IDEOLOGY, THEORY, AND PRACTICE: THE CHOMSKY-ZIZEK DEBATE AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR CRITICAL THEORY

Abstract

In July 2013, a virtual 'dispute' took place between two of the world's most prominent public intellectuals on the political Left - Noam Chomsky and Slavoj Zizek - that had major implications for the discipline of political theory. Some of the fundamental issues in dispute concern the nature of ideology; whether it can be analysed and critiqued without theory, and the relationship between theory and practice in challenging relations of illegitimate power, of which both thinkers consider ideology to be a form. The disagreements between Chomsky and Zizek revolve around these questions - especially the role and nature of theory that is necessary for the critique of ideology. This thesis will first investigate the moral and intellectual foundations of Chomsky and Zizek's critical enterprises. It will then make and substantiate the following claims: that Zizek's theoretical approach affords him a more rigorous epistemology that lies at the foundation of his more defensible account of ideology critique, but that nevertheless Chomsky's anti-intellectualist view of ideology critique is more consistent with the notion of autonomy. After comparing their approaches, the thesis will argue that the critique of power in general - and ideology in particular - is limited when it omits either theory or practice, and that a praxial approach - a practical political one that is grounded in and informed by political theory, which in turn is grounded in empirical fact and political reality - is more effective in problematizing power. The thesis will also identify a tension in the role of the critical theorist between exposing forms of oppression, and delimiting the political agency of the people. It concludes by suggesting that the value of critical theory lies in its ability to call out abuses of political power, and not in its ability to provide a complete theory of society, or solutions to the problems it raises.