In a recent London Review of Books article titled "Post-Wall," Slavoj Zizek (I'm omitting the language accents here for nearly everyone's convenience), an individual described in the Wikepedia as a "Slovenian philosopher and cultural critic," he appears to be attempting to link arms--some would say, 'At last,' with socialists (if it has a "happy" face) from his "neo-anti-communist" stance, assumed as late as l988.

I can buy that--for as long as he's selling. To be perfectly honest (and once again to parallel the Wikepedia), I have heretofore found him wholly absent in "intellectual rigor." In fact, found him almost silly and, at times, bordering on the incomprehensible. His defenders pose this as a Socratic gambit--thesis, antithesis=synthesis--but, here, I'm not buying.

I do happen to think there is considerable merit in trading communism and capitalism for a socialist position, but, alas, you the individual have to put its "happy face" on it for yourselves.

And I find nothing wholly inconsistent if socialist societies retain limited strains of free-enterprise (capitalism) and communal activity. It's only natural.

P.S. Zizek means "zero" in their language.

--Bill Dodd