Zizek: seems like a nob

[8ball]

 

[Knotted]

Zizek on Lukacs:

Lukacs, of course, is opposed to the ideology of "spontaneity," which advocates the autonomous grass-roots self-organization of the working masses against the externally imposed "dictatorship" of the Party bureaucrats.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/88410798/...ment-And-Back-On-Lukacs-Adorno-And-Horkheimer

Lukacs:

The form taken by the class consciousness of the proletariat is the Party. Rosa Luxemburg had grasped the spontaneous nature of revolutionary mass actions earlier and more clearly than many others. (What she did, incidentally, was to emphasise another aspect of the thesis advanced earlier: that these actions are the necessary product of the economic process.) It is no accident, therefore, that she was also quicker to grasp the role of the party in the revolution.[15] For the mechanical vulgarisers the party was merely a form of organisation – and the mass movement, the revolution, was likewise no more than a problem of organisation.

Rosa Luxemburg perceived at a very early stage that the organisation is much more likely to be the effect than the cause of the revolutionary process, just as the proletariat can constitute itself as a class only in and through revolution. In this process which it can neither provoke nor escape, the Party is assigned the sublime role of bearer of the class consciousness of the proletariat and the conscience of its historical vocation. The superficially more active and ‘more realistic’ view allocates to the party tasks concerned predominantly or even exclusively with organisation. Such a view is then reduced to an unrelieved fatalism when confronted with the realities of revolution, whereas Rosa Luxemburg’s analysis becomes the fount of true revolutionary activity. The Party must ensure that “in every phase and every aspect of the struggle the total sum of the available power of the proletariat that has already been unleashed should be mobilised and that it should be expressed in the fighting stance of the Party. The tactics of Social Democracy should always be more resolute and vigorous than required by the existing power relations, and never less.”[16] It Must immerse its own truth in the spontaneous mass movement and raise it from the depths of economic necessity, where it was conceived, on to the heights of free, conscious action. In so doing it will transform itself in the moment of the outbreak of revolution from a party that makes demands to one that imposes an effective reality.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lukacs/works/history/ch02.htm

Ignoring problems with Lukacs's point of view, Zizek's characterisation of Lukacs is ludicrous and dilettantish if not outright dishonest. This is why I don't trust Zizek and why I can't take Zizek seriously. Zizek's discussion of the Russian Revolution and the rise of Stalinism in terms of some sort of Hegelianised syllogism is beyond parade. As if history followed particular forms of logic - perhaps films do...

 

[Knotted]

nearly as depressing as your labour party membership, but atleast it helps your career.

What Labour Party membership?... What career?

 

[8ball]

What Labour Party membership?... What career?

Come on, we all know you're the drummer from Blur.

 

[articul8]

fuck the popular front, class war on all fronts

Fucking third period madness is what it is.

 

[articul8]

Ignoring problems with Lukacs's point of view, Zizek's characterisation of Lukacs is ludicrous and dilettantish if not outright dishonest. This is why I don't trust Zizek and why I can't take Zizek seriously. Zizek's discussion of the Russian Revolution and the rise of Stalinism in terms of some sort of Hegelianised syllogism is beyond parade. As if history followed particular forms of logic - perhaps films do...

Not sure what Lukacs said in his short book on Lenin but wouldn't be at all surprised to see him argue differently there.

 

[revol68]

Zizek's take on the rise of Stalinism falls down where all leninist readings fall down.

Zizek is however pretty spot on in how the theorectical seed of Stalinism lay in the Party as stand in for the class, which he points out was shared by even supposed heretics like Lukacs.

And yes despite what Lukacs says about Luxemburg, his theory was always trapped within the notion of Party as subject. It still had that dualism, it wasn't dialectic enough. Whether you are Kautsky or Lukacs, the Party is the deux ex machina that resolves the contradiction. Zizek to his credit instead holds that it is the contradiction itself that grounds subjectivity, which is why for all his sins he's a good lad.

 

[Knotted]

Not sure what Lukacs said in his short book on Lenin but wouldn't be at all surprised to see him argue differently there.

But Zizek's discussing History and Class Consciousness! You are... an extraordinary individual.

From Lukacs's pamphlet on Lenin:

For it is of the essence of history always to create the new, which cannot be forecast by any infallible theory. It is through struggle that the new element must be recognized and consciously brought to light from its first embryonic appearance. In no sense is it the party’s role to impose any kind of abstract, cleverly devised tactics upon the masses. On the contrary, it must continuously learn from their struggle and their conduct of it. But it must remain active while it learns, preparing the next revolutionary undertaking. It must unite the spontaneous discoveries of the masses, which originate in their correct class instincts, with the totality of the revolutionary struggle, and bring them to consciousness. In Marx’s words, it must explain their own actions to the masses, so as not only to preserve the continuity of the proletariat’s revolutionary experiences, but also consciously and actively to contribute to their further development. The party organization must adapt itself to become an instrument both of this totality and of the actions which result from it.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lukacs/works/1924/lenin/ch03.htm

It's perhaps a fractionally more Stalinist formulation, but it still preserves the importance of the spontaneity of the masses and the need for the party to be an instrument of the "totality" of the "proletariat's revolutionary experiences". That is the party is the instrument of the class not the vice versa.

 

[Knotted]

Zizek's take on the rise of Stalinism falls down where all leninist readings fall down.

No it doesn't. It bares no relation to Leninism at all. Not even vaguely. Nial Ferguson is more of a Leninist than Zizek.

Zizek is however pretty spot on in how the theorectical seed of Stalinism lay in the Party as stand in for the class, which he points out was shared by even supposed heretics like Lukacs.

And yes despite what Lukacs says about Luxemburg, his theory was always trapped within the notion of Party as subject. It still had that dualism, it wasn't dialectic enough. Whether you are Kautsky or Lukacs, the Party is the deux ex machina that resolves the contradiction. Zizek to his credit instead holds that it is the contradiction itself that grounds subjectivity, which is why for all his sins he's a good lad.

You're as mental as articul8.

 

[revol68]

But Zizek's discussing History and Class Consciousness! You are... an extraordinary individual.

From Lukacs's pamphlet on Lenin:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lukacs/works/1924/lenin/ch03.htm

It's perhaps a fractionally more Stalinist formulation, but it still preserves the importance of the spontaneity of the masses and the need for the party to be an instrument of the "totality" of the "proletariat's revolutionary experiences". That is the party is the instrument of the class not the vice versa.

LOLOCAUST!

 

[Knotted]

Alright, Lukacs saw the party as the instrument of the class and not vice versa. The point is Zizek's inability to represent Lukacs's point of view regardless of how much you deride that point of view.

 

[revol68]

Stalin said the same...

It's almost like what people say about themselves isn't the same as what they are.

 

[articul8]

Alright, Lukacs saw the party as the instrument of the class and not vice versa. The point is Zizek's inability to represent Lukacs's point of view regardless of how much you deride that point of view.

His point is that Lukacs didn't think that the spontaneity of the masses was an adequate basis for revolutionary struggle in the absence of the party. - for GL's Lenin, the masses need to be "brought to consciousness" which wouldn't happen if they organised autonomously.

 

[revol68]

It's trade union consciousness with a degree in philosophy.

Ironic though that a labour party member should criticise it.

 

[Knotted]

Love this. Both articul8 and revol68 have used the defense:

1) Zizek didn't say what he really meant, what he really meant was what I really mean.
2) Lukacs later became a Stalinist so who cares if what we say about him is accurate.

Is it really so difficult to recognise that Zizek has plainly distorted Lukacs?

I'm dealing with fanatics here.

 

[articul8]

yawn

You don't even read the one line you've ripped out of context

Lukacs, of course, is opposed to the ideology of "spontaneity," which advocates the autonomous grass-roots self-organization of the working masses against the externally imposed "dictatorship" of the Party bureaucrats

Lukacs doesn't favour autonomous organisation over the democratic centralist vanguard - even the "good" Lukacs who makes space for spontaneity whilst criticising the "ideology of "spontaneity".

 

[Knotted]

Remember my earlier remark - Zizek (in practice and mood) is strikingly unconcerned about truth and reality.

 

[articul8]

You have yet to demonstrate this.

 

[revol68]

Love this. Both articul8 and revol68 have used the defense:

1) Zizek didn't say what he really meant, what he really meant was what I really mean.
2) Lukacs later became a Stalinist so who cares if what we say about him is accurate.

Is it really so difficult to recognise that Zizek has plainly distorted Lukacs?

I'm dealing with fanatics here.

I never said that Zizek didn't say what he really meant, I said what Zizek says about Lukacs is true and what Lukacs, like every other party hack, says about the Party being an instrument of the class is a joke and not a very funny one.

The more the Party claims to be an instrument of the class, instead of for itself, the more it denies it's own subjectivity, the more it actually asserts itself over the class. It's quite basic stuff really.

 

[articul8]

Incidentally, the phrase "the ideology of "spontaneity" is well chosen. Appealing to the "spontaneous actions of the masses" can be just as ideological as the party stuff.

 

[Knotted]

I mean am I suppose to just let that one slip when I read Zizek? Am I supposed to nod along oblivious to the actual Lukacs with whom I am familiar? How do you read Zizek without a red pen to cross out the errors in every other sentence? Do errors not matter? Not even gross ones? Is it the story that counts? The narrative? Because I can read you bed time stories if you like...

 

[Knotted]

I never said that Zizek didn't say what he really meant, I said what Zizek says about Lukacs is true and what Lukacs, like every other party hack, says about the Party being an instrument of the class is a joke and not a very funny one.

OK you just pretend that Zizek makes the same anarchist assumptions that you make. It's just pity with all these anarchist assumptions that Zizek didn't arrive at anarchist conclusions. How did that happen?

 

[revol68]

I mean am I suppose to just let that one slip when I read Zizek? Am I supposed to nod along oblivious to the actual Lukacs with whom I am familiar? How do you read Zizek without a red pen to cross out the errors in every other sentence? Do errors not matter? Not even gross ones? Is it the story that counts? The narrative? Because I can read you bed time stories if you like...

I know imagine what someone says about someone not matching what the person thinks of themselves.

Christ, did you read that essay I linked to, Zizek's whole fucking point is that the constant claims that the Party doesn't stand over the class, as seperate from it, is precisely how the ideology of the party functioned.

 

[revol68]

OK you just pretend that Zizek makes the same anarchist assumptions that you make. It's just pity with all these anarchist assumptions that Zizek didn't arrive at anarchist conclusions. How did that happen?

It's not an anarchist assumption you clown.

And Zizek's knowledge of anarchism or indeed historical events is pretty shit and something he can be quite rightly taken to task for.
Also this is why Zizek has a hard on for Lenin, he see's Lenin as the practical rejection of the party form, as a kind of shorthand for his notion of subjectivity, shown when he forced the party to go with the revolution.

That's a problem with Zizek, his location of subjectivity in messiah figures, though one gets the impression a large part of that is to troll liberals ie Robespierre etc

In short I think Zizek's concept of subjectivity is worthwhile, even if the examples he chooses to illustrate it with are somewhat lacking.

 

[Knotted]

You can't be serious, now. Yes I read the essay and yes I know that's what Zizek said. What does Zizek know about the subject matter though? Nothing. The treatment is not serious. It's a joke. I know there's lots of revolutionary posturing and know he has a unique take on it and I know he makes it sound sexy. But non of that amounts to anything serious. Is this some sort of post modern joke? Or is it just the Johann Hari of philosophy?

Read Lukacs's preface (1922 if you can't stomach the 1967 one). There's a man who was the model of seriousness whatever his flaws.

 

[Knotted]

That's a problem with Zizek, his location of subjectivity in messiah figures, though one gets the impression a large part of that is to troll liberals ie Robespierre etc

In short I think Zizek's concept of subjectivity is worthwhile, even if the examples he chooses to illustrate it with are somewhat lacking.

Listen to yourself.

 

[revol68]

So Zizek's criticism of the conflation of the party and the class is wrong, how and why?

Tell you what since you were insisting we look at the person and not their theories per se, lets consider Lukacs career, his role in the ruling Communist party and his inability to fully break with it in 1956, instead being forced out.

 

[articul8]

Where is Zizek meant to have misrepresented Lukacs? At what point is Lukacs meant to have preferred autonomous organising to democratic centralism?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

To a layperson, this is all utterly baffling.

 

[Knotted]

Where is Zizek meant to have misrepresented Lukacs? At what point is Lukacs meant to have preferred autonomous organising to democratic centralism?

Nice try. Misrepresent the misrepresentation.

To be fair Zizek isn't outright lying. He is saying Lukacs rejected this straw man idea about spontaneity. But he ignores the fact that Lukacs has spontaneity as a central part of his theory of the party. Zizek goes on to talk about the opposition between party and spontaneous masses in Lukacs. It's painful to read.