‘rigour’, ‘discipline’, ‘strength’, and so on).

So, where does this leave us? Does interdisciplinarity still have a liberatory aspect to it? I suppose the answer would be ‘yes’, as in, interdisciplinarity leaves you free from big 'd' Discipline and thus free to starve…

Cross-posted at The Yolk blog.

Four Dead in Ohio

 

Today marks the 39th anniversary of the Kent State massacre, when National Guard troops fired on a large crowd of students who were demonstrating against Nixon’s invasion of Cambodia. John Crooms makes the following reflection on the events of that day:

The year 1968 had been a rough one, as has been widely written about, but for sheer, keening rage, May 1970 was unlike anything since the Civil War. Within two weeks of Nixon’s invasion, and 10 days after Kent State, nearly 500 American colleges were brought to a halt by student strikes, and serious violence rocked hundreds of American campuses. For a couple of weeks, students throwing bricks at cops, busting windows, fire-bombing ROTC buildings, and rolling police cars — along with heavily armed authorities launching tear gas and breaking heads open — were primary preoccupations at this country’s centers of higher learning. A dizzying feeling that we were in the middle of a national emergency, that things were teetering on the edge, was in the very air we breathed. And then something very lucky happened for the college administrators and government authorities: the school year ended. Kids went home to parents and summer jobs, and the tide of rage receded. OK, that’s it, class. Have a nice spring day.

Granted that we do not have a draft to motivate young people to protest on such a violent and massive scale, can anyone imagine such a widespread irruption from young people today?  If not why not?  Our very own Jodi Dean suggests that we do not express outrage because we have others in the media (and presumably blogs) do it for us.  But is this sufficient to explain the apathy of the young? 

One of things that was of interest about the Obama campaign last year was that it inspired and motivated alot of young people.  In fact it was this feature of his campaign, that it attracted disaffected youth and felt like a "movement," that initially caught my attention.  One can certainly be cynical about whether this excitement was misplaced or manufactured, but having personally attended two rallies I can tell you it was palpable.  Kids were caught up in it, they hungered for the idealism they thought Obama represented, and they worked their asses off to get him elected. 

So whatever motivated the young (and not so young) volunteers in 2008 has seemingly disappeared in 2009?  Or, like in the spring of 1970, did the school year simply end and all the kids went home?  As the economic crisis in the United States worsens, and the governent response focuses on the plutocrats who got us into this mess, we desperately need the energy of those kids to get reawakened. What type of social movements can and/or will emerge remains unclear.  But for today, let us remember those young people who gave their lives on this day 39 years ago - they were killed because they stood up and said no more.