He is talking both about liberals and leftists. I think his shit flinging at leftists is the dumb part.
Western political correctness (“wokeness”) has displaced class struggle, producing a liberal elite that claims to protect threatened racial and sexual minorities in order to divert attention from its members’ own economic and political power.
This Iine is a pretty clear condemnation of liberals, saying they've coopted the rhetoric of the 'woke' left. Something I would largely agree with.
As Marx and Engels wrote more than 150 years ago in the first chapter of The Communist Manifesto:
“The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. … All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.”
This observation is studiously ignored by leftist cultural theorists who still focus their critique on patriarchal ideology and practice. Yet surely the critique of patriarchy has reached its apotheosis at precisely the historical moment when patriarchy has lost its hegemonic role – that is, when market individualism has swept it away. After all, what becomes of patriarchal family values when a child can sue her parents for neglect and abuse (implying that parenthood is just another temporary and dissolvable contract between utility-maximizing individuals)?
Of course, such “leftists” are sheep in wolves’ clothing, telling themselves that they are radical revolutionaries as they defend the reigning establishment. Today, the melting away of pre-modern social relations and forms has already gone much further than Marx could have imagined. All facets of human identity are now becoming a matter of choice; nature is becoming more and more an object of technological manipulation.
This is the critique of the 'woke' leftists invoked in the title, something I do not agree with. Insert Parenti quote about western leftists not being able help themselves from bashing left.
surely the critique of patriarchy has reached its apotheosis at precisely the historical moment when patriarchy has lost its hegemonic role – that is, when market individualism has swept it away
I hope somehow we get Zizek to do an AMA here. I want to bait him into spouting this ivory-tower stupidpol horseshit so that the mods ban his rich eurolib ass.
It's incredible how he just refuses to see any nuance here. Of course there are plenty of aspects of patriarchy that capitalism has swept away. Capitalism radically changes social relations, that's Marx's point I think. And the relations between men and women have been radically changed - some for the better! But how does Zizek go from that to thinking patriarchy isn't a problem anymore, I have no idea.
He seems to be deliberately conflating "patriarchy" as in the class relations of primitive agrarian society with "patriarchy" as in the institutionalized sexism that persisted in subsequent modes of production.
It's also such a dishonest reading of Marx. There is a difference between "patriarchy" in the sense of the basic social order of primitive agrarian societies, in which men and women were essentially the primary caste distinction, and "patriarchy" in the sense of the institutionalized sexism of the modern day, which is a vector of class oppression rather than a hard distinction.
Marx talks about the other form of patriarchy in the Manifesto too, when he talks about marriage. The primary reason marriage is such a point of consternation for Marx and Marxists is that it is a patriarchal institution!
Mind you, there is a lot more wrong with what he said than just that, but the fact that the very same text he is quoting -- which is both short and simple -- clearly contradicts him demonstrates that he is either deeply illiterate (which I doubt) or intentionally dishonest.
He is talking both about liberals and leftists. I think his shit flinging at leftists is the dumb part.
This Iine is a pretty clear condemnation of liberals, saying they've coopted the rhetoric of the 'woke' left. Something I would largely agree with.
This is the critique of the 'woke' leftists invoked in the title, something I do not agree with. Insert Parenti quote about western leftists not being able help themselves from bashing left.
I hope somehow we get Zizek to do an AMA here. I want to bait him into spouting this ivory-tower stupidpol horseshit so that the mods ban his rich eurolib ass.
His take is really dumb. Patriarchy hasn't gone anywhere, it's still a fucking mess. Saying we're post-patriarchy is either very ignorant or bait.
Engels wrote quite a bit about capitalism and the family (with the father as the head).
It's incredible how he just refuses to see any nuance here. Of course there are plenty of aspects of patriarchy that capitalism has swept away. Capitalism radically changes social relations, that's Marx's point I think. And the relations between men and women have been radically changed - some for the better! But how does Zizek go from that to thinking patriarchy isn't a problem anymore, I have no idea.
He seems to be deliberately conflating "patriarchy" as in the class relations of primitive agrarian society with "patriarchy" as in the institutionalized sexism that persisted in subsequent modes of production.
Is this just saying "Intersectionality bad"?
I think it might be...
Yesch because as you know I cannot be paid largesch sumschs of money for writing in favor of itsch
It's also such a dishonest reading of Marx. There is a difference between "patriarchy" in the sense of the basic social order of primitive agrarian societies, in which men and women were essentially the primary caste distinction, and "patriarchy" in the sense of the institutionalized sexism of the modern day, which is a vector of class oppression rather than a hard distinction.
Marx talks about the other form of patriarchy in the Manifesto too, when he talks about marriage. The primary reason marriage is such a point of consternation for Marx and Marxists is that it is a patriarchal institution!
Mind you, there is a lot more wrong with what he said than just that, but the fact that the very same text he is quoting -- which is both short and simple -- clearly contradicts him demonstrates that he is either deeply illiterate (which I doubt) or intentionally dishonest.