I admit I was a bit wary, not for what I'd already read by the philosopher himself, but from the way he's frequently discussed, his role as the sort of radical French thinker taken up by bobos and artists and impressed humanities grad students: post-Marxist and still "viable" now that we are post the peak of postmodern theory's power. (Or is that a grand narrative? Help!) I think the unfortunate thing about people like Rancière, Žižek, even the late great headscratcher Deleuze is that they don't really piss anyone off. Not really, and not the right people one should want to piss off. I don't use this to paint all of these contemporary philosophers with otherwise the same brush: Žižek is only very intermittently worth reading, whereas Rancière seems to be very worthwhile. (Deleuze has fantastic stuff too, but he's got his limits, as Luc Moullet's sly deflation shows with respect to the Cinema books.) It's more a matter of staying realistic about the alleged radical potential of these figures' works. People sometimes talk about continental theorists like they're talking about indie rock bands. (I admit I've done it myself.)* It's a pointless game; it's a form of philosophizing taken from its unsexy envelopment in actual society. Elusive Lucidity.
* ainda ontem, em conversa com um grande admirador do Speed Racer, se discorria sobre Zizek e o elemento fashion que é apreciar os seus escritos e ditos (embora neste caso a compreensão seja um bocadinho mais complicada, pois o inglês do homem é ininteligível, e por isso mesmo gostaria de saber como é que as pessoas que estiveram na cinemateca no passado sábado conseguiram decifrar o que o homem disse, e se eu lá tivesse estado, poderia dizer, com toda a propriedade, não percebi um caralho do que ele disse, e acrescentaria sim, literalmente). Mas se muitos realizadores já são idolatrados como criaturas divinas, porque é que ensaístas radicais também não o poderão ser? Zizek é apenas mais uma peça na engrenagem que tão laboriosamente procura descontruir em mil pedaços. Vou comer um iogurte.
