"We feel free because we lack the very language to articulate our unfreedom." -- Slavoj Zizek
Is the role of the public intellectual all that important in a technologically fueled world with information available at the press of a button? There are many debates considering the future of the public intellectual, Stephen Mack highlights this issue in Are Public Intellectuals a Thing of the Past? Where many are looking at the future of the public intellectual, the so called endangerment of intellectual work, and what society needs to do in order to nurture and sustain the intellectual. But Mack brings our attention to a commonly overlooked aspect, the work of the intellectual:
“...our notions of the public intellectual need to focus less on who or what a public
intellectual is--and by extension, the qualifications for getting and keeping the title.
Instead, we need to be more concerned with the work public intellectuals must do,
irrespective of who happens to be doing it.”
If we forget about who the public intellectual actually is we can turn our focus towards the information they are attempting to educate the public with, the weight of their words become ever more important and the quality of work will be held to higher expectations. The fact is that public intellectuals do not have to be liked, their duty to society is to provide criticisms and to shine light on sensitive topics.
Slavoj Zizek might be better understood if less attention is paid to who he is as he can be quite difficult to understand, and at times to like. Zizek has been termed “the most dangerous philosopher in the West” by Adam Kirsch of The New Republic. His body of work is not easily understood, as he subscribes to the beliefs of Lacan, continually updating his theories as his beliefs and knowledge evolve. Critics tend to chalk this up to flip-flopping and a not being able to take a side. Zizek aims to question ideologies, rather than answer questions in a traditional philosophical role, he attempts to engage readers in his critiques, in an effort to allow the reader to articulate their own ideology rather than be told what the “Truth” actually is. He explains that if his work was not evolving and changing as he became aware of new facts and lived through more experiences, his work would essentially mean nothing.
Zizek gained international recognition after the English publication of his work The Sublime Object of Ideology. In this work he questions the “human agency in a postmodern world,” blending psychoanalytic and philosophical concepts into social and cultural issues. Combining the ideas of Hegel, Lacan and Marx, Zizek studies political issues, such as capitalism, and the role they take in society. Working in Cartesian fashion, Zizek employs the idea of “je pense donc je suis,” or for those unfamiliar with French, I think, therefore I am. Rene Descartes brought this idea to the forefront when he began questioning the contemplation of existence, and whether this was proof of something existing, in order to do the actual thinking. Zizek takes this philosophy and brings it into his political theories by looking at the functions of power and attempting to understand political subjects.
Zizek also studies the terminology and teachings of Jacques Lacan, French psychoanalyst, and his theory that rejected the idea of capturing reality within language, a subject Roland Barthes also writes on, which will be discussed later. Zizek often compares the teachings of Lacan and Marx in an attempt to criticize Marx’s theory of ideology. Zizek argues that Marx had it wrong when he put forth the idea of false consciousness within capitalist societies, in todays world Zizek finds this idea irrelevant. Instead, looking at ideology from Lacan’s point of view, our deep unconscious motivations show that ideology is not irrelevant but reveals a deeper truth, “the Real is not equivalent to the reality experienced.”
Zizek is most well known for his public arguments against democracy, capitalism, the war on Iraq and the economic meltdown in the United States. His arguments against democracy stem from the inability to control global capitalism, according to Zizek democracy may work on local levels, but when it comes to working globally, democracy often results in an authoritarian rule. While being an atheist, or Christian Materialist as he sometimes describes it, Zizek proposes secular democracy should be the reigning power, having a government that does not infringe on individual beliefs while also not using just one set of beliefs in creating its authoritative power. In a piece written for the New York Times, Zizek stakes a case for atheism and its preservation throughout the world. Zizek has found that the existence of God allows everything to be permitted because we in turn live for the afterlife and earning salvation. When we only do good deeds to fulfill God’s commands we lose the ability to do things simple because they are the right thing to do, atheists, he argues, are able to act in this way. Zizek cites an example of atheist allies for the construction of a Muslim mosque proposed in his home country of Slovenia, in his view, atheists care the most about protecting religious freedom because they are looking at all religions in the form of critical analysis. As long as the government is not built upon the ideals of one religion, which segregates or impedes on the beliefs of other religions, all religions can function within the state equally.
The work of Zizek’s that I am most interested in studying is a speech he gave in October, 2011 at Occupy Wall Street. I first heard the speech in an Art Theory class in which we were discussing a piece written by Roland Barthes, The Death of the Author. As mentioned earlier, Barthes discussed the idea of being able to understand reality within language. Barthes discusses the idea of the authors identity, he found that readers no longer looked at the words of the author, instead they were judging who this person was, much like the Mack’s debate on public intellectuals. Rather than focusing on an authors work, we focus on their personality or biography to explain the text, we are not actually reading their words we are reading their actions. As readers we need to distance ourselves from the author and understand that the words we are reading are not coming from a particular being, they are coming from language. The meaning of words are deep within language and it is impossible for us to become aware of a writers intention because we cannot peg down who is actually speaking, we have lost authority and instead gained a “multi-dimensional space” where meaning cannot be interpreted. Essentially this idea can be related to appropriation, we are never saying anything original we are working within a system in which everything has been said, the words we say are just arbitrarily assigned meaning in which we cannot trace back to their origins. While this is completely confusing, and a bit ironic since Barthes is in fact writing this, what we can get out of this is the idea that reality cannot be completely understood in terms of language. Language in a sense limits our abilities, which Zizek brings up in his speech.
Zizek participated in a question and answer after giving a speech during the height of the Occupy movement in Liberty Square. In his speech, Zizek positioned himself with the “protestors” of the Occupy movement:
“They tell you we are dreamers. The true dreamers are those who think things can
go on indefinitely the way they are. We are not dreamers. We are the awakening
from a dream that is turning into a nightmare.”
Zizek’s speech gave me the same feeling Barthes did. He speaks of not being able to imagine the end of capitalism, which is exactly what ruling power wants of us. “We have all the freedom we want. But what we are missing is red ink: the language to articulate our non-freedom.” If we are existing in this language in which we cannot understand reality or articulate our goals, where do we go from here? The only model we know is capitalism, how can we think beyond capitalism when it has taken over every aspect of our lives, it becomes difficult to imagine change when it cannot even be put into words. The way in which we perceive the world is dictated by media and government, he uses examples of Chinese government and what information we have access to through the news. Our sense of reality is in effect even more altered because now we are only perceiving it through an filtered language.
The problem many have with Zizek are their misconceptions, he speaks of Communism and Socialism, which are taboo words in American society. People automatically term him a Communist, but he is not speaking of Communism as a viable option, he speaks of it as the most ruthless Capitalist system which is what we should be striving against. He explains the thing we can take from a Communist system is its interest in the commons, which is interest in the people, in nature, intellectual property, an ideal not exclusive to Communism. His ideas are grand and question everything we know today which scares people from the questions he raises, what philosopher has not scared the crap out of society? The Occupy movement is continually disregarded because it does not have a proposal for a better system, as Zizek explains we have not yet realized what our system could or should be. In order to find that system maybe we need to go outside of language, disregard the author and the public intellectual.
Many expected Zizek to give answers or concrete steps that need to be taken to push forward in the fight against capitalism and the two-party system, but he stayed true to his form, instead he raised questions and challenged ideas. We look to public intellectuals for all the answers, but maybe their role should be to inform and critic and analyze in order to fuel an entire public of intellectuals. Maybe we should not be looking to an elite few for the answers on how to structure society, government, economics, etc., maybe we should be taking their ideas and fostering them to educate and work as a larger body of intellectuals.
Which begs the question(s).... Is the author dead? Are public intellectuals a thing of the past?
Maybe so.
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