Repository | Book | Chapter

Slavoj Žižek has been, and continues to be, harshly criticized for the two nominal presuppositions of his work – his odd mixture of Lacanianism and Leninist Marxism vis-à-vis Hegel's dialectical materialism. Who can forget the startling merger of these two in his short treatise, On Belief, where he decided to denounce academic post-secular spiritualism as an empty construct, a fetish which he terms "Western Buddhism'? "One is almost tempted,' he begins, "to resuscitate here the old infamous Marxist cliché of religion as the "opium of the people," as the imaginary supplement of the terrestrial misery: the "Western Buddhist" meditative stance is arguably the most efficient way, for us, to fully participate in the capitalist dynamic while retaining the appearance of mental sanity' (2001b, p. 13). This intentionally realized, politically incorrect reading of "Western Buddhism' appears counter-intuitive to those who have come to believe emergent spirituality to be a means of sanctuary from Western, Eurocentrist, colonialist ideology. Žižek maintains, though, that such sanctuary is a fantasy-construct – inauthentic, a mere semblance. Hence, "Western Buddhism' fits the fetishist mode of ideology, where the fetish "is effectively a kind of inverse of the symptom. That is to say, the symptom is the exception which disturbs the surface of the false appearance, the point at which the repressed Other Scene erupts, while fetish is the embodiment of the Lie which enables us to sustain the unbearable truth' (Žižek, 2001b, p. 13).

DOI: 10.1057/9780230294684_6

Full citation: