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Friday, September 29, 2006
Department of Quick and Egregious Dismissals
A little bird just emailed to say I got a footnote in Jodi Dean‘s new book Zizek’s Politics. “For one of the most quick and egregious dismissals of Zizek’s thought on the basis of his style, see John Holbo, “On Zizek and Trilling” (p. 205). Now, honestly. You can read my paper here (PDF). As Kierkegaard would say: judge for yourselves! The (ahem) argument of the piece is that Zizek’s proposed Kierkegaardian-Leninist political philosophy misunderstands and/or preposterously flouts Kierkegaard’s notion of the teleological suspension of the ethical; also, that Zizek misrepresents and/or flouts the basically utilitarian (end-justifies-the-means) quality of Leninism, as political philosophy. The form of the argument is reductio ad absurdum. I show that if Zizek really advocated this Kierkegaardian-Leninist thing, he would be advocating what he obviously does not want. Also, he is confused about liberalism, since he accuses liberals of being unaware of things every liberal from J.S. Mill on has simply admitted. My guess is that Jodi Dean will not, in response to this post, show up in comments to address the argument. Which would, after all, be awkward under the circumstances. I waggle the fingerbone of scorn.
But I guess it’s nice to get a footnote. (And, oh, the shame of it, mother. To be caught out in such a way.)
Comments
The complete inability of all Zizekians (excuse me—extensive readers of Zizek) to understand _On Zizek and Trilling_ was what finally convinced me that my interpretation of Zizek as knowing laugher at his disciples was correct. It wouldn’t have been bad if they’d understood and dismissed. But to not understand—well.
And I suppose that this means that “egregious” has completed its transformation into shorthand for “egregiously bad”.
The thing that amazes me is that ‘quick’ has come to mean ‘sort of long-winded’.
Yet more evidence of my claim that the word “argument” only ever appears in italics.
Come again?
You don’t remember that I frequently point out that people often use the word “argument” emphatically (i.e., in italics)?
“Only ever” is of course an exaggeration, but I still find it deeply annoying to find the word argument in italics—and in fact, I very frequently do find the word argument in italics. From you, but not only from you.
Sorry, I was being emphatic for emphasis.
Surely. And as an isolated example this is unobjectionable—she says you’re breezily dismissing him, you counter that you elaborated an argument. No big deal. Yet in the context of so many instances of argument in italics—gradually picking up the implication of “Hey, yeah, an argument, ever heard of it?”—it becomes grating. This effect is amplified by the fact that you’re hearkening back to those halcyon days when we all squandered our youths on “theory” debates, a time when arguments (i.e., instances of the word, not actual arguments) were thrown around with reckless abandon....
I mourn my wasted youth. Now I spend a lot of my time studying early medieval theology, which is nice because no one wants to argue about it. (My apologies to those readers who have a deep commitment to Paschasius Radbertus.)
Do I italicize ‘argument’ a lot?
No, I’m making the whole thing up out of thin air.
Well that explains it, then. But only up to a point. Why did you make it up out of thin air?
Okay, I was being sarcastic—I don’t think I made it up.
I did, however, make up the part about people not arguing about medieval theology. They might not argue as much as people in some other fields, but they do argue.
I’m glad we’ve been able to have this discussion.
Just to review: by careful questioning, I have brought you round to the position that argument might not be such a bad thing, after all.
[Please note, Meno, that I did not give the boy the answers. I merely asked him questions. The answers must have been inside him all along.]
I’ve never read a word of Zizek before though as a former student of philosophy at the New School I’ve been inundated with this thought in a rather subliminal manner (via endless looping discussions of themes amenable to his thought, not signs hidden in the student cafe’ like in THEY LIVE). Despite not having read Zizek I found your paper extremely readable and lively and the points made therein to be eminently sensible. That Ms. Dean would brush as she did seems itself a rather quick and egregious dismissal. If I had the time free I’d study up more on her position but I’d rather read neurobiology than Zizek, to be frank (can you blame me?) I enjoyed your paper a great deal. Kudos!
Red herring! My contention was never that argument is a bad thing, only that italicizing the word is obnoxious. No one has presented a compelling argument to disprove that thesis.
Yet it was your contention that, during the debates about theory, the THINGS being exchanged were ‘valueless’ - a squandering of youth. If you are now of the opinion that arguments may be valuable, and if it could be demonstrated to you that those very things were, in fact, arguments, then their coarse exteriors might (to borrow Alcibiades’ metaphor) open up, revealing golden figures of virtue inside.
On the other hand, I might go to bed ...
Thanks for the kind words, Justin.
I do not hold to a theory whereby arguments qua arguments are intrinsically valuable, even if correct, nor necessarily a better use of my time than other activities.
For instance, the Prodigal Son undoubtedly had a good time spending his money on prostitutes and useless friends, but those activities so paled in comparison with the other uses to which he could’ve put the money that they nonetheless count as “squandering.”
This is a Valve exchange for the ages. I love you guys! (*snif*)
Thanks, Dave! I’ll be here all week!
For the record, I have now checked (to confirm or disconfirm the thin air hypothesis.) Before this post I have used the word ‘argument’ in italics on a grand total of one (1) occasion since the Valve launched. I consider that to be a modest enough figure.
Holbo and Kotsko. Two Slovaks who just can’t get along. Such a small country, and they still fight with one another.
Dude, I thought I made this clear. I’m a Norwegian-Scots pseudo-stealth Jew. All Slovaks can sit and spin, so far as my heritage is concerned. (This sort of post is called a ‘ludafisking’, by the by, back in the fjords.)
OK, Ole, if you say so. Does the Holbo family originate near the Norway-Slovakia border?
Just to be safe, maybe you should change your name to Johnson or something like that, based on your father’s name.
"Our facts were wrong, our point was correct.”
I suppose Kotsko claims to be Norweigian too.
Actually, the name “Kotsko” is Polish, tending toward Ukrainian. My actual heritage is more English and Swiss German.
Kotsko: So, I see you are beating your wife again.
Holbo: Not that I noticed. In fact, here is a valid argument to the conclusion that I am not.
Kotsko: [sulkily] You know, arguing can be a very aggressive way of engaging. Have you ever considered that friends might be squandering their friendship by arguing? [prodigal son. harrumph.]
And so, while it is indeed true arguments can be impertinent things, there is an outer comedic frame to these exchanges that I would encourage Adam to consider, possibly by stepping back to take it in. My posts - like my Zizek article - have a well-attested and mysterious and useless power of calling forth consistent mock-outrage at various things I have not, in fact, said and done. And my response is consistently mocking. And so I have a reputation for being aggressive. Honestly, it’s like a frickin “Kung Fu” episode around here sometimes. I’m just a man of peace, wandering and looking for my dad. Or brother. Nephew. Something. And I frickin’ get attacked like clockwork. Well, what am I supposed to do? There won’t be another episode if I don’t defend myself. There ought to be a series: “Kung Fu: the Previous Town,” which is like a medical drama/talk show. It’s a bunch of guys sitting around, waiting for the nurse to check them out, complaining about how aggressive that kung fu guy was. Well frickin’ think of that last week next time. To shift cinematic figures, ‘projection’ ain’t just a booth in the theater.
But surely the the show is really about the fighting. Yes, but - at least in the present case - if there wasn’t all the fighting, it would be a different show. But that decision isn’t mine to make, under the circumstances. If you see what I mean.
Adam, you have a polemical triumphalism/agony of argumentative defeat bipolar thing you go through, and I can see how if you think of philosophy in terms of winning and losing that might be sort of inevitable. (Like Anthony and his whole ‘philosophy as animals fighting for their scrap of turf’ thing.) I myself enjoy argumentative sparring, of course. It’s exciting to match wits. But I don’t think sparring is as much fun after the intellectual point has been sacrificed, for rhetorical advantage. I’m not saying you are doing so right now. But I think you have noticed that this inevitably happens in my theory threads. But it isn’t me doing it. You are projecting others’ sins onto me. Really.
And so I most respectfully ask to be excused from the David Brentish aftermath, when the swing goes out of the mood and you hold me vaguely responsible for the things someone else, not I, have done. When it comes to making arguments, I’m simply not a very personally aggressive guy. (Don’t confuse strong claims with personal aggression. The man - or woman - who is tired of strong claims, per se, is tired of philosophy.) Unless someone else first feigns outrage at one of my claims, rather than engaging it intellectually. Then I make fun of how silly that stance is. (That’s my one polemical trick in every single theory argument we get in. Socratic fun and games at the expense of people who pretend that I’m being outrageous when actually I’m making serious points that call for serious responses. Seriously, I play that one again, again, again.) I don’t take arguments terribly personally. When I lose an argument, I switch sides, or adjust my position. As Socrates says, I am happy to pay the penalty by learning from one who knows better. Seriously. As LaRochefoucault writes: “we can never forgive those whose arguments about theory we ourselves have turned into ‘arguments about theory: beyond thunderdome’, because of that mid-80’s teased-with-highlights thing our own hair is then doing.’
Friends? Friends! (Yes, of course.) And I am very sorry to get hot under the collar, when the thread was petering out in so non-disagreeable a manner. But I’m tired of the whole ‘Holbo is responsible for this, especially when he proves that he isn’t’ thing. I realize it’s half a joke. But I’d like it to be 85 percent a joke. Seriously.
Your statistical evidence about argument is pretty damning. I am likely thinking of SEK and of some other individuals who do not post here very frequently anymore when I complain about argument—I appear to have dragged you into it by a guilt-by-association method, for which I apologize.
(After all, I would be pissed if you accused me of constantly leaving anonymous yet easily-identifiable passive-aggressive comments meant to draw more people into the debate, for instance.)
But be that as it may, the policy of bitching whenever I see the word argument in italics remains in force.
You guys sure sound like Slovaks. I’m not going to give up this quickly.
i’m not completely sure “Slovak” properly describes the fullness of the Holbosian character.
Hey! Don’t drag me into this...I mean, unless I’m guilty. Which I am, I think, but only in defense against ad hominem attacks in which my being evil and retrogressive was more important than any of the points I was trying to make.
You know: “I may be evil and retrogressive, but my argument will increase the world supply of puppies and kittens ten-fold...”
Man, I hate kittens. I mean, puppies are ok, but kittens ... grrr
seriously. folks need to spay or neuter their arguments cats & dogs.