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Zizek Goes all Heidegger On Us

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Donald Trump is the President-elect of the United States.

The markets have been gobsmacked by this. They clearly didn't see it coming.

Neither, as it happens, did I. In fact I consider it more than a bit scary. But allow me to try to intellectualize a bit as a defense mechanism.

A few days before the election, I noticed this: Click.

"Superstar Marxist Philosopher Just Endorsed Trump" runs the headline to which you come if you do click that.

Somehow this doesn't surprise me. As I believe I've mentioned here before, Zizek is the sort of Marxist who tries to get behind Marx chronologically and conceptually, to get himself back in touch with the original Hegelian inspiration.  This is a not uncommon move among the intellectuals of the continent, motivated perhaps by the fact that understanding the distinctive post-Hegel aspects of Marxism, the stuff that Marx himself studied for long days in the library of the British Museum to master as he poured over the works of that country's economists, involves some hard work.

The dialectical stuff is easier.

Further, if you want to toady up to a Great Man on a Horse, you can throw some nice philosophical-sounding phrases around him, as Hegel did with Napoleon, (the world-spirit on horseback) and as Martin Heidegger (portrayed above) did with He Who Must Not Be Named....praising his "authenticity."

Are we witnessing Zizek doing the full Marty, sort of an academic "full Monty"?
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