This is the thread where we talk about Slavoj Zizek...

wouldn't call the post-war russian empire communist, insofar as we want to keep communism something to aspire to. in a way it makes it even creepier that he still pretty openly admires lenin/stalin/mao, none of whose regimes would have tolerated him or his readership.

Not Communist in an idealized sense, but still, he has stronger connections to "practiced" Communism than anyone into radical chic.

Jordan, Yugoslavia was NOT part of any Russian empire!

http://www.tnr.com/booksarts/story.html?id=c6570f94-f4b8-4b2a-b3f5-6adefe8d15ca

it's a pretty weak comeback imo. he gets in a few points but there's all sorts of stuff in the original that s/z doesn't dispute.

how did you read that so fast?

had already read it

Zizek is the philosopher equivalent of the teenager who associates way too closely with Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker.

within that analogy, who is the joker? and who is batman?

burt_stanton is both the joker and batman

I don't know. If there's a philosopher out there who advocates for the status quo, but amending it a little to make incremental improvements over time that overall benefits everyone and creates a fairer and more equal society, there you go.

that's batman.

If there's a philosopher out there

i am loling at this and have no idea why

http://i274.photobucket.com/albums/jj242/donaldparsley/batmans.jpg

http://harpers.org/archive/2009/01/hbc-90004183

did zizek put berlusconi's racist joke about obama into noam chomsky's mouth?

Berlusconi’s remark dismissed Obama’s blackness as an endearing eccentricity, thus obliterating the historical meaning of the fact that an African-American was elected President, while the remark I falsely attributed to Chomsky, if accurate, would point towards the ambiguous way Obama’s blackness can be instrumentalized to obfuscate our crucial political and economic struggles.

I even love his off-hand emails! I love this dude!

wait, what? he lied about noam chomsky saying something racist about obama. when pressed that the quote sounds suspiciously like berlusconi, zizek protests that it's impossible because of some date stamps in his computer, and that he'd seen the quote in "slovene media". hunting through slovene media reveals it's only zizek's own, earlier, interview in a slovene magazine that contains the remark. when pressed about that he offers some totally unconvincing wash that berlusconi is a racist, but even if chomsky had said the exact same thing, it would not be racist.

the whole thing is fucking fishy.

Didn't we talk about this upthread somewhere?

What's fishy? Either he made it up (and why would he make it up only to make the labrynthine point he's now been backed into making?) or he honestly misattributed it.

And besides: the same phrase coming out of the mouths of Berlusconi & Chomsky would have decidedly different meanings because they work in different contexts. It doesn't necessarily mean that, had Chomsky said it, it would be any less racist/distasteful/what have you, but he would have been employing it in the service of a completely different point. You're not arguing that, are you?

MISATTRIBUTED IT FROM WHERE

He read that Berlusconi said it and got mixed up in his head and thought Chomsky had said it, got too stupid or lazy or arrogant to check his sources and ran with it?

another (meta) take:

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2009/01/chomsky_said_wh.html

I mean

First, he had written the essay before Berlusconi’s remark.

ok but dude is a doddering old philosopher i think its quite possible he remembers this wrong

hahahahaha this is what happens when you take slavoj zizek seriously

the point is, in an earlier version of the same essay, in the LRB, zizek quoted chomsky accurately, as saying that the left should vote for obama "without illusions"

later versions, not in english, switched the quote to berlusconi's racist joke. when asked why that happened, he offers excuses, half-apologies and ultimately some kind of ideological justification. like i said, fishy.

he's a tool.

This is actually a brilliant analysis of the role of attribution/identity in commentators versus attribution/identity in the commented. Just as Obama was destripped of identity by Berlusconi (no longer black), now Berlusconi's own words have been stripped and reattributed in a way that not only changes the meaning, but obliterates the one who said it [textually].

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/columns/0005/img/lens177_04b.jpg

yeah or maybe he wanted to make a rival look like a jackass and didn't get away with it

ah glad to see that this is "actually" a brilliant analysis

Don't take it too seriously, max. You'll sound humorless.

This is actually a brilliant analysis of the role of attribution/identity in commentators versus attribution/identity in the commented. Just as Obama was destripped of identity by Berlusconi (no longer black), now Berlusconi's own words have been stripped and reattributed in a way that not only changes the meaning, but obliterates the one who said it (textually).

― Mordy, Wednesday, January 28, 2009 11:37 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

jesus god you're an empty-headed tool.

And there ya go.

i ~think~ mordy was kidding?

doubt it.

I'm pretty sure I was kidding, dumbass.

:^S

really mordy? because you say some equally dunce-like shit upthread.

i get that you're on a 'lighten up! it's only stalinism' thing. it's just a pretty lame thing to be on.

The only thing of length I posted on this thread was about Zizek not understanding Jews - and that was in the context of an article calling him an Anti-Semite. Is that what you're referring to?

Wow, you really are an ass. I've never said "lighten up, it's only Stalinism."

yeah it was some kind of 80s postmodern apologia for s/z's creepy crypto-anti-semitism.

Seriously, dude, I think you have a fucked up impression of what I think. But I'm not going to argue with you about it. If you didn't find my "analysis" of Zizek's fuck-up funny, then maybe you're just a humorless dick. Whatever.

you doing backslips to defend this mook is not that lol tbh.

Also, in a very real sense, Zizek is incredibly left-wing in the traditional Communist sense. He's just more radicalized than most leftists today (who, it seems, have generally abandoned violent rebellion).

this is not lol, just really depressing. you seem very ignorant of the 'traditional' left.

Bronson, tell it to me straight. Are you a big Camille Paglia fan?

um, no. wth has that got to do with anything?

lol dual login

Because you're coming off like an inexplicably huge hard-ass.

haha i was gonna say somewhere i thought brohan hari was nrq what gives. CAUGHT.