I’ve already had a discussion with someone about it, but it’s a smear for the most part. I mean I guess it’s true that he’s like, the god of self-plagiarizing, but everyone already accounts for it when reading Zizek.

Specifically, on the theory part, which I think should be the most important part, it doesn’t really engage in any meaningful level. It takes the usual grandiose statements you would find on any ontological work and just interprets them at its most superficial level, and also tries for some reason to isolate Zizek from any other ontological authors, even though Zizek lays out clearly who is building this stuff from (a slam on Zizek’s Less Than Nothing that doesn’t double as a slam on Derrida or Badiou is kind of throwing the stone and hiding your hand afterwards). And also any piece that doesn’t engage with Sublime Object or Plague of Fantasies is kinda useless as a dunk tbh. The core Zizek ideas are there, and not on whatever fucking shitty pamphlet he published for some smackaroonies, that only sort of remix the same shit.

And on the “Zizek is problematic” part, I don’t think anyone should take a Medhi Hassan (of all fucking people) seriously at all, but it’s hard not to build a bad rep when he tries, sometimes to mixed success, to “turn arguments on its head”. I mean, trying to argue that Europeans should accept middle eastern immigrants even though they “subordinate women” because europeans also “subordinates women” and thus are not, in any conceivable way, better, is an incredibly spicy fucking take, holy shit, but it’s also effective to think about. It means engaging directly with Europe’s more fascist tendencies (the same that forbids Europe from taking in immigrants), something europe-fawning liberals are obviously unwilling to do. There is something self-sabotaging on the idea that Europe should only accept spirits of pure good and well-being, why not get rid of it and instead of trying to elevate immigrants to this level of ideal flawlessness, grant them the rights of travel and immigration on the sole basis of being human beings?

And to finish, professor, notice how it preaches for lesser evilism, and that Clinton presidency couldn’t be so bad. I mean, liberals have been preaching for lesser evilism for almost 6 years now, it’s almost time to, yet again, ask French people to vote for yet another asshole to keep Le Pen at bay, again. It’s kinda sad. Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.

As a side note, even if I didn’t convince you and still think Zizek is problematic or whatever, I’d still recommend why theory tbh. It doesn’t attempt to do these sick ideological kickflips with touchy subjects. Cool people all around.