>>63984615
>Zizek is pro-Ukraine and pro-stronger NATO.
>wait, what?
Watch this:
https://youtu.be/2Xom7xFDL6A

While I don't like to generalize about them, Slovenians are bit different because they're a small Slavic nation on the border with Austria. It's "east meets west." Or... south (east). The Balkans. But they've absorbed many Germanic elements and they have this complex about wanting to be the "Switzerland of the Balkans." They were also part of Yugoslavia, which was relatively more relaxed than other socialist countries, and they were never part of the Warsaw Pact. The border with the rest of Europe was basically open, and they had more exposure to the West when they were part of Yugoslavia. Slovenia is an in-between space.

So among intellectuals like Zizek, they came to have a cynical view of communism (because they lived it) but also less illusions about the West because they were already pretty familiar with it. A lot of dissident types in other socialist countries had rather native and unrealistically optimistic views about the West. (There's a saying the higher the Soviet government built the wall, the more people wanted to look over it.)

So Zizek's style is not to be like these vulgar leftists who just dislike the West and shill for anybody who opposes it because the West is ~the enemy~. But he's critical of the West. He thinks a lot of politics in the West is dumb and it needs to get more organized, stronger, and more unified, and he wants Europe to rediscover a historical mission. He plays with paradox. He critiques the West but also those who do so from a pseudo-radical or cynical standpoint while not having any alternative (or support something worse). Watch the video.