Hegemony In Academia

This is the idea that the consistent teaching of resistance in the academy has now limited the discourse from engaging other aspects of social behavior.

Am I the only reader who finds this sentence incomprehensible?

Okay, I'll bite. I'd like to see an expansion of this. There are too many ambiguous terms in the declaration.

When did academia become academy? I knew private school vouchers were a bad idea. . .

I think the contributor is exercising a random sentence generator.

Sorry for the confusion. I was showing a colleague how easily Wiki worked and was grasping for a subject. However, there was no random sentence generation going on. I was vainly struggling to recall something I had recently read by Slavoj Zizek in Critical Inquiry, Volume 29, No. 3, Spring 2003. I should have quoted him directly instead of relying on my sieve-like memory which is now so coarse as to catch only the largest nuggets of pulp. Here is what he actually wrote:

The hegemonic attitude of academia is that of resistance--all the poetics of the dispersed marginal sexual, ethnic, lifestyle multitudes (the mentally ill, prisoners) resisting the mysterious central (capitalized) Power. Everyone resists, from gays and lesbians to rightist survivalists--so why not make the logical conclusion that this discourse of resistance is the norm today and, as such, the main obstacle to the emergence of the discourse that could effectively question the dominant relations of Power? (pp. 494-5)

What this implies, at least to me, is the possibility that the Power (elites) have learned to cope with resistance, and so to focus on resistance is simply to reinforce Power. But then, I am an ex-engineer with an axe to grind. -DonOlson

Excuse the interjection, but I wanted to try to put Zizek's concepts into other words and guess examples:

There is an concept in the writings of academics which has become worryingly ubiquitous. This concept is _resistance_: that various (small, marginalised) groups resist some centralized, capitalized (in the sense of controlling the means of production) Power.

This is worrying because:

The small, marginalised groups may be individually tiny, but in combination (gays, lesbians, ethnic minorities (though who's a minority changes over time), rightist survialists...) may be very large. If all the resistant groups were able to find common ground and co-operate, where does this leave Power? (ie. the concept of resistance may be falsely dividing the marginalised _from each other_)
The marginalised groups may loathe each other more than they loathe Power. (cf. "We're not the Judean People's Front! We're the People's Front of Judea! -- Life of Brian), in which case concentration on marginalised/power opposition may not be the Most Important Thing
Concentrating on resistance means ignoring other elements: if (eg.) most of the discussion about film is like that, you may pick up the concept that the Alien trilogy might be seen as a post-feminist future, and you might pick up themes about corporate power, but you won't investigate HR Geiger's artworks.
Power may be amenable to pressure from the marginalised groups; writing in terms of resistance may be causing Power to become more concentrated, and more corrupt (ie. concept of resistance may be falsely dividing the marginalised from potentially-"friendly" elements within Power) (eg. for "Corporate Social Responsibility" to work, at _least_, companies have to mean it and do it, and consumers have to notice; if the former fake it or the latter treat it as cynical and ignore it, it won't work).
All this "resisting" doesn't seem to have much effect.

(And to start with, I'd like to know whether people think that's what Zizek means here. If we try and discuss everything I mentioned or implied to destruction, we'll need a lot more time and wikis). -- TimS

Good to hear from you again, Don. Is it just me, or have you been otherwise occupied for a while?

I recall your remarks from GetaLife, and remember saying, "self, I wish I could do that" (where "that" is stepping off the HamsterWheel?).

I've begun, slowly, to work in that direction. I guess I should direct the expansion of those thoughts back to the GetaLife page. -- GarryHamilton

Thanks. Yes, I've been derelict at Wiki for a while, but now I remember how much fun it was, and I hope to see some spit, vitriol, and gasoline coming from this Zizek stuff, whether from those who think literary theory is crap, or from those who study it but find Zizek at odds with their favorite mode of analysis. By the way, you didn't sign your name--who am I answering? I'll check GetaLife to see what you're doing to effect the transition to leisured poverty (but it's fun!). -DonOlson

Oh, you're right, I've signed it now -- gh

Don, I guess I am confused. Would Zizek say that, for example, Feminism does not really subvert the dominant paradigm at all? (At least not in the academy?) That, in actuality, studying Feminism really benefits patriarchal power? And studying Marxism really strengthens capitalist ideology? Or is this simply one of those crazy, impracticable theories we're always learning about? -MairinBarney

I wonder if the Go proverb (see GameOfGo) "Walls built in gote are never advantageous" is applicable? In the examples you gave -- Feminism, Marxism -- as well as the current (in the US) effort to protect gay rights, the effect of the academic study of these fields may be to entrench their opposition while creating the illusion of diversity of opinion. A university (or similar power structure) can cite the presence of a Feminist Studies department as evidence of its lack of bias when objecting to the observation that it has no women in positions of power. See also Condoleeza Rice, Colin Powell, and Clarence Thomas (shifting to the civil rights domain).

Mairin, I think that Zizek is concerned with the dominance of resistance as a critical stance, not with its efficacy. Certainly, feminism, marxism, and other critical frameworks are valid tools, but to only use them in terms of resistance, or to value resistance as the only interpretation of all cultural phenomena is what Zizek is questioning. Nowhere does he advocate abandoning these viewpoints; rather, he is saying that room needs to be made for other forms of discourse. My inference was simply that Power, thanks to its dominance in media, and perhaps the academy, can do exactly as the responder above stated (name?), namely, give meaningless support to examples of resistance while still dominating in the material sphere. --DonOlson

Oooh, real stuff! Can Wiki deal with such things? What does Zizek propose as an alternative to resistance? Acceptance? I wonder if 'resistance' is fundamental or just a fashion in the context? Perhaps that is his point. Brings Nietzsce's 'will to power' to mind. --RichardHenderson.