On Žižek the capitalist clown, the circus on the Left, and cultural imperialism w/ Gabriel Rockhill

“On the Barricades” s06e28

On this week’s release of “On the Barricades,” hosts Maria Cernat and Boyan Stanislavski invite back the French-American writer, cultural critic, and activist, Gabriel Rockhill. Gabriel’s work in academia led him to a very close understanding of the bourgeois cultural and intellectual apparatus for its fundamental, historical role of bringing leftist thinking in line with the interests of the corporate elites and capitalist order. We have Gabriel back, this time to elaborate on his latest article about Slavoj Žižek, who is perhaps the most well-known example of such a pseudo-leftist intellectuals symptomatic of the neo-liberal cultural apparatus.

With a huge platform and reputation, Žižek decries the possibility of revolution and now positions himself emphatically as pro-NATO and pro-war in Ukraine.
The example of Žižek reveals much about the anti-communist cultural imperialism but also related problems plaguing the “left” much discussed and analyzed on our show. Gabriel’s work is in dissecting these problems using materialist historical tools to explain the important way such trends have ramifications not only in the discourse, but materially and in the sabotage of global working class struggle.

Gabriel’s article on Žižek: https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/01/02/capitalisms-court-jester-slavoj-zizek/