At the Center of the Margin: Derrida, Žižek, and the Illusion of Origin
The Debate. AI art Introduction The 2019 debate between Slavoj Žižek and Jordan Peterson, held in Toronto, was billed as a confrontation between Marxism and Capitalism. However, beyond economic systems or identity politics, one of the most revealing moments came when Žižek expressed distaste not for capitalism or ideology, but for marginality itself. Reacting to what he saw as a postmodern valorization of resistance without real subversion of power , he remarked: “His project was never revolution but rather small resistances, marginal sites of power. And that’s precisely what I don’t like about what you call postmodernism. Let’s not even call them Marxists, but ‘revolutionaries.’ It’s this enjoyment of self-marginalization. The good thing is to be at the margin, not at the center. It almost makes me nostalgic for old Communists who at least had the honesty to say, ‘We don’t enjoy being marginal—we want to seize power.’ I find this celebration of marginality disgusting.” Thi...