ZIZEK’S DELEUZE/LACAN PACT: an ongoing project

In my comments on Zizek’s INCONTINENCE OF THE VOID I  have given him the best and most charitable reading I can, given his refusal both of deconstructionist negativity and of « new » positivity. The same applies to my comments on his previous book DISPARITIES.

I see no value at all in OOO, be it hard (Harman) or soft (Morton), and other versions of Speculative Realism leave me unconvinced. I have tried to set the historical record right concerning realism on my blog. I took considerable time, several years in fact, before coming to this conclusion.

Speculative Realism pales in comparison to Latour, Badiou, Stiegler and Zizek – even if all these thinkers’ systems of thought have serious problems in my view.

I think Zizek is wrong in his evaluation of « new materialisms », but I do not know their work very well.

Zizek is by no means hostile to all of Deleuzian thought, and his favourable citations of Deleuze have become more frequent. He has even theorised a « pact » that would take the best parts from both.

But what I have tried to establish is a compromise, a pact between Deleuzians and Lacanians. Against the Deleuzians and the Lacanians themselves. Of course, if we reduce Lacan to Oedipus, to prohibition, etc. this pact cannot be established. But if we envisage the Lacan of the theory of the real, who is much more interesting, ties can be established with Deleuze » (Zizek, A TRAVERS LE REEL, page 17 my translation).

However, in practice Zizek oscillates between a naive dogmatic pre-Deleuzian Lacanism and a more sophisticated post-Deleuzian one. So I certainly don’t take his evaluations as gospel.

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