Psychoanalysis and the Post-Political: An Interview with Slavoj iek Author(s): Slavoj iek and Christopher Hanlon Reviewed

work(s): Source: New Literary History, Vol. 32, No. 1, Views and Interviews (Winter, 2001), pp. 1-21 Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20057644 . Accessed: 21/07/2012 08:04
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Psychoanalysis and the Post-Political: An Interview with Slavoj Zizek

Christopher
For

Hanlon

represents postmodern theory at its Jacques Lacan at its worst. Lacan, so say his detractors, made a is, height?that career out of obscurantism, and may not even have believed very much of what he said. Noam Chomsky once indicated such a hypothesis is that [Lacan] was a he explained when that "my frank opinion was simply playing games with the Paris and he conscious charlatan, to see how much intellectual community absurdity he could produce many, and still be taken seriously."1 Even Lacanians might find it in their hearts to forgive Chomsky such a remark, since it was Chomsky who, after a question (at the latter's 1968 thought concerning asking Lacan at MIT), received the reply, "We think we think with our presentation I think with my feet. That's the only way I come into brain; personally, contact with when I bang and enigma solid. I do occasionally anything into something."2 As if to condense in such exchanges, he cultivated now-infamous postmodern
relation,"

think with my forehead, the aura of contrariness

teachings through koans of the French

"There is no sexual

Lacan often relayed his maxims and mathemes, those Zen era: "Desire is desire of the Other,"
does not exist."3 No wonder

"The Woman

Chomsky and many others turn their heads in exasperation. to The best counterpoint such as Chomsky's may well be suspicions in the work of Slavoj Zizek, whose found frenetic endorsements of a dense even as they provide Lacanian achieve theory complexity moments of startling (and typically humorous) clarity. Take Zizek's way of explaining why even one of the most banal features of late twentieth is itself an illustra century culture, the laugh-track of situation comedy, tion of the Lacanian thesis that "desire is desire of the Other":
... shows remark, the show let us or remind serials: you can ourselves "canned hear the we of a usual in popular television or funny supposedly witty included in the soundtrack of of the Chorus

laughter."

phenomenon After

quite some

itself?here

and applause laughter have the exact opposite answer?that since it implies

tragedy; it is here that we have to look for "living Antiquity.

the laughter? The first possible enough, it serves the to laugh?is interesting paradox

" That
that

in

classical

is to say, why
us when laughter to is a

remind

New Literary History, 2001, 32: 1-21

2
matter sufficient that to of not and duty we do because of not some spontaneous The set?is

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feeling; only

but correct

this

answer would of our day's had

is not be duty

the Other?embodied laugh?is all

usually laugh. in the television

answer us even

work,

of us. So even instead if, laughing we did but gaze drowsily nothing evening that objectively, the medium say afterwards through time.4 good

relieving tired from into of the

a hard television we

stupid set, we can a really

the Other,

earnest solutions to everyday conun and yet theoretically even Zizek's most such as this can have the effect of seducing readers, but this is not to say that Zizek's work hasn't earned skeptical him opponents. For many, Zizek's Lacanian analyses of contemporary culture cannot quite shed the burdens of classical psychoanalysis itself: in an academy happily enamored and often disinclined of historicism toward universalisms of any kind, Zizek's mostly ahistorical, psychoana of the Enlightenment defense draws criticism from various episte lytic Whimsical drums
mological camps. One of the most persistent reproaches, for instance,

has been

voiced

psychoanalysis ity of trauma,

tions, and

"Can Zizekian by Judith Butler, who asks rhetorically, to theorize the historical to the pressure specific respond texture for the specific exclusions, to provide annihila
losses that structure ... social phenomena ... ?"5

unthinkable

Others

about the political of the implications suspicions Zizekian subject: "[Zizek] views the modern individual as caught in the status as a member of civil between his or her universal dichotomy of ethnicity, nation and and the particularistic attachments society, is reflected in his own ambiguous and this duality tradition, political have raised

of cultural critic on the international stage, member profile?marxisant a neo-liberal and nationalistically inclined governing back home."6 party as well as I recendy met with Zizek in order to discuss such complaints, on the ongoing to elicit his opinions Zizek's crises in the ex-Yugoslavia, a heated subject for Zizek, of birth. The latter topic has become country who ran a close campaign in 1990, and for the presidency of Slovenia states as a in the Balkan of nationalism who views the resurgence misunderstood that has gone completely by the West. phenomenon ex Since the Bosnian conflict began near the outset of the last decade, have taken up more space in Zizek's thinking, but still, Yugoslav politics land feature within the contemporary there is probably no dominant an he analyzes. For Zizek, one quickly realizes, life is essentially scape on the psychopa excuse to theorize; hence, his Lacanian commentary rarely ceases. As we packed into a crowded thology of everyday existence elevator in New York's St. Moritz hotel, for instance, the panel of control an excursus on the faulty logic buttons caught Zizek's eye, provoking behind the hotel's symbolic exclusion of the thirteenth floor. 'You

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cannot

cheat God!" he proclaimed, glances from drawing bewildered the people around us. "They shouldn't call it the fourteenth floor?they an ominous floor an empty mezzanine, should just make the thirteenth slid the commentary of the others." lack in the midst Somehow, and from there, to into the subject of voyeurism, effortlessly, naturally, later the gaze and the look. Our between distinction the Lacanian even as it of a similar, free-associative conversation pattern partook concerns: of Lacanian the position to a few fundamental returned

theory Butler,

with Judith Zizek's friendly in today's academy, antagonism own polemic multicultural Zizek's identity politics. And against one realizes that these issues are all of a piece with a talking with Zizek, manner of social larger problem: What kinds of political ontology?what constellation allow for that matter?does today's theoretical perception, or, more particularly, foreclose?

is home to a number of Hanlon: Your home city, Ljubljana, Christopher Was there something particular about the Slovene? Lacanians today. prominent crucial during the that made Lacan particularly then the Yugoslav?scene when you were first formulating your project! 1980s, some incredible The contingency. Slavoj Zizek: I believe it was simply is strictly the phenomenon first thing here is that, in the ex-Yugoslavia, no Lacanians are practically in the other limited to Slovenia?there But I'm often asked this question: "Why there?" The Yugoslav republics. I can say is that there were some marginal, not-sufficient, only thing climate was very open; conditions. One was that the intellectual negative if you didn't directly pursue political or rather, the regime was open There was intellectual freedom, borders were open, and so opposition. .And the other was that Slovenia was, far from being on ... thing in the sense that all of what isolated from Europe, a kind of microcosm, scene around the world, all main orienta went on in the philosophical This is to say, there was a clear Frankfurt tions, were fairly represented. orienta there was a Heideggerian School or Critical Theory orientation, and so on and so on .... But tion, there were analytical philosophers, I don't have a precise it's within this constellation, theory, though is that in other there? One I'm often asked. Why thing something in Croatia and Serbia?they have areas?around Zagreb and Belgrade, and maybe this is much more substantial psychoanalytical traditions, Lacan. In Slovenia, there was what prevented them from appropriating no psychoanalytic tradition, so we were starting from a zero-point. of two For me, the original spark came out of the confluence traditions: analysis. When Frankfurt School marxism I was a young student and, of course, Lacanian psycho scene in Slovenia, the intellectual

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between Heideggerians and the Frankfurt School. Under was dead; itwas no that is, dialectical materialism Communism, Yugoslav the State philosophy. It was some kind of vague humanist longer linked to the Frankfurt School. At least in Slovenia, the main marxism, was Heideggerrian: this iswhy my first book was on Heidegger opposition as it and language. But what made me suspicious was this phenomenon, to me, by which both Heideggerians seemed and the followers of the to speak the same language. This precisely Frankfurt School began
aroused me.

CH: Though Slovene culture and politics play a pronounced role in your later of Enjoyment onward?American work?say, from The M?tastases popular culture remains the central touchstone. Do you seeAmerica as more pathological, more ripe for analysis! the result of my personal trauma, which was that Slovene art, especially with Slovene literature and my relationship was extremely negative. In Slovenia we have a cult of literature, cinema, cornerstone of our society"; the especially poetry, as "the fundamental so idea is that the Slovene poets effectively created the Slovene nation, a false veneration of poetry. On top of it, most Slovene writers there's SZ: This is perhaps with now are, in no uncertain so terms, right-wing nationalists, a kind of negative on speaking terms with them?it's in pop culture. Although, pride for me to turn to American years, I have been turning toward so-called "literary" or high new book will deal with Shklovsky, Tchaikovsky, and so on. not CH: Another
market!

I'm happily gesture of the last few culture; my

new book! Does Verso at all worry

that you might flood

the

SZ: There have been some surprises here. For example, they were worried about The Ticklish Subject. "After so many books, who will buy . . . ."But OK?I such a thick book, 400 pages know that I am very close a short to flooding the next thing will be that next month the market; of book on David Lynch's Lost Highway will come out by the University it will be this other book, this big triple Press, Seattle. Then Washington between Judith Butler, Ernesto Laclau, and me. The orgy, this dialogue, idea was that each of us should write an opening statement, maybe fifty two two. Then his or her position toward the other pages, defining rounds of questions and answers; it grew into a big book, about three to me, because hundred it isn't a printed pages. And it's very interesting almost but I hope didn't it's nasty, nasty?it ruin our polite debate; personal really pretty good friends, but it does get relationships. We're

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the you know: "He's totally missing nasty, with all these rude expressions, to tone she's decided "Sounds like point," "He didn't do his homework," it down a little bit," and so on and so on. CH: / want to ask about one common critique of your work, most recently that centers on what we might call your "intrapsychic" voiced byJames Hurley, For you, of course, ideological coercion occurs at the libidinal level, at the focus.7 constitutive level of a subject who "is" a disjunction between the Symbolic and the Real. But some commentators have expressed concern that this intrapsychic focus has the effect of leaving us little to do by way of intervening upon specifically institutional mechanisms of coercion. Do such objections concern you! I think that such criticism misses the point of SZ: No, because I think that the very term "intrapsychic" ismislead Freudian subjectivity. this again and again, ing; I think that, at least for Lacan, who emphasizes is not "deep inside." The of the unconscious the proper dimension in the state apparatuses. The is outside, materialized proper dimension is not that of split subjectivity, as later echoed by Louis Althusser, model is repressed; it's not this internal is something deep in me which attitudes are the implicit subverts my conscious conflict. What psychic embodied in my activity. For instance, beliefs externalized, ideological Holocaust I'm interested in this new fashion of Hollywood comedy. Have you noticed with Life Is Beautiful, we have a new how, starting in Jakob theLiar, and so on? Apropos of this, I ask, "Why genre, repeated is at his lowest during a fail?" For me, Speilberg do Holocaust tragedies scene from Schindlers List, when the concentration-camp commander faces the Jewish girl and we have this internal monologue, where he is to the girl and his racist tract: you know, "Are between his attraction split you a rat? Are you a human being?" and so on. I think this split is false. there is not that psychoanalysis literally Lacan 's dictum quite that the ultimate lesson of psychoanalysis is that when you psychology, to think like Nazis or Stalinism, it is totally wrong analyze phenomena result through so-called that you will arrive at any pertinent in-depth of figures like Stalin or Hitler. Here there is a lesson to be profiles at a different learned from Hannah level I disagree Arendt?though with her?about the banality of evil. The banality of evil means for me the personality that the key is not, for example, of Eichmann; there is a from Eichmann the acts of Eichmann 's self-experience. gap separating But what Iwould add is that this doesn't mean that Eichmann was simply I take here that he was possessed by some kind of brutally more and more that we are dealing with?to objective logic. My idea is reference my eternal I am tempted idea about canned laughter?what to call a kind of canned hatred. In the same way that the TV set laughs innocent in the sense

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to really laugh, Eichmann for you, relieves you of the obligation himself didn't really have to hate the Jews; he was able to be just an ordinary that did the hating; the It's the objective person. ideological machinery
hatred was imported, it was "out there."

CH: He even reported that he admired the Jews, that he used to literally vomit with disgust at the efficiency of the extermination . . . the point in the say that this reproach misses lesson of psychoanalysis is that the uncon in institutional scious is outside, crystallized practices. This is why, for fetishism I'm is a nice example of this?not me, commodity collective, not speaking of course about some collective unconscious? Jungian in the sense of the set of presuppositions, unconscious beliefs. The in is not aware of these beliefs, but the beliefs are materialized subject in which the subject participates. the social practices, institutions rituals, So in this sense, I claim that this idea that when in you analyze terms what are ideological translate you psychoanalytic phenomena, them into intrapsychic phenomena, does not hold for Lacan. definitely If anything, Lacan can be accused of the opposite mistake, of externaliz in a friendly discussion these issues. For example, with him years ing ago, this is what Fred Jameson reproached me with: that the inner self experience
rituals.

SZ: Yes! So again, Iwould sense that the fundamental

disappears put

with me,

that I externalize

everything

into social

it this way: Lacan is an author with which it's incredible comes to our head, It's incredible how whatever "anything goes." are very insensitive to Lacan?people to the things you can attribute some of Lacan actually says. OK, he's a difficult author, but nonetheless, to give you an the things he says are formulated very clearly. Just how her late work, her very much?especially though I appreciate example: The Psychic Life of Power?Judith Butler makes this strange repeatedly for her), "uncon this strange thesis, that for us Lacanians claim, (not to the Symbolic Law. Where did she find scious" is Imaginary resistance to say, "Wait a minute! this? I'm almost tempted If there is one phrase that is the first commonplace is structured unconscious it is 'The about Lacan, the first association, like a language'!" The unconscious is the order. Where did she find this idea that the unconscious is Symbolic I know what she means?her idea is that we are Imaginary resistance? caught in the web of social relations which are the Symbolic order, and our resistance that unconsciously, is to identify with the set of social and so on and it has absolutely nothing so on. OK! An interesting to do with Lacan. thesis, but unfortu

Let me

norms, nately,

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CH: Fd like to discuss your ongoing debate with Butler, butfirst, could we talk about another more general facet of your reception !Fve seen you speak on several occasions now, and each time, I notice the same split within your audience. On the one hand, there s a kind of weird delight you can elicit, an experience of almost excitement, but on the other, one also observes a deep displeasure. Of fanatical course, many public
you, there s almost

intellectuals gain
ground

both followers
between these two

and opponents,
extremes ...

but with

no middle

I know. My friends tell me that if you check the amazon.com reviews of my books, I get either five stars or no stars. You know, either,
"It's total crap!" or "It's a revelation!" Never, "It's a moderately good

SZ: ...

This is an interest book, not very good, but some solid achievements." sense that?this true especially in the in England, is with ing point are these fantasies Radical Philosophy; they don't like me there?there around me, that I shouldn't be trusted; beneath this appar circulating even there is this strange, decadent, ently marxist, left-wing surface,
nationalistic attachment. . .

CH: Peter Dews chantment^

has indicated such a suspicion

[in The

Limits

of Disen

SZ: Yeah! And I'm still on speaking terms with Peter Dews, but I told did he get that? Because the irony is that in him, "My God!" Where cannot stand me. In Slovenia, I'm always attacked Slovenia, nationalists
as a "national nihilist," a "cynicist," and so on ... .The idea that I'm a

seems simply ridiculous to me, a kind of propaganda. nationalist The catch is the following one: I come from Slovenia, and for a lot of Western the original sin. The idea is that we left-wingers, we Slovenes committed were the first ones to leave Yugoslavia, that we started the process and then hypocritically the consequences. We stepped out when the escaped house of cards was starting to collapse, and started it all, and we didn't even suffer for it. It's incredible how strong this accusation is. So Dews's is "Why didn't you oppose the disintegration of Yugosla big reproach via?" First, Iwas pretty much to this at the time. But the thing indifferent that surprises me about this is that?typically in England?the very same to the disintegration who are opposed if you ask of Yugoslavia, people them about, for instance, are suddenly Ireland: all these principles reversed. So that is not nationalist madness? I guess I would say that at least one level of this political suspicion me is conditioned Western against by what I call this politically-correct leftist racism. In the aftermath of the disintegration a new of Yugoslavia, was produced with which I don't want to have to do: the entity anything

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academic. You know, going traveling post-Yugoslav world how horrible it is, all this nationalist madness, CH:

around, telling the blah, blah, blah ... Lynch when your

"How can you stand up here talking about David . . . "? country is inflames

to play that SZ: Yeah, yeah, that kind of stuff. And I've never wanted to present myself as this kind of victim. This is one aspect. The is a general to Lacan. Let's put it this way: resistance aspect we have three orientations or vaguely, today. For phenomenologists not to be taken seriously. For Lacan is too eccentric, Heideggerians, Dews is usually an exception here?Lacanians Habermasians?though game, other kind of protofascists, whatever; irrationalists, basically, they to enter into discussion with us. For example, in one of her prefer a line of distinction I saw Nancy last articles, Fraser make between Kristeva and Lacan, claiming that Kristeva may be of some use, but that not
Lacan can be of absolutely no use. . . . With deconstruction, it's the

are

some

tension between Lacan and Derrida. know, same?you of course, for cognitivists, Lacan is simply deconstruction. So all Then, main orientations the Lacanian reject definitely approach. CH: Well, apropos of thisHabermas/Lacan SZ:... strong usually
too much

this incredible

division you mention

. . .

But wait a minute?who stands for Lacan? I don't think we are as opposition. to function is Lacanians The debate enough versus communitarians, either Habermas who consider Habermas
of a universalist, or on the other hand Habermas versus

we need universal who whether deconstructionists, again question we rarely norms. The point is . . .don't you think that for Habermasians even enter the picture? The big debate in the feminist is, for example Fraser or Seyla Benhabib circle, Nancy against Judith Butler, against versus have that opposition. Or deconstruction Brown?you Wendy do not enter the picture. simply neopragmatism?we CH: Well, here in the States, the opposition seems to me, more and more, to be so much as I am not thinking ofHabermasians between neopragmatists?Fm " "the theorists, in a about people likeRichard Rorty, Walter Benn Michaels?and totalizing, reductive sense. For instance, a couple of years ago, I saw Cornel West a roundtable intone a kind of neopragmatist complaint against you during discussion: how do you justify your highly abstract work, when there are concrete political battles to be waged, and then call it liberal! that the Harvard roundtable?

SZ: Cornel West? Was

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CH: Yes. In any case, I point out the instance as an indication that perhaps its theory itself that is discounted, or discountable, right now, rather than Lacanian theory in particular. that . . .OK, Cornel West did say that. But I us as the main opponent. that he perceives Because this very reproach that you mention is not a reproach that can to Lacan. My idea is the old marxist be addressed idea that specifically to experience, this immediate reference practice, struggle, etcetera, relies on the most abstract and pure theory, and as an old usually SZ: Well, nonetheless I don't don't think think Iwould say, as you said before, that we simply cannot escape philosopher this turn which has taken place in social oppose theory. I fanatically theory, this idea that there is no longer time for great theoretical the experience of our suffering, projects, that all we can do is narrativize that all various ethnic or sexual groups can ultimately do is to narrate their painful, I think this is a catastrophe. I think traumatic experience. that this fits perfectly the existing capitalist order, that there is nothing in it. I think that this fits perfectly subversive of today's ideology to gain power politically, you in order to legitimize, where victimization, must present yourself, somehow, as the victim. An anecdote of Richard Rorty's is of some interest to me here. You know Rorty's thesis?and I like Rorty, because he you know, incidentally, what others won't. But Rorty once pointed out?I says openly forget if you take big opponents, where?how and Derrida, such as Habermas and ask them how they would react to a concrete social problem,
whether to support this measure or that measure .... Are there any

political divisions between cannot stand each other? There they but basically center, not-too-liberal are indistinguishable. their positions conclusion

concrete

that philosophy conclusion: does matter, that philosophy but that aggressive, opposite this political indifference the fact that although signals they appear at the level of their opposed, they actually share a set of presuppositions not all philosophers would adopt the Besides, respective philosophies. same position; someone like Heidegger would not, and a left definitely like [Alain] Badiou definitely would not. for me this new consensus?in big question today concerns it's the "third way," in Germany it's the "new middle"?this idea England that capitalism is here to stay, we can maybe just smooth it out a little with multiculturalism, and so on .... Is this a new horizon or not? What winger The I appreciate point. What in someone like Rorty is that at least he openly makes this me about some deconstructionists is that they adopt annoys

and Derrida, Habermas although are none! The same general left-of . . . democratic vision practically, Now, Rorty draws from this the I am tempted to draw a more doesn't matter.

10 as their rhetorical

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post the idea that what they are doing and so on. But they do radical, subversive, incredibly thematic their own deep political resignation. CH:

is somehow not render

Youve been a long-time opponent of what you call postmodern identity politics, and especially the subversive hope some intellectuals attach to them. But with your newest book, this critique acquires a more honed feel Now, you suggest that partisans of the identity-politics struggle have had a "depoliticizing" effect in some way. Could you hone your comments even further! Do you mean that identity politics have come to supersede what for you are more important (such as that between capital and democracy, for instance), or do antagonisms mean something more fundamental, that politics itself has been altered for the you
worse!

SZ: Definitely that it has been altered. Let me put it this way: if one were to make this reproach directly, they would explode. They would say, isn't it the exact opposite? Isn't it that identity politics "My God, a new domain, up, politicized, opened spheres of life that were previ as the province not perceived of politics?" But first, this form of ously nonetheless involves a transformation of "politics" into politicization are simply no longer asked. "cultural politics," where certain questions I'm not saying that we should Now, simply return to some marxist or whatever. I'm just saying that . . .my fundamentalist essentialism, those God, let's at least just take note of this, that certain questions?like of production, the nature of relationships whether concerning political are is really the ultimate horizon, and so on?these democracy questions no asked. And what I claim is that this is the necessary longer simply of postmodern consequence identity politics. You cannot claim, as they that "No, we don't abandon those other aspects, we just add usually do, to politics proper." No, the abandonment is always implicit. Why? Take a concrete like the multitude of studies on the exploitation of example, or more Mexican either African Americans usually illegal immigrants here in the U.S. I appreciate such studies very who work as harvesters a point at least?silently, but in most of them?to much, implicitly, is read as the result of intolerance, racism. In economic exploitation Germany,
immigrants

they don't
. . .

even

speak

of

the working

class;

they

speak

of

CH:

"Visitingworkers."

SZ: Right. But the point that the is that we now seem to believe an The funda economic of intolerance. aspect of power is expression mental then becomes "How can we tolerate the other?" Here, problem

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is not that of with a false psychologization. The problem so I'm opposed to this way in which and all tolerance, intrapsychic are translated into problems etcetera. of racism, intolerance, problems In this sense, I claim that with so-called postmodern the identity politics, whole concept of politics has changed, because it's not only that certain aren't any longer asked. The moment you begin to talk about questions we are dealing
. . .what's the usual triad? "Gender ..."

CH:

"Gender/Race/Class"!

SZ: Yes. The moment you start to talk this way, this "class" becomes just one aspect within an overall picture which already mystifies the true social antagonisms. Here I disagree with Ernesto Laclau's more optimis tic picture of the postmodern age, where there are multiple antagonisms
coexisting, etcetera . . .

. . .But aren yt you then subordinating what " of "authentically political problems ! CH: SZ: No,

is "merely cultural" to a set

no. I'm well aware, for example, that the whole problematic of . . . I'm not also had its own symbolic dimension. economy political I'm playing "merely cultural" problems against "real" problems. What is that with this new proliferation of political certain saying subjects, are no longer asked. Is the state our ultimate horizon? Is questions capitalism our ultimate have disappeared. CH: Lets horizon? I just take note that certain concerns

talk about another aspect of this critique you lay out. Part of your polemic against this "post-political" sphere concerns the great premium you place " on the "Lacanian act, the gesture that resituates everything creates its own condition of possibility, and so on. Could you specify this further by way of to an example of such an act! In culture or politics, is there some pointing
instance of an authentic Lacanian act that we can turn toward!

SZ: [...] You've got me here, in that sense. But I'm not the mystifying of act into some big event-What I'm saying is that the way the and more prevents the emer space is structured political today more of the act. But I'm not thinking of some event? gence metaphysical once I was even accused some protofascist, of conceiving of out-of nowhere intervention. For me, an act is simply that changes something the very horizon in which it takes place, and I claim that the present situation closes the space for such acts. We could even draw the pessimist conclusion?and though he doesn't notion

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I know privately to this that Alain Badiou tends say so publicly, conclusion?that for some foreseeable is no longer time, maybe politics, a domain where acts are possible. That is, there were times during which acts did happen?the French Revolution, the October Revolution, the '68 uprisings. maybe I can only say what will have been an act: something which would break this liberal consensus, of course not in a fascist way. But though from culture, from individuals' there are examples otherwise, experi for me is that ences; there are acts all around in this sense. The problem in politics, again, the space for an act ,is closing viciously. CH: Lets move on to another topic. I have to ask you about your reaction to what may beDerrida s last word on his whole conflict with Lacan, published in to Psychoanalysis. Resistances Without retracting any of his original theses Lacan s seminar on "ThePurloined Letter, "Derrida now insists that concerning " "I loved him and admired him a lot, and also that "Not only was I not criticizing Lacan, but I was not even writing a sort of overseeing or objectifying metadiscourse on Lacan, "8 that itwas all part of a mutual dialogue.... What is your response to this! two points. First, I still think, as I first just like to make in Enjoy Your Symptom!, that "resistance" is the appropriate developed can almost feel it, this strong term here. In deconstructionist circles, you embarrassment about Lacan. So they can buy Lacan only, as it were, I only insofar as they can say he didn't go far enough. conditionally, claim that the truth is the exact opposite; the only way they can You know, Lacan is to submit him to a radical misreading. appropriate SZ: I would all the time we hear about the "phallic signifier," and so on, and so on, but the figure of Lacan they construct is precisely what Lacan was trying one of the standard to undermine. of some For example, criticisms in the States is that Lacan elevates the "Big here deconstructionists a priori symbolic order.... Other" into some kind of non-historical, My thesis from only, perhaps na?ve answer to this is that the big Lacanian is that "The Big Other doesn't exist." He repeats this again the mid-fifties and again, and the point of this is precisely that there is no symbolic order that would serve as a kind of prototranscendental guarantor. My one. Without Althusserian second point would be a very materialist, theoretical let's not forget that aspects of this conflict, State Apparatus," and that all these is itself an "Ideological are not simply in theoretical but what's orientations orientations, so on. of posts, departmental and is thousands question politics, are excluded Lacanians from this. That is to say, we are not a field. You reducing academia the know, Derrida has his own empire, Habermasians have their own

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with Lacanians, of departments, all connected?but it's empire?dozens not like this. It's maybe a person here, a person there, usually marginal this aspect. So I think we should never underestimate positions. I think it would be much nicer, in a way, if Derrida said the opposite: not that "I really hated him," but "there is a tension; we are irreducible you point out is the kiss of death. What's statement in this apparently nice from Derrida? the message The is really not so strong, so that our field, is that "the difference message can swallow all of this; it's really an internal discussion." deconstruction, I think it is not. I'm not even saying who's right; I'm just claiming?and I think this is more than ever to emphasize?the tension important Derrida and Lacan and their followers is not an interfamilial two radically different It's a struggle between struggle. global percep tions. Even when they appear to use approximately the same terms, refer to the same orders, they do it in a totally different way, and this iswhy all between between them ultimately fall short. Once, Iwas at a attempts to mediate at Cardozo Law School where Drucilla Cornell maintained conference that the Lacanian Real was a good "first attempt" at penetrating beyond this ahistorical of Symbolic order, but that it also retains this dimension otherness that is still defined the Symbolic order, and that the through Derridean notion of writing this otherness into the Sym incorporates bolic order itself more effectively, much more radically, so that the "real lies with Derrida's "Real" is still under the ?criture, Lacan's of the metaphysical-logocentric dimension is order, and so on. This of what I'm talking about. We should simply accept that there is typical no common than to language here, that Lacan is no closer to Derrida want. than to Heidegger, than to whomever you Hegel, CH: Judith Butler?with whom you have engaged in ongoing if cordial debate?maintains that theLacanian topology is itself dubious for its nonhistorical, transcultural presuppositions. You yourself have written that "jouissance is non do you respond to complaints such as Butlers! historical"9?How SZ: Ah! hundreds historical. Ernesto This is what we are struggling with for dozens, maybe in this book. My answer is to say that she is non of pages, a certain narrative, That is to say, she presents the same as Real" to each other." This statement

it's that we have an older [Laclau]. With Ernesto, type of essentialist class politics, then slowly, slowly, essentialism starts to disinte where grate, and now we have this contingent struggle for hegemony .... With is open to negotiation there is the everything Judith Butler, same in the old times, there was sex essentialism, implicit narrative: then slowly, slowly, this started into biologically-identified; disintegrating a the awareness that gender is not biologically? distinction, sex/gender

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but rather culturally?constructed; finally, we come to this performativity, so on and so on. So the same story, from essentialist and contingency, we have for to this open where struggles contingency zero-point to as a philosopher which are undecided. My first reproach hegemony a very stupid, is missing. To ask this is that here, some metanarrative one hundred were people and fifty years ago na?ve question: why is You know what Imean? There essentialists? Were they simply stupid? a certain, almost teleological narrative here, in which from the "bad" zero-point everything that of essentialism, slowly we come to the "good" realization from the is exempted is a performative effect, that nothing if But don't you need a metanarrative struggle for hegemony. that people were simply stupid one to avoid the conclusion

contingent you want and fifty years ago? hundred

in the sense of a guiding historical CH: Well, perhaps not a metanarrative but an acceptance of a looselyFoucauldian premise, that one hundred trajectory, and fifty years ago there were in place certain institutional mechanisms, power . . . discourses, which coerced belief from their subjects, engendered them then things SZ: Ah! But if you accept this Foucauldian metanarrative, is not speaking about truth a little complicated. Foucault Because get to another. value; for him, it is simply the change from one episteme ... OK, I ask you another in this discussion, Then engage question?let's between distinction So: is there a truth-value with you as Butler. of gender or is it simply the passage the performativity and essentialism to another? What would you say? from one episteme I would say that the CH: / won ftspeak for Butler, but if I were a Foucauldian, I may prefer the later episteme in light of my own political latter is the case, though objectives. SZ: Yeah, but Butler would never accept that.

CH.: You don't think so! I think that the epistemic presuppo think she would? Because at least in her early is implicitly?even sition of her work explicitly, sex always already was a performative to put it bluntly, work?that, this construction. They just didn't know it then. But you cannot unite is epistemo narrative with Foucauldian narrative, because Foucauldian to the other. You in which we pass from one paradigm neutral, logically SZ: You
know, sex was confessionary then; sex is now post-confessionary, pleasur

able bodies,

whatever

....

But OK

Foucault

would

be one

possible

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metanarrative.

the other one, in the sense that provide a shift in subjectivity," "the development of capitalism itself provoked I claim is that there is some unresolved whatever. But again, what tension historicity and truth-value. concerning I ask you a different question. Both in Laclau and in Butler, there is a certain theory: Butler?and I'm speaking of early Butler; later, things get a more much more much more intense dialogue complex, interesting, Marxism would
becomes possible . . .

CH:
Matter...

So were

talking

about Gender

Trouble,

parts

of Bodies

That

SZ: Yeah, I'm talking about Gender Trouble with Butler, and about let's not forget Hegemony and Socialist Strategy with Laclau. Why? Because that these two books were the only two authentic hits" of the time. "big ... I'll tell you why: both Gender Trouble and Hegemony and Socialist Strategy were read as a model for a certain political practice. With Gender Trouble, the idea was that performativity and drag politics could have a political itwas, to put it in na?ve, Leninist for a certain terms, "a guideline impact; new feminist It was programmatic. It was the same with practice." for the abandonment Hegemony and Socialist Strategy. It was a justification of so-called essentialist after which no specific struggle class politics, our practices, cultivate a kind of takes priority, we just have to coordinate
"rainbow coalition," although Ernesto rejects the term .... Now, what

theories?of they universal gender or of social/ are they specific theories about political processes?or political practice, sex practice, within a certain I claim that moment? historical/political is still irreducible. At the same time that it's clear that the ambiguity these theories are rooted in a certain historical moment, it's also clear that they touch upon a universal dimension. Now my ironic conclusion theories? Are is that, with all this anti-Hegelianism, what both Ernesto and Judith do here is the worst kind of pseudo-Hegelian historicism. At a certain point, it's as if the access to truth or what always already was true is possible only in a certain historical situation. So in other words, philosophically, I claim that beneath these theories of contingency, there is another narrative that is deeply teleological. CH: But either Butler or Laclau might rebut this reproach bypointing out that even such an embedded is no worse than a matrix of non-historical teleology Lacanian presuppositions. SZ: But my God, this is the big misunderstanding conflates what she calls "Real" with systematically with her! Butler some nonhistorical

are these

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It's interesting how, in order to qualify the Lacanian symbolic norm. as a nonhistorical notion of sexual difference Real, she silently slips in are this nonhistorical norm, to then claim that "we homosexuals gender excluded from this," and so on. So her whole criticism inveighs against as part of a non this notion that Lacan thinks of sexual difference historical,
subverted

heterosexual
.... Of course,

normativity,
my

and

that

this

is what
"Real," for

should
Lacan,

be
is

counterpoint

is that

"Real" is that on account of which every norm is opposite. undermined. is not that When of historicity, my point [Butler] speaks there is something nonhistorical which precedes us. My point is that the Lacanian Real, in a way, is historical, in the sense that each historical if you will, has its own Real. Each horizon of historicity presup epoch, some foreclosure some Real. Now, Judith Butler would say "OK, of poses the exact this mean that we should re-historicize the it?" No, the problem ismore radical .... Real, include it, re-negotiate the ultimate misunderstanding between us?from my perspec Maybe tive?is that for her, historicity is the ultimate As an old horizon. I think that historicity fashioned is always a certain horizon Freudian, which has to be sustained on the basis of some fundamental exclusion. means is there historicity? Historicity that "things doesn't Why simply not in the biological change," and so on. That's just stupid evolutionism; I agree with this, but doesn't sense, but unresolved sense. Historicity means that there must be some exclusion which pushes the process forward. My would be that if you take away the nonhistorical kernel, you lose paradox in her last book, is itself. And I claim that Judith Butler herself, history Because this position. in Gender Trouble, the idea silently approaching is based on some primordial that your psychic loss or exclusion identity traumatic common

is anathema; it's the Big Bad Wolf. But have you noticed that, if you read it closely, in The Psychic Life of Power she now accepts this idea of a The loss when she speaks of these "disavowed attachments"? primordial the idea is now that we become renouncing subjects only through
fundamental passionate attachment, and that there's no return, no re

of the fundamental It's a very Freudian notion. attachment. assumption . . . it's If you lose the distance, the disavowal foreclosure. psychosis, I have with this shift is that it's a very refined political The big problem I don't quite accept in her otherwise shift of accent. What remarkable descriptions
avowed," she

is how, when
always

she

speaks
put

about
it in

the
very

"marginalized
na?ve terms?that

dis to

presupposes?to

these render
voice

are
to

the good
who

everything
those

guys. You controllable,

are marginalized,

know: we and then

have

Power,
. . .

which

wants

the problem

is how

to give

excluded

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CH: You see it as a kind of vulgar Bakhtinianism! SZ: Yeah,

... aren't

yeah?you
anti-Semitic

know what
pogroms

I'm aiming
also

at. What

I'm aiming
carnival? That's

at is
to

racist,

Bakhtinian

other whom the the progressive say that what interests me is not so much but the way in which power has to disavow its own is controlling, power has to rely on its own obscenity. The split is in the power operation, least when Butler argues very convincingly itself. So that. . . against?at initiatives that would to the problematic she points aspects of?legal state that in this way, you accept claiming legalize gay marriages, of the "visible," you lose solidarity with all become part authority, you ... Iwould say, "Wait those whose identity is not publicly acknowledged a minute! who defines himself as Is there a subject in America today are trampled by state authority?" Yes! They marginalized, repressed, this opposi called survivalists! The extreme right! In the United States, is resistances tion between public state authority and local, marginalized more and more an opposition between civil society and radical right wing groups. I'm not saying we should simply accept the state. I'm just saying that I am suspicious of the political pertinence the of this opposition between of power which wants to control, proscribe everything, "public" system to subvert it.What in are I'm more interested and forms of resistance are inherent to power itself. that the obscene supplements this relatively pro-State position played a role in your decision support the ruling party in Slovenia! CH: Has
SZ: No, no ... that was a more specific phenomenon, a very na?ve one.

to

in Slovenia was the What happened that, ten years ago, the danger same as in all the post-Communist there emerge one countries. Would nationalist movement then colonize practi that would big, hegemonic, space, or not? That was the choice. And by cally the entire political some compromises, we succeeded. In Slovenia, is the scene making in the sense than in other post-Communist countries, totally different in Poland, as in Hungary?the that we don't have?as is big opposition
not between radical, right-wing, nationalist movements and ex-Commu

was

nists. The
nor

strongest scene

political
it was

party
worth

in Slovenia
it. I'm far

is neither
from idealizing

nationalistic,
Slovenia,

ex-Communist...

but

much more pluralistic, much more a Big Decision; It wasn't it was just a very modest, open. particular gesture with a specific aim: how to prevent Slovenia from falling into the Serb or Croat trap, with one big nationalist movement that controls the the whole is nonetheless

18 space? How also to avoid space of Hungary political the oppositions and Poland?

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I mention

that define

the

CH: Could we talk about Kosovo! In The M?tastases of Enjoyment, when theBosnian conflict was still raging, you insisted that theWests inability to act was rooted in its is, with its secret desire fixation with the "Balkan victim"?that as victim. More recently, when the NATO to maintain the Balkan subject bombings were under way, you claimed that the act came much too late. Now, the West seems to have descended into a period of waiting for a "democratic
transformation" of Serbia . . .

I think. Let me end up with a nice will not happen, for me is this abstract pacifism the problem of the West, provocation: which renders publicly its own inability to act. What do Imean by this? For the West, practically in the Balkans that happens is bad. everything the Serbs began their dirty work in Kosovo, When that was of course bad. the Albanians When tried to strike back, it was also bad. The possibility SZ: was also bad, and so on and so on. This abstract of Western intervention on account moralism of bothers me, in which you deplore everything ... what? I claim that we are here with the worst kind of dealing And again, we encounter ressentiment. here the logic of Nietzschean a New York Times piece by Steven at its worst, exemplified victimization by the crisis in terms of a "truly human perspec Erlanger.10 He presented tive" on the war, and picked up an ordinary [Kosovar] Albanian woman who said, "I don't care who wins or who loses; I just want the nightmare to end; I just want peace; Iwant to feel good again. . . ."This, I claim, is a conscious but this ideal subject?not the West's political fighter, ... as if the to this almost animal craving victim, reduced anonymous is to "feel good again." ultimate political project CH: In other words,
or not. . .

. . .which

a subject who has no stake in whether Kosovo

gains

independence

. . . and this is the fundamen stake, just this abstract suffering were good so long as they were that the [Kosovar] Albanians Remember the images during the war, of the Albanians across the mountains, coming they started fleeing Kosovo? The moment course to strike back?and of I'm not there are Albanian excesses; become the "Muslim danger," and so idealizing them in this sense?they on. So it's clear that the humanitarian of the West are interventions SZ: No tal logic, suffering. formulated in terms of this atmosphere of the protectorate?the under to run idea is that these people are somehow not mature enough lying their lives. The West should come and organize for them, and of things

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course

the West

is surprised

if the local population

doesn't

find

such an

arrangement

acceptable.

tell you a story that condenses what I truly believe here. About a year and a half ago, there was an Austrian TV debate, apropos of between three different parties: a Green pacifist, a Serb nation Kosovo, nationalist. the Serb and the Albanian alist, and an Albanian Now, course within the horizon talked?of of their political projects-?in Let me the claim that Kosovo pretty rational terms: you know, the Serb making for many centuries, the seat of the Serbian nation, blah, blah, blah; was, was also pretty rational, pointing out that since they the Albanian the majority, should be allowed constitute self-determination, they the stupid Green pacifist said, "OK, OK, but it doesn't etcetera_Then matter what you think politically?just promise me that when you leave here, you will not shoot at each other, that you will tolerate each other, was the that you will love each other." And then for a brief moment?that noticed how, although magic moment?I they the Albanian and the Serb exchanged glances, idiot saying? Doesn't he get it?"My idea is that is for the two of them to come together and I "Let's shoot the stupid pacifist!" following: abstract tolerance were officially enemies, as if to ask, "What's this the only hope in Kosovo

reformulates which pacifism, . . . is the problem! This is God, it's not tolerance which My what I hate so much of Western interventionism: that the apropos is always rephrased in terms of tolerance/intolerance. The problem moment translate it into this abstract proposition you my which?again, old story?depoliticizes the situation, it's over. to emphasize Another I want of Serbia: here, my aspect apropos a Serb journalist a wrote called Alexander friend/enemy, Tijanic, wonderful the appeal of Milosevic for the Serb people. essay examining Itwas practically?I wondered if I could have paid him to make my point better. He said that the West which perceives Milosevic as a kind of tyrant see the perverse, doesn't of Milosevic. What Milosevic liberating aspect did was to open up what even Tijanic calls a "permanent carnival": can steal! Everyone in Serbia! Everyone can cheat! functions nothing You can go on TV and spit on Western leaders! You can kill! You can we are back at Bakhtin. All Serbia is an eternal carnival smuggle! Again, now. This is the crucial thing people do not get here; it's not simply some kind of "dark terror," but a kind of false, liberation. explosive CH: Do you see a viable political entity in Serbia that might alter this! I am one

like the say something think that this kind of the problem in the terms of

SZ: I can give you a precise answer in the guise of a triple analysis. afraid the answer are three is no. There for Serbia: options

20

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is that Milosevic's possibility regime will survive, but the country will be in its own shit, a pariah. That's one option. isolated, ignored, floating Another that we dream about is that, through mass demonstra option or whatever, a new opening in the tions there will be "a new beginning," . . .n But sense of a Western-style I think, democratic upheaval. if Milosevic that what will probably happen falls will be unfortunately, am tempted to call the "Russia-fication" what I of Serbia. That is to say, if Milosevic falls, a new regime will take over, which will consist of the same nationalists who are now in power, but which will basically in Russia?as itself to the West?like Yeltsin open, and so on. present Within Serbia, they will play the same corrupt games that Yeltsin is now so that the same mobsters, even another faction of the maybe playing, mafia, you
over...."

will don't

take over, but they will then blackmail the West, saying that "If us economic all of these nationalists will take help, give

CH: The "democratic resistance" in Serbia, infact, right!

is also deeply nationalistic,

is SZ: Of course! What you don't get often through the Western media . . . for instance, when there was a clash between this hypocritical the demonstrators, you know what the demonstra police and anti-Milosevic are you beating us? Go to Kosovo and beat the tors were shouting? "Why Their Opposition"! is un-democratic, though it's also that: it's 'You lost Bosnia! You lost Kosovo!" So I fear the advent of a itself to the West as open and democratic, regime that would present to go further but will play this covert game. When pressed by the West will claim that they are under pressure with democratic reforms, they Albanians!" accusation is not that he from radical right-wing groups. Now that the So I don't think there will be any great transformation. I don't think there will be another great conflict, Serbs have lost Kosovo, It will just drag but neither do I think there will be any true solution.
on?it's very sad.

for So much Milosevic against

the

"Serb Democratic

University

of Massachusetts, Amherst

NOTES
1 2 See "Noam An Chomsky: Roudinesco's (New York, Interview," account pp. Radical Philosophy, 53 (Autumn in her of this moment biography 378-79. 1989), facques 32. Lacan, tr.

See Elizabeth Bray

Barbara

1997),

PSYCHOANALYSIS

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Seminar XI: The Four Fundamental See, respectively, Lacan, Jacques Concepts of Psycho and ed. Jacques-Alain Miller (New York, 1981), p. 235; Jacques analysis, tr. Alan Sheridan tr. Bruce Fink Seminar XX: On Feminine Lacan, Sexuality, The Limits of Love and Knowledge, Miller and ed. Jacques-Alain (New York, 1998), pp. 12, 72-73. 4 See Slavoj Zizek, The Sublime Object of Ideology (New York, 1989), p. 35. 3 5 See Judith Buder, Bodies That Matter: On theDiscursive Limits of "Sex" (New York, 1993), p. 202. 6 See Peter Dews, The Limits of Disenchantment (New York, 1995), p. 252. 7 See James Hurley, "Real Virtuality: Post Slavoj Zizek and 'Post-Ideological' Ideology," Modem 8 Culture, 9.1 (September 1998). See Jacques Derrida, Resistances of Psychoanalysis, and Michael Naas (Stanford, 1998), pp. 56, 63. 9 See Slavoj tr. Peggy Kamuf, Pascale-Anne Brault,

Ticklish

Zizek, The Plague of Fantasies Subject: The Absent Centre of Political 10 See Steven Erlanger, "In One Kosovo Times (12 May 1999), p. A 13. 11 Since this interview

(New York, Ontology Woman,

see also his The 1997), pp. 48-54; (New York, 1999), pp. 313-20. An Emblem of Suffering," New York has played out in of Serb national

Belgrade, though we cannot ism will be at all preferable

took place, of course, precisely such a scenario Kostunica's brand yet see whether Vojislav to Milosevic's.