Fw: Save us from the saviours

[Matthew Cissell]

----- Forwarded Message -----
From: Matthew Cissell <macissell at yahoo.es>
To: Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com> 
Sent: Monday, June 11, 2012 3:31 PM
Subject: Re: Save us from the saviours
 

Man that Zizek is something. I suppose we should be happy that he left out the Lacan-Hegel stuff. I wonder how much the 'communist' gets for 1285 words? 
"Save us from the saviours"! Ah yes, please save us. And who can save us? Super Zizek! He leaps over phallogocentric buildings in a single Lacanian leap, he flies faster than the speed of marxist dialectics on zanax and coffee!
Anyone who has read Marx knows that he was up on the economics of his day, knew West and Ricardo. Is that true of Zizek? I mean economists don't agree about the present economic situation in Europe (it's roots or the solution - think Krugman and all the rest weighing in on the subject), but Zizek knows. 
I share Zizek's concern about the rise of radical right populist politics from Greece to Hungary (lets not forget Spain and others have their own elements waiting to rise to the top like scum on the bottom of a pond), but I feel he has left something out. When he writes, "The Greeks are not passive victims: they are at war with the European economic establishment..." he is not far off. A fair part off the problem in Greece was summarized by Ms. Lagarde when she told Greeks to pay their taxes. A profligate federal government with a populace that doesn't pay taxes is not a passive victim. The Italians kept choosing Berlusconi and look what they got. 
By turning this into 'The (true) left must save us from...' he's frames the whole issue ideologically and people will turn off before he can make a point. Great article for the intended audience, but if I want to listen to someone's spliel about the present economic situation than I'll take Krugman as a a defender of liberal values, it seems a more sober analysis.  But that's just me.
Surly MC otis

________________________________
 From: Dave Monroe <against.the.dave at gmail.com>
To: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org> 
Sent: Monday, June 11, 2012 3:15 AM
Subject: Save us from the saviours
 
Slavoj Žižek on Europe and the Greeks

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v34/n11/slavoj-zizek/save-us-from-the-saviours
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20120611/f5d75033/attachment.html>