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SLAVOJ ZIZEK'S THIRD WAY.Rex [[Butler ]] and [[Scott Stephens]]. [[lacan ]] dot com 2005

This essay, "Slavoj [[Zizek]]'s [[Third ]] Way", is the Editors' Introduction to the second volume of his Selected Writings, <i><b>The [[Universal ]] Exception</b></i> (Continuum, 2005). This volume includes the essays "Welcome the Desert of the [[Real]]", "The Prospect of Radical [[Politics ]] Today", "Against the [[Double ]] [[Blackmail]]" and "[[Iraq ]] - Where is the [[True ]] [[Danger]]?", referred to here.

Let us begin here by noting an odd coincidence. After the terrorist strikes of 11 September 2001, both [[Slavoj Zizek ]] and Jean [[Baudrillard ]] leapt immediately into print. The two authors were, of course, already well-known for their interventions in [[world ]] [[political ]] events, often [[writing ]] responses in newspapers or on the internet mere days after momentous events or at the height of major [[public ]] debates (the [[role ]] of [[NATO ]] in [[Yugoslavia]], the attempted genocide in Rwanda, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the issues surrounding genetic cloning and manipulation). But, paradoxically, for all of their usual haste in making their views known and amid calls from both sides of politics for [[swift ]] retaliation, they both urged a kind of caution or delay. Baudrillard, for his part, wrote in <i>The Spirit of [[Terrorism]]</i>:

The [[whole ]] play of [[history ]] and [[power ]] is disrupted by this [[event]], but so, too, are the [[conditions ]] of [[analysis]]. You have to take your [[time]]. While events were stagnating, you had to anticipate and move more quickly than they did. But when they speed up this much, you have to move more slowly-though without allowing yourself to be buried beneath a welter of [[words]], or the gathering clouds of war, and preserving intact the unforgettable incandescence of the [[images]].<ref>1</ref>

While Zizek, for his part, in the essay "Welcome to the Desert of [[the Real]]", stated that any immediate reaction would be little more than an impotent <i>passage à l'[[acte]]</i>, whose sole [[purpose ]] would be "to avoid confronting the true [[dimension ]] of what occurred on 11 September".

To draw out what is going on here more precisely, it is crucial to realize that it is not simply a matter of these two highly "engaged" thinkers suddenly losing their nerve in the face of this almost overwhelming disaster, as so many [[others ]] on the [[Left ]] did. Rather, it is astonishing how quickly they formulated their responses to what had happened and distributed [[them ]] via the internet around the world. And yet at the same time what they advise is a [[form ]] of inaction, a pause, a time for [[reflection]]. This would, however, not be to do [[nothing]], but to take the opportunity to [[think]]. It is through the minimal delay introduced by this [[thinking ]] that we might somehow avoid those [[hysterical ]] calls for [[action ]] that would merely reproduce the existing [[ideological ]] co-ordinates (of which even the [[claim ]] that everything is different following 11 September is only a variant, a "hollow attempt to say something 'deep' without really [[knowing ]] what to say"). As Zizek writes in his essay "The Prospect of Radical Politics Today", in a surprising [[inversion ]] of [[Marx]]'s famous [[thesis ]] 11 ("[[Philosophers ]] have hitherto only [[interpreted ]] the world; the point is to [[change ]] it"):

The first task today is precisely not to succumb to the temptation to act, to intervene directly and change things (which then inevitably ends in a cul-de-sac of debilitating [[impossibility]]: 'What can one do against [[global ]] [[Capital]]?'), but to question the hegemonic ideological coordinates.

Indeed, once [[identified]], this stress on thinking—on thinking as such—can be seen to form the basis of all of Zizek's specific political commitments. We might just [[speak ]] of [[three ]] such instances that occur in this book. In his response to NATO's [[endorsement ]] of some minimal standard of "[[human ]] rights" in Kosovo, Zizek insists that the [[transparent ]] evocation of non-political "[[humanitarianism]]" is little more than a ruse to prevent us from thinking "the shady world of international Capital and its strategic interests". In the aftermath of the collapse of the WTC Towers, Zizek unexpectedly endorses the plea of Mullah Omar, the [[leader ]] of the Taliban in Afghanistan, that Americans should exercise their own judgement when responding to 11 September: "Don't you have your own thinking?" And, finally, in the months following the [[United States]]' invasion of Iraq, Zizek, while rejecting the combined [[French ]] and [[German ]] opposition as a kind of appeasement "reminiscent of the [[impotence ]] of the League of Nations against [[Germany ]] in the 1930s", nevertheless asserts that the very [[awareness ]] of their failure to provide a substantive alternative itself constitutes a positive [[sign]]. But is there a [[logical ]] form, a consistent [[structural ]] [[principle]], behind Zizek's various positions with [[regard ]] to these events? Might they not be seen, like that [[France ]] and Germany he condemns, as merely the hysterical [[rejection ]] of the existing alternatives without [[being ]] able to put forward anything of their own? In a [[split ]] between form and [[content]], might we not say that on the level of form Zizek wants to see himself as an "engaged" [[intellectual]], but on the level of content he is struck by a kind of [[paralysis]], unable to [[suggest ]] any meaningful action? In fact, this exact criticism, often coming from the perspective of a pseudo-[[ethical]], pragmatic <i>Realpolitik</i>, is often made against Zizek. It has been put forward by the [[English ]] deconstructionist Simon [[Critchley]], <a [[name]]="2x"></a><a href="#2">2</a> by Zizek himself (which shows that he is not entirely unaware of its pertinence); <a name="3x"></a><a href="#3">3</a> but undoubtedly the exemplary [[instance ]] is that of early Zizek ally and critic of [[postmodern ]] "[[identity]]" politics Ernesto [[Laclau]]. As Laclau writes in the [[exchange ]] between him, Zizek and [[Judith ]] Butler, <i>[[Contingency]], [[Hegemony]], [[Universality]]</i>:

In his previous essay—"[[Class ]] [[Struggle ]] or [[Postmodernism]]? Yes, please!"—Zizek had told us that he wanted to overthrow [[capitalism]]; now we are served notice that he also wants to do away with [[liberal ]] democratic regimes—to be replaced, it is true, by a thoroughly different [[regime ]] [[about ]] which he does not have the courtesy of letting us [[know ]] anything... Zizek does actually know a third type of sociopolitical arrangement: the [[Communist ]] bureaucratic regimes of Eastern [[Europe ]] under which he lived. Is that what he has in [[mind]]?... And if what he has in mind is something entirely different, he has the elementary intellectual and political [[duty ]] to let us know what it is... Only if that explanation is made available will we be able to start talking politics, and abandon the theological terrain. Before that, I cannot even know what Zizek is talking about—and the more this exchange progresses, the more suspicious I become that Zizek himself does not know either. <a name="4x"></a><a href="#4">4</a></blockquote>

Ironically here, with surprising clarity, Laclau [[identifies ]] actually what is at stake in Zizek's [[work]], the fundamental wager on which his various interventions depend: the possibility of some "third type" of socio-political organization not covered by either the existing liberal democratic regimes or their socialist alternatives. Again, let us pursue this [[idea ]] through those three [[representative ]] examples discussed above. With regard to the NATO [[intervention ]] in Kosovo, Zizek seeks to avoid what he calls the "double blackmail" of having to choose between sides, the argument that, "if you are against the NATO bombings, you are for [[Milosevic]]'s [[proto-Fascist ]] regime of ethnic cleansing; if you are against Milosevic, you support the global [[capitalist ]] New World [[Order]]". Instead, his point is that "phenomena like Milosevic's regime are not the opposite of the [[New World Order]], but rather its [[symptom]], the [[place ]] from where the hidden [[truth ]] of the New World Order emerges". With regard to the terrorist attacks on the WTC, Zizek rejects the argument that would have it that, "if one simply, only and unconditionally condemns the attacks, one cannot but appear to endorse the blatantly ideological [[position ]] of American innocence under attack from Third World [[Evil]]; if one draws attention to the deeper socio-political causes of Arab extremism, one cannot but appear to blame the victims who ultimately got what they deserved". Instead, the "only solution is to reject this very opposition and to adopt both positions simultaneously, which can be done only if one resorts to the [[dialectical ]] [[category ]] of [[totality]]". And, finally, with regard to the American invasion of Iraq, Zizek refuses both proposed alternatives, arguing both for and against military intervention: "Abstract pacifism is intellectually stupid and morally wrong—one must oppose a [[threat]]. Of course the fall of [[Saddam]]'s regime would have been a relief to a large majority of the Iraqi [[people]]. Of course militant [[Islam ]] is a horrifying [[ideology]]". Instead, "although this (all these reasons for war) is true, the war is wrong".<br> <br>Now, in a conventional political [[discourse]], the elaboration of the wrong alternatives would be merely a preliminary to the eventual laying out of the correct one. Or, in a pseudo-[[Hegelian ]] manner, it would be a matter of somehow finding a compromise between them, picking out the best elements of both. But this is not what Zizek means by any "third type of socio-political arrangement": it is not any [[balance ]] or negotiation that he is interested in. Rather, if Zizek seeks to make a [[choice ]] at all between these two alternatives, it is precisely to maintain the choice. If there is a solution to the problem he sets out, it is not to be found by deciding between alternatives or proposing some middle-path between them, but by thinking both together. Or if, within the current political [[situation]], Zizek is [[forced ]] to choose between them, he nevertheless wants to think what precedes that choice, what both choices exclude and stand in for. In a manner consistent with his analysis of how a [[subject ]] is formed within the [[symbolic ]] order by means of a certain "[[forced choice]]" as to whether to enter [[society ]] or not—which, although it appears free, is in fact forced because the only alternative to it is psychosis—so in his political pronouncements Zizek wants to think a situation before what we might call our political "forced choice", as though we did not have to make it. <a name="5x"></a><a href="#5">5</a><br>

However, Zizek does not stop there, which would again indicate a certain paralysis of thinking before the event. Instead, what he seeks to render through the [[identification ]] of those two [[false ]] choices we are confronted with is their [[speculative identity]]. Upon what is this identity founded? Why are all choices within our given ideological co-ordinates fundamentally the same choice? [[Hegel ]] would have it that it is because of the "dark, shapeless abyss" of abstract universality, which like the [[Lacanian ]] Real is "always in the same place". And Zizek will translate this in his work as the undifferentiated [[domain ]] of global Capital. That is to say, for Zizek, as for Hegel, thinking is the withholding of the forced choice in thinking the totality that precedes and conditions it. But, in thinking this totality, in immersing it in the medium of representational thinking—<i>Vorstellung</i>—Zizek, following Hegel, also introduces a kind of delay into it, makes it [[pass ]] from Substance to Subject. <a name="6x"></a><a href="#6">6</a> In so doing—this is Marx's point that the only alternative to Capital is Capital itself—Zizek shows that Capital is "re-marked" from somewhere else, is only possible because from the beginning it stands in for its own opposite. To the very extent that it can be thought—this is Hegel's point about immersing abstract universality in the medium of representational thinking—it is not a true universality, it is not abstract enough. It is only its own exception. Or, to put it [[another ]] way, it is revealed as exception by a still greater universality, which is Zizek's point concerning universality: it is nothing else but what makes every [[particular ]] particular.<br>

But to go back to that passage from Substance to Subject, which is the power of dialectical thinking, we might say that—in a literal way—all Zizek does here is "humanize" Capital (but then, from this perspective, what is the "human"?). And this cannot but remind us of that "[[Third Way]]" alternative Zizek so vehemently rejects throughout his work. However, are the reasons for this rejection—and let us even suggest, as he does with regard to Blair and Haider, a certain clinching of Zizek and Blair—not to be explained as arising out of Zizek's own uncomfortable proximity to Blair, as indeed is hinted at by Laclau's [[suggestion ]] that what is implicit in Zizek is some kind of [[impossible ]] "third way"? <a name="7x"></a><a href="#7">7</a> But let us be more exact here. At stake in Zizek's Third Way is a necessary [[distinction ]] between form and content. With regard to content, he is absolutely in agreement with the Third Way and its [[desire ]] to institute progressive [[social ]] programs in the face of [[conservative ]] opposition. There is simply no alternative to capitalism (at this [[moment]]). But with regard to form, Zizek absolutely rejects the Third Way's concession to this fact in advance. For Zizek, the conclusion that there is no alternative to capitalism can only be reached via the thinking of the alternative that, precisely through its [[exclusion ]] (this again is Hegel's point concerning the distinction between [[concrete ]] and abstract universalities), ensures there is only capitalism. In [[other ]] words, as opposed to the Third Way in which we always begin with capitalism, for Zizek capitalism is only the result of a more abstract universality (capitalism and its other).<br>

And this allows us to account for Zizek's much-criticized political [[practice ]] in the former Yugoslavia in [[terms ]] consistent with his current political [[theory]]. His actions then, from the perspective of what is now assumed to be his radical Leftism, are usually represented as a liberal compromise, something he would [[wish ]] to leave behind. (Zizek ran as a pro-reform candidate for the Presidency in the first free elections in [[Slovenia]].) However, our point would be that, far from having to be disavowed in the light of his later political theory, these early actions only make [[sense ]] in light of it. For what Zizek can be seen to be doing at that time is, while acknowledging the [[necessity ]] of having to make a choice within the newly "liberated" (i.e., capitalist) Yugoslavia, attempting to maintain the fundamental choice, to avoid foreclosing the possibility of some [[utopian ]] social transformation. (And it is crucial to note that at no point in his work has Zizek ever repudiated the implicit utopian dimension of [[democracy ]] or a shared civic [[space]], just that platform on which he ran in the election: this may even have analogies to his support for the "inner greatness" of Stalinist [[bureaucracy]].) It is for this reason—and the comparison is intended—that Zizek will call those transitional social movements in the newly ex-Communist countries, such as East Germany's <i>Neues [[Forum]]</i>, a "third way". Once more, with regard to their content, these movements were probably nothing different from those Third Way movements that subsequently broke out in the West. (Were they in fact their inspiration?) But, with regard to their form, they were absolutely different. While on the surface appearing to [[adapt ]] to the new capitalist exigencies, they did, for a brief moment, embody a true alternative to both capitalism and [[Communism ]] (exactly what Laclau [[demands ]] of Zizek).<br>

But perhaps this last statement—that is was only for "a brief moment" that those new movements of ex-Communism opened up an alternative—is a little too "pathetic". By this we mean that absolutely—and we insist on this point—Zizek approves of someone like Blair's instrumentalization of the "progressive" policies of the Third Way, his willingness to "get his hands dirty", as Zizek says approvingly of all "conservatives". <a name="8x"></a><a href="#8">8</a> What he in fact admires about the third way alternative at the breaking down of Communism was not so much its momentary [[utopianism ]] as its readiness to embody a new liberal bureaucratic [[state]], in short, its desire not to fail, as with much typical Leftism, including even <i>Neues Forum</i> itself, whose [[tragic ]] [[character ]] was that it came to embrace its own inevitable failure. (This is also the [[tragedy ]] of a [[figure ]] like [[Havel]]: that he wasn't always a pathetic, liberal "[[fool]]", who knew very well his own impotence, but for a moment was a conservative "knave", who was prepared to do what it took to seize and maintain power.) We might say here that, in the exact sense that Zizek gives to an authentic conservatism, the Third Way is conservative: a way of "maintaining the Old" (that is, maintaining the excluded alternative to capitalism) within the new conditions of multinational capitalism. This is for Zizek the most radical gesture of all—and it might apply even to Zizek himself. His new, seemingly extreme radical Leftism might ultimately only be a way of maintaining his original liberal "conservatism" within the new conditions of the Left's [[theoretical ]] [[perversion ]] and decline.<br>

At this point, we [[return ]] for the last time to those three examples of Zizek's specific political commitments with which we began. With regard to their content, we would say that Zizek's actual position does not much differ from our contemporary 'Really Existing Third Way'. But as to their form, there is an absolute [[difference]]. And what we mean by this is that the Third Way alternative—this is the very "speculative identity" with its opposite that makes it possible—can only be arrived at by considering its opposite, or more exactly by comparing its own rule to itself. To put this more simply, Zizek by and large agrees with the actions of democratic [[liberalism ]] in each of those situations, but each time—and this is the very time of thinking—suggests not merely that they have to apply their own standards to themselves, but that they are only possible because they have already applied their own standard to themselves, are already in a speculative [[relationship ]] with their opposite. We can only arrive at these decisions in the first place because they stand in for, take the place of, that "dark, shapeless abyss" they imply from the beginning. It is this abstract universality—which in effect makes these decisions always exceptions—that pushes these decisions into realization, precipitates them, makes them pass over from Substance to Subject, a subject that is nothing else but that decision or action within a determined situation. (And, not coincidentally, it just this kind of Hegelian speculative identity of opposites, of actions not only leading to but only being possible because of their opposites, that Baudrillard means by the "symbolic exchange" between the West and its other in his analysis of 11 September.)<br>

In each of these examples, therefore, there is a certain "infinite justice" implied, which we might define here simply as the Third Way being taken more seriously than it does itself, the Third Way applying its own ruthless [[pragmatism ]] and [[lack ]] of excuses first of all to itself. Again, it would not at all be an apology for inaction or indicate any [[moral ]] equivocation, but on the contrary point to the necessity of always doing more, of always acting on time. Thus, with regard to Yugoslavia, Zizek (in a [[statement ]] significantly left out of the "[[official]]" version of the [[text ]] published in <i>[[New Left ]] Review</i>) suggests as a "solution" to the problem of NATO intervention: "Precisely as a [[Leftist]], my answer to the dilemma, 'Bomb or not?', is: 'Not yet enough bombs and they are already too late'". With regard to 11 September, Zizek speaks of the way that, to the extent that the "coalition" forces seek their [[enemy ]] [[outside ]] of themselves, they would always miss their target; that they would obtain "infinite justice" only insofar as they also struck at themselves: "The justice exerted must be truly infinite in the strict Hegelian sense, i.e., in relating to others, it has to relate to itself—in short, it has to ask the question of how we ourselves, who embrace justice, are involved in what we are fighting against". Finally, with regard to the American invasion of Iraq, Zizek is not opposed to it—those reasons he put forward earlier against its pacifist condemnation still hold—but he [[objects ]] to who does it, for what reasons it is done: "It is who does it that makes it wrong. The reproach should be: who are you to do this?" And this is why, in essays published after this collection was put together, Zizek argues for the "justice" of [[Bush]]'s re-election: not for the typical Leftist [[reason ]] that his excesses will somehow hasten the collapse of capitalism, but in order to ensure that he will be held accountable for his actions. As he writes: "If [[Kerry ]] had won, it would have forced the [[liberals ]] to face the consequences of the Iraq War, allowing Bush to blame the [[Democrats ]] for the results of his own catastrophic actions". <a name="9x"></a><a href="#9">9</a><br>

In fact, it is possible to imagine the organization of this book as a series of these exceptions or "infinite judgements". In the first section, "The Fascinated [[Gaze]]", we include a [[number ]] of essays dealing with Zizek's "original" Yugoslavian context; in the second, "Really Existing [[Socialism]]", a number taking up that Communism under which he lived the first part of his [[life]]; in the third, "Really Existing Capitalism", a number treating that capitalism under which he currently lives; and, in the fourth, "What is (Not) to be Done?", a number dealing with those world political events we have discussed. In each, the section in question constitutes a kind of exception to the one following it, represents what it has to deny in order for it to constitute itself: Yugoslavia as an exception to Communism; Communism as an exception to capitalism; and capitalism itself as an exception, as shown by the [[racism ]] of the former Yugoslavia, the terrorist strikes of 11 September and the difficulties of the military occupation of Iraq. The point in each [[case ]] is not so much that the universal requires some exception to it in order for it to be founded as that the universal itself is an exception, only possible because of some third for which both it and its opposite stand in. There is, however, no final reconciliation implied here because this third is never to be [[thought ]] outside of its own opposite. There is no gradual [[synthesis ]] or coming together of opposites that this book witnesses, but only a kind of constant turning back upon itself in a [[process ]] of infinite judgement, a constant 'raising to a higher power'iii that always remains the same. Each section generalizes, universalizes the section before, but there always remains the 'same' [[antagonism]], the 'same' exception.<br>

To be more specific, for all of the abstraction of which Zizek might be accused, the essays here are [[full ]] of the details of specific leaders' names, particular events, concrete and nuanced political opinions. Again, we would simply say two things about this. First, we are not to think of these details and the abstract form of Zizek's argument as opposed. As we have tried to make clear, Zizek's invariable method is to think the excluded 'third' option in any political situation, which can never be grasped as such but only as its own exception. However, the details of Zizek's writing—contra Laclau—only come to light because of this abstraction, are only this exception. Second, these details—considered political opinions, the smallest accuracies of fact (Zizek is fond of quoting [[Lenin]]'s aphorism that the "fate of the entire [[working ]] class movement for long years can be decided by a [[word ]] or two in the Party program")—are precisely themselves a way of maintaining the fundamental choice. <a name="10x"></a><a href="#10">10</a> The [[patient]], meticulous elaboration of the facts is the very time of thinking itself, the [[refusal ]] to act in such a way that merely reconfirms the existing ideological co-ordinates. And yet, of course, these facts are never neutral: they can only be seen from a particular symbolic perspective. The details in Zizek, that is, are always only an exception, one of two sides, miss what they are aiming at. Indeed, Zizek's entire work—even his so-called theoretical arguments—is merely a series of details [[understood ]] in this way. It both attempts to think the forced choice (and thus seeks to overcome it) and only repeats it, misses it yet again. It at once is the thinking of the exception and merely itself another exception. And it is in this complicated sense that we might conceive of that split in [[appearance ]] that is the exception: a split not simply between the world and some [[transcendental ]] realm for which it stands in, but between the world and what allows it to be remarked as detail, the world itself as exception. True thinking is based not on something outside the world, producing a split between the ought and the is, but only on the world itself, producing a split between the is and the is. It is a split that is the very time and place of thought itself.<br> And this perhaps is the point at which to rehabilitate Hegel's critique of [[Spinoza]], now infamously characterized by Zizek as "the ideologue of [[late capitalism]]" <a name="11x"></a><a href="#11">11</a> who was unable to contemplate this "Capital-Substance":</font></p>

On the side of content, the defect of Spinoza's [[philosophy ]] consists precisely in the fact that the form is not known to be immanent to that content, and for that reason it supervenes upon it only as an [[external]], [[subjective ]] form. Substance, as it is apprehended immediately by Spinoza without preceding dialectical mediation—being the universal might of negation—is only the dark, shapeless abyss, so to speak, in which all determinate content is swallowed up as radically null and [[void]], and which produces nothing out of itself that has a positive subsistence of it own. <a name="12x"></a><a href="#12">12</a><br><br><br>

<a name="1"></a><a href="#1x">1</a>. Jean Baudrillard, <i>The Spirit of Terrorism</i>, trans. Chris Turner, [[London ]] and New York, Verso, 2002, p. 4.<br>

<a name="2"></a><a href="#2x">2</a>. [[Simon Critchley]], "The Problem of Hegemony", 2004 <i>Albert Schweitzer Series on [[Ethics ]] and Politics</i>, New York [[University]], p. 5 (www.politcaltheory.info/essays/critchley.html).<br>

<a name="3"></a><a href="#3x">3</a>. See, for example, Zizek commenting that his [[recent ]] book on Iraq represents little more than "a bric-à-brac of the [[author]]'s immediate impressions and reactions to the unfolding story of the US attack on Iraq" (<i>[[Iraq: The Borrowed Kettle]]</i>, London and New York, Verso, 2004, p. 7).<br>

<a name="4"></a><a href="#4x">4</a>. [[Ernesto Laclau]], "Constructing Universality", in <i>[[Contingency, Hegemony, Universality]]: Contemporary Dialogues [[on the Left]]</i>, London and New York, Verso, 2000, p. 289.<br>

<a name="5"></a><a href="#5x">5</a>. For Zizek's analysis of the "forced choice", see the chapter "Why is Every Act a [[Repetition]]?", in <i>[[Enjoy ]] Your Symptom! [[Jacques Lacan ]] in Hollywood and Out</i>, London and New York, Routledge, 1992.<br>

<a name="6"></a><a href="#6x">6</a>. We might also compare this to the "choice" Lacan proposes between 'Being (the subject)' and '[[Meaning ]] (for the Other)' in <i>The Four Fundamental [[Concepts ]] of [[Psycho]]-Analysis</i>, trans. Alan [[Sheridan]], Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1979, pp. 210-3.<br>

<a name="7"></a><a href="#7x">7</a>. In fact, we would argue that, in the same way that the conciliatory tone of Hegel's claim that his critique of [[Schelling ]] in <i>The [[Phenomenology ]] of Spirit</i> was directed not at Schelling himself, but rather at the "shallowness" of those Schellingians who "make so much mischief with your forms in particular and degrade your [[science ]] into a bare formalism" ("[[Letter ]] to Schelling, 1 May 1807", in <i>Hegel: The Letters</i>, trans. Clark Butler and Christiane Seiler, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1984), p. 80), revealed how grave the [[philosophical ]] rift between the two of them was, so Zizek's admission that he is "not actually arguing against (Laclau's and Butler's) position but against a watered-down popular version they would also oppose" (<i>Contingency, Hegemony, Universality</i>, p. 91) functions as an [[internal ]] reflection on the irreducible difference between Zizek and Butler and Laclau. By contrast, we would say that Zizek's most publicly declared antipathies often mask an undeclared affinity. This, we would suggest, is the case with Blair and the Third Way. Indeed, could we not even propose that Zizek sees in Blair something of that great "critique" of bureaucracy he also finds in [[Stalin]], the idea that a [[revolution ]] without its corresponding form of bureaucracy is ultimately a revolution without a revolution? Or, more exactly, do not recent events regarding the agreed hand-over of power after the recent election in [[Britain ]] lead us to think that Blair is like Lenin, who understood he was to be thrown away after his usefulness was over, while his deputy, Gordon Brown, the Chancellor the Exchequer, is more like Stalin? That Blair's true greatness—for all of the accusations of the lack of ideals of the Third Way—will ultimately lie in his sacrificing himself for the [[Cause]]? To this extent, we would contrast the profound, 'inhuman' [[self]]-instrumentalization of Blair with the "[[objective ]] beauty" of someone like Havel, who remains "human, all too human".<br>

<a name="8"></a><a href="#8x">8</a>. Hence the long [[list ]] of "conservatives" that Zizek has gone on the record as admiring: not just the well-known [[Pascal]], [[Chesterton]], C.S. Lewis and W.B. Yeats, but Pope John [[Paul ]] II, [[Christopher Hitchens ]] (with regard to Iraq), Stalin, Hegel, even Lacan himself...<br>

<a name="9"></a><a href="#9x">9</a>. Slavoj Zizek, "[[Hooray for Bush!]]", <i>[[London Review of Books]]</i> 26, 2 December 2004.<br>

<a name="10"></a><a href="#10x">10</a>. Slavoj Zizek, <i>The Abyss of [[Freedom]]/Ages of the World</i>, Ann Arbor, MI, University of Michigan Press, 1997, p. 85.<br>

<a name="11"></a><a href="#11x">11</a>. Slavoj Zizek, <i>Tarrying with the [[Negative]]: [[Kant]], Hegel, and the Critique of Ideology</i>, Durham, Duke University Press, 1993, pp. 216-9.<br>

<a name="12"></a><a href="#12x">12</a>. [[G.W.F. Hegel]], <i>The Encyclopedia [[Logic]]: Part 1 of the Encyclopedia of Philosophical [[Sciences ]] (with the Zusätze)</i>, trans. T.F. Geraets, W.A. Suchting and H.S. Harris, Indianapolis, Hackett, 1991, p. 227.<br>