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

Or, as Mao Zedong put it, “There is great disorder under heaven, the situation is excellent.”

classy

Zizek is truly one of the great trolls of our time.

I'll be reading that later this year, no doubt.

why not read s.thing that doesn't suck?

cause this looks super entertaining

ehh people were saying capitalism was done for 80 years ago

this is aight, for a book about... eschatology/teleology... i think those are the words i mean

http://static.letsbuyit.com/filer/images/fr/products/original/83/68/the-sense-of-an-ending-studies-in-the-theory-of-fiction-with-a-new-epilogue-8368621.jpeg

but were they finding the seeds of Communism in Heroes? i personally find Zizek very very entertaining, and sometimes I'd rather not read some dense academic text but still want to deal with provocative arguments and thoughts. Certainly more worthwhile reading Zizek than uh -- Christopher Hitchens, or Jonah Goldberg, or - le gaspe - Judith Butler.

but were they finding the seeds of Communism in Heroes?

wd have been exciting in the 80s (maybe). but you know he won't even have seen it yeah?

wont stan for latter-day hitchens so much but, looked at over his career, he a) is much less of an idiot than zizek b) can write. wouldn't put him in the same sentence as goldberg.

i find Hitchens generally hits the same notes over and over again. Maybe he frames them well, but dude hasn't had interesting things to say in a long time. I'm rarely bored around Zizek (tho too much exposure can tire you -- there's definitely a Zizek formula).

i was about to say, he is king of hitting the same notes over and over! kind of inevitable given his quasi-religious adherence to lacan and (his version of) marx.

but yeah the hitch is mostly churning it out these days. he can still write a sentence though, and he's still serious even when wrong.

pretty sure all new zizek books are cut and pasted from bits of old ones now.

but yeah i mean the guy is still funny

Verso sent me an advance hardcover copy of Living in the End Times today (and one proof I gave to the founder of ESM, to confuse him). It's on the pile with the new Bret Easton Ellis and DBC Pierre books.

ru going to review it?

give im hell imo

can i have the bret easton ellis one if ur not gonna read it?

I'm rarely bored around Zizek (tho too much exposure can tire you -- there's definitely a Zizek formula).

― Mordy, Tuesday, 18 May 2010 20:11 (6 days ago)

It is not so much that Zisek has a formula, as that formulaity itself has an essential Zizekianness.

Cute, tho the real Zizekian twist would be that it is only by expressing something in formula that one actually expresses something radical and revolutionary.

at the end of history, all we can do is ceaselessly post about Animal Collective on an internet message board

this guy has used mountains of cocaine.

i really hate / do not get lacan.

We don't really have a rolling philosophy thread (maybe we should), so I'm not sure where to put this but:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/184467617X?ie=UTF8&tag=crookedtimb04-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=184467617X

New book that looks really interesting. Review in Crooked Timber here: http://crookedtimber.org/2010/06/16/envisioning-real-utopias-announcing-a-book-event-in-the-fall/

Hugely rich and stimulating, Envisioning Real Utopias is may books in one: an incisive diagnosis of the harms done by capitalism; a masterful synthesis of the best work in political sociology and political economy over the past thirty years; and innovative theoretical framework for conceptualizing both the goals of progressive change and the strategies for their achievement; and inspiring story of actually existing challenges to capitalism that have arisen within capitalism itself; and a compelling essay on the relation between the desirable, the viable and the achievable. Anyone interested in the future of leftist politics has to read this book.

That last bit, about actual existing challenges, is what piques my interest.

We don't really have a rolling philosophy thread (maybe we should)

let's do it up

fwiw, that book looks super interesting

this bro doesn't sound like he does philosophy (not a zing, js)

this bro = the guy who wrote the book, not ksh

he does conceptualize though

and what is philosophy, if not conceptualizing

take it to the philosophy thread

i think you mean the conceptualizing thread

actually it seems as tho this bro doesnt conceptualize

hm, how would you describe what he does? critical theory?

rather, he has constructed a framework for conceptualization

making him a construction worker i guess

Rolling Philosophy

hm, how would you describe what he does? critical theory?

― Mordy, Wednesday, June 16, 2010 6:18 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

"a masterful synthesis of the best work in political sociology and political economy"

=>> political socio-economics

political socio-economics = philosophy!

he didnt do that work--he just constructed the synthesis--making him at best a synthesizer

a synthesizer like barthes -- ROLAND

omg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjEtmZZvGZA

i've always been a fan of this particular "zlavodge zhezhek" interview

"YOU'RE LIKE THE DENNIS LEARY OF SLOVENIA!"
"YES."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2010/jun/27/slavoj-zizek-living-end-times

“My God, I am the last person to know the answer to these questions,” he says, looking genuinely dismayed. “But, really, I am now thinking there is so much pressure on me to perform. I am getting really bored with it. I am a thinker, but people all the time want this kind of shitty political interventions: the books, the talks, the discussions and so forth.” He sighs and closes his eyes and seems to deflate before my eyes. “I will tell you my problem openly and for this my publisher will hate me. All the talk and the writing about politics, this is not where my heart is. No. I have been sidetracked. I really mean this.”

He opens a copy of Living in the End Times, and finds the contents page. “I will tell you the truth now,” he says, pointing to the first chapter, then the second. “Bullshit. Some more bullshit. Blah, blah, blah.” He flicks furiously through the pages. “Chapter 3, where I try to read Marx anew, is maybe OK. I like this part where I analyse Kafka’s last story and here where I use the community of outcasts in the TV series Heroes as a model for the communist collective. But, this section, the Architectural Parallax, this is pure bluff. Also the part where I analyse Avatar, the movie, that is also pure bluff. When I wrote it, I had not even seen the film, but I am a good Hegelian. If you have a good theory, forget about the reality.”

Why, then, given that he does not like most of his books and does not have any enthusiasm for the lecture circuit, does he not call a stop to the Žižek show? “I am doing that right now!” he shouts. “I am writing a mega-book about Hegel with regard to Plato, Kant and maybe Heidegger. Already, this Hegel book is 700 pages. It is a true work of love. This is my true life’s work. Even Lacan is just a tool for me to read Hegel. For me, always it is Hegel, Hegel, Hegel,” he says, sighing again. “But people just want the shitty politics.”

fair enuf.

LOL

I'm actually digging living in end times. it's a lot of fun

hah, see, how can you not like this guy?

it's mainly his asswad stans i dislike

even the biggest fans of his I've met fully accept that he talks shit half the time, I guess I've done well steering clear of the baduns.

his, uh, posting style, has really taken off. i guess it's not entirely him -- it's a tradition of hegelian/dialectical thought, and i get a similar vibe from some other cultural/philosophical marxist thinkers. but he's the current model. so saying something that [something completely paradoxical] is 'precisely' the case is something he and his followers do a lot, but they aren't the first.