Link to an article by Julian Vigo:
“The Spawn: Feminism’s Misandry Problem”
Bonus Quotes:
“one should . . . admit how problematic it is to anchor one’s political demands to status of victimhood. Is the basic characteristic of today’s subjectivity not the weird combination of the free subject who believes themselves ultimately responsible for their own fate and the subject who bases their argument on their status as a victim of circumstances beyond their own control? Every contact with another human being is experienced as a potential threat – if the other smokes, if he casts a covetous glance at me, he already hurts me; this logic of victimization is today universalized, reaching well beyond the standard cases of sexual or racist harassment.”
Slavoj Žižek, “Sex and ’68: Liberal Movement Revolutionized ‘Sexuality’ But at What Cost?”
“In short, the extreme horror of Auschwitz did not make it into a place which intrinsically purifies every single one of its surviving victims into ethically sensitive subjects who got rid of all petty egotistic interests.”
Slavoj Žižek, “We Need to Examine the Reasons Why We Equate Criticism of Israel with Antisemitism”
“They play the Beautiful Soul, which feels superior to the corrupted world while secretly participating in it: they need this corrupted world as the only terrain where they can exert their moral superiority.”
Slavoj Žižek, Refugees, Terror and Other Troubles with the Neighbors: Against the Double Blackmail (2016)
“The beautiful soul attitude finds a particularly fertile ground in what many call the ‘infantilization’ of our societies. We are encouraged to behave as children: to act primarily upon how we ‘feel,’ to demand — and rely on — constant protection against the ‘outer world,’ its dangers and fights, or simply against the world of others, other human beings.”
“Too Much of Not Enough: An Interview with Alenka Zupančič”
“PC anti-racism is sustained by the surplus-enjoyment which emerges when the PC-subject triumphantly reveals the hidden racist bias on an apparently neutral statement or gesture”
Slavoj Žižek, “The Need to Traverse the Fantasy”
My only disagreement with Vigo’s article is her characterization of “motherhood privilege” (more broadly, “parenthood privilege”) as “delusional nonsense”. Laws and corporate policies do sometimes grant benefits to parents that are not given to the childless — isn’t that a parenthood privilege? For instance, assume that parenthood is burdensome but socially beneficial; could someone benefit by avoiding more burdensome and less socially beneficial wage work in a capitalist society through parental leave that is not available to other workers who would like to have time off from wage work to engage in burdensome and socially beneficial activity other than parenthood? If so, then there is a parenthood privilege. There is a trace of chauvinist defensiveness in Vigo’s argument there, though this doesn’t undermine her larger point. See also “About the Fate of Contemporary Girls” Excerpt
