another emperor with no clothes

Adam Kirsch in The New Republic biffs the nonsensical Slavoj Zizek ...

To recap: Writing to TNR, Zizek suggested that Gandhi was more violent than Hitler because his peaceful protest movement "effectively endeavored to interrupt" British imperialism. Now, speaking in an Indian newspaper which most of his American readers will never see, Zizek says the precise opposite: Gandhi was more violent than Hitler because he failed to disrupt British imperialism, and so was objectively responsible for continuing the violence of the Raj. (If Gandhi had taken up arms, presumably, Zizek would consider him less violent, because anything that ended British rule would have been a net gain for peace.) He then adds a grace note — that Hitler was a better anti-imperialist than Gandhi, because he "never wanted" the British Empire to be preserved!

... What matters is that Zizek now explicitly denies what he tried to imply in TNR, that he has any kind of admiration for Gandhian nonviolence: "I don't respect him for his peaceful ways". I am not surprised by this; Zizek is, after all, the author of a book called Violence in which violence is quite openly defended. What does surprise me is the pure hypocrisy that his interview exposes, and the total absence of consistency in his thought and public speech. In the same interview, Zizek also complains that "In the last two years, the tone has changed" in the West regarding him and his work. Let's hope so.

Indeed.