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Žižek’s Book on Refugees, Review III

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Žižek doesn’t like multicultiralism because what person with a functioning brain does? This, of course, makes him Enemy #1 for the especially mealy-mouthed amongst our PC brethren. See this bit of heresy, for instance:

The multiculturalist anti-colonialist defence of the multiplicity of ‘ways of life’ is also false: it covers up the antagonisms within each of these particular ways of life, justifying acts of brutality, sexism and racism as expressions of a particular culture that we have no right to judge by foreign ‘Western values.’

And there is a really really good analysis of the naive attempts to educate migrants on Western norms of sexual behavior. As if we were talking about people who have never seen a TV or held a cell phone.

This is why the naive attempts to enlighten immigrants (explaining to them that our sexual mores are different, that a woman who walks in public in a miniskirt and smiles does not thereby signal sexual invitation, and so on) are examples of breathtaking stupidity. Immigrants know all this perfectly well—and that’s why they are doing it. They are well aware that what they are doing is foreign to our predominant culture, and they are doing it precisely to wound our sensitivities.

Mind you, though, you’ve got to rummage around a lot in the book to alight on these good, insightful parts. There is a lot of empty blabber that Žižek uses to hide his insights. So remain forewarned: if you think you might like the book, it might be my rendering of it that looks so enticing. 

[The best part is still to come. . .]

35 responses to “Žižek’s Book on Refugees, Review III”

  1. Z Avatar
    Z

    This, though, is where I feel really American, contra European ideas of a culture where you are supposed to be more homogeneous. I am so used to the idea of people showing up with odd religions and whatnot, and going right ahead with them while also being U.S. I don’t mean I think genital mutilation and things like that should be allowed, but part of the character of this place seems to be that it’s the home of colorful sects, Mennonites, Amish, Mormons, and who knows what.

    I am less worried about getting mysterious cultures from elsewhere to assimilate than I am about the homeschoolers, who I am against and want brought into the fold.

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      Absolutely. Americans are managing this so much better than Europeans. I’m an immigrant but here I’m at home. I feel a lot more accepted and welcome than in Western Europe. I don’t think I would be able to live there as an immigrant. And hey, I’m white. Imagine what it’s like for a dark skinned person.

      Of course, there is racism and anti immigrant feelings here, too, obviously. But overall, it’s easier for immigrants to feel at home.

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  2. Z Avatar
    Z

    Although it is a fact that multiculturalism is a weak substitute for antiracism, and that it is right wing in that way and pernicious.

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  3. David P. Bellamy Avatar
    David P. Bellamy

    Does Žižek produce evidence that people from other cultures know how our sexual customs are different? I have certainly seen evidence that they often do not, viewing foreign students’ behaviour. I have also unwittingly behaved in inappropriate ways in other cultural settings when outside the USA. Cultural ignorance is a very real phenomenon and cannot be dismissed so simplistically.

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      Global information technology. Everybody watches the same TV shows and uses the same Facebook.

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      1. el Avatar
        el

        \ Global information technology. Everybody watches the same TV shows and uses the same Facebook.

        Does the ignorance go in one direction then, with Africans and Arabs knowing about the Western culture, but not the opposite? Because I know nothing about Africa, for instance, regardless of global information technology.

        I still think people may be much more ignorant than your claim suggests. Wanted to write:

        “However, I also do not believe any mentally normal person thinks harassing European women is culturally acceptable.”

        And then remembered an article I have seen about the horrible harassment of Arab women (those in hijab too) in Arab countries.

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        1. Clarissa Avatar
          Clarissa

          Africa doesn’t export its culture and technology to the West. Everybody watches Hollywood films and American TV, everybody uses Facebook. But if local products like these exist elsewhere (like vKontakte, the Russian Facebook), nobody knows it.

          Cultural hegemony means everybody knows about you but you don’t need to know about anybody.

          “And then remembered an article I have seen about the horrible harassment of Arab women (those in hijab too) in Arab countries.”

          And in Latin American countries. And in Russian-speaking countries. And in African countries. Etc.

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      2. Shakti Avatar
        Shakti

        Facebook is a walled garden site (you interact with your friends and their shares) and tv isn’t 100 percent on educating people one mores. I know what’s played up for drama and effect because I live here. If you watched only Bolly wood movies you’d think Indians in India had more of a nightlife scene than they do and women regularly wear less conservative clothes to go about their daily business than they do.

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        1. Z Avatar
          Z

          I am tired of being in foreign countries and having people think I am a character on Baywatch or something. If I am somewhere where I can fake being non-US realistically, I do it. It elicits amazingly better behavior and more interesting conversation.

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          1. Clarissa Avatar
            Clarissa

            From now on, it’s Trump not Baywatch people will blame you for. 🙂 I’m hearing it’s already getting hard to travel without getting an earful about the dumbness of this electoral choice.

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            1. Z Avatar
              Z

              I am used to people yelling at me about US politics. I first traveled abroad during the Johnson administration, and we have gotten worse since. But for perceptions of sexual mores, it’s Baywatch.

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              1. Clarissa Avatar
                Clarissa

                Oh yes, everybody believes that all American women are into bouncy bikini runs on the beach.

                Liked by 1 person

        2. Clarissa Avatar
          Clarissa

          “Facebook is a walled garden site (you interact with your friends and their shares) ”

          • You and I must have different Facebook. Half of the content I get is completely unsolicited videos, links, articles and ads I have zero interest in. I have to dig through all that garbage to get to what my friends are posting.

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          1. Shakti Avatar
            Shakti

            When I use Facebook from a computer, I have adblock set up. When I use it from my phone, ads are not blocked. I get ads based on what my friends like or share. Now I don’t have interest in the unsolicited shares, likes, links, articles and videos. But since my friend groups skew a particular way and I don’t friend everyone I’ve met, I don’t get suggestions for Breitbart or Townhall or prepper kits. I also don’t have tons of likes or info filled out. So in that sense it’s a walledifferent garden.

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  4. Stringer Bell Avatar
    Stringer Bell

    Can anyone give me a definition of multiculturalism so I can hate it properly? I see US as a successful multicultural society. I haven’t lived anywhere else, but I really can’t imagine a more welcoming group of people than americans. Doesn’t the peaceful existence of people from different cultures, ethnicities, and religions in this country show that this multiculturalism thing works?

    The greatest, most prosperous country on earth is massively heterogeneous along multiple axes (race, culture, etc.). What am I missing?

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      No, the US is the opposite of multiculturalism. Multiculturalism means that all immigrant communities live separately without mixing in any but the most superficial ways. In the US, the ideology of immigration was the opposite. It is called “the melting pot.” We don’t have ethnic ghettos here or at least we don’t have that many.

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      1. Clarissa Avatar
        Clarissa

        An example: mo mother doesn’t speak any English or French, has no friends or even acquaintances who are not a part of the Russian-speaking immigrant community, prefers to shop in the immigrant stores and only eats in Russian immigrant restaurants. And this is after almost 20 years in Canada. Hers is a multicultural model of immigration.

        My friends are all with a single exception not from Ukraine. I eat, live, shop, entertain myself and others outside of the immigrant community. I have people I can call on the phone and speak to them in English or in Spanish. I made an Italian dish for dinner last night and a Peruvian dish over the weekend. I’ll celebrate “American Christmas.” Mine is a melting pot model.

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        1. Stringer Bell Avatar
          Stringer Bell

          Yes, but what is it about multiculturalism that mandates this behavior? Where in the multiculturalism handbook does it say that one has to segregate themselves? Again, to me, the term just implies the peaceful coexistence of people belonging to different cultures in a country. No less, no more.

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          1. Clarissa Avatar
            Clarissa

            “Yes, but what is it about multiculturalism that mandates this behavior? Where in the multiculturalism handbook does it say that one has to segregate themselves?”

            It’s all about the policies. Will the receiving country go out of its way to house all immigrants from the same country in the same part of town? Or will it try to help them spread around different neighborhoods? Is there a subsidy but only for staying in this particular immigrant neighborhood? Is there a program that helps people learn the new language? What kind of incentives are attached to the program? What cultural events are sponsored by the state? Do they foster openness or closure? Does the state help immigrant small businesses that keep everything within the same immigrant community or businesses that integrate people from different communities? Is there an effort to desegregate public schools? Etc.

            These are not just nebulous definitions. This is all about social policy. And in Western European countries, there have been decades of social policies aimed specifically and very consciously at not letting immigrants abandon the ghettos. And so this is what we are denouncing. This kind of conscious social engineering.

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            1. Stringer Bell Avatar
              Stringer Bell

              That was very helpful. Thanks.

              “And in Western European countries, there have been decades of social policies aimed specifically and very consciously at not letting immigrants abandon the ghettos. ”

              This makes sense when you think of, say Scandinavian countries that welcome you with open arms if you’re destitute or a refugee, but are impossibly difficult to immigrate to if you’re a doctor or engineer.

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              1. Clarissa Avatar
                Clarissa

                “This makes sense when you think of, say Scandinavian countries that welcome you with open arms if you’re destitute or a refugee, but are impossibly difficult to immigrate to if you’re a doctor or engineer.”

                • Exactly. This all started back in the 1950s-60s when Germany invited many migrants from Turkey, the UK brought in migrants from Pakistan and India, etc. The idea was to use their labor for the massive infrastructure and development projects underway but to keep them separate from the local population. Of course, you can’t just come out and say that because it won’t sound nice. So the explanation that was attached to the project was that “we need to respect their culture, which culture is so completely and totally different and incomprehensible that it should be kept as separate as possible.”

                And so what Zizek is saying is in response to that long-standing narrative that respect for other cultures entails keeping at a distance from them. He says let’s not sacralize difference.

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            2. Shakti Avatar
              Shakti

              It’s all about the policies. … And in Western European countries, there have been decades of social policies aimed specifically and very consciously at not letting immigrants abandon the ghettos.

              I think birthright citizenship is a very important part of this. If there is no chance you or your children can truly belong, why integrate? If the only way you are allowed to be in the country is as a guest worker, why do you need to change your attitudes and outward trappings beyond what is needed for the work you do?

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              1. Shakti Avatar
                Shakti

                … And in Western European countries, there have been decades of social policies aimed specifically and very consciously at not letting immigrants abandon the ghetto.

                You could easily say the same about de jure sundown towns, redlining, restrictive covenants, and Jim Crow, which have existed in the lifetime of my grandparents and parents. Much of those policies also affected immigrants from non European countries. I’m not sure if I’d have gone to schools I went to, patronized the same businesses or lived in the neighborhoods I lived in if these policies were still law.

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      2. Stringer Bell Avatar
        Stringer Bell

        We still need to have an accurate definition of this term, though. To me, it looks like the US. To you it evokes visions of ghettoized communities. And to the ‘alt-right’ racist the term means cosmopolitanism, the browning of their precious white countries, and a vague existential threat to their way of life (which they cannot articulate).

        Remember all the times on this blog when you’ve criticized multiculturalism, you’ve had people like danmillerpanama show up to congratulate you for finally getting it or whatever? And he posts ‘white genocide’ youtube videos unironically, so I’m gonna go out on a limb here and claim that multiculturalism means entirely different things to you and to him.

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        1. Clarissa Avatar
          Clarissa

          It’s like the word “nation-state”. People use it to refer to all kinds of weird things but there is a definition used in scholarship, sociology, philosophy, etc. The dichotomy of “multiculturalism vs melting pot” is a commonplace in critical discussions, just like the understanding that the nation-state model did not exist even as a fantasy prior to the XVIIIth century. All I can do is discuss the correct, accepted definitions. Some people will still try to redefine the terminology in the way that suits them but it’s their choice to remain ignorant.

          So for Zizek (and for me and for people who do scholarship on the subject) multiculturalism means “equal but separate.” And I (together with Zizek) believe it’s a bad idea.

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          1. Stringer Bell Avatar
            Stringer Bell

            “multiculturalism means “equal but separate.”

            Well, in that case, I hate it too. That was easy!

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            1. cliff arroyo Avatar
              cliff arroyo

              ““multiculturalism means “equal but separate.”

              Multiculturalism is apartheid applied by liberals.

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              1. Stringer Bell Avatar
                Stringer Bell

                You resent the presence of even professors of Indian and Chinese descent in the US. And I can’t think of a group that has more successfully integrated into this country.

                Your problem is not multiculturalism, it’s the mere existence of people who don’t look like you living in your country. You might want to sit this one out, boss.

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              2. Clarissa Avatar
                Clarissa

                “Multiculturalism is apartheid applied by liberals.”

                • Exactly. And it’s very hard to defeat because it has such a good, positive, mealy-mouthed narrative attached to it. It’s all about respect for others, of course. Not about segregation and exploitation. Yeah, right.

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  5. Z Avatar
    Z

    In US though, multiculturalism, means what Stringer says. It is on the negative side, a weak substitute for antiracism, and on the positive side, a substitute for the deculturation that was required for acceptability 100 years ago. My WASP immigrant ancestors didn’t have difficulties here, and it was OK to retain some German customs and speak German at home, for instance, but the Russian and Jewish ones felt they had to drop languages and customs to whiten and become acceptable. Nowadays their origins would be acceptable and interesting, not shameful. Multiculturalism is also about desegregation, the idea that it is valuable to have white and black students in the same school, and that it is as valuable for white children to know about major black authors the same way it is valuable for black children to know about major white ones. The non-dominant culture isn’t just a special interest or a thing of the past, it is a thing of the present and has value. It doesn’t mean segregation in US.

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  6. cliff arroyo Avatar
    cliff arroyo

    “You resent the presence of even professors of Indian and Chinese descent in the US.”

    Please provide evidence of this extraordinary claim.

    And the people that like it should also provide evidence.

    If you cannot provide evidence of your claim to know what I think, then I expect an apology.

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      I don’t think there is anybody here who dislikes Chinese and Indian professors. Not even reader Matt.

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    2. Stringer Bell Avatar
      Stringer Bell

      Really? You expect me to search this blog for comments? I remember xyacademicz and clarissa discussing their respective neighborhoods when this came up and you barged in with your usual mealy-mouthed bullshit about ‘but still, they’re insular people…blah blah social cohesion…”

      I thought that was extraordinary.

      “then I expect an apology.”

      lol. Pistols at dawn?

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      1. cliff arroyo Avatar
        cliff arroyo

        “Really? You expect me….”

        If you’re going to make claims about what I think, supposedly based on what I’ve written then damn straight I expect you to be able to back it up.

        You asked, I answered. If you don’t like the answer then that’s not my problem.

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  7. The Secret of America’s Success with Immigrants | The Worked Shoot Avatar
    The Secret of America’s Success with Immigrants | The Worked Shoot

    […] I think the reason for this is actually pretty banal. Americans mostly don’t do deep, lifelong friendships. This is probably because they generally prefer wide social networks with lots of shallow relationships (nb I do not use ‘shallow’ here with any kind of value judgement, I’m being purely descriptive). Partly this is because if you’re ambitious you’ll have to move around and so it’s better not to invest in relationships with people too much because sooner or later one of you will probably have to move and a long distance friendship is not the same as one with frequent face to face contact. If you keep things lighter the pain is still there but it heals a lot faster. You want wider networks so that other shallow friendships can fill in the empty space. These types of friendships are easier to start because none of them take up too much time. […]

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