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

http://i.imgur.com/AoNi1.gif

xp that is essentially how i understand allais' point

or rather zizek summarizing allais - except for the war criminal part. the child is not a terrorist in the book but a moron.

http://www.versobooks.com/books/1161-the-year-of-dreaming-dangerously

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/jul/12/violent-visions-slavoj-zizek/?page=2

Wow. That's a terrible article. I didn't even realize it was a takedown in the first portion, just an astonishing misreading by someone clearly not familiar with the tradition Zizek is working within. Then as it progressed into extremist-baiting I was even more taken aback. As far as I'm concerned, John Gray was successfully trolled.

The art of identifying a kulak was thus no longer a matter of objective social analysis; it became a kind of complex “hermeneutics of suspicion,” of identifying an individual’s “true political attitudes” hidden beneath his or her deceptive public proclamations.

Describing mass murder in this way as an exercise in hermeneutics is repugnant and grotesque; it is also characteristic of Žižek’s work.

from my position as a layman who has v little interest in trying to actually read a lot of this guy but enjoys the youtubes where he wipes snot on his shirt, i think zizek is "problematic" or whatever too; but let's be fair: stalin turned mass murder into an exercise in hermeneutics, not zizek. stalin turned society into a game where you had to send your neighbors to their deaths before they sent you to yours (section 12 of article 58 of the criminal code: failure to denounce shall carry no maximum penalty) and the only way to comfort yourself without being a sociopath was to train yourself to believe that everyone was wearing an increasingly subjective series of masks that could conceal a wrecker or saboteur even from himself. the show trials and confessions made clear that "truth", the interpretation of the text of the world, was as far as the state was concerned now very malleable. (i guess how zizek Really Feels about stalin is another and more annoying matter -- that guardian piece mordy linked upthread has a totally hilarious part where it is revealed that the only decorations in zizek's room are a poster of stalin and a poster for call of duty: black ops, which, try to unpack that, or alternately decide you don't want to give zizek the satisfaction.) also,

But it is difficult to understand the claim that the identities of anti-Semites and Jewish people are in some way mutually reinforcing—which is repeated, word for word, in Less Than Nothing—except as suggesting that the only world in which anti-Semitism can cease to exist is one in which there are no longer any Jews.

legit cannot tell if the writer realizes or not that the bolded part is... true? has nothing to do specifically with jews but seems to me to be tautological. unless you believe as deeply as any communist in the possibilities of transformation for the human soul.

i agree with some of the piece's qualms, i guess, but then again i haven't yet decided what to make of this kind of trolling:

The problem with Hitler was that he was “not violent enough"

those quotes! what do they mean? slavoj! why are you smirking? why won't you blow your fucking nose?

wasn't endorsing that article btw, i started reading it out of interest cause i've never read zizek and it struck me as wildly unfair -- espe the super-strained reading of the 'anti-semite' stuff. you could prob take quotes from any philosopher out of context to 'prove' that they're dreadful immoral people. philosophers deal with terrible unspeakable stuff that polite people don't talk about, that's kind of what philosophers are for.

where would be a good place to actually start reading zizek?

i just started reading this piece and was struck by the first two sentences

"The celebration of violence is one of the most prominent strands in Žižek’s work. He finds fault with Marx for thinking that violence can be justified as part of the conflict between objectively defined social classes."

paradox! continued reading - lots of really dumb sentences sprinkled throughout.

re: actually starting to read zizek, if you're not feeling particularly ambitious can i recommend this super excellent shorter piece on intersubjectivity? it's a great breakdown on a particular idea, it has trademark zizek metaphors (the VCR bit is classic) and it's short! http://www.lacan.com/zizek-pompidou.htm

about 1/3 of the way through and really enjoying (ha!) "The Metastases of Enjoyment" (1994) and it makes me wonder: i've only read Zizek here and there and im curious if there are like discernable stages to his career. Is there an early Zizek and a late one?

"The celebration of violence is one of the most prominent strands in Žižek’s work. He finds fault with Marx for thinking that violence can be justified as part of the conflict between objectively defined social classes."

paradox! continued reading - lots of really dumb sentences sprinkled throughout.

there's no paradox. author is saying that zizek objects to marx's search for objective differences between classes (but not to marx's justification of violent class conflict).

also: motherfucking grampsy!

http://www.versobooks.com/system/images/2100/original/9781781680421_Year_of_Dreaming_Dangerously.jpg

i saw that the other day. in fact if this thread had been revived for anything else then probably i would have put it here myself.

i hope that's his facebook photo

enrique blows his nose:

http://www.bfi.org.uk/news/lff-blog-blow-hard-slavoj-zizek-sans-handkerchief

i'd like to see the new film

When contrarians tackle contrarians, popcorn gets ate.

there's a great bit in "Metastases of Enjoyment" where he explains why he writes about "idiotic" pop-culture: ""The idiot for whom I endeavor to formulate a theoretical point as clearly as possible is ultimately myself." there's more but i can't find it right now!

enrique has negative opinions about zizek, i am SHOCKED.

i'm no huge fan of him myself but i think this article was a good defence of a philosophy behind his shtick: http://lareviewofbooks.org/article.php?id=897&fulltext=1

hey i loved that article! thx

the article had me going almost, but casual violence-baiting over batman and the top was bogus and made me question the rest. also i feel fairly mixed vis-a-vis 'liberal homilies'. like i think the article is giving them more credit than they deserve.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/11/26/the_fp_100_global_thinkers?page=0,55#thinker92

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/10/08/capitalism

Also, I really hate all of this politically correct, cultural studies bullshit. If you mention the phrase “postcolonialism,” I say, “Fuck it!” Postcolonialism is the invention of some rich guys from India who saw that they could make a good career in top Western universities by playing on the guilt of white liberals.

In 1918-19, Trotsky was much harsher than Stalin. And I do like this in him. But I will never forgive him for how he screwed it up in the mid-’20s. He was so stupid and arrogant. You know what he would do? He would come to party meetings carrying French classics like Flaubert, Stendhal, to signal to others: “Fuck you, I am civilized!”

I was going to bump this to finally ask someone if zizek is antisemitic so I could determine if I'm justified in not caring about him but I think I'm going to derive my justification from his reference to the "guilt of white liberals" instead

i've been watching bits + pieces of pervert's guide to cinema. so funny. i love the part where he's on the boat in the birds and says, "i feel like melanie. i want to fuck mitch."

Let’s run with that. You have said before: “I am a philosopher, not a prophet.” And yet, your followers are remarkably pious; many worship you as a prophet. Why?

Well, I’m ambiguous on this. On the one hand, I return to a more classical Marxism. Like: ‘It cannot last! This is all crazy! The hour of reckoning will come, blah blah blah.’

Also, I really hate all of this politically correct, cultural studies bullshit. If you mention the phrase “postcolonialism,” I say, “Fuck it!” Postcolonialism is the invention of some rich guys from India who saw that they could make a good career in top Western universities by playing on the guilt of white liberals.

zizek otm

and where are the guiltiest liberals of all? post-colonial vienna

http://germanistik.univie.ac.at/fileadmin/user_upload/ag_hfs_germ_babka/cover_cd_bhabha.JPG

i dont think zizek is an anti-semite

i don't think so either

dude is so clearly just a provocateur that even if he started praising hitler or w/e I am not sure it would be grounds for any real conclusion

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Observer/Pix/pictures/2013/1/12/1357993749882/slavoj-zizek-010.jpg

http://www.himho.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Lars-Von-Trier.jpg

I could look at ridiculous Zizek pictures all morning

dude is so clearly just a provocateur that even if he started praising hitler or w/e

He tried his best with Robespierre

remember he said hitler wasn't violent enough? or the violence wasn't real enough.

o zizek you so crazy what will you say next

I like Zizek as far as it goes but i am put off (to put it mildly) by the insistence on the purity of a revolutionary rhetoric and manichaeanism.

i think his insight that radical violence is often a release valve for capitalism's ongoing success is pretty otm. i don't think of it as a promotion of more authentic violence but more description of why resistance is so often co-opted.

fair enough. i do think however that he holds out the possibility of a more pure or authentic "violence." that he cheekily does this by rhetorical saying or supporting practice that "liberals" would find abhorrent is fine and whatever but i think his critical project depends on that authenticity and purity being in some strange sense "real"--even if only in the negative fashion of striking an abhorrent pose.

i mean, i get his point. i think. but one questions whether his own posing gets caught up in all this as well. i mean, he's never crossed the line so firmly as to not be an academic idol.

similar to his keeness on good old Uncle Joe- when does it stop becoming rhetorical posturing and start becoming lauding a disgusting mass murdering tyrant?

remember he said hitler wasn't violent enough? or the violence wasn't real enough.

― Mordy, Wednesday, January 16, 2013 10:19 AM (35 minutes ago) Bookmark

which is true btw

and this romance with theological extremism and revolutionary politics--he holds on to those legacies as a kind of resource but im not sure i agree that they hold the same potential for "resistance" that he does.

martin jay gave a lecture at cordoza once about how adorno was turned off by benjamin's authenticity aura bc he felt there was something inherently fascist about it. i think there's a sense of that here - purity in general is troubling and zizek is kinda foreclosing incremental changes as important or necessary. at the same time tho capitalism is remarkably resilient and global and so trying to understand why violence has failed to curtail it even while bringing down totalitarian regimes is important. esp when violence becomes a mode of expressing capitalism (under the guise of challenging it). world bank protests have failed to put a dent in the world bank, even w/ all the starbucks window breaking.

I think Adam Kotsko does a pretty good job of explaining the apparent trollin' and extremisms in this article http://lareviewofbooks.org/article.php?type=&id=897&fulltext=1&media=#article-text-cutpoint

keynes would probably say that riots are good for the economy