Timothy Bryar

Zizek's battle cry to 'do nothing', or what is termed Bartleby politics, has been met with much criticism. At best, it seems, his Bartleby politics simply enables us to see the limits of society, and at worst, it leaves us in a state of impotent passivity. This article takes a position of preferring Bartleby politics. This paper reflects on Žižek’s Bartleby politics. It starts with briefly outlining the basic tenets of Bartleby politic, including concepts of the superego, enjoyment and the Act. Next the paper examines different reactions to Žižek’s Bartleby politics, and how these help us to further think about the concept. The paper concludes with some reflections on the practicalities of Zizek’s Bartleby politics.

The politics of Slavoj Zizek has been attracting greater attention in recent times, particularly as a result of some of his recent public commentary key contemporary political issues, such as the Occupy Movement, the election of Donald Trump, and the Greek referendum. Zizek has advocated a range of political strategies in the course of his writings, including ‘over-identification’. However, while the strategy of over-identification appears to have given way to a preference for the Lacanian Act, subtraction and Bartleby politics, the paper examines whether Zizek’s recent public interventions signal a return to his politics of over-identification. First, the paper briefly examines the underlying theory behind a politics of identification and how Zizek conceives it. The paper then turns to three events – Wikileaks, the election of Trump, and Trumps withdrawal of the US from the Paris Agreement on climate change – to examine the application of a politics of over-identification to contemporary political issues. The paper includes by highlighting further key points in Zizek’s theoretical edifice that reinforce the relevance and applicability of his politics to contemporary issues.

Within Foucault’s assertion that society exists as a totalised field of actions upon actions, ‘doing nothing’ perhaps takes on the role of a radically subversive excess. This suggestion is consistent with Zizek’s politics of withdrawal, or Bartleby politics. However Zizek’s politics has come under much criticism in particular for the simple fact that he seems to be promoting indolent passivity in the face of systemic violence of contemporary liberal-democratic capitalism. This article seeks to critically examine two attempts at resisting the urge to ‘do nothing’, in particular the post-anarchist politics of Saul Newman and the Adrian Johnston’s critique of the cadence of change. It is argued here that both authors structure their arguments around the subversive excess of ‘doing nothing’.