Zizek on Western Buddhism and Authentic Fundamentalism

A friend flagged me a ten year old piece by Slavoj Zizek on the relationship between global capitalism and Westernized forms of Buddhism that advocate milquetoast exercises in  "retaining an inner distance and indifference toward the mad dance of accelerated process, a distance based on the insight that all this social and technological upheaval is ultimately just a non-substantial proliferation of semblances that do not really concern the innermost kernel of our being."

Making the necessary changes, that's pretty close to my argument in AH that the search for authenticity is an attempt at carving out an inner space of original meaning, hiving the self off from the disenchanted world of liberalism/secularism/capitalism. We also seem to agree on the upshot of that move, which is that "although 'Western Buddhism' presents itself as the remedy against the stressful tension of capitalist dynamics, allowing us to uncouple and retain inner peace and Gelassenheit, it actually functions as its perfect ideological supplement." That is to say, Western Buddhism/authenticity-seeking is not an antidote to the modern world, but a chief driver of its worst excesses.

But that all comes in the opening paragraph, and the rest of the piece is typical Zizek -- moments of real insight larded with pretentious musings that don't go anywhere. He quickly  abandons the idea of Western Buddhism and its relationship to capitalism, and instead wanders into a debate about the difference between a symptom and a fetish, then slides into a long excursion into our views on Tibet. I guess there's a connection there, but I don't really see it.

But then he comes back to something interesting at the end, when he distinguishes authentic fundamentalists from those fundamentalists who look on with a combination of horror and envy at the activities of sinners. For Zizek, this is the difference between the Amish and the Moral Majority, though there is obviously room for a riff on forms of Islamic fundamentalism as well. He concludes, then, with this not entirely crazy consideration of multiculturalism (my emphasis added):

Moral Majority fundamentalists and tolerant multiculturalists are two sides of the same coin: they both share a fascination with the Other. In the Moral Majority, this fascination displays the envious hatred of the Other's excessive jouissance, while the multiculturalist tolerance of the Other's Otherness is also more twisted than it may appear—it is sustained by a secret desire for the Other to remain "other," not to become too much like us. In contrast to both these positions, the only truly tolerant attitude towards the Other is that of the authentic radical fundamentalist. ­

The remaining question, then, is whether one can be authentically multicultural, on Zizek's terms? I think so. It seems to me that Zizek is relying on a rather narrow, and perhaps more European, notion of multiculturalism that rests on the notion that cultures are encouraged to retain their traditions as much as possible, and that asking them to assimilate is to do violence to their authentic identities. To the extent that that is how European multiculturalism works, perhaps Zizek has a point. But it isn't how multiculturalism has to work, and it certainly is not how it functions in a country like Canada. I've explained how Canadian multiculturalism works in a column for Maclean's, and explore the consequences for these differing Euro and North American approaches in a followup piece online, about assimilation rates for Muslims.

Where Shock Art is Still Dangerous

One of the defining characteristics of Western culture is our inability to be shocked by art...

That's the opening to my column in last week's Maclean's magazine, which is largely about the clampdown on artists in China. One thing I wanted to work in was an anecdote about Wham!'s famous tour of China in 1985, when they became the first Western pop act to tour the Middle Kingdom. I'll never forget reading in the papers stories about security guards beating kids who were trying to dance at the concerts. At the time, it seemed to fit in with my teenaged Footloose worldview -- that The Man was the same everywhere.

But the crucial lesson is that, while the countercultural rebellion pretty much is Western culture, there are parts of the world where anti-conformist iconoclasm is seen as a genuine threat. China is one such society, and it is disheartening to see that the Canadian government has no apparent views on the kidnapping of Ai Weiwei by Chinese authorities. 

Liberalism, Revolution, and Dr. Zhivago

From my latest column for Maclean's:

There’s a great scene at the beginning of Doctor Zhivago when the Bolsheviks are marching through town in peaceful protest, singing songs of freedom and brotherhood while the aristocrats dance and drink in a ballroom that overlooks the street. The party goes uncomfortably quiet as the singing builds in volume, until Mr. Komarovsky, the high-born villain of the story, cracks a joke: “But will they still sing in tune after the revolution?” Everyone laughs, the band starts back up, and the party resumes.

It is increasingly obvious that the outcome of the popular uprisings hopscotching their way across the Middle East will be far messier and uncertain than the fall of Communism two decades ago. While virtually all of the former Soviet Bloc states in Eastern Europe quickly reverted to some form of liberal democracy, none of the countries in the Middle East has any comparable tradition to fall back on. That is why, when it comes to the ongoing turmoil in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and elsewhere, the worry is not that the protesters won’t manage to sing in tune once they’ve got rid of the strongmen, dictators and corrupt monarchs, it is that they will...