I've received a number
of requests to comment on the post: “Slavoj Žižek Responds to Noam Chomsky: ‘I
Don’t Know a Guy Who Was So Often Empirically Wrong’” (http://www.openculture.com/2013/07/slavoj-zizek-responds-to-noam-chomsky.html).
I had read it, with some
interest, hoping to learn something from it, and given the title, to find some
errors that should be corrected – of course they exist in virtually anything
that reaches print, even technical scholarly monographs, as one can see by
reading reviews in the professional journals. And when I find them or am
informed about them I correct them.
But not here. Žižek finds
nothing, literally nothing, that is empirically wrong. That’s hardly a
surprise. Anyone who claims to find empirical errors, and is minimally serious,
will at the very least provide a few particles of evidence – some quotes,
references, at least something. But there is nothing here – which, I’m afraid,
doesn’t surprise me either. I’ve come across instances of Žižek’s concept of
empirical fact and reasoned argument.
For
example, in the Winter 2008 issue of the German cultural journal Lettre
International, Žižek attributed to me a racist comment on Obama by Silvio
Berlusconi. I ignored it. Anyone who strays from ideological orthodoxy is used
to this kind of treatment. However, an editor of Harper’s magazine, Sam
Stark, was interested and followed it up. In the January 2009 issue he reports
the result of his investigation. Žižek said he was basing the attribution
on something he had read in a Slovenian magazine. A marvelous source, if it
even exists. And anyway, he continued,
attributing to me a racist comment about Obama is not a criticism, because I
should have made such remarks as “a fully admissible characterization in our
political and ideological struggle.” I leave it others to decode. When asked about
this by Slovene journalist/activist Igor Vidman, Žižek answered that he had
discussed it with me over the phone and I had agreed with him: http://www.vest.si/2009/01/31/zizkov-kulturni-boj/.
Of course, sheer fantasy.
It’s not the only case. In
fact, he provides us with a good example of his practice in these comments.
According to him, I claim that “we don’t need any critique of ideology” – that
is, we don’t need what I’ve devoted enormous efforts to for many years. His
evidence? He heard that from some people who talked to me. Sheer fantasy again,
but another indication of his concept of empirical fact and rational
discussion.
Accordingly, I did not expect
much.
Žižek’s sole example is this:
“I remember when he defended this demonstration of Khmer Rouge. And he wrote a
couple of texts claiming: `No, this is Western propaganda. Khmer Rouge are not
as horrible as that.’ And when later he was compelled to admit that Khmer Rouge
were not the nicest guys in the Universe and so on, his defense was quite
shocking for me. It was that `No, with the data that we had at that point, I
was right. At that point we didn’t yet know enough, so… you know.’ But I
totally reject this line of reasoning.”
Let’s turn the empirical facts
that Žižek finds so boring.
Žižek cites nothing, but he is
presumably referring to joint work of mine with Edward Herman in the ‘70s (Political
Economy of Human Rights) and again a decade later in Manufacturing
Consent, where we review and respond to the charges that Žižek apparently
has in mind. In PEHR we discussed a great many illustrations of Herman’s
distinction between worthy and unworthy victims. The worthy victims are
those whose fate can be attributed to some official enemy, the unworthy ones
are the victims of our own state and its crimes. The two prime examples on
which we focused were Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge and the Indonesian
invasion of East Timor in the same years. A long chapter is devoted to each.
These are very telling examples: comparable atrocities, in the same region, in
the same years. Victims of the Khmer Rouge are “worthy victims,” whose fate can
be blamed on an enemy. The Timorese are “unworthy victims,” because we are
responsible for their fate: the Indonesian invasion was approved by Washington
and fully supported right through the worst atrocities, labeled “genocidal” by
a later UN investigation, but with ample evidence right at the time, as we
documented. We showed that in both cases there was extraordinary lying, on a
scale that would have impressed Stalin, but in opposite directions: in the case
of the KR vast fabrication of alleged crimes, recycling of charges after they
were conceded to be false, ignoring of the most credible evidence, etc. In the
case of ET, in contrast, mostly silence, or else denial.
The two cases are of course not
identical. The ET case is incomparably more significant, because the atrocities
could have easily been brought to an end, as they finally were in September
1999, merely by an indication from Washington that the game is over. In
contrast, no one had any proposal as to what might be done to end KR
atrocities. And when a Vietnamese invasion brought them to an end in 1979, the
Vietnamese were harshly condemned by the government and the media, and
punished, and the US turned at once to diplomatic and military support for the
KR. At that point commentary virtually ceased: the Cambodians had become
unworthy victims, under attack by their KR torturers backed by Washington.
Similarly, they had been unworthy victims prior to the KR takeover in April
1975 because they were under vicious assault by the United States in the most
intensive bombing in history, at the level of all allied bombing in the Pacific
theater during World II, directed against the defenseless rural society,
following the orders transmitted by Henry Kissinger: “anything that flies on
anything that moves.” Accordingly little was said about their miserable fate,
then or until today.
Cambodia scholars have pointed
out that there has been more investigation of Cambodia from April 1975 through
1978 than for the rest of its entire history. Again, not surprising, given the
ideological utility of the suffering of worthy victims, another topic that we
discussed.
In these books and elsewhere we
compiled extensive documentation showing that the pattern is quite normal:
Cambodia under the KR (but, crucially, not before and after) and ET constitute
a particularly dramatic example. We also observed that the pattern cannot be
perceived, giving many examples and offering the obvious explanation.
What we wrote about the vastly
more important case of ET, then and since, has been virtually ignored. The same
is true of what we and others have written about Cambodia during the periods
when they were unworthy victims, under US attack. In contrast, a considerable
industry had been created, with much hysteria, seeking to find some errors in
our review of the evidence on Cambodia under the KR and how it was treated – so
far, without success. I am sure I speak for Ed Herman in saying that we’d be
glad to have it reprinted right now, along with the much more important work on
the unworthy victims, just as we were happy to review the facts and the storm
of criticism a decade later.
It is not too surprising that
no errors have been found. We did little more than review what was in print,
making it very clear – as one of the commentators on Žižek quotes – that “our
primary concern here is not to establish the facts with regard to postwar
Indochina, but rather to investigate their refraction through the prism of
Western ideology, a very different task,” and a far simpler one. We wrote that
we cannot know what the actual facts are, but suggested that commentators keep
to the truth, and that they pay attention to the documentary record and the
most qualified observers, in particular to the conclusions we quoted from US State
Department intelligence, recognized to be the most knowledgeable source.
Furthermore, the chapter was carefully read by most of the leading Cambodia
scholars before publication. So the lack of errors is no great surprise.
Of much
greater general interest is the fact that to this day, those who are completely
in the grip of western propaganda adhere religiously to the prescribed
doctrine: a show of great indignation about the KR years and our accurate
review of the information available, along with streams of falsification; and
silence about the vastly more significant cases of ET and Cambodia under US
attack, before and after the KR years. Žižek’s comments are a perfect
illustration.
As the reader can easily
determine, Žižek provides not the slightest evidence to support his charges,
but simply repeats what he has probably heard – or perhaps read in a Slovenian
journal. No less interesting is Žižek’s shock that we used the data that were
available. He “totally rejects” this procedure. There is no need to comment on
a remark that gives irrationality a bad name.
The remainder of Žižek’s
comments have no relation to anything I’ve said or written, so I will ignore
them.
A question remains as to why
such performances are taken seriously, but I’ll put that aside as well.
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