Tuesday, April 16, 2019

Slavoj Žižek: “I am the alternative to Jordan Peterson”













They are both Enfants terribles of their field. And they have been fighting for a long time from afar: the radical Marxist Slavoj Žižek and the neo-conservative psychology professor Jordan Peterson. Now they meet in Toronto. Who will win?


René Scheu
13.4.2019, 05:30 clock







[TRANSLATED BY A STUPID COMPUTER]

INTERVIEWER: Mr. Žižek, all right?

SLAVOJ: Oh God, yes, we wanted to talk. I'm just in a bit of a panic, I have to finish some manuscripts and prepare for this stupid Toronto event.

INTERVIEWER: They meet with Jordan Peterson, the neo-conservative mastermind of a new masculinity. Why are you actually going into the lion's den?

SLAVOJ: Quite simply, he provoked me, and I accepted the provocation. After all, I'm not a coward. If you want a fight then you should get it.

INTERVIEWER: You criticized him quite harshly in the Independent?

SLAVOJ: Right. But I did not throw him the gauntlet. He did that.

INTERVIEWER: Let's leave the personal. What attracts you in content in the fight?

SLAVOJ: Again, I want to place a simple message: For people who are dissatisfied with left-liberal dogma, that is, political correctness, identity politics, and cultural relativism, Jordan Peterson is not the only answer. We, the good old left, are a valid alternative here.

INTERVIEWER: The dispute between the two of them has been ignited by the concept of cultural Marxism. Peterson accuses Marxists like you of wanting to transform people with new language and behavioral codes.

SLAVOJ: That I do not laugh! Peterson's image of the enemy is clear - the politically correct, egalitarian, superethic, resentful, and envy-driven left. Okay, there are such people, but they are certainly not the Marxists: Marxists behave exactly the other way round. These left-liberals are those who sustain the capitalist order by giving it a human face!

INTERVIEWER: The politically correct left-liberal are in your eyes - as Lenin would say - useful idiots of the system?

SLAVOJ: Exactly. They conceive of man as a fluid, flexible subject who can always reinvent himself - indeed, in order to liberate himself from patriarchy. The range of reinventions ranges from sexual orientation to careers. And the left liberals sell that as a great freedom. Such bullshit! What they did without realizing it is - in Marxist terms - the very core of bourgeois subjectivity. And the left-liberals can only do that because they live well and are privileged. In contrast, ordinary people suffer because they do not know today if they have a job tomorrow and how they can bring the family through. Ordinary working people do not want more, but less flexibility.

INTERVIEWER: Now you almost sound like Peterson!

SLAVOJ: For heaven's sake, no. I am the alternative to Peterson. What I say is trivial. It can be read in the "Communist Manifesto". It says: "The bourgeoisie has destroyed all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic conditions." Celebrating all the movements against the alleged patriarchy in which we still live is pure nostalgia and only cemented the prevailing order. And that consists, as in the past, of good old capitalists, that is, retirees with no income. People, wake up! To put it bluntly: Political correctness, identity politics and gender thinking are the bourgeoisie's last defense against a much more radical, emancipatory change of system.

INTERVIEWER: They preserve Marxist radicalism. Feminists do not make you popular with your view of things.

SLAVOJ: At the wise already. Genuine Marxists, just as serious feminists, never simply opposed patriarchy, as if everything male was toxic. Max Horkheimer shows in his study "Authority and Family" from 1936 very nicely how the paternal role is not to be despised - on the contrary: A strong father figure can offer young people a role model to defy the social conformism. And conversely, it is the weak, impotent father who tends to violence and also to totalitarianism.

INTERVIEWER: They are talking in rage. Still, again - I'm afraid, Peterson and you are too united in essential assessments. And for the nuances of differences and different motivations, only a few are likely to be interested.

SLAVOJ: That's not true. Take #MeToo. Peterson is absolutely against it, for him this is merely an expression of a gender struggle that is going on to the detriment of men. I see it differently. My heroine is Tarana Burke, a black American activist who used the buzzword "Me Too" back in 2006. It was never about the mood of the affluent and the world stars in the film business, which are disadvantaged, but the harassment and abuse of millions of women in everyday life. In a letter she deeply regretted the turn the #Metoo movement took in 2017. And she is right. The movement was hijacked by crazy feminists: suddenly it was no longer about equal rights of men and women, but men's hostility.

INTERVIEWER: Once again, you agree in the end. Peterson is rude that men are becoming more and more male and women more and more male. You cannot leave it that way, right?

SLAVOJ: That's way too easy. Because what, please, should be the male and what the feminine principle? Peterson takes care of himself by referring to Jungian archetypes. The male means order, the female stands for the chaotic. Not correct. There is, of course, a feminine and masculine form of order and disorder. I think that this kind of metaphysical psychoanalysis a la Jung is behind us.

INTERVIEWER: The point, however, is that Peterson also relies on evolutionary biology findings.

SLAVOJ: On the other hand, I have no objections in principle - no reasonable person can deny that there are biological differences between men and women that partly shape their behavior. If Peterson pulls out against those who represent sex and sexual orientation as an object of free choice, then he is at least half right. Because it is not that easy - and not so harmless. Man emerges quite late in evolution and is a strange being. It is characterized by something completely new that we still do not understand exactly - we call it freedom. But that does not mean that every human being, so to speak, frees himself from scratch. Whoever speaks thus is an ideologue. Referring to your example: Of course, there are biological men who feel like a woman, and that is a human phenomenon. At the same time, however, this is not an absolutely free choice of the individual - it is, so to speak, a forced free choice, which is associated with much suffering. I do not choose my gender or my orientation as I choose my favorite cake in the bakery. That's what many gender theorists simply do not want to understand.

INTERVIEWER: In any case, a fundamental difference in content between you and Peterson is obvious: you want to change the global capitalist order, and you do not do that. Peterson is more modest - he says in one of his rules: Clean up your room first before calling for a system change.

SLAVOJ: Everyone should first wipe their own door, that has never hurt. But that's just not enough, because it winds leaves and dirt of your environment in front of your door. And do you want to eliminate the dirt of the others day in and day out? So, your question is a wrong choice. It's not about either-or, it's about doing both - wiping at your own door and working on the system change.

INTERVIEWER: Their debate is reminiscent of the coincidence between Noam Chomsky and Michel Foucault in 1971. Although both were determined leftists, the roles were clearly divided: Chomsky gave the precise thinker, Foucault spoke more conspiratorial. Which part do you strive for?

SLAVOJ: Chomsky was a naturalist, Foucault historian, Chomsky was even farther left than Foucault at that time. That's a wonderful paradox. Such a combination is hardly conceivable today, and the left are now all convinced constructivists - except for the Marxists. The debate will therefore not run along this dividing line. Peterson and I are both outcasts. We are both cut from all sorts of groups and have to punch through ourselves. We are both entertainers. We both do not know what we got involved with. We will see it on April 19th.




















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