Žižek on Multiculturalism,
Or Why Liberals Love a Good Tea Party
WILLIAM J. URBAN
Marx and Global Capital
With this result, we thus arrive almost seamlessly onto the second stage of our presentation. By re-introducing into the discussion the need to consider the immanent logic of global Capital, Žižek at once signals his ever present Marxist disposition and thereby radically breaks away from much of the literature on multiculturalism. Consider the collection of essays contained in the quite recent book entitled Everyday Multiculturalism, which attempts to uniquely position itself in the literature through a focus on ‘the micro-politics of everyday life,’ which should ‘break new ground and encourage others’ interest in this new field of research.’ (Wise et. al. 2009: 15) The editors believe the best approach is to reject the traditional discussion which talks about multiculturalism ‘from a top-down perspective as a set of policies concerned with the management and containment of diversity by nation states’ and opt for a discussion of the ‘everyday lived reality of cultural difference’ from an ‘everyday multiculturalism perspective... [that] explores how cultural diversity is experienced and negotiated on the ground in everyday situations.’ (ibid 2) So rather than questioning why it is that the American Nation-State now predominately concerns itself with such top-down policies aimed at amplifying our organic communal identifications (a strategy which might encourage movement toward the proper conclusions Žižek draws), they move even further in the opposite direction, eschewing all fundamental questions of causality. The essays, in fact, are remarkably devoid of any class-economic analysis: tellingly, for instance, there is only one page cited in the index for ‘capitalism.’ And by the time we do reach an essay that does deal with labor markets and their potential impact on the nature of ethnic conflict between two minority groups (Koreans and Latinos) in Los Angeles, we find that the discussion is limited to considering local market conditions. (Han 2009: 237–54) Surely, any discussion of the illegal immigrant status of Latinos in the American Southwest should at least acknowledge the circulation of global Capital as the primary causal factor in producing such a cheap, easily exploitable labor pool originating from Mexico. The analysis in this essay essentially operates in an historical and economic vacuum, restricting its commentary on the resulting local ramifications for inter-ethnic tensions. It is grossly inadequate in itself, as well as for any conclusions drawn therefrom for possible political action intended to address those tensions. Žižek’s perhaps obvious point here would be that such economic conditions are not and should not be treated as irreversible givens, but rather should be examined within a global framework.
Even the more theoretically rigorous work on multiculturalism seems to miss the point that global economic relations overdetermine cultural tensions. Consider Stuart Hall, one of the founding fathers of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, established in 1964. In order for him to ‘define and occupy a space’ for the Centre and ‘to put cultural studies on the intellectual map,’ in retrospect it almost seems fated that he initially reject Marxist theory early in his career to clear this space for his new discipline. (Sardar et. al. 1997: 24) But considering that his work is self-described as always having remained within ‘shouting distance of Marx,’ one might expect him to be more amenable to capitalist critique than other cultural critics. Indeed, his essays in the 1970’s do have a strong Marxist tone, but by the time he writes his most influential essays from the mid-1980’s onwards, any remaining authentic Marxist elements are more or less abandoned. (ibid: 37) Consider his 1990 essay in which he tells us that the field of cultural studies first emerged in Britain to ‘provide ways of thinking, strategies for survival, and resources for resistance to all those who are now – in economic, political, and cultural terms – excluded from anything that could be called access to the national culture of the national community.’ (Hall 1990: 22) There are of course nominal nods to ‘Marx’ and the ‘working-class’ throughout the essay, but the analysis is completely emptied of any subversive sting. Thus, the essay is devoid of any rationale as to why such subjects now stand in an excluded, external relation to the Nation-State where once this was not the case. Without an operative framework that seriously addresses causal factors, he misses the true reasons for the ‘Crisis of the Humanities’ he wants to uncover for us. Slightly better are his two earlier essays from 1986. In the first, telling entitled ‘Marxism without guarantees,’ Hall does take up the notion of ‘the nation’ as such, but the analysis is again in terms of subjective identities in external relation to ‘national identity,’ the latter of which we are correctly told is difficult to imbue with a more ‘progressive meaning and connotation.’ (Hall 1986: 41) He does, however, promisingly examine how the British legacy of imperialism and colonial expansionism has impacted the notion of the Nation-State, an argument which he expands in more detail in the second essay on Gramsci. There, he right critiques Gramsci for failing to ‘analyze in depth the colonial experience or imperialism, out of which so many of the characteristic “racist” experiences and relationships in the modern world have developed.’ (Hall 1996a: 415) Hall’s harsh treatment of Gramsci forms part of his general dismissal of Marx and ‘economism.’ The latter term refers to the familiar critique of Marx’s ‘economic essentialism’ that supposedly reduces all non-economic formations (inclusive of the cultural and the ethnic) to secondary manifestations of the economic base. (ibid: 417–8) In retrospect, his final dismissal of Marx really does make sense if we consider Hall’s subjective position as a cultural theorist. From Žižek’s analysis, we see that the Marxist perspective radically puts in question the viability of the very space occupied by cultural struggles, insofar as maintaining such a perspective necessarily eliminates any pretense to the latter’s supposed theoretical equivalence with (or even primacy over) class struggles. In a word, Hall qua cultural theorist who argues that cultural struggle is as important as class struggle necessarily cannot be an authentic Marxist theorist.
One positive aspect we can take away from this discussion of Hall is his emphasis on the historical expansion of capitalism from its initial form contained within the Nation-State to colonialism. Unfortunately, much of Hall’s analysis limits itself with tracing the impact and legacy of past colonial relations onto our current cultural and ideological struggles, via such notions as race and ethnicity. However, Žižek suggests that after the colonialist phase, we did not simply enter a post-colonial era in which Capital has somehow been neutralized, so that now all we need to do is clean up the mess left behind. On the contrary, the universe of Capital now relates to the post-modern form of the Nation-State through a relationship he designates as ‘auto-colonization.’ (Žižek 1997: 43) For sure, we are no longer dealing with the standard opposition between the metropolis and colonized countries, but this is not due to our enlightenment. The sobering fact is that we today have a direct multinational functioning of Capital, since it now treats even its (former) mother-nation as simply another colonized territory. Thus, Žižek claims we are now in the third phase of a three step historical process dominated by Capital’s dialectical development: at first, capitalism existed predominately within the borders of the Nation-State with some international trade with other sovereign Nation-States ; then we entered the colonial period where a few Nation-States colonized the rest of the world, which they exploited economical, politically and culturally; and with today’s contemporary global capitalism, there are only colonies exploited directly by global, multinational companies which bypass the Nation-State apparatus altogether. From the perspective gained from this historical sketch, many cultural studies and post-colonial theorists can be seen as ‘stuck’ between the second and third phases, unable to see that Capital is still thriving behind the scenes despite having cut its ties to the Nation-State. This oversight is understandable, since this process in the third phase has rendered the dialectic of global Capital much more difficult to discern. But because of its invisibility, it is much more efficient at exploitation; and for that very reason, its framework is all the more crucial to expose through radical Marxist critique.
This is precisely Žižek’s political intent throughout his critique of multiculturalism. In a word, he wants to expose multiculturalism as global capitalism’s ideology par excellence. Just as the colonial phase had its own (race-based) ideology that served to justify colonial exploitation, likewise our current ‘auto-colonial’ phase has its own tailor-made ideology. Žižek tells us that ‘the ideal form of ideology of this global capitalism is multiculturalism, the attitude which, from a kind of empty global position, treats each local culture the way the colonizer treats colonized people – as “natives” whose mores are to be carefully studied and “respected.”’ (Žižek 1997: 44) We should note the homology between the historical movement of Capital and the corresponding development of ideological support that this claim implies: traditional imperialist colonialism is to global capitalist auto-colonization (a colonization without a colonizing Nation-State apparatus), as Western cultural imperialism is to multiculturalism (a patronizing Eurocentrist distance or respect for primary local cultures without roots in any particular culture). Žižek is quick to reject the counter claim that this homology be dismissed as ‘essentialist’ Marxist thinking which overlooks the possibility that the historical development from traditional cultural imperialism to our more tolerant multiculturalist universe was the result of a long and hard-won political and cultural struggle. On the contrary, he insists that all such non-class struggles take place against the background of global Capital and if any assertion of, say, cultural values becomes too strong and poses a serious threat to its smooth circulation, an ‘elaborate set of exclusionary measures quashes it.’ (Žižek 1999: 217) Quite simply, if a progressive political or cultural battle has been won, it is only because global Capital has been accommodating. This also makes any actual assertions of particular cultural content devoid of any real substance, since it always takes place against the background of global economic exploitation.
But more importantly, Žižek’s main focus is on the ideology of multiculturalism as such, on the very form of asserting multiculturalist tolerance. He tells us that because such tolerance has no roots in any particular culture but is asserted from a position that is emptied of all positive content, multiculturalism ‘is a disavowed, inverted, self-referential form of racism, a “racism with a distance” – it “respects” the Other’s identity, conceiving the Other as a self-enclosed “authentic” community towards which he, the multiculturalist, maintains a distance rendered possible by his privileged universal position… Multiculturalism is a racism.’ (Žižek 1997: 44) Without doubt, this is certainly a strong indictment, but it is not entirely without support in other texts.
Consider Bammer’s interesting essay on xenophobia. Although she does not conclude as forcefully as Žižek does, there are clear indications that she not only sees how ‘racism and multiculturalism can – and do – so easily co-exist,’ but actually suspects they are intimately intertwined. (Bammer 1995: 56) She examines a text by Todorov, who himself notes that while overt racist acts proliferate, no one actually claims to possess a racist ideology. Bammer proposes that Todorov has uncovered a certain tension within the multiculturalist stance, which oscillates between the two poles of ‘xenophobia’ and ‘xenophilia,’ claiming further that they co-exist as ‘two sides of the same coin.’ (ibid: 49) More specifically, what passes off for progressive multiculturalism, as a refusal to judge other cultures different from one’s own, is not really a respectful recognition of difference that results from interacting or authentically engaging with the other. Rather, she tells us the multiculturalist stance actually is a failure to engage with the other due to a fear of self exposure, of revealing one’s own cultural ignorance and prejudices. What is truly behind this fear of casting judgment ‘is the spectre of racism,’ so that ‘what passes as tolerance is less an enlightened ideal than a form of moral weakness. Instead of an affirmation of values one holds to be true, it signals a suspension of values.’ (ibid) Žižek himself makes a similar point to illustrate the deep paradoxical relationship between tolerance and racism, albeit by using a much more direct example of explicit xenophobia. He tells us that when ‘[a]sked why they are violent towards foreigners, neo-Nazi skinheads in Germany tend to... suddenly start to talk like social workers, sociologists and social psychologists, quoting diminished mobility, rising insecurity, the disintegration of paternal authority, and so on.’ (Žižek 1996: 199) Precisely as Todorov claims, Žižek notes as well that even the most violent racist actions are today not even dignified with an overt racist ideology. What is used instead as ideological support is a rational, theoretical reflection such as one would expect any enlightened liberal academic to utilize. Of course the obvious objection is to simply note that each – the fundamentalist xenophobe and the multiculturalist – use an identical set of empirical, socio-economic data for quite different purposes – one to justify violence against foreigners and the other to advocate compassionate tolerance toward them. While this is certainly true, this misses the crucial point. Each of ‘their assertions are belied by their very position of enunciation, by the neutral, disengaged position from which [they are] able to tell the objective truth.’ (ibid)
What this example shows is that we have not finally left behind our immature political passions surrounding class struggle and entered a mature era; we are not now in a post-ideological pragmatic universe where we rationally administer and negotiate differences to induce Pareto-efficient consensus. On the contrary, such ‘contemporary “postmodern” racism is the symptom of multiculturalist late capitalism, bringing to light the inherent contradiction of the liberal-democratic ideological project.’ (Žižek 1997: 37) The flip side is that multiculturalist tolerance is only possible if we can foreclose the dimension of the Real of the Other’s jouissance. What Žižek endeavors to do is to confront multiculturalism with its own symptoms and to render visible the phantasmatic support which structures its relation to the Other’s jouissance. (ibid: 38)
Lacanian-themed puzzles
