Lacan in Slovenia

Lacan in Slovenia An Interview with Slavoj Zizek and Renata Salecl One notable result of the recent politicalferment in Central and Republics of Yugoslavia - Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia - there is an Eastern Europe has been the emergence of new theoretical entirely different theoretical tradition which predominates. In currents, often combining strands of thought which - to West Serbia, it is a kind of analytical philosophy, but not a good one - European eyes - appear as starkly incompatible . Nowadays, one not one that I have found interesting - but rather the most boring can meet young Soviet philosophers whose interest in the Frank kind of philosophy of science, now linked to some kind of new furt School, and in deconstruction, is matched by their keen liberalism - Hayek, that kind of thing. In Croatia, it is the old advocacy ofneo-liberal economics, and East European sociolo Praxis School which predominates. In Slovenia since the begin gists whose Foucauldian critique of Marxism and the one-party ning of the 1970s the big conflict, the big philosophical struggle, state is tempered by deep scepticism about the politics ofpriva was between some kind of Western Marxism, which was more or tisation. less official philosophy, and Heideggerianism and phenomenol One ofthe most complex and intriguing ofthese new syntheses ogy as the main form of philosophical dissidence. This was the is the 'Lacanian-Hegelian-Marxism' which has been developed struggle. And then we, the younger generation, precisely as a third by Slavoj Zizek and his colleagues at the University ofLjubljana option - to be a dissident but not a Heideggerian - we were a in Slovenia, the westernmost republic of Yugoslavia. In his two reaction to both of these. full-length books published to date (Le plus sublimes des In Slovenia, this opposition - Critical Theory versus hysteriques - Hegel passe, Paris, Point Hors Ligne, 1988, and Heideggerianism - had a totally different investment from that in The Sublime Object of Ideology, London, Verso, 1989 - re Croatia. In Croatia, Western Marxism was the great dissidence of viewed by Jean-Jacques Lecercle in RP 57), Zizek has sought to the 1960s. So the Heideggerians, who were their opponents there develop a novel psychoanalytical interpretation of Hegel which too, were the official philosophers. In Croatia, people would lose stresses the dimension ofcontingency, and - against fashionable their jobs during the 1970s for dissidence, but their dismissal 'postmodernist' views - the subjective resistance to closure, in would be articulated in Heideggerian terms. There were extreme Hegelian dialectic. He has also applied this approach in a series obscenities, such as a Party official saying that, for example, some of studies of contemporary political, ideological and aesthetic Praxis philosopher does not understand some Heideggerian twist phenomena. (See, for example, 'Eastern Europe's Republics of - that the essence of self-management is the self-management of Gilead', New Left Review 183, September/October 1990, and essence - that kind of thing. There were extremely perverse 'The Undergrowth ofEnjoyment: How popular culture can serve things: a pragmatic political power structure of self-management as an introduction to Lacan', New Formations 9, Winter 1989.) legitimised in purely Heideggerian terms. There was even a He has a particular interest in popular culture, and has edited an general who became chief of staff who had been under the anthology of Lacanian interpretations of the films of Alfred influence of Heideggerians as a student who wrote an article (you Hitchcock, forthcoming from Verso in an updated English edi know that the Yugoslav notion is the self-defence of the people) tion. saying that the essence of self-defence was the self-defence ofthe The following interview with Ziiek and his colleague Renata essence of our society. Meanwhile, in Slovenia, you had people Salecl, who also teaches at the University of Ljubljana, on the being dismissed because they hadn't grasped Adorno' s Negative origins and politics ofLacanianism in Slovenia, was recorded in Dialectics. The two positions which usually in Eastern Europe are London in July 1990. The interview is complemented by an article associated with opposition to existing power structures by Ziiek which condenses many of the distinctive features of his (Heideggerianism and Western Marxism) were the two official reading of Hegel (pp. 3-9, this issue). RP hopes to continue this positions in different parts of Yugoslavia. coverage ofphilosophical developments in the 'post-communist' states infuture issues. A good source of general information on RP: So there was no Soviet-style dialectical materialism in recent developments in Yugoslavia is Misha Glenny's The Re Yugoslavia? Birth of History, London, Penguin, 1990. Zizek: No, it doesn't exist in Yugoslavia. You can mark the point, 1960, at some great philosophical event, when there was a last RP: Perhaps you could begin by saying something about the stand. But the idea of dialectical materialism was defeated. There history of Lacanian theory in Ljubljana, Slovenia. How did it are some pockets of resistance, but even the power structure itself come to develop? And what role has it played? does not rely on them. They are marginalised, although not in opposition. During the last ten to fifteen years, there has been a de Zizek: It was contingent, an absolute exception. In each of the big ideologisation of power, and Marxists have usually been more Radical Philosophy 58, Summer 1991 25 dissident than non-Marxists. What was never reported in the West Zizek: On this point, we agree with Habermas: the price of was that the people who benefited from this were the analytical modernity is that you must accept a certain division, alienation, philosophers in Belgrade, who were definitely not Marxists. You etc. But I disagree with the way in which Habermas understands had a Communist regime openly supporting analytical philoso this in relation to the postmodernism debate. For me, it is modern phy of science. Their message to the power structure was clear: ism which insists on the utopian idea of disalienation, while 'We are doing instrumental scientific research. We are no danger postmodernism is precisely the recognition that you accept a to you. You leave us alone and we will leave you alone.' certain division as the price of freedom. In this specific sense, Habermas is a postmodernist without knowing it. Salecl: But the Lacanian movement in Slovenia was always on the side of the opposition. In the early 1980s when new social RP: A certain strand of post modern thought - one thinks of movements began to develop in Slovenia, it was really only Foucault in the seventies, for example - wants to reach the Lacanians who gave theoretical support to these groups. ultimate equation: emancipation =non-emancipation, eman cipation = repression, without qualification. But you, via Zizek: What you need to understand, to understand the philo Lacan, seem to want to do something rather more complex. In sophical background to the different dissidences, is that the split your book, The Sublime Object ojldeology, you describe Lacan which is now becoming visible in, for example, Poland, between as a thinker of the Enlightenment. It seems that for you the the populist right-wing nationalism of Walesa and the market project of emancipation doesn't always equal repression, but liberalism of Michnik - this split was present from the very somehow we do have to reassess the project. By repudiating beginning in Slovenia. The opposition movement in Slovenia has a certain conception of what the project of emancipation two quite distinct origins. On the one hand you have a nationalist should lead to we somehow preserve the project. Is that a fair intelligentsia, nationalist poets writing about national roots, etc. description of your position? J Their philosophical reference is Heidegger. On the other hand, you have the remnants of an old New Left connected to new social Zizek: Absolutely. This is why I insist so much on the split movements - peace, human rights movements, etc., - and, ex between Foucault and Derrida, on the one hand (despite all their tremely important, a punk movement. (The band Laibach, for differences), and Lacan. If we understand modernism in terms of example.) It is precisely through punk that the pluralist opposition the urge to demask an illusion, etc., then deconstruction is itself reached the masses. It was a kind of political mass education, and a most extreme form of modernism. At this general level, despite we supported it. all their differences, Habermas and Lacan move in the same direction in accepting certain limits and renouncing certain uto RP: But how did Lacanianism come to have this resonance pian conditions on the possibility of freedom. The way these within Slovenian political culture in the first place? After all, divisions have been made should be reformulated. to a lot of people, Lacan's theory doesn't look like an eman cipatory theory at all. It is a theory of perpetual lack, of RP: The question of the limits of enlightenment is already inescapeable alienation in the signifier, and so forth. there is Kant's essay 'What is Enlightenment?' in the distinc tion between the public and private use of reason. To the Zizek: Here, you have already produced an answer. For this was extent to which you agree with Habermas, aren't you just precisely the point with respect to self-management. In Yugosla reinstituting a more classically Kantian notion? Isn't your via, it was an extreme form of alienation, a totally non-transparent 'postmodernism' just a pragmatic enlightenment? system that nobody, including those in the power structure, could comprehend. There were almost two million laws in operation. Zizek: In a sense, yes. Let's look at the process that Lacan calls No one could master it. This was the paradox: this is what you get 'la passe': how as an analysand you become an analyst.

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