Black Bucket Essays
Volume 1, Issue 3
“Ideology is strong exactly because it is no longer experienced as ideology…we feel free because we lack the very language to articulate our unfreedom.”
- Slavoj Zizek, In Defense of Lost Causes
Bart O'Reilly
American intellectual Noam Chomsky has attacked Slavoj Zizek for posturing and lacking substance. Chomsky has said that he is not interested in theory because there is nothing of substance behind it. It seems to me that Chomsky is criticizing the whole tradition of Continental Philosophy in particular the kind so fashionable such as Zizek, Lacan and Michel Foucault. So let us try to unpack the above statement with such a criticism in mind. What is Zizek really saying here? Did we ever experience ideology as ideology? Isn’t the whole point that it be naturalized and seem like an unquestionable truth? What would “the very language to articulate our unfreedom” actually look like? How would it be put into practice?
The ideology of freedom is a very a powerful propaganda tool in the United States. Freedom functions as ideology here in a profound way and I am not sure that it is ever really unmasked as ideology. If you happen to listen to Democracy Now and read the rare and illuminating insights of a very small number of American Intellectuals, (Chomsky being the most well known) you may begin to understand. Otherwise the ideological mechanisms of the state are well hidden by the mainstream media. When the soldiers invade sovereign nations it is to “free” the people from the grips of a regime whose interests do not align with those of our corporate leaders. Freedom soothes public opinion and justifies terrible atrocities and war crimes. Wars create more wars as we are now seeing with ISIS who again threaten our freedom. Little attention is given to the fact that Iraq never had any connection with Al Qaeda and that “freeing” Iraq from Saddam Hussein actually created ISIS.
The ideology of freedom professes that the citizens of this country are in some way more free than those even in Europe but let us look at some facts. College tuition is free or dramatically lower in Europe than it is in the United States. Every year thousands of American graduates enter an uncertain job market saddled with debt. Wall Street borrows money from the fed at a lower rate than the typical American student. Yet they are somehow freer than their European counterparts. Where does this idea even come from? It is ingrained in the fabric of society that we are free and as a result should tolerate almost anything in order to maintain this freedom.
Ironically enough I think that the language to articulate our unfreedom comes from the rather plain speaking Noam Chomsky and perhaps the likes of Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Saunders. The admittedly enjoyably cryptic and esoteric writings of theorists like Zizek do leave me wondering what a practical application of a Lacanian Marxist might look like in the early and deeply divided days of 21st Century America.
Volume 1, Issue 3
“Ideology is strong exactly because it is no longer experienced as ideology…we feel free because we lack the very language to articulate our unfreedom.”
- Slavoj Zizek, In Defense of Lost Causes
Bart O'Reilly
American intellectual Noam Chomsky has attacked Slavoj Zizek for posturing and lacking substance. Chomsky has said that he is not interested in theory because there is nothing of substance behind it. It seems to me that Chomsky is criticizing the whole tradition of Continental Philosophy in particular the kind so fashionable such as Zizek, Lacan and Michel Foucault. So let us try to unpack the above statement with such a criticism in mind. What is Zizek really saying here? Did we ever experience ideology as ideology? Isn’t the whole point that it be naturalized and seem like an unquestionable truth? What would “the very language to articulate our unfreedom” actually look like? How would it be put into practice?
The ideology of freedom is a very a powerful propaganda tool in the United States. Freedom functions as ideology here in a profound way and I am not sure that it is ever really unmasked as ideology. If you happen to listen to Democracy Now and read the rare and illuminating insights of a very small number of American Intellectuals, (Chomsky being the most well known) you may begin to understand. Otherwise the ideological mechanisms of the state are well hidden by the mainstream media. When the soldiers invade sovereign nations it is to “free” the people from the grips of a regime whose interests do not align with those of our corporate leaders. Freedom soothes public opinion and justifies terrible atrocities and war crimes. Wars create more wars as we are now seeing with ISIS who again threaten our freedom. Little attention is given to the fact that Iraq never had any connection with Al Qaeda and that “freeing” Iraq from Saddam Hussein actually created ISIS.
The ideology of freedom professes that the citizens of this country are in some way more free than those even in Europe but let us look at some facts. College tuition is free or dramatically lower in Europe than it is in the United States. Every year thousands of American graduates enter an uncertain job market saddled with debt. Wall Street borrows money from the fed at a lower rate than the typical American student. Yet they are somehow freer than their European counterparts. Where does this idea even come from? It is ingrained in the fabric of society that we are free and as a result should tolerate almost anything in order to maintain this freedom.
Ironically enough I think that the language to articulate our unfreedom comes from the rather plain speaking Noam Chomsky and perhaps the likes of Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Saunders. The admittedly enjoyably cryptic and esoteric writings of theorists like Zizek do leave me wondering what a practical application of a Lacanian Marxist might look like in the early and deeply divided days of 21st Century America.
