Slavoj Zizek Met The Buddha On The Road, But Didn’t Kill Him Because He Looked Like Slavoj Zizek

With First As Tragedy, Then As Farce, Slavoj Zizek is at the peak of his considerable critical powers. Zizek’s thesis here is that 9/11, at the beginning of this inauspicious decade, and the ongoing global financial crisis at its end, together signify the twin deaths of liberal democracy as hegemonic paradigm. Zizek maintains that 9/11 marked the death of liberal democracy’s political supremacy, with the financial crisis finishing off its claim to transcendence in the economic sphere. Zizek’s next, more problematic maneuver is a call for a return to a re-imagined communism in response to the failures of liberal democracy and the lurch in which these failures have left us all.

Zizek’s greatest strength is the critical eye he brings to bear on the current state of affairs. The first half of First As Tragedy, Then As Farce sings as Zizek shreds the pieties of liberal democracy’s “cultural capitalism”. Zizek nails precisely how capitalism has masked itself culturally, posing as the antidote for the poison to be found in its very own nature: “Consumption is supposed to sustain the quality of life, its time should be ‘quality time’ – not the time of alienation, of imitating models imposed by society, of the fear of not being able to ‘keep up with the Joneses’, but the time of the authentic fulfillment of my true Self, of the sensuous play of experience, and of caring for others, through becoming involved in charity or ecology, etc.”

Zizek’s key insight is that however you dress up consumption, in order for capitalism, “cultural” or otherwise, to function, consumption must continue apace. Zizek sees the pseudo-transformation of consumption on display in the Starbucks “It’s not just what you’re buying. It’s what you’re buying into.” ad campaign: “The ‘cultural surplus’ is here spelled out: the price is higher than elsewhere since what you are really buying is the ‘coffee ethic’ which includes care for the environment, social responsibility towards the producers, plus a place where you yourself can participate in communal life…. And if this is not enough, if your ethical needs are still unsatisfied and you continue to worry about Third World misery, then there are additional products you can buy.” Taking Zizek’s insight to heart, one is reminded of President Bush’s exhortation of Americans to fulfill their civic duty by continuing to keep shopping after 9/11, and of President Obama’s recent statements to the effect that if Americans will only keep shopping the end of the recession is surely in sight. The truth grasped by Zizek is that be it tragic horror (9/11), economic meltdown, or crippling guilt due to “Third World misery”, capitalism, again “cultural” or otherwise, has reduced us to one response: Keep Shopping!

First As Tragedy, Then As Farce climaxes just past its mid-point , when Zizek takes us where this is all headed (a place where our current leadership dare not gaze, as they remain duty bound in their loyalty to liberal democracy, that spouse of capitalism, the vehicle transporting us exactly where Zizek points). Zizek describes “an apocalyptic end point: ecological breakdown, the biogenetic reduction of humans to manipulable machines, total digital control over our lives…. At all these levels, things are approaching a zero-point; ‘the end of times is near.’” One is forced to decide whether Zizek is yelling “Fire!” in a crowded movie theater or whether he is simply a reasonable pessimist. I know what vibe I am getting.

Having walked up to the abyss and peaked over, Zizek spends the rest of First As Tragedy, Then As Farce in an impassioned plea for a return to a re-imagined communism for the 21st century. Given the track record of “really existing socialism” in the 20th century, it is almost impossible not to dismiss this portion of the text as a manual on How To Make A Very Bad Situation Even Worse. But if you give Zizek the benefit of the doubt that a constructive re-imagining of communism is even possible, then one of Zizek’s throwaway lines reveals the limitations of Zizek’s strict materialist imagination.

The passage in question, a familiar refrain from Zizek’s prior work, is his evaluation of what he terms “Western Buddhism”. Zizek’s stance on Buddhism as practiced in the west is that “it enables you to fully participate in the frantic capitalist game while sustaining the perception that you are not really in it, that you are well aware how worthless the whole spectacle is, since what really matters is the peace of the inner Self to which you know you can always withdraw.” But one need only expose one’s self to such bestselling mainstream “Western Buddhist” authors as Pema Chodron to understand that the entire edifice of Buddhist dharma is intended to cultivate mindfulness, i.e. being fully present to the world and all its suffering. That Zizek’s caricature of “Western Buddhism” inverts the process of mindful awakening into a means of self-centered withdrawal, in effect accusing Buddhism of cultivating the very condition for which it is a cure, leaves Zizek’s painfully obvious reaction formation open to interpretation.

The bet here is that, on one level, Zizek is well aware of what the Buddhists are really on about; the Buddhists make no bones about their belief in the non-conceptual nature of being, that the utility of thinking has its limits, and that mindful awakening occurs only where thought intentionally leaves off. Zizek’s dust jackets proclaim that “he leaves no social or cultural phenomenon untheorized”, equating Zizek with infinite theory. Oft referred to as the “rock star” of critical theory, it should come as no surprise that Zizek’s narcissistic equilibrium rests on the public recognition of the potency and unlimited nature of his theory, of his thought. Buddhism, with its emphasis on the limitations of thought, says to Zizek that there is a limit to how far his thinking can take us, and that the most important steps, even and especially for Slavoj Zizek, must be taken without Slavoj Zizek. The Buddha has thus left Zizek with a gaping narcissistic wound.

On another level, Zizek’s dismissal of “Western Buddhism” highlights the great, lasting flaw of Marxist materialism. The religiously atheist Marxist lineage, of which Zizek is the current standard bearer, bets the house that human social relations can be arranged such that peace and justice will reign. But Zizek, who is as indebted to Freud as he is to Marx, would be wise to revisit Freud’s remarks on communism in Civilization and Its Discontents: “the psychological premises on which the system is based are an untenable illusion. In abolishing private property we deprive the human love of aggression of one of its instruments, certainly a strong one, though certainly not the strongest; but we have in no way altered the differences in power and influences which are misused by aggressiveness, nor have we altered anything in its nature. Aggressiveness was not created by property.” Never was uttered a more succinct explanation for the failure of “really existing socialism” in the 20th century. In whatever form Zizek re-imagines communism, he will have done nothing to alter the basic fact of human aggression, what Freud uncannily named our Death Instinct.

Only the world’s great religions, e.g. Buddhism, are equipped for the duel with the Death Instinct (Freud himself absented psychoanalysis from this epic duel with his belief that it’s utility was limited to tamping down neurosis into common every day misery; Freud’s atheism, shaping his disbelief in religion’s ability to pick up where psychoanalysis leaves off, marks him as one of history’s great pessimists). The frequent failures of religion are at their core no more than testimony to the power of the Death Instinct. It is the Death Instinct, not liberal democratic capitalism, that has brought this world to the brink of disaster. And it is only by connecting with something greater than the Death Instinct (something inside of us, outside of us, who anymore cares where this something resides?) that human civilization will outlast the century. If communism is indeed the answer, we will achieve that answer through (there is no other, less loaded word for it than) religion, including Buddhism. Zizek and his fellow travelers overlook the Buddha (and Christ, etc.) at everyone’s peril. Communism is fine just as it is, Mr. Zizek. Please help us re-imagine religion.