i'm diving into more žižek today

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Trying to get the peace to listen to this two-hour debate on FORA.tv, but not really succeeding yet. I think Bernard-Henri Levy is a total ass, can barely stand to skim his stuff and don't know if I can listen to him here either, but for sure I can listen to Slavoj till the cows come home.

I also got to print out a piece on him from 2003 in The New Yorker one of the many perquisites of being a subscriber, and sorry I can't share it with you here.

If I find more good stuff, I'll link it here later.

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You know, I finally got the peace to listen to that whole debate, and was appalled by their blather about insisting on the equality of women in the Muslim world, their feminist shtick, both of them. That's not feminism. It's chauvinism. The women of the Muslim world get to pick what roles they want. Period. They can't just say Muslim women only say they want their lives they way they are out of fear, though I'm sure some of them really do. They could say they want us to stand willing to help any Muslim women who want out of the constricts of their societies. That is reasonable and humane, but this shit about imposing our ideas about the ideal social order on others is just that. Shit. These guys think that mouthing these values on a stage will make them seem righteous, good, and they are right, but what does that have to do with reality?

Bubkes.

I was also appalled by the moderator's clear devotion to Levy and condescension toward Žižek. I wanted to puke. I can see how Žižek plays into this, with his constant resort to phrases like "Don't be afraid," but, really, the body language on stage was enough to make you want to scream. Moderator and Levy huddled stage right, not looking at Žižek even while answering his questions, and Žižek gesticulating and in paroxysms of nervous ticks stage left, not wishing to dent the format with his need to carry on. I actually imagine Žižek has a better understanding of real feminism than he showed there, but was so oppressed by the setup, the desire not to cause a scene with these two smug fronts for intellectual acumen, that he went along with much too much of what they were saying in order to be able to say anything at all. I imagine this because he's shown such sparkling mental acuity in the lectures I've already heard, and so can't immediately believe it would break down this badly on the question of the equality of women.

For anyone yet unclear on the concept, women do not need permission from men to be equal. We are equal and it's merely wise for men to grasp that. Whether we want to force the issue is completely up to us and the means toward it is completely up to us and the form it takes in our own lives and marriages and societies is completely up to us. Despite the legions of women sniveling about their coworkers' lewd pictures of naked women, et cetera, the reality is we are equal, and capable of asking for help out of oppression or violence without resorting to this perpetual victim crap, OR ceding the decisions about our lives to men. Thank you. Thank you very much indeed.