Editing Slavoj Žižek (section)

===Inconsistency and ambiguity===
Žižek's philosophical and political positions have been described as ambiguous, and his work has been criticized for a failure to take a consistent stance.<ref>{{cite web |last=Kuhn |first=Gabriel |year=2011 |url=http://www.alpineanarchist.org/r_anarchist_hypothesis.html |title=The Anarchist Hypothesis, or Badiou, Žižek, and the Anti-Anarchist Prejudice |website=Alpine Anarchist |access-date=4 September 2013 |archive-date=28 April 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210428121741/http://www.alpineanarchist.org/r_anarchist_hypothesis.html |url-status=live }}</ref> While he has claimed to stand by a revolutionary Marxist project, his lack of vision concerning the possible circumstances which could lead to successful revolution makes it unclear what that project consists of. According to [[John Gray (philosopher)|John Gray]] and John Holbo, his theoretical argument often lacks grounding in historical fact, which makes him more provocative than insightful.<ref name="ViolentVisions">{{cite journal|last=Gray|first=John|title=The Violent Visions of Slavoj Žižek|journal=New York Review of Books|date=12 July 2012|volume=59 |issue=12 |url=http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/jul/12/violent-visions-slavoj-zizek/|access-date=22 September 2012|archive-date=20 November 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151120004119/http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/jul/12/violent-visions-slavoj-zizek/|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name=Holbo-2004>{{cite journal|last=Holbo|first=John|title=On Žižek and Trilling|journal=Philosophy and Literature|date=1 January 2004|volume=28|issue=2|pages=430–440|doi=10.1353/phl.2004.0029|s2cid=170396508|quote=...an unhealthy anti-liberal is one, like Z+iz=ek, who ticks and tocks in unreflective revulsion at liberalism, pantomiming that he is de Maistre (or Abraham) or Robespierre (or Lenin) by turns, lest he look like Mill.}}</ref><ref name=Holbo-CT-2010>{{cite news|last=Holbo|first=John|title=Zizek on the Financial Collapse&nbsp;– and Liberalism|url=http://crookedtimber.org/2010/12/17/zizek-on-the-financial-collapse-and-liberalism/|access-date=21 August 2012|newspaper=Crooked Timbers|date=17 December 2010|quote=To review: Zizek does this liberal = neoliberal thing. Which is no good. And he doesn't even have much to say about economics. And Zizek does this liberal = self-hating pc white intellectuals thing. Which is no good.|archive-date=4 March 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120304223230/http://crookedtimber.org/2010/12/17/zizek-on-the-financial-collapse-and-liberalism/|url-status=live}}</ref>

In a very negative review of Žižek's book ''Less than Nothing'', John Gray attacked Žižek for his celebrations of violence, his failure to ground his theories in historical facts, and his 'formless radicalism' which, according to Gray, professes to be communist yet lacks the conviction that communism could ever be successfully realized. Gray concluded that Žižek's work, though entertaining, is intellectually worthless: "Achieving a deceptive substance by endlessly reiterating an essentially empty vision, Žižek's work amounts in the end to less than nothing."<ref name="ViolentVisions"/>

Žižek's refusal to present an alternative vision has led critics to accuse him of using unsustainable Marxist categories of analysis and having a 19th-century understanding of class.<ref>{{cite web|title=Slavoj Zizek responds to his critics|last=Žižek|first=Slavoj|work=[[Jacobin (magazine)|Jacobin]]|date=3 July 2012|url=https://www.jacobinmag.com/2012/07/slavoj-zizek-responds-to-his-critics/|access-date=13 April 2018|archive-date=2 March 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180302225322/https://www.jacobinmag.com/2012/07/slavoj-zizek-responds-to-his-critics/|url-status=live}}</ref> For example, [[post-Marxist]] [[Ernesto Laclau]] argued that "Žižek uses class as a sort of ''[[deus ex machina]]'' to play the role of the good guy against the multicultural devils."<ref>Butler, Judith, Ernesto Laclau and Slavoj Žižek ''Contingency, Hegemony, Universality: Contemporary Dialogues on the Left''. Verso. London, New York City 2000. pp. 202–206</ref>

In his book ''Living in the End Times'', Žižek suggests that the criticism of his positions is itself ambiguous and multilateral:

{{blockquote|I am attacked for being anti-Semitic ''and'' for spreading [[Zionism|Zionist]] lies, for being a covert Slovene nationalist ''and'' unpatriotic traitor to my nation, for being a crypto-Stalinist defending terror ''and'' for spreading Bourgeois lies about Communism... so maybe, just maybe I am on the right path, the path of fidelity to freedom.<ref>{{cite book |first=Slavoj |last=Žižek |title=Living in the End Times |page=xiv}}</ref>}}