The Debate of the Century: Basic Bitch Cold Warrior versus Full Loco Zizekist

This is the so-called “debate of the century” between supposed Alt Right icon Jordan Peterson and real gadfly Marxist Slavoj Zizek. 

I never seen Peterson in action before, but if this is representative, I honestly don´t understand what the fuzz is all about. Peterson comes across as a basic bitch non-conservative conservative from some of the more boring phases of the Cold War. His defense of free market capitalism and criticism of socialism is the usual one, and why on earth is he attacking Marxism anyway? Nobody cares about classical Marxism in 2019. And why does he start a debate with Zizek by a 30 minute attack on “The Communist Manifesto”? Zizek couldn´t care less, and neither could his fans. Also, Peterson sounds like (and sits like) a typical shrink, even psychoanalyzing Zizek at one point (LOL). 

Peterson isn´t Alt Right, he is simply a main-line Republican circa 1980 or 1990. I wouldn´t be surprised if the AR finds *Zizek* more interesting, I mean a “Marxist” who opposes immigration, has a soft spot for authoritarianism (despite claims to the contrary in this debate – unless you read the fine print) and doesn´t like post-modern political correctness. Even Peterson´s “conservatism” is really American individualism with some nods to family, community, Church and country – once again, nothing new or radical. (For the record, I know that Jordan Bernt Peterson is actually Canadian.)

In the debate, Zizek (who is quite the character – Peterson is right, there!) jumps wildly from topic to topic, indeed it seems as if he changes topic with *literally* every new sentence. Listening to him and his Slav-accented English was a mental exercise of major proportions. Still, he does make some interesting points. China disproves both the classical Marxists and the free market liberals who claim to believe in “democracy”, since its combination of state authoritarianism and markets is immensely successful, more so than any other form of capitalism today (or socialism, for that matter). The left´s obsession with identity politics and political correctness has nothing to do with Marxism or class struggle, but reflects the impotence of the left in actually changing the economic base of society, and is therefore a product of the left´s *defeat*. (Peterson rather believes that there is a direct line from Marxism to post-modern identity politics – this may be true of academic middle class Marxism, but hardly of the classical version.) The ecological crisis is real and difficult to solve, since the people doesn´t understand the issues and hence wouldn´t vote for radical eco-change if given the chance to democratically do so. Liberals who oppose Trump can´t explain why their own system can give rise to people like Trump in the first place. Opposition to Trump is therefore a "fetish". The contradictions of globalist capitalism is the real problem and can´t be solved by simply attacking "Trump".

Less convincingly, Zizek argues that Marx didn´t really believe in equality, that there will be hierarchies even in a classless communist society, that Hegel wasn´t teleological and hence can be used as an antidote to deterministic Marxism, etc. I won´t comment his bizarre theological meanderings. Funny detail: at one point, Peterson calls Zizek a “Zizekist rather than a Marxist”.

And yes, somewhere in there Jordan and Slavoj actually talk about “happiness”, the ostensible topic of the debate…