Much of this essay has appeared in Zizek's Iraq, The Borrowed Kettle, but it's still a wake-up call. Perhaps we American academics are by-and-large too timid to engage in such direct critiques of our government, wary of calling unwanted attention to ourselves in a time of war, but damn, I wish more of us were writing pieces as lively, vital and to-the-point as Zizek's latest--"The Not-So-Quiet American."
The essay closes with a nice example of how to deploy the Hegelian logic of the totality when doing a cultural critique and the piece itselrfis filled with fascinating information, e.g. Jeanne Kirkpatrick's distinction between "authoritarian" and "totalitarian" regimes, which the U.S. used to justify its support of ruthless dictators such as Saddam Hussein, and Saddam's use of Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" as an election-victory anthem. I wish I knew how to get word to Zizek that this tune happens to be a favorite of Patrick Bateman, the protagonist of Brett Easton Ellis's American Psycho. Does anyone know if Dubya and Cheney had an official campaign or victory tune for the last election?
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