The Zizek-Milbank debate is perhaps played out, after two books and an additional exchange in Political Theology. There’s no reason, however, that we can’t continue to thrill to Zizek’s engagement with reactionary figures. Thus I propose a new series of “interventions” in which Zizek is paired with figures like Ratzinger, Le Pen, and Dick Cheney. These exchanges promise to be every bit as illuminating as his era-inaugurating encounter with Milbank.
6 thoughts on “Idea for a new series”
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An und für sich 
I just read Milbank’s contribution in The Grandeur of Reason, where he takes on the “speculative materialism movement” (umm?) which includes “Badiou [calls himself a dialectical materialist], Laruelle [umm… well sometimes he calls his stuff a transcendental realism, but he critisizes materialsim], Meillassoux [he got one! well done… though you know what they say about a broken clock], Henry [ok, seriously, what are you talking about? and just after you got one right!], Toscano [sigh… not even trying], Mullarkey [now you’re just embarrassing yourself] and Brassier [well, I can see how you could be confused]”. Readers may be surprised to find out that he gives a highly idiosyncratic reading of all these figures and that, surprise!, a Catholic philosophy (the spiritual realism of Ravaisson and de Biran) is a more truly materialist philosophy because it saves matter from nihilism.
Do the figures he names fail to account for something, by any chance?
How did you guess?!
It’s an amazingly common pitfall among nihilists, I’ve found.
For all of Milbank’s ostensible fascism, I’m just glad the “BHL meets Zizek at the NY Public Library” event never get turned into a book (knock on wood).
This reminds me of the Fred Hembeck parody from the late 80s or 90s where The Punisher meets Archie.