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Žižek, a New Irrationalist?

September 16 2024


In a text written by the Marxist John Bellamy Foster (2023), he raises the issue of the emergence of new irrationalisms, building upon the thesis put forth by Lukács in The Destruction of Reason (1980) regarding the influence of irrational philosophy in the emergence of Nazism, with a particular focus on Heidegger. This was no mere coincidence; rather, it was a direct consequence of the very nature of class struggle and the development of capitalism. 


In essence, Lukács characterizes irrationalism as a philosophical movement that challenges the exclusive reliance on reason and knowledge to comprehend reality. Instead, it often proposes alternative explanations based on the notion of personal will, instincts, or emotions. This approach for Lukács has historically been associated with reactionary and fascist ideologies[1].


Foster endeavors to reframe this thesis, proposing that a new wave of contemporary philosophers and intellectual currents can be situated within the context of a renewed bourgeois irrationalism. This phenomenon, he argues, has emerged in conjunction with the shifts and transformations occurring within the contemporary capitalist system, particularly in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and the subsequent era of late imperialism. In essence, we are witnessing the emergence of a new generation of philosophers and intellectual currents that challenge the very notion of human reason in the context of the imperialistic tendencies of contemporary monopoly capitalism. 


Among them are “posthumanism, vitalistic new materialism, actor-network theory, and object-oriented ontology—constitute a deeper irrationalism, represented by such putatively left figures as Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, Bruno Latour, Jane Bennett, and Timothy Morton”. As well as Slavoj Žižek, whom he points out has “taken sides with the antihumanist tradition stemming from left-Heideggerianism, generating in his work a carnival of irrationalism. All of these various tendencies are coupled with skepticism, nihilism, and a pessimistic, end-of-the-world outlook”. 


The thesis of the emergence of new irrationalisms deserves to be discussed separately, because of the political consequences it may have[2]. As Foster rightly points out (2023): “Irrationalism in bourgeois culture therefore had as its main object separating any potentially revolutionary class from the realm of rational critique, while substituting instinct, myth, and the continual vomiting up of reason, as in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Underground Man (in Notes from Underground). All of this was linked materially and ideologically to imperialism, barbarism, and fascism”. 

Leaving aside the various currents he mentions, with which they have often depoliticized discourses, becasuse they tend to take distance or nullify the class struggle, I want to highlight the reading he makes of Žižek, to whom he devotes a large part of the text. A reading that is actually very questionable and with little support in the sense that he is an irrationalist philosopher.  


Foster makes four critical arguments to show that Žižek is part of the new irrationalisms. (1) Žižek is actually a Heideggerian. (2) Žižek is an anti-humanist. (3) Žižek’s materialism moves away from praxis, generates pessimism and irrationality. (4) Zizek supports late imperialism.

On the first point, Foster notes: 


In Žižek’s work Less Than Nothing: Hegel and the Shadow of Dialectical Materialism, Heidegger is praised even more strongly. Not only is Heidegger presented here as a figure operating “against the grain” within a practice that is “strangely close to communism,” but we are also told that Heidegger “of the mid-1930s,” when he was a member of the Nazi Party, can be seen as “a future communist”—even if he himself never arrived at that destination. Heidegger’s Nazism, Žižek apologetically declares, “was not a simple mistake, but rather a ‘right step in the wrong direction.’” Thus, “Heidegger cannot be simply dismissed as a German volkisch-reaction.” In his Nazi period, Heidegger, Žižek postulates, was opening up “possibilities which point…toward a radical emancipatory politics.” To be sure, this was written before the publication of the Black Notebooks—although well after many of Heidegger’s Nazi writings had appeared. But as we have seen, the Black Notebooks, with their virulent antisemitism, did little to alter Žižek’s overall defense of Heidegger’s philosophy.


In this sense, it would appear that for Foster the appropriate course of action would be to avoid Heidegger, rather than referencing him, given his endorsement of the Nazi regime. This approach bears resemblance to the phenomenon of cancel culture. Žižek identifies two indisputable facts pertaining to Heidegger. Firstly, Heidegger was complicit in the Nazi regime. Secondly, he was a prominent philosopher who developed important philosophical insights.  Žižek mentions: 


With regard to Heidegger, the result that imposes itself from such a reading – for those who, in spite of all counter-arguments, continue to hold Heidegger for a great philosophical figure – is more than just paradoxical, it is painful. Yes, there are two facts that we should accept: Heidegger was an engaged Nazi and he was a mega-figure of philosophy, he formulated some crucial philosophical insights. But what if Heidegger saw certain crucial things not in spite of but precisely because of his problematic political stance? This absolutely doesn’t imply that there is a deeper truth in Nazism; it means that to see something at the level of ontology, one has to “err” at the ontic level – not just err in the sense of mistakes but err in the sense of terrifying monstrosity. A Jewish friend of mine who is close to Heidegger and simultaneously deeply immersed in Jewish spirituality, claimed that some Talmudic texts indicate how some painful truths can only be said from the position of Satan. This, of course, should not remain our final position: one should pass through Heidegger and supplement his thought so that it no longer requires the Nazi link (to simplify it something, so that the three authentic spiritual positions are no longer those of a poet, a warrior, and a farmer). (Žižek, 2024).


Furthermore, Foster neglects to indicate that the reference to Žižek’s work (Less Than Nothing) is situated within chapter 13 (“The Foursome of Struggle, Historicity, Will . . . and Gelassenheit”), which is dedicated to developing a critique of Heidegger’s philosophy. In this chapter, Žižek points out Lacan’s response to him, highlights his lack of understanding of the Hegelian dialectic, and identifies several instances where Heidegger’s immanent failures prevented him from grasping the class struggle and why he supports nazism. He posits that “the space for the Nazi engagement was opened up by the immanent failure or inconsistency of his thought, by the jumps and passages which are “illegitimate” in terms of this thought itself.” (Žižek, 2012, p. 882). And in the absence of such problems could have potentially led to the emergence of an alternative Heidegger[3]. 


It is important to emphasize that for Žižek, the philosophical insights can be adopted, enhanced, and utilized without being associated with or descending into Nazism. Furthermore, criminalizing Heidegger avoids the uncomfortable question of why a great philosopher would get involved with the Nazi regime (Žižek, 2015). This kind of use should not be used to qualify someone as an irrational philosopher. However, for Foster, this is an unacceptable approach.


Foster’s second argument is, in fact, related to the first. Foster asserts that Žižek is loyal to Heidegger’s anti-humanist agenda, emphasizing that he employs an anti-humanist perspective in his arguments because for him “nature and ecology, along with humanity, are no longer meaningful categories.” In the same way, he disdains nature and ecological problems.


This reading is certainly highly problematic. Žižek has written critically about Latour and Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO) in Sex and the Failure of the Absolute (2020). He is largely critical of the new ontologies, which he rejects – although he states at the outset (p. 27) that the real enemy is the “art of non-thinking,” the phrases of “wisdom” that try to be profound, fascinate us, and depoliticize us. This is why he tries to begin a dialogue with the theory of assemblages with Hegelian philosophy, so to establish that there is no assemblage without the subject, because even the in most inhuman description of reality the subject must be included.


Similarly, Žižek has repeatedly highlighted that one of the most important contemporary crises facing humanity is climate change and environmental problems. In this regard, he points out that getting out of this crisis will require unprecedented international cooperation and the abandonment of the idea of a pristine nature to return to. On the one hand, for Žižek, nature is terrible and constantly changing. He gives the example that the existence of fossil fuels is due to a natural catastrophe of great proportions. Modern human society is built on such a foundation. His assertion that there is no such thing as nature (Mother Earth no longer exists), he is paraphrasing Lacan’s aphorism “woman does not exist,” which is used to point out that there is no such thing as an ideal woman. Idealization is an oppressive fantasy and that also applies to nature. 


Contrary to positions such as Kohei Saito’s degrowth (2002a, 2002b & 2023), Žižek argues that humanity should not act modestly in relation to nature, but should act as a universal being, with all its capacity to transform reality, in order to be able to face the great environmental challenges of today, such as climate change (Žižek, 2022a and 2022b). That planning and international coordination are necessary to this task. This is a position that many might call anthropocentric is far from being anti-humanist. Moreover, this is entirely at odds with Heidegger’s techno-phobia stance.


A further difficulty arises when attempting to categorize Žižek as taking a left-Heideggerian position while also aligning him with Lacanian-Hegelian thought. This suggests that, for Žižek, Heidegger is a foundational author for the development of his philosophy, despite the lack of evidence to support this claim as mentioned above[4]. 

As a third point, Foster points out that the dialectical materialism proposed by Žižek must be rejected as idiosyncratic, idealist, and irrationalist, and even nihilistic as it is justified in Heidegger. For the latter leads “to a withdrawal from any meaningful praxis, a deep pessimism, and a dialectic of irrationalism.”


As previously stated, Heidegger cannot serve as the basis for the philosophical framework established by Žižek. The issue at hand is a discrepancy resulting from a significant theoretical divergence, which Žižek had previously elucidated in the introduction of Sex and the Failure of the Absolute. This entails a contrast between dialectical materialism (put forth by Stalin[5]) and his own formulation of dialectical materialism of failed ontology. In which he also emphasizes that it is a case of ontic parallax. As “Hegel would have put it, subject and object are inherently ‘mediated,’ so that an ‘epistemeological’ shift in the subject’s point of view always reflects an ‘ontological’ shift in the object itself” (Žižek , 2020a, p.5).


Also, Žižek does not deny the class-struggle, neither the necessity of action, but rather emphasizes the importance of abstraction as a preliminary step. Žižek (2004) frequently cites the example of Lenin, who, in the autumn of 1914, withdrew to read Hegel’s Logic in order to develop a radical position that would ultimately lead him to command the Russian Revolution of 1917. This was a period of significant upheaval, marked by the collapse of the Second International and the outbreak of World War I. 


The case of his pessimism is more justified, as he consistently identifies himself as such, regardless of the interpretations he offers or the paths he suggests. His most significant pessimistic assertion is that there is an absence of an international proletarian movement capable of effecting change in the prevailing circumstances. Consequently, he employs the concept of an “event”, defined as a transformative occurrence that disrupts the established order of things, which can only be evaluated as such retrospectively. 


Also, several of his political proposals are not so radical as the revolutionary Marxist proposals would seek to, like the idea that “instead of just focusing on antagonism, it is therefore crucial for a Leftist government [in Europe] today to define a role for the private sector, to offer the private sector precise conditions under which it can operate. As long as (at least a good part of) the private sector is needed for the smooth functioning of our societies, one should not just antagonize it but also propose a positive vision of its role”. (Zizek, 2020b, p. 290). This position is clearly different from the revolutionary Marxist position.


Finally, Foster points out that Žižek’s suggestion that NATO should continue to support Ukraine and withdraw from peace talks could lead to nuclear war. For Foster, by offering uncritical support “for the goals of the imperial triad of the United States/Canada, Europe, and Japan, or to support a global NATO in the late imperialist context, is to identify with the irrational will to power at the imperial center of the world economy, leading either to the eternal return of exploitation/expropriation, or else Hartmann’s cosmic suicide”.


Žižek’s stance is not as straightforward as it may initially appear. On the one hand, he advocates for the reinforcement of NATO, yet without the involvement of the United States[6]. What is the purpose of NATO if it lacks its primary military force? The rationale behind this proposal is that Žižek perceives the concept of Europe as a bastion of universalism to be under siege from all sides[7]. Furthermore, the threat is not solely emanating from Russia; it is also emanating from the USA and Asia. He asserts that the right wing of the global political landscape holds a deep disdain for Europe and seeks its downfall.  


In this sense, it is taking a political position on the independence and union of Europe, based on its interests and universal left-wing values. This political position is one of confrontation with other forms of ideologies that Žižek has been denouncing for some time. These include the ideologies of the New Age movement, the popularization of Buddhism, and the Russian philosopher Alexander Dugin, who supports the invasion of Ukraine and is known for his interpretation of Heidegger. Žižek (2024) states:  


One should agree with Michael Millerman who, in his “Alexander Dugin’s Heideggerianism”, argues that the infamous Aleksandr Dugin is a legitimate Heidegger pupil: Heidegger is not just one of the sources or inspirations of Dugin’s philosophy, a proper understanding of his thought plays a key role in determining Russia’s future: to master Heidegger’s thought is “the main strategic task of the Russian people and Russian society,” and “the key to the Russian tomorrow”.

“For Dugin, philosophy is thus immanently political, inclusive of advocating war: war in Ukraine is a war between Western global modernism and the Eurasian spirituality. There is war because (as Heidegger saw) the West reached its deepest decline in global liberal hegemony, Western modernity is Evil embodied, while Russia did not yet fully articulate its Eurasian spiritual identity – this task still lies ahead, and only Russian philosophy grounded in Heidegger can do it. Here Dugin replaces Germany (as, for Heidegger, the unique spiritual nation) with Russia: a “new beginning” – the awakening expected by Heidegger, a new Ereignis – will take place in Russia, not in Germany, not even in the West. Dugin refers here even to Russian language itself: he notes how the terms that sound artificial in Heidegger’s German (like “in-der-Welt-sein,” being-in-the-world) have much more natural everyday equivalents in Russian.”


What Foster is certainly pointing out is that reason requires “both exploitation and expropriation, and the related extremists tendencies of our time, be overcome” and that “the source of such an identity of “material interests with a class” currently lies primarily in the Global South, and with those revolutionary-scale movements everywhere seeking to overturn the entire capitalist-colonial-imperialist system for the sake of humanity and the earth.” 


Something that Žižek has denounced and supported the aforementioned social movements in the Global South. This is evidenced by its support for the government of Evo Morales, and even the recognition of his former vice-president Álvaro García Linera, a Marxist whom it recognizes for being a formidable theorist and for the outcomes achieved during his term of office[8]. 


For the above reasons, it is difficult to categorize Žižek as an irrationalist, anti-humanist, or pro-imperialist, as this would obscure the nuances of his philosophical contributions. It would be inaccurate to suggest that Žižek’s political positions are irrational simply because they differ from those proposed by some Marxist authors, unless one wants to take a hard line and establish that irrationalism consists in rejecting Marxism[9]. He could be seen as non-radical or reformist, but it would be unfair to label him as irrational. To do that, we need to stablish an immanent critic as Lukács (1980, p. 5) said “it must show in real terms, in the philosophical material itself, the philosophical falsity and the distortion of basic philosophical questions, the negation of philosophy’s achievements and so on to be inevitable, objectively philosophical consequences of such stances“. Something in which Foster falls short in his argumentation and, in fact, Žižek do it with Heidegger[10] as Lukács suggests. 


In this sense, if the challenge issued by Žižek that it is time to revert from Marx to Hegel is a challenge to some Marxist theorists, perhaps it is necessary to redouble the bet. Rephrasing Marx: The mystification that dialectics suffers in Žižek’s hands does not at all prevent him from being the first to present its general forms of movement comprehensively and consciously. With him it is upside down. It is necessary to invert him in order to discover the rational nucleus within the mystical shell.


Footnotes:

  1. Daniel Tutt (2022) posits that the irrationalism currents referenced by Lukács pertain to neo-Kantian currents. These currents establish that objective reality in itself cannot be known. Reason is insufficient for that purpose. So “irrationalim is a series of strategies to confront and to deal with the Kantian thing in itself” (Tutt, 2023).

  2. A discussion of the work of Georg Lukács’s The Destruction of Reason is forthcoming in a new issue of the Historical Materialism Journal, edited by Daniel Tutt and Matthew Sharpe.

  3. Žižek (2012, p.902) writes in this regard: “The fact remains that, as we have tried to indicate apropos the status of the pole mass and collective will, Heidegger does not follow his own logic to the end when he endorses the fascist compromise. To employ again a familiar metaphor: fascism wants to throw out the dirty bath water (the liberal-democratic individualism that comes with capitalism) and keep the baby (capitalist relations of production), and the way it tries to do this is, again, to throw out the dirty water (the radical polemos which cuts across the entire social body) and keep the baby (the corporatist unity of the people). But what should be done is the exact opposite: to throw out both babies (capitalist relations as well as their corporatist pacification) and keep the dirty water of radical struggle. The paradox is thus that, in order to save Heidegger from Nazism, we need more will and struggle and less Gelassenheit”.

  4. It is accurate to conclude that Žižek frequently references Heidegger in his writings. However, as previously mentioned, in Less Than Nothing, he dedicated an entire chapter to critiquing Heidegger’s philosophy.

  5. Foster is not a Stalinist.

  6. “…we need a stronger Nato – but not as a prolongation of the US politics…The US strategy to counteract through Europe is far from self-evident: not just Ukraine, Europe itself is becoming the place of the proxy war between US and Russia, which may well end up by a compromise between the two at Europe’s expense. There are only two ways for Europe to step out of this place: to play the game of neutrality – a short-cut to catastrophe – or to become an autonomous agent…”. (Žižek, 2022c). 

  7. “And this brings is back to the European emancipatory legacy which is incompatible with the “X first” policy and which bothers Trump as well as the European populists. It is the Europe of transnational unity, the Europe vaguely aware that, in order to cope with the challenges of our moment, we should move beyond the constraints of nation-states; the Europe which also desperately strives to somehow remain faithful to the old Enlightenment motto of solidarity with victims, the Europe aware of the fact that humanity is today One, that we are all on the same boat (or, as we say, on the same Spaceship Earth), so that other’s misery is also our problem.” (Žižek, 2020b, p. 281).

  8. Žižek has said this on several interviews, and he has stated it in the preface he wrote for the book by García Linera (2023).

  9. “As Tom Rockmore has argued, this claim maintains the following: non-Marxist philosophy is intrinsically incapable of knowledge of reality, and the absolute is cognizable only from a Marxist perspective. If we accept this thesis, combined with the prior thesis that Engels presents how it was only Marxism and the workers’ movement that continued Hegelianism following 1848, then irrationalism thus consists of the rejection of Marxism, since the rejection of Marxism is akin to the rejection of what is rational and to discern the rational—Hegelian philosophy is necessary.” (Tutt, 2022).

  10. “In any serious philosophical analysis, external critique has to be grounded in immanent critique: hence we must show how Heidegger’s external failure (his Nazi involvement) reflects the fact that he fell short as measured by his own aims and standards.” (Žižek, 2012, p. 8821).


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