{"id":5660,"date":"2022-06-23T21:12:50","date_gmt":"2022-06-23T19:12:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/?p=5660"},"modified":"2022-10-06T13:05:41","modified_gmt":"2022-10-06T11:05:41","slug":"slavoj-zizek-collapse-anti-war-left","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/2022-06-23\/slavoj-zizek-collapse-anti-war-left\/","title":{"rendered":"A lemming leading the lemmings: Slavoj Zizek and the collapse of the anti-war left"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong>The left has sunk a long way since the Iraq war. The renowned public intellectual Slavoj Zizek is the latest recruit to the war hawk camp over Ukraine\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Mint Press &#8211; 23 June 2022<\/p>\n<p>Have you noticed how every major foreign policy crisis since the US and UK\u2019s invasion of Iraq in 2003 has peeled off another layer of the left into joining the pro-NATO, pro-war camp?<\/p>\n<p>It is now hard to remember that many millions marched in the US and Europe against the attack on Iraq. It sometimes feels like there is no one left who is not cheerleading the next wave of profits for the West\u2019s military-industrial complex (usually referred to as the \u201cdefense industry\u201d by those very same profiteers).<\/p>\n<p>Washington learned a hard lesson from the unpopularity of its 2003 attack on Iraq aimed at controlling more of the Middle East\u2019s oil reserves. Ordinary people do not like seeing the public coffers ransacked, or suffering years of austerity, simply to line the pockets of Blackwater, Halliburton and Raytheon. And all the more so when such a war is sold to them on the basis of a huge deception.<\/p>\n<p>So since then, the US has been repackaging its neocolonialism via proxy wars that are a much easier sell. There have been a succession of them: Libya, Syria, Yemen, Iran, Venezuela and now Ukraine. Each time, a few more leftists are lured into the camp of the war hawks by the West\u2019s selfless, humanitarian instincts \u2013 promoted, of course, through the barrel of a Western-supplied arsenal. That process has reached its nadir with Ukraine.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Greenwald on the interests of the west&#39;s military-industrial complex: &#39;Right at the moment when the market for these weapons disappeared, when the US finally got out of Iraq and Afghanistan, lo and behold there&#39;s this new market in Ukraine&#39; <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/s3wVNbkOJN\">https:\/\/t.co\/s3wVNbkOJN<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Jonathan_K_Cook\/status\/1533828866438995968?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 6, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h3>Nuclear face-off<\/h3>\n<p>I <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mintpressnews.com\/watchdog-journalists-carol-cadwalladr-paul-mason-security-state\/281146\/\">recently wrote about<\/a> the paranoid ravings of celebrity \u201cleft-wing\u201d journalist Paul Mason, who now sees the Kremlin\u2019s hand behind any dissension from a full-throttle charge towards a nuclear face-off with Russia.<\/p>\n<p>Behind the scenes, he has been sounding out Western intelligence agencies in a bid to covertly deplatform and demonetize any independent journalists who still dare to wonder whether arming Ukraine to the hilt or recruiting it into NATO \u2013 even though it shares a border that Russia views as existentially important \u2013 might not be an entirely wise use of taxpayers\u2019 money.<\/p>\n<p>It is not hard to imagine that Mason is representative of the wider thinking of establishment journalists, even those who claim to be on the left.<\/p>\n<p>But I want to take on here a more serious proponent of this kind of ideology than the increasingly preposterous Mason. Because swelling kneejerk support for US imperial wars \u2013 as long, of course, as Washington\u2019s role is thinly disguised \u2013 is becoming ever more common among leftwing academics too.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Absolutely withering, must-read stuff from mighty <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Jonathan_K_Cook?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@Jonathan_K_Cook<\/a> on the willing prostration of Carole Cadwalladr and Paul Mason to intelligence services, and abetting of power in targeting independent anti-war journalists Can&#39;t wait for part two. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/XSmcexwChx\">https:\/\/t.co\/XSmcexwChx<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Kit Klarenberg \ud83d\udd3b\ud83d\udd3b\ud83d\udd3b\ud83d\udd3b\ud83d\udd3b (@KitKlarenberg) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/KitKlarenberg\/status\/1539255219275583502?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 21, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The latest cheerleader for the military-industrial complex is Slavoj Zizek, the famed Slovenian philosopher and public intellectual whose work has gained him international prominence. His latest piece \u2013 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2022\/jun\/21\/pacificsm-is-the-wrong-response-to-the-war-in-ukraine\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">published<\/a> where else but the Guardian \u2013 is a morass of sloppy thinking, moral evasion and double speak. Which is why I think it is worth deconstructing. It encapsulates all the worst geostrategic misconceptions of Western intellectuals at the moment.<\/p>\n<p>Zizek, who is supposedly an expert on ideology and propaganda, and has even scripted and starred in a couple of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rottentomatoes.com\/m\/the_perverts_guide_to_ideology\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">documentaries<\/a> on the subject, seems now to be utterly blind to his own susceptibility to propaganda.<\/p>\n<h3>Cod psychology<\/h3>\n<p>He starts, naturally enough, with a straw man: that those opposed to the West\u2019s focus on arming Ukraine rather than using its considerable muscle to force Kyiv and Moscow to the negotiating table are in the wrong. Opposition to dragging out the war for as long as possible, however many Ukrainians and Russians die, with the aim of \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/world\/2022\/04\/25\/russia-weakened-lloyd-austin-ukraine-visit\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">weakening Russia<\/a>\u201d, as US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin wants; and opposition to leaving millions of people in poorer parts of the world to be plunged deeper into poverty or to starve is equated by Zizek to \u201cpacifism\u201d.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Playing games with the lives of Ukrainians &#8211; and risking nuclear war &#8211; simply to &#39;weaken&#39; Russia is, Chomsky notes, &#39;morally horrendous. And the people who are standing on a high horse about how we\u2019re upholding principle are moral imbeciles when you think about what\u2019s involved&#39;<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Jonathan_K_Cook\/status\/1537739443540475905?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 17, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>\u201cThose who cling to pacifism in the face of the Russian attack on Ukraine remain caught in their own version of [John Lennon\u2019s song] \u2018Imagine\u2019,\u201d writes Zizek. But the only one dwelling in the world of the imaginary is Zizek and those who think like him.<\/p>\n<p>The left\u2019s mantra of \u201cStop the war!\u201d can\u2019t be reduced to kneejerk pacifism. It derives from a political and moral worldview. It opposes the militarism of competitive, resource-hungry nation-states. It opposes the war industries that not only destroy whole countries but risk global nuclear annihilation in advancing their interests. It opposes the profit motive for a war that has incentivised a global elite to continue investing in planet-wide rape and pillage rather than addressing a looming ecological catastrophe. All of that context is ignored in Zizek\u2019s lengthy essay.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, he prefers to take a detour into cod psychology, telling us that Russian president Vladimir Putin sees himself as Peter the Great. Putin will not be satisfied simply with regaining the parts of Ukraine that historically belonged to Russia and have always provided its navy with its only access to the Black Sea. No, the Russian president is hell-bent on global conquest. And Europe is next \u2013 or so Zizek argues.<\/p>\n<p>Even if we naively take the rhetoric of embattled leaders at face value (remember those weapons of mass destruction Iraq\u2019s Saddam Hussein supposedly had?), it is still a major stretch for Zizek to cite one speech by Putin as proof that the Russian leader wants his own version of the Third Reich.<\/p>\n<p>Not least, we must address the glaring cognitive dissonance at the heart of the Western, NATO-inspired discourse on Ukraine, something Zizek refuses to do. How can Russia be so weak it has managed only to subdue small parts of Ukraine at great military cost, while it is at the same time a military superpower poised to take over the whole of Europe?<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The US war lobby is so massively bloated that it would be simply astonishing if it didn&#39;t have a (usually covert) finger prised into every major conflict zone on the planet \u2013 and a strong vested interest in perpetuating those conflicts too <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/XOVCkqx78x\">pic.twitter.com\/XOVCkqx78x<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Jonathan_K_Cook\/status\/1533236717389598722?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 4, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Zizek is horrified by Putin\u2019s conceptual division of the world into those states that are sovereign and those that are colonized. Or as he quotes Putin observing: \u201cAny country, any people, any ethnic group should ensure their sovereignty. Because there is no in-between, no intermediate state: either a country is sovereign, or it is a colony, no matter what the colonies are called.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3><b>Sovereign or\u00a0colonised?\u00a0<\/b><\/h3>\n<p>The famed philosopher reads this as proof that Russia wants as its colonies: \u201cBosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Finland, the Baltic states \u2026 and ultimately Europe itself\u201d. But if he weren\u2019t so blinded by NATO ideology, he might read Putin\u2019s words in a quite different way. Isn\u2019t Putin simply restating Washington realpolitik? The US, through NATO, is the real sovereign in Europe and is pushing its sovereignty ever closer to Russia\u2019s borders.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">US military bases around the world. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/9xHzhIjZEJ\">pic.twitter.com\/9xHzhIjZEJ<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; BRISL (@BRI_SL) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BRI_SL\/status\/1157993254178213890?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 4, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Putin\u2019s concern about Ukraine being colonized by the US military-industrial complex is essentially the same as US concerns in the 1960s about the Soviet Union filling Cuba with its nuclear missiles. Washington\u2019s concern justified a confrontation that moved the world possibly the closest it has ever come to nuclear annihilation.<\/p>\n<p>Both Moscow and Washington are wedded to the idea of their own \u201cspheres of influence\u201d. It is just that the US sphere now encircles the globe through many hundreds of overseas military bases. By contrast, the West cries to the heavens when Russia secures a single military base in Crimea.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The US has 800 military bases around the world. <\/p>\n<p>The rest of the world has 30 outside of its own borders. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/edhxKXRMp8\">pic.twitter.com\/edhxKXRMp8<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Vox (@voxdotcom) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/voxdotcom\/status\/1026131967450865664?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 5, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>We may not like the sentiments Putin is espousing, but they are not especially his. They are the reality of the framework of modern military power the West was intimately involved in creating. It was our centuries of colonialism \u2013 our greed and theft \u2013 that divided the world into the sovereign and the colonized. Putin is simply stating that Russia needs to act in ways that ensure it remains sovereign, rather than joining the colonized.<\/p>\n<p>We may disagree with Putin\u2019s perception of the threat posed by NATO, and the need to annex eastern Ukraine, but to pretend his speech means that he aims for world domination is nothing more than the regurgitation of a CIA talking point.<\/p>\n<p>Zizek, of course, intersperses this silliness with more valid observations, like this one: \u201cTo insist on full sovereignty in the face of global warming is sheer madness since our very survival hinges on tight global cooperation.\u201d Of course, it is madness. But why is this relevant to Putin and his supposed \u201cimperial ambition\u201d? Is there any major state on the planet \u2013 those in Europe, the United States, China, Brazil, Australia \u2013 that has avoided this madness, that is seeking genuine \u201ctight global cooperation\u201d to end the threat of climate breakdown.<\/p>\n<p>No, our world is in the grip of terminal delusion, propelled ever closer to the precipice by capitalism\u2019s requirement of endless economic growth on a finite planet. Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine is causing great ecological damage, but so are lots of other things \u2013 including NATO\u2019s rationalization of ever-expanding military budgets.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">It&#39;s disturbing how many people are peddling the idea that Nato is a &#39;defensive alliance&#39;. It *claims* to be defensive. Actually, Nato is a central pillar of the highly lucrative war industries. This may help clarify: <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/SL2MA1ASMh\">https:\/\/t.co\/SL2MA1ASMh<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Jonathan_K_Cook\/status\/1497645163656613888?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">February 26, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h3>Ukrainian heroism<\/h3>\n<p>But Zizek has the bit between his teeth. He now singles out Russia because it is maneuvering to exploit the consequences of global warming, such as new trade routes opened up by a thawing Arctic.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRussia\u2019s strategic plan is to profit from global warming: control the world\u2019s main transport route, plus develop Siberia and control Ukraine,\u201d he writes. \u201cIn this way, Russia will dominate so much food production that it will be able to blackmail the whole world.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But what does he imagine? As we transform the world\u2019s climate and its trade routes, as new parts of the world turn into deserts, as whole populations are forced to make migrations to different regions, does he think only Putin and Russia are jostling to avoid sinking below the rising sea waters. Does he presume the policy hawks in Washington, or their satraps in Europe, have missed all this and are simply putting their feet up? In reality, maneuvering on the international stage \u2013 what I have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mintpressnews.com\/wests-hands-ukraine-bloody-putins\/279897\/\">called elsewhere<\/a> a brutal nation-state version of the children\u2019s party game musical chairs \u2013 has been going on for decades.<\/p>\n<p>Ukraine is the latest front in a long-running war for resource control on a dying planet. It is another battleground in the renewed great power game that the US revived by expanding NATO across Eastern Europe in one pincer movement and then bolstered it with its wars and proxy wars across the Middle East. Where was the urge for \u201ctight global cooperation\u201d then? To perceive Ukraine as <i>simply <\/i>the victim of Putin\u2019s \u201cimperialism\u201d requires turning a blind eye to everything that has occurred since the fall of the Soviet Union three decades ago.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">My latest: Western media and politicians want us focusing exclusively on Russia&#39;s role in Ukraine so we overlook our own responsibility for making sacrificial victims of the Ukrainian people <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/V0ZpwFFB9A\">https:\/\/t.co\/V0ZpwFFB9A<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Jonathan_K_Cook\/status\/1501956708310011916?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 10, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Zizek gets to the heart of what <i>should <\/i>matter in his next, throw-away line:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Those who advocate less support for Ukraine and more pressure on it to negotiate, inclusive of accepting painful territorial renunciations, like to repeat that Ukraine simply cannot win the war against Russia. True, but I see exactly in this the greatness of Ukrainian resistance.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Zizek briefly recognises the reality of Ukraine\u2019s situation \u2013 that it cannot win, that Russia has a bigger, better-equipped army \u2013 but then deflects to the \u201cgreatness\u201d of Ukraine\u2019s defiance. Yes, it is glorious that Ukrainians are ready to die to defend their country\u2019s sovereignty. But that is not the issue we in the West need to consider when Kyiv demands we arm its resistance.<\/p>\n<p>The question of whether Ukrainians can win, or whether they will be slaughtered, is highly pertinent to deciding whether we in the West should help drag out the war, using Ukrainians as cannon fodder, to no purpose other than our being able to marvel as spectators at their heroism.<\/p>\n<p>Whether Ukrainians can win is also pertinent to the matter of how urgent it is to draw the war to a close so that millions don\u2019t starve in Africa because of the loss of crops, the fall in exports and rocketing fuel prices. And arming a futile, if valiant, Ukrainian struggle against Russia to weaken Moscow must be judged in the context that we risk backing Russia into a geostrategic corner \u2013 as we have been doing for more than two decades \u2013 from which, we may surmise, Moscow could ultimately decide to extricate itself by resorting to nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n<h3>Intellectual cul de sac<\/h3>\n<p>Having propelled himself into an intellectual cul de sac, Zizek switches tack. He suddenly changes the terms of the debate entirely. Having completely ignored the US role in bringing us to this point, he now observes:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Not just Ukraine, Europe itself is becoming the place of the proxy war between [the] US and Russia, which may well end up by a compromise between the two at Europe\u2019s expense. There are only two ways for Europe to step out of this place: to play the game of neutrality \u2013 a short-cut to catastrophe \u2013 or to become an autonomous agent.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>So, we <i>are<\/i> in a US proxy war \u2013 one played out under the bogus auspices of NATO and its \u201cdefensive\u201d expansion \u2013 but the solution to this problem for Europe is to gain its \u201cautonomy\u201d by \u2026<\/p>\n<p>Well, from everything Zizek has previously asserted in the piece, it seems such autonomy must be expressed by silently agreeing to the US pumping Ukraine full of weapons to fight Russia in a proxy war that is really about weakening Russia rather than saving Ukraine. Only a world-renowned philosopher could bring us to such an intellectually and morally barren place.<\/p>\n<p>The biggest problem for Zizek, it seems, isn\u2019t the US proxy war or Russian \u201cimperialism\u201d, it is the left\u2019s disillusionment with the military industrial complex: \u201cTheir true message to Ukraine is: OK, you are victims of a brutal aggression, but do not rely on our arms because in this way you play into the hands of the industrial-military complex,\u201d he writes.<\/p>\n<p>But the concern here is not that Ukraine is playing into the arms of the war industries. It is that Western populations are being played by their leaders \u2013 and intellectuals like Zizek \u2013 so that they can be delivered, once again, into the arms of the military-industrial complex. The West\u2019s war industries have precisely no interest in negotiations, which is why they are not taking place. It is also the reason why events over three decades have led us to a Russian invasion of Ukraine that most of Washington\u2019s policy makers warned would happen if the US continued to encroach on Russia\u2019s \u201csphere of influence\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/twitter.com\/RnaudBertrand\/status\/1498491107902062592<\/p>\n<p>The left\u2019s message is that we are being conned yet again and that it is long past time to start a debate. Those debates should have taken place when the US broke its promise not to expand \u201cone inch\u201d beyond Germany. Or when NATO flirted with offering Ukraine membership 14 years ago. Or when the US meddled in the ousting of the elected government of Ukraine in 2014. Or when Kyiv integrated neo-Nazi groups into the Ukrainian army and engaged in a civil war against the Russian parts of its own populace. Or when the US and NATO allowed Kyiv \u2013 on the best interpretation \u2013 to ignore its obligations under the Minsk agreements with Russia.<\/p>\n<p>None of those debates happened. Which is why a debate in the West is still needed now, at this terribly late stage. Only then might there be a hope that genuine negotiations can take place \u2013 before Ukraine is obliterated.<\/p>\n<h3>Cannon fodder<\/h3>\n<p>Having exhausted all his hollow preliminary arguments, we get to Zizek\u2019s main beef. With the world polarizing around a sole military superpower, the US, and a sole economic superpower, China, Europe and Russia may be forced into each other\u2019s arms in a \u201cEurasian\u201d block that would swamp European values. For Zizek, that would lead to \u201cfascism\u201d. He writes:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>At that point, the European legacy will be lost, and Europe will be de facto divided between an American and a Russian sphere of influence. In short, Europe itself will become the place of a war that seems to have no end.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Let us set aside whether Europe \u2013 all of it, parts of it? \u2013 is really a bulwark against fascism, as Zizek assumes. How exactly is Europe to find its power, its sovereignty, in this battle between superpowers? What vehicle is Zizek proposing to guarantee Europe\u2019s autonomy, and how does it differ from the NATO one that is \u2013 even Zizek now seems to be conceding \u2013 actually just a vassal of the US, there to enforce Washington\u2019s globe-spanning \u201csphere of influence\u201d against Russia and China.<\/p>\n<p>Faced with this problem, Zizek quickly retreats into mindless sloganeering: \u201cOne cannot be a leftist if one does not unequivocally stand behind Ukraine.\u201d This Bushism \u2013 \u201cYou are either with us or with the terrorists\u201d \u2013 really is as foolish as it sounds.<\/p>\n<p>What does \u201cunequivocal\u201d mean here? Must we \u201cunequivocally stand behind\u201d all of Ukraine\u2019s actions \u2013 even should, say, neo-Nazi elements of the Ukrainian military like the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mintpressnews.com\/azov-brazil-ukraine-neo-nazi-connection\/279943\/\">Azov Brigade<\/a> carry out pogroms against the ethnic Russian communities living in Ukraine?<\/p>\n<p>But even more seriously, what does it mean for Europeans to stand \u201cunequivocally\u201d behind Ukraine? Must we approve the supply of US weapons, even though, as Zizek also concedes, Ukraine cannot win the war and is serving primarily as a proxy battleground?<\/p>\n<p>Would \u201cunequivocal support\u201d not require us to pretend that Europe, rather than the US, is in charge of NATO policy? Would it not require too that we pretend NATO\u2019s actions are defensive rather intimately tied to advancing the US \u201csphere of influence\u201d designed to weaken Russia?<\/p>\n<p>And how can our participation in Washington&#8217;s ambition to weaken Russia not provoke greater fear in Russia for its future, greater militarism in Moscow, and ensure Europe becomes more of a battleground rather than less of one?<\/p>\n<p>What does \u201cunequivocal\u201d support for Ukraine mean given that Zizek has agreed that the US and Russia are fighting a proxy war, and that Europe is caught in the middle of it? Zizek\u2019s answer is no answer at all. It is nothing more than evasion. It is the rationalization of unprincipled European inaction, of acting as a spectator while the US continues to use Ukrainians as cannon fodder.<\/p>\n<h3>Muddying the waters<\/h3>\n<p>After thoroughly muddying the waters on Ukraine, Zizek briefly seeks safer territory as he winds down his argument. He points out, two decades on, that George W. Bush was similarly a war criminal in invading Iraq, and notes the irony that Julian Assange is being extradited to the US because Wikileaks helped expose those war crimes. To even things up, he makes a counter-demand on \u201cthose who oppose Russian invasion\u201d that they fight for Assange\u2019s release \u2013 and in doing so implicitly accuses the anti-war movement of supporting Russia\u2019s invasion.<\/p>\n<p>He then plunges straight back into sloganeering in his concluding paragraph: \u201cUkraine fights for global freedom, inclusive of the freedom of Russians themselves. That\u2019s why the heart of every true Russian patriot beats for Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Maybe he should try telling that to the thousands of ethnic Russian families mourning their loved ones killed by the civil war that began raging in eastern Ukraine long before Putin launched his invasion and supposedly initiated his campaign for world domination. Those kinds of Ukrainians may beg to differ, as may Russians worried about the safety and future of their ethnic kin in Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p>As with most things in life, there are no easy answers for Ukraine. But Zizek\u2019s warmongering dressed up as European enlightenment and humanitarianism is a particularly wretched example of the current climate of intellectual and moral vacuity. What we need from public thinkers like Zizek is a clear-sighted roadmap for how we move back from the precipice we are rushing, lemming-like, towards. Instead he is urging us on. A lemming leading the lemmings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The left has sunk a long way since the Iraq war. The renowned public intellectual Slavoj Zizek is the latest recruit to the war hawk camp over Ukraine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5661,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[51,65,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-5660","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-left-politics","9":"tag-russia","10":"tag-war-industries"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5660"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5660\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5662,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5660\/revisions\/5662"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jonathan-cook.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}