I just now stumbled upon the following gem of an aggressive defense:

“J’aime les grandes métaphores venues de la religion : Miracle, Grâce, Salut, Corps Glorieux, Conversion… On a évidemment conclu de ce goût que ma philosophie était un christianisme déguisé. Le livre sur saint Paul que j’ai publié en 1997 aux PUF n’a pas arrangé les choses. À tout prendre, j’aime mieux être un athée révolutionnaire caché sous une langue religieuse qu’un “démocrate” occidental persécuteur de musulman(e)s déguisé en féministe laïque.” (Baidou: Second manifeste pour la philosophie note 4)

In case your French is a bit rusty, here is a rusty translation:

“I love the great religious metaphors: Miracle, Grace, Salvation, Glorious Body, Conversion… Obviously, someone concluded from this preference that my philosophy was disguised christianity. The book on Saint Paul, which I published in 1997 at PUF, didn’t help the matter. All considered, I would rather be a revolutionary atheist hidden behind a religious vernacular than an occidental “democrat” persecuting muslims disguised as a secular feminist.”

You almost want to high-five your buddy and chest bump your pal shouting “Snap! Them mo-fo’s got pwned!,” don’t you?

As has already been stated on this page – it’s remarkable how long a webpage really is – bloggery is fit for the more or less cultivated or casual considerations of the works of mice and men over digital drinks and dinner, but not for laborious elaborations on the subtle workings of all things theory. Blogs are the very sanctuaries of commentary, it is where commentary goes when it is no longer wanted in respectable company, which is why blogs are usually just havens for washed up intellectual waste and futile observations of abundant banality.

So why more or less consciously commit the sin you are condemning? Why throw all personal pride and integrity overboard and just plow right through the known courteous seas? Because it feels so good! Bloggery as well as commentary are generally examples of what we might call rhetorical masturbation and rhetorical masturbation, as we have all learnt in our early years, makes you blind. Well, maybe you don’t really loose your eyesight but you do tend to lean back a bit and close your eyes with the sheer pleasure of it.

You start out wanting the real thing, actually you do all the way through, but once you’re at it you might as well enjoy that particular gratification you get by just rambling on by yourself. The curse of the well-connected computer: You can have a virtual discussion whenever you want, but it can’t really compete with actually getting off your ass to go have a decent shouting mach in real life.

Rhetorical masturbation is here both the point and the illustration. You think of a metaphor which oddly enough makes you laugh, rhetorical masturbation for instance, and see where it leads you. You may start out wanting to enlighten yourself and the world by hammering out a serious argument but then quickly get caught up in the fun of writing and just take the initial serious argument as an excuse to do a linguistic lambada. Even if you are a crappy dancer and never really got the gist of that whole latino thing…

Serious argumentation is not easily contained by this medium. But this is actually ok. For unlike the dirty deeds of professional multimedia commentators such as Hitchens and Zizek, bloggery is usually quite honest and more or less private autoeroticism. It is public to a certain degree because rhetorical masturbation needs a potential audience, if nothing else, but no one is invited or incited to actually witness the thing. At least not in our case.

What makes Hitchens and Zizek so obscene is that they so desperately cling to their show man personae. Commentary is crucial to the survival of the persona and the persona is crucial to the gratification of the person. They are not content with the shining solitude of serious work nor are they happy with the private pleasures of a potential audience. No, they incessantly need to pull out their membrum virilae in public and stick it in your ear.

So yes, the rhetorical masturbation of bloggery does make you blind to the serious argument you should be doing but at least it is done more or less in private. It doesn’t require an audience to be willingly violated by the obscene rhetorical gestures of the hardened exhibitionist. It is personal playfulness, not public gang banging.

Let us begin with the anti-theist. Hitchens is a very educated man. He went to Oxford, which is often mentioned when he is introduced before going on stage. But this is another thing: Why is it important that the man went to Oxford?! It is without a doubt a good school, but in no way is it a guarantee of the man’s competence. The snobbery of it! I know plenty of people who went to La Sorbonne. I see no greater assembly of geniuses there than anywhere else and yet it is mentioned with a certain awe, as if it were the proof of a mind as sharp as a surgical laser. Why can’t we simply accept that it is not the teaching which makes the thinker, but the studying.

Hitchens probably did a fair deal of studying. He seems to be a well-read man. But this also seems to be his only intellectual strength. If you listen to his speeches, interviews or debates or you actually read his texts you might notice that he is all reference and no analysis. He refers to literary quotes and the experiences of his own wicked self or those of others. His argument is thus based on the authority of texts or the allusion to “real life”.

This basis of reference without analysis is why his arguments about religion are so feeble. What he wants to do is provide an ontological critique of religion, cf. his book God is not Great. How Religion Poisons Everything. The title implies that religion is inherently bad, essentially corruptive. But the argument for this postulate states, that people do horrible things in the name of religion and that religion is the soft option for weak people who cannot face the responsibility and infinite complexity of “real life” (there we have it again!). This is in many ways true but can in no way lay the foundation for an ontological rejection of all things religion. It is the spectacular argument of the commentator, not of the thinker.

Like Hitchens, Zizek is an educated man. Luckily no one would introduce him by mentioning which university he attended. Maybe it is because he graduated from the University of Ljubljana and not from Oxford, and again from Paris VIII and not from La Sorbonne (it should be noted that Paris VIII has employed more fine philosophers since its foundation in 1969 than La Sorbonne has in the entire 20th century). Or maybe it is because the man is convincing enough without carrying one of those ghastly Anglo-Saxon sweatshirts that cry out the name of your university for all to see (the carrying of such a sweatshirt should be seen as the clear sign that the wearer is in fact stark bollocks naked!).

Zizek is assuredly a well-read as well as a very intelligent man. The problem is, that he too tends to play the commentator in stead of the thinker he rightfully is. I recently read his essay “Neighbors and Other Monsters: A Plea for Ethical Violence”. Here you might notice the following parenthesis: “The paradox is that Butler, who is generally anti-Lacanian, reproaching Lacan for not allowing for change, is here asserting the inertia of human existence – against Lacan, who allows for a much stronger subjective intervention.”

According to Zizek it is a paradox that the “anti-lacanian” Judith Butler here almost does what she accuses Lacan of doing in stead of just doing what Lacan is “actually” doing, which is so much better. When did this become a legitimate argument? Apart from the nonsensical form of the argument, the problem is, that Lacan is used as a standard measure. The lacanian way is always already true. This, I feel, is a problem with most lacanians who tend to ruin all that is great in his thinking by their cultish worship and machine-like use of his theory.

Zizek must be aware of this and he probably just made the argument to piss off argumentation neat freaks like me. Or maybe he did it to be funny. Zizek has been called the Elvis of cultural theory and he does his best to live up to the name. Have you ever seen him live? The way that man works an audience is impressive and very funny. He is an outstanding entertainer. The problem, of course, is that the entertainment comes in the way of serious thought. I love the man as a stand up act but hate reading him as cultural analysis.

So what is the point of all this babble? Quite simply that the intellectual show men annoy me. Hitchens, because he shouldn’t even be a show man. His carefully constructed persona who shouts out “Fuck you!” and sticks a finger in the air to demonstrate his general irreverence is without perceivable interest. I have yet to hear an interesting thought from its lips. Zizek, because he could be so much better and because serious people take his not so serious gibbering seriously. If he is the academically celebrated standard for contemporary cultural theory we might as well close down the universities.

The problem is that in the media driven society in which we live even the anti-media cultural critics tend to pollute their own thought, and thereby ours, by acknowledging the spectacular importance of being Elvis. Even Elvis failed to live up to that requirement and wound up a bin-liner full of deep-fried chicken skin. Now think how the physical evolution of Elvis would look if he were a thought…

Slavoj Zizek – Ecology: A New Opium for the Masses – Part II: ““

Slavoj Zizek – Ecology: A New Opium for the Masses – Part III: ““

Slavoj Zizek – Ecology: A New Opium for the Masses – Part IV: ““

Slavoj Zizek – Ecology: A New Opium for the Masses – Part V: ““

Slavoj Zizek – Ecology: A New Opium for the Masses – Part VI: ““

Slavoj Zizek – Ecology: A New Opium for the Masses – Part VII: ““

Slavoj Zizek – Ecology: A New Opium for the Masses – Part VIII: ““

(Via lacan.com blog.)