Reading DISPARITIES (1)
“In Zizek’s mind “Jung” is the symbol of all that is homogeneous, harmonious and holistic, whereas Deleuze in fact uses Jung for his disparate pluralist potential.”
“Zizek criticises Deleuze for being influenced by Jung. He singles out the “rhizome” as a Jungian concept and proceeds to replace it with the concept of the Kraken. Of course the Kraken is just as Jungian as the rhizome. But having ritually denounced Jungianism Zizek can now tranquilly go on to embody it unconsciously.”
“Continental Philosophy is full of knee-jerk anti-Jungianism, due to a lack of openness and transparency, and of acknowledgement of disparateness, in its own intellectual history.”
“It maintains a deconstructive relation to Freud without realising that Jung was the first to deconstruct Freud effectively.”
“In fact, Lacan did an internship at the Burghölzli Clinic in August and September 1930 under the directorship of Hans Maier, Jung’s ex-assistant. I think that Lacan was more exposed to Jungian ideas than he let on, preferring to foreground instead the influence of Surrealism, which pursued a similar deconstruction of Freudism to Jung’s.”
“The first critique/deconstruction of Freudian ego psychology does not date from Lacan but from Jung, but you would never guess this from Lacanian discussions of the failings of ego psychology. Deleuze had more openness and more honesty, freely admitting to Jung’s influence from the early 60s onwards. Zizek’s denegation represents a regression.”
“Deleuze and Guattari have the rhizome taken from Jung, but they also have the Thing, the Entity, from the Lovecraftian/Melvillean model. The Kraken is a figuration of both, of their unity. The rhizome is ambivalent between the mole and the kraken.”
“Zizek in DISPARITIES gives attention only to the authoritarian aspect of secret manipulation and determination. He equates the pluralist rhizome and the monist mole as covert determinations. Zizek then proposes his own solution of the Kraken, which in fact is merely a repetition of the ignored uncanny Real aspect of the rhizome.”