a reader complains about Žižek’s methods of critique

I’m generally a big fan of Žižek, as readers of this blog know, despite disagreeing with the majority of what he says. There’s a certain energy there that is compelling beyond all agreement and disagreement.

But one of the more thoughtful readers of this blog is less sanguine, and I post his thoughts here:

“I enjoyed the Zizek article you linked to, but I wonder if you noticed something about Zizek. In every article or book I’ve read of him, he has this formula where he contrasts some particular interpretation of Lacan or Hegel or whomever with a ‘real’ or ‘correct’ interpretation by making the first one appear silly or stupid or obvious. In fact, he often uses those words. The implication is always, well, of course I’m not arguing that Hegel is saying this, because that would be stupid and naive, and there is always this sense, to me, of intellectual superiority in the ‘of course,’ as if to be a thinker you always have to be one step ahead of the naive interpretations of any particular philosopher. I think what bothers me most about it, and I have seen too many examples of it in his work to cite just one, is that there is this implication that not only is any predominant interpretation of a philosopher wrong, it isn’t enough to be wrong, it’s that it’s stupid or silly, and there is no sense that, even if it is wrong, an interpretation might not be stupid at all. I don’t get this sense of Zizek saying, well, I can see how you would come up with that, or, this reading of Heidegger’s critique of Hegel is wrong, but Heidegger doesn’t help. No, it’s always, of course I wouldn’t think of boring you with this silly, stupid interpretation because you should know that this is wrong.”

The reader has a point, in the sense that Žižek in his writings does have a tendency to treat all incorrect views as ridiculous.

Nonetheless, he also has a good track record of leaving plenty of free space for contrary opinions outside his written pages. So does Badiou, by all accounts. I was just speaking with a young French philosopher in January who worked with Badiou, not because he liked Badiou’s philosophy or because Badiou liked his, but simply because Badiou was acting as a sort of protector of all French philosophy outcasts. The young philosopher I spoke with was more or less booted out the door by his original advisor, and Badiou was the only one who would take him. Stories like this vastly increase my respect for Badiou (I already liked his personality on our one brief meeting). Žižek, who on the surface seems every bit as “dogmatic” in his views as Badiou, seems in his actions to leave just as much space for alternative philosophical approaches.

That said, I think the reader is right. This is a fairly typical Žižekian trope– setting up the traditional reading of a philosopher as naive or idiotic and then reversing it. Yes, true enough.