An Arrested Dialogue: Eagleton and Žižek

Abstract

No such thing as authentic dialogue is possible, according to Žižek. In any debate, there are presuppositions held by the debaters that are nonnegotiable. When we reach these, the debate as such is over. What we have, then, is at most “an interaction of two monologues” or perhaps—for the Hegelian—the denial that the other debater’s position is a position at all.¹ This position on debate is invigorating, at least when debate often is attributed a heavier load than it can bear in resolving disputes and reaching consensus. It is also consistent with Žižek’s Protestant emphasis on faith as a subjective, engaged and ultimately groundless decision. To Eagleton’s more Catholic perspective, faith and reason are not as diametrically opposed as Žižek occasionally has it, but rather more integrated in each other: faith is not unreasonable, and even if reason does not go all the way down, a faith without reason altogether would be blind. This position would consequently imply a different, less decisionistic view on the possibility of dialogue; dialogue as negotiation, where not everything is put to question at once, but where we, in time, are able to be persuaded by another’s arguments. Žižek would probably fault Eagleton for allowing too much common ground between differing perspectives, thus effectively denying the struggle for universality in presupposing a “third,” neutral sphere.

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