Institutionalizing Revolution

While I've not always been a fan of Zizek's political analyses, I have to say, his latest book is terrific. There's any number of really great ideas by him in it, but I'll just point out two of them here. First, is the emphasis on the importance of the Included/Excluded division to understanding any political response to the contemporary world's problems:

"[The four antagonisms of modern capitalism:] the looming threat of an ecological catastrophe; the inappropriateness of the notion of private property in relation to so-called 'intellectual property'; the socio-ethical implications of new techno-scientific developments (especially in biogenetics); and, last but not least, the creation of new forms of apartheid, new Walls and slums." (91)

"In the series of four antagonisms then, that between the Included and the Excluded is the crucial one. Without it, all others lose their subversive edge - ecology turns into a problem of sustainable development, intellectual property into a complex legal challenge, biogenetics into an ethical issue. One can sincerely fight to preserve the environment, defend a broader notion of intellectual property, or oppose the copyrighting of genes, without ever confronting the antagonism between the Included and the Excluded. [...] One can well imagine a society which somehow resolves the first three antagonisms through authoritarian measures which not only maintain but in fact strengthen existing social hierarchies, divisions and exclusions. [...] As this logic reaches its extreme, would it not be reasonable to bring it to its self-negation: is not a system which renders 80 percent of people irrelevant and useless itself irrelevant and of no use?" (98/103)

Second is his move beyond the limitations of 'direct participatory action' and the romanticism given to revolutionary moments, in favour of actively constructing a new order, a new institutionalized order:

"My suggestion is rather this: what if today's global capitalism, precisely insofar as it is 'world-less', involving a constant disruption of all fixed order, opens up the space for a revolution which will break the vicious cycle of revolt and its reinscription, which will, in other words, no longer follow the pattern of an evental explosion followed by a return to normality, but will instead assume the task of a new 'ordering' against the global capitalist disorder? Out of revolt we should shamelessly pass to enforcing a new order." (130)

"The key test of every radical emancipatory movement is [...] to what extent it transforms on a daily basis the practico-inert institutional practices which gain the upper hand once the fervor of the struggle is over and people return to business as usual. The success of a revolution should not be measured by the sublime awe of its ecstatic moments, but by the changes the big Event leaves at the level of the everyday, the day after the insurrection." (154)

To which I say: yes, yes, and yes.

My only real problem with the book is twofold: Zizek explicitly argues that the terrain of politics is ideology, in some parts of the book. (Though this is belied by his comments in other parts of the book.) While ideology is important, too much focus on it leads us to neglect material factors. Secondly, and related, is that the general ideas of 'ideology' and 'capitalism' are far too baggy to grasp onto real concrete political action. This would take a lot of work to demonstrate, but something like actor-network theory is immensely more useful for understanding how to work with the conduits through which ideology passes. As an empirical study of specific political situations, actor-network theory is well-suited to actively working in the world.