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Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2009 04:52:11 -0400
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from lacan dot com
A Short Clarification
Slavoj Zizek
1.
A new text by Ian Parker is circulating around the net http://www.discourseunit.com/ which begins with the claim
that towards the end of the 1980s when the Communist regime in Yugoslavia was in its death throes, I acted
as a « commissar » monitoring and controlling dissident activity…
2. Ian Parker’s Reply
Lighten up Comrades! The piece Slavoj objects to, « Ambivalence and oscillation, » was posted on the http://www.nskstate.com/ site five years ago. Readers can decide for themselves whether that bit of gossip works as a jke and as hook into the discussion of connections between his work and the NSK project, or not. My « Slovene preface, » just published, spells out in more tedious detail my admiration for his work and political solidarity with him against seriously reactionary attempts to undermine it. An English version is available at http://zizekstudies.org/index.php/ijzs/article/view/34/50
3. Slavoj Zizek’s Reply to Ian Parker’s Reply
Unfortunately, the only way I can understand Parker’s reply is to read it as an exemplary case of postmodern cynicism: he tries to sell as a harmless joke what the large majority of readers take as a serious insinuation. And why shouldn’t they? We are talking about the first paragraph of a long « serious » analysis of my alleged « ambiguities »: the story about my acting as a Communist party « commissar » denouncing colleagues is quoted as a starting point (or a « hook into ») the analysis of how my work relates to the NSK project. In short, Parker acts as a moral coward who wants to have a cake and eat it: to spread malicious lies about me while claiming they are innocent jokes exchanged among comrades. The least he should have learned from his visits to Slovenia is that here, stories about denouncing colleagues to the Communist authorities are NOT a joke!
