Customer Reviews

Iraq: The Borrowed Kettle

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I think its interesting to note that the irony of the two comments above, who claim that Zizek is actually wrong in the book since now they found those old shells with sarin residues, perfectly reinforces the logic of the book. The War was not about the weapons, and neither is book, as its focus was rather the pretexts under which modern war can be waged. The actual weapons here were irrelevant (plus finding a few artillerly shells with expired toxins surely dont qualify as the thousands of liters of deadly chemicals that were promiced to us before the invasion)- and yes Saddam did have WMDs at one point, we should know, we sold it to him - the focus of the book is on the status of "reality" and "truth" in the modern media culture, which are very disturbing.

Rather the book explores the implications and fallout of what might be considered a grand political experiment that was tried by the Bush administration on America and the world: make up a fake reason for war and handouts, break international law, put the media machine to reinforce your claims, see it be proven false, dont even bother covering ass but just change the topic (WMDs > Freeedom), refuse to talk about a blatant lie, get reelected, and then watch the world leaders come to make amends. This is what the Left is ignoring, and this is the challenge to "reality" that needs to be addressed.

So yes put down the New York Times, and read this book.

The real value of Zizek is he stimulates a discussion in a certain direction that you will never find within the establishment media press,(Michael Moore included here) for they own and control the discourse. Zizek is independent enough (and he knows he's an intellectual supported by the system) where he need not simply fall like sheep into line with the various/nefarious propaganda machines as practiced by The Heritage Fnd.Wm.Kristol,Thom.Freidman, Wm.Safire. They all have easy jobs simply make some nice waverings from Right to Left,Neoliberal is the buzz these days(you needn't be consistent either)summoning the time honored icons of truth,justice,civilization,terror where is it? etc. or in Safire's case simply Right-Wing all the way, no swinging allowed!, there is simply evil out(The "Other" or today "Islam"(those who have oil) (it was communism) there to be extinguished or made docile, so the discourse is further made one-dimensional.

So let's turn to the real world and that's where Zizek begins. Zizek uses Lacan's conception of reality where what is real is never really really "real" because it is "tainted" or "diseased" with the imaginary and the symbolic. So the line of arguments and facts he follows are always placed within this Lacanian context and it makes for interesting reading.
It is fairly commonplace now that Bush and Company always knew that Saddam had no weapons(WMD) otherwise why would Washington send over 150,000 troops ready to be slaughtered by these weapons. (We are talking about, well they, Washington etc. talked about weapons of MASS destruction, what does that mean?) Well weapons that can be sent to New York,intercontinental?It really doesn't matter for the WMD symbolic has been and continues to be grist for the mill of the media and now the Presidential Election.So Zizek is telling us; it is all a distraction from the real issues.And he here clearly sees it's all propaganda, and summons the "borrowed kettle" story from Freud as a means of identifying the "missing" component here.
As the book progresses(For Iraq is only the first part) there is/are some nice dialogues between pure theory, Lacan,Hegel and real facts, here, and Zizek is simply doing the intellectuals job relating philosophy and culture, politics to the reality,or "reality" which is now, or was "now".

...A long yarn consisting of provisional conclusions about the state of global politics from a critical theorist's perspective. The first part of the book directly relates to the war in Iraq, introduced by the very appropriate question "They Control Iraq, But Do They Control Themselves?" ... A question that only a theorist schooled in psychoanalysis would ask, perhaps, but a very interesting question nonetheless.

In addressing this question, Zizek observes that "the problem... was that there were TOO MANY reasons for the war," and goes on to say "I should emphasize that Iraq: The Borrowed Kettle is not a book about Iraq - but the Iraqi crisis and war were not really about Iraq either" (but rather about the stakes of international politics).

The first third of the book (first 66 pages) is interesting and thought-provoking, although some of Zizek's analyses of the global context of war become superficial after a few pages. The second two parts ("appendices"), which comprise the majority of the book, don't really have anything to do with the war per se. Zizek takes the opportunity of the Iraq war to go off on a psycho-marxist rant about ethics and global affairs for 110 pages in these two appendices. A few thought-provoking ideas, here and there, but the profound conclusions that the reader expects never arrive.

Again, the conclusion of the book is quite interesting, but how and why the reader has arrived there is so osbscured by the morass of allegories that Zizek employs that it is not clear whether a such a path even exists. As a work of political theory, this book is testament to the vain, undisciplined character of much contemporary "critical" thought. Are there no rigorous taskmasters at Verso? Zizek needs one.

I wouldn't really bother with this book unless you are already interested in Zizek and/or you have a close familiarity with Marx (and Hegel), Freud, and Lacan (and maybe a little Foucault and Derrida). Otherwise, forget it. I already did.

If you are just interested in what Zizek has to say about the Iraq war, his articles are splayed all over the Internet. Just type "Zizek and Iraq" into a search engine.

The only other review of this book is just so sad. So Zizek was mistaken about the WMD because we have found sheels that may have sarin gas residue. Don't you think that Bush and the rest of the team would be screaming about this all day, everyday but they have remained strangely silent. There are problems with this book. Zizek has a tendency to use the same stories and jokes over and over agian. But this does not take away from his ability to critize both the right and pseudo-Left position on the war. He also does a quite amazing job moving from the particular to the theoretical. But his shing moment appears in the formation of a question. The question is not "Are Iraqis better off without Saddam?" but "Is the world better off with the new logic that led to his fall?"

Zizek seems incapable of fully developing an argument, and he frequently appears to contradict what he was claiming only a few pages earlier. His knowledge of Iraq and the Middle East is superficial, not just by the standards of scholarship about the region, but even by the standards of a social theorist trying to get up to speed about a topic that is not his speciality. Nevertheless, these faults (or idiosyncracies) are frequently redeemed by the audacity of his thinking, never more so than when he is demanding that those of us on the left rethink our stale slogans like 'its not antisemitic to criticize zionism' or 'fundamentalists don't reflect the genuine tenets of Islam'. He can be quite hilarious, and he continues to reach for a genuine radicalism that allows for the possibility of ending capitalism. Unfortunately, only the first third of the book is focused on the title topic--the latter two essays ('appendices') offer too high a portion of Lacanian mental gymnastics to insights about the contemporary world for my taste. But definitely read that first essay. And the latter two can be fruitfully skimmed, at least.

Well ,unlike a certain French intellectual he doesn't think
MidEast Wars are PR stunts. It's all well and good that he criticises do nothing pacifism but as a student of Lenin he should have looked for "internal contradictions" in the war and occupation
itself. Pehaps a Soreliazation of Nietzshe's squib about The Good
War justifying the Cause.

Zizek's earned himself a reputation as being one the more "original" and "engaging" thinkers on the Left in our day. At some points through his voluminous writings on every subject from environmentalism to adultery to virtual reality, indeed he makes original and interesting points that stand out starkly against the banality of most of today's critical theory. At other times he falls flat, reverting to the tired and boring leftist criticisms of Western society that he argues against.

This book is one of those times. Sure, Zizek makes a few illuminating points about the larger societal effects of the War on Terror and of the hypocrisy of much of the Left's criticism of the war, but for most of the rest of the book he reverts to the same criticism he claimed was hypocritical and even "boring" in the preceding paragraph. For instance, he repeats the same canard that Bush lied about the reasons for going to war and how there have been no WMD's found in Iraq (which we know to not be true following the discovery of mustard gas and sarin shells in the country). After going through the necessary motions to make sure he is not identified to closely with conservatives, he then makes the claim that only Europe can save the world from the evil union of the postmodern USA and premodern Third World! This is simply absurd, and he makes no warranted claims as to how this would come about.

Overall, you'll get some interesting points and some recycled Zizek philosophy (for those who have read his other works) along with boring leftist criticism of the war you need only turn on CNN or Air America (if you're one the rare people that actually picks up that station) to hear for free. Worth the money? I think not.