Dr. Cornel West

In "Enjoy Your Symptom", Slavoj Zizek writes:

"...the definition of 'normalcy' [in ego psychology] is a
psychical apparatus open to reality, whereas the psyche is
'pathogenic' if, instead of establishing proper contact with
reality, it builds its own 'disjointed' universe. It was of
course the classic Marxist criticism of 'conformist' pyscho-
analysis which opposed itself to such a notion of reality:
the 'reality' to which conformist pyschoanalysis refers as a
norm of psychic 'sanity' is not neutral reality as such, but
the historically specified form of social reality. By offering as its

ideal the subject 'adjusted to reality', conformist psychoanalysis

makes itself subservient to existing social reality, to its relations

of domination, categorizing critical distance from it as 'pathological'(54).

It seems to me that Dr. West is addressing the students on exactly this issue (see 5:18 in the video for the relevant comments, although I highly recommend watching it from start to finish), when he urges them not to be "well-adjusted to injustice"... Elsewhere, he encourages people to *be* mal-adjusted to the status-quo.

Zizek, in the same chapter that the above quote is taken from, parts ways with West (who are good friends and share many differences and similarities) in his articulation of the Lacanian 'act': he suggests that a true act is an absolute break from the symbolic order, a "once-more-unto-the-breach" leap that is purely negative, and thinks nothing about what comes after the break until the break itself is complete. (the symbolic order meaning roughly society, family ties, career, etc.) This seems to me to be an over-simplification of the symbolic, and especially of history; all of Zizek's discussions of the revolutionary act have a whiff of the a-historical, as though the subject of the act is not a specific individual who is raced, sexed, nationalized, and so on, but just a 'pure' subject. (see chapter 2 of "Enjoy Your Symptom").

By contrast, the first thing West mentions in the address above is family and friends, the support network. Although he calls for radical and independent thought, political leadership, a commitment to injustice, it is never severed from where these students came from (or where any of us committed to justice come from), namely, our mothers, fathers, friends, pastors, professors etc. who all have a shaping influence for us, and who really are the reason why we are committed to the things we're committed to in the first place. Zizek fails to see that there isn't simply a symbolic order, but many symbolic orders, or symbolic orders embedded within other symbolic orders-- nations within nations, cultures within cultures--

The video leaves no doubt in my mind that there is an African-American nation and there is the American nation; West is addressing both, but first and foremost he is talking to his 'sisters'.

I'd like to say something more about voice, and rhythm, and the 'blues' and how all of these are intertwined in the cadences of West's own distinctive voice, as he freestyles his way through such an inspired and inspiring address...maybe next time.