Slavoj Žižek is one of the most controversial left-wing thinkers in the world today. For fans, he’s a figure worthy of rapturous praise and entire journals devoted to studying his thought. For detractors, he’s a charlatan and a clown — a nose-grabbing, Lacan-citing, cartoonish emblem of everything that is wrong with out-of-touch, superficially radical continental philosophy.

These critiques sometimes have a ring of truth to them. Žižek has taken some truly bad positions in recent years, one of the worst being his crypto-accelerationist “endorsement” of Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton. While Žižek has tried to explain himself since then, he’s never backed away from his basic position: that Trump’s victory would help bring about a more “authentic left.” It was a bad argument that ignored the actual history of far-right movements, which — far from accelerating the rise of a genuine left — have often bred further reaction. Žižek’s arguments also ignored the incredible damage Trump was capable of — and ultimately caused.

Žižek’s 2015 comments about refugees also warrant criticism. While he rightly criticized Western states and global capital for generating many of the conditions that cause people to flee their home countries, his view of refugees from Africa and the Middle East as radically different, almost incompatible, with European society risks reinforcing far-right racism. Žižek can claim he supports solidarity with refugees in spite of this all he wants — these still remain troubling remarks.