October 08, 2011
Steve Jobs, Slavoj Žižek and "Good Capitalism"
Tony Curzon Price in openEconomics:
Slavoj Žižek has been pointedly critical of the "Western Bhuddism" that Jobs' [Stanford] commencement speech so exemplifies. Zizek analyses it as part of the the legitimating fabric of ideology coming out of the West Coast. As he sees it,
... George Lucas explained the personal level through a type of pop-Buddhism: “[Skywalker-father] turns into Darth Vader because he gets attached to things. He can’t let go of his mother; he can’t let go of his girlfriend. He can’t let go of things. It makes you greedy. And when you’re greedy, you are on the path to the dark side, because you fear you’re going to lose things.”
This is pure Jobsianism. But for Žižek, what is really notable is:
the parallel political question: How did the Republic turn into the Empire, or, more precisely, how does a democracy become a dictatorship? Lucas explained that it isn’t that the Empire conquered the Republic, but that the Republic became the Empire. “One day, Princess Leia and her friends woke up and said, ‘This isn’t the Republic anymore, it’s the Empire. We are the bad guys.’ [... Star Wars'] key insight [is] that “we are the bad guys,” that the Empire emerges through the very way we, the “good guys,” fight the enemy out there.”
As so often with Žižek, there is an important element of truth here that we should not allow his bluntness to obscure. The nugget to keep is that the Jobsian message of authenticity, of quasi-Randian pursuit of the dream, of perfectionism is not just value neutral - it is a platitude that these virtues can be put to the most terrible uses; ironically and terribly, the virtues actually engender the worst vices.
Posted by Robin Varghese at 12:24 PM | Permalink
Comments
I quite enjoy 3quarksdaily: entries are usually intelligent and avoid reactionary nonsense. But I think it's time we all called time on the tired, rather obvious dialectic of that pub-stool bore Zizek.
As for Jobs' admiration of Rand - it might be more intelligently understood in the context of the 70s tech community's half-baked appropriation of Rand. We all did, and believed in, silly things in our 20s. Apple's ruthless pursuit of a consumerist aesthetic of constant upgrading is a disappointing facet of its complicity with "late" capitalism. But I'll take Jobs and his vision over Zizek's suppressed erotics of revolutionary violence. When one considers who has made the greater contribution to contemporary culture, I'm afraid Mr Zizek - does he even have a PhD? pales into insignificance. He's a tiresome tub-thumper whose hermeneutics is as reductive, and considerably less useful than anything the late Mr Jobs contributed.
Posted by: spk | Oct 8, 2011 2:33:14 PM
Yes, indeed, the Republic became the Empire.
Each requiring different tools with which to cause change within them.
Such much so that job creation was not the same anymore, requiring different tools and techniques.
Posted by: Dredd | Oct 8, 2011 2:53:47 PM
Zizek. "Little Doiling, always fetful"...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krazy_Kat
Posted by: omar | Oct 8, 2011 10:40:31 PM
Although most of the posters above have criticized Zizek , none have argued a single argument against what was said in Price's article, except for spouting cliches and and an ad hominem argument ("Does he even have a PhD?" [as if this were an arbiter of authenticity]. Instead of such caviling and backbiting and cattiness, posters, if they are going to make an argument, should actually make one.
Posted by: reman | Oct 9, 2011 5:39:10 PM
Oh, but this way is so much more fun.
Posted by: Zo | Oct 13, 2011 8:27:22 PM
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