Politics and perversion

What is distinctive about Slavoj Žižek's interpretation of Paul is not immediately clear. This is due first of all to the context in which his primary readings of Paul take place. In The Ticklish Subject, Žižek discusses Paul in the course of a critique of Alain Badiou's philosophy and particularly his book Saint Paul: The Foundation of Universalism, but Paul in himself is not at issue for Žižek at this point, leaving his own position on Paul ambiguous. Žižek again turns to Paul in The Puppet and the Dwarf, specifically in the midst of a somewhat elliptical critique of Agamben's book The Time That Remains, but more broadly in the context of an interpretation of Actual Existing Christianity, in which Paul serves as the point of Christianity's emergence out of Judaism. ¹ Beyond the necessity of discerning Žižek's implicit positive position on Paul from his critique of another reading, there is a further potential for misunderstanding. Given that Žižek is often seen (erroneously) as an advocate or popularizer of Badiou's philosophy, one might assume that Žižek's critique of Agamben amounts to a simple reassertion of Badiou's reading of Paul. This is not the case. In fact, Žižek's reading of Paul in The Puppet and the Dwarf is at least implicitly a critique of Badiou's, and more importantly represents a significant advance over Badiou's, particularly on the question of the law in Romans 7. In support of this contention, I will first briefly outline Badiou's interpretation of Paul's position on the law, then move on to Žižek's critique of Badiou in The Ticklish Subject. Finally, I will turn to the task of making sense of Žižek's discussion of Paul in the context of his argument in The Puppet and the Dwarf.