May 10, 2008
Zizek Contra Tibet
In Le Monde Diplomatique, Slavoj Zizek makes a 9 point case against solidarity with Tibet, sort of:
8. A main reason why so many in the West have taken part in the protests against China is ideological: Tibetan Buddhism, deftly spun by the Dalai Lama, is a major point of reference of the New Age hedonist spirituality which is becoming the predominant form of ideology today. Our fascination with Tibet makes it into a mythic place upon which we project our dreams. When people mourn the loss of the authentic Tibetan way of life, they don’t care about real Tibetans: they want Tibetans to be authentically spiritual on behalf of us so we can continue with our crazy consumerism.
The philosopher Gilles Deleuze wrote: “If you are snagged in another’s dream, you are lost.” The protesters against China are right to counter the Beijing Olympics motto of “one world, one dream” with “one world, many dreams”. But they should be aware that they are imprisoning Tibetans in their own dream. It is not the only dream.
9. If there is an ominous dimension to what is going on now in China, it is elsewhere. Faced with today’s explosion of capitalism in China, analysts often ask when political democracy, as the “natural” political accompaniment of capitalism, will come.
Posted by Robin Varghese at 01:19 PM | Permalink
Comments
Zizek's article on Tibet shows that he is in the service of the Chinese Ideological Apparatus and that he is interested in the return of Totalitarianism. The Slovenian sociologists is posing as a philosopher.
Posted by: Mark | Jun 1, 2008 9:06:50 PM
No, it does not mean that at all.
There are good reasons to be skeptical of the Dalai Lama, not least because of that regime's terrible mismanagement of Tibet and then--shall we say?--convenient claims that he himself was going to modernize the country. It _is_ safe to safe that very many of the Dalai Lama's supporters either don't know the legacy of rule by the Dalai Lama in Tibet or have completely unrealistic beliefs about Tibet and its religion. Let's say nothing about the Dalai Lama, who has blamed the occupation of Tibet on bad karma stemming from feudalism: Didn't Tibet's feudalisms, like all feudalisms, involve only a small minority of the population. But then, it's not as if he would have any knowledge of that system at all, is it?
People interested in freedom have better things to do than get involved with failed theocrats.
Posted by: Randy McDonald | Jun 6, 2008 1:36:10 AM
"People interested in freedom have better things to do than get involved with failed theocrats"
I agree. It's hard to take a "spiritual leader" who takes money from the CIA and hobnobs with Hollywood celebrities seriously.
Posted by: Jared | Jun 6, 2008 9:55:20 AM
It's also hard to take the Dalai Lama seriously when one learns that he feted and funded a mass-murderer - the leader of the Aum Supreme Truth Cult.
Posted by: ilena simova | Jul 12, 2008 11:15:22 AM
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