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

Yeah, the French version of Play Your Cards Right was hosted by Louis Althusser.

-- Noodle Vague, Saturday, April 19, 2008 2:59 PM (13 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

well this is the thing. but the received opinion is that french intellectuals had a nicer time of it.

but kosovo was part of Serbia, not part of Yugoslavia. Same reason Estonias independence a different matter to, say, Dagestans, no?

-- laxalt, Saturday, April 19, 2008 2:59 PM (9 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

i don't think this is a very fruitful way to look at this issue -- comparatively, from the outside, but also using unchanging categories like 'serbia' and 'kosovo', and indeed 'nation-state'. "kosovo was part of Serbia, not part of Yugoslavia", but serbia was "part of" yugoslavia, so...

Yeah I wasn't skitting you I was just playing the comedy disinformation game.

I.E. yes of course this is a widespread perception but from my experience French TV channels frequently mistake po-faced earnestness for intellectualism. NOT THAT THEY ARE ALONE IN THIS

Ok, thanks for the help! I work in pretty mainstream analytic philosophy in the US (and also in France), and it would be weird for any of us to get attention on a general interest internet message board. But we all have provocative political things to say, it's just that we don't work on those things as our speciality and so we don't receive attention for them. I wanted to gauge better why Zizek gets this kind of attention, since he's never come up in a discussion I've had with colleagues in the US or France.

The west has quite clearly encouraged the breakup of state-nations such as yugoslavia, and the USSR. Whether it is fruitful or not, I still find the west encouraging the breakup of nation-states to be unusual. This distinction clearly exists, fruitful or not

The west has quite clearly encouraged the breakup of state-nations such as yugoslavia, and the USSR. Whether it is fruitful or not, I still find the west encouraging the breakup of nation-states to be unusual. This distinction clearly exists, fruitful or not

-- laxalt, Saturday, April 19, 2008 3:10 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link

ussr was an empire rather than a state-nation or nation-state.

state-nations do sometimes have a tendency to be constructed that way don't they!

not on expert on how far it had a 'national' identity -- from the rate of break-up, i'm thinking maybe not too much. of course, this could be down to western 'encouragement', but it does seem to have been unusually fissile.

new celebrity eggheads? (just looking for ideas. zizek is 60 next year and he seems like the tail end of a eurotheory wave.)

Whether it is fruitful or not, I still find the west encouraging the breakup of nation-states to be unusual.

Divide and conquer. Nationalism, the idea that particular ethnic groups should have their own discrete states, is a recent ideology and never a neutral one. There is no consistent U.S. policy toward ethnic nationalism -- it's mostly encourage the break up of our enemies/competitors (Russia, Serbia, Iraq), and help our friends stick together (Pakistan).

Nationalism, the idea that particular ethnic groups should have their own discrete states, is a recent ideology and never a neutral one.

kind of a CHALLENGING OPINION. what ideologies are neutral? what political philosophies are older? (and therefore more valid?)

anyway, nationalism doesn't have to specify 'ethnic groups' and your view of US influence would gratify the state department.

(did the US do *that much* to aid chechnya against russia?)

i don't get why you (and laxalt) are so keen on the preserving territorial integrity of serbia and russia!

But Gavin, I don't really think the US has encouraged the breakup of either Russia or Iraq! (precisely why Kosovo is something of an anomaly).

I have no particular desire to preserve territorial integrity of either serbia or russia, but neither do i believe that fragmentation is a default good for peoples either (the smaller the state, the weaker when it comes up against commerical interests?)

It seemed like some posters were assuming it's always good and right and natural for particular ethnic (or maybe I should say "cultural" to be more expansive) groups to have their own self-governing political entities, and were assuming that the U.S. is somehow consistent on this question. I was trying to point out the actual pattern of U.S. support for cultural nationalism around the world is consistent, but only with U.S. interests. I am not justifying it.

As far as "keen on Serbia's territorial integrity," that is much less important to me than explaining what actually happened, not some Hollywooded-up genocide -> U.S. benevolent cluster bombing -> happy flag-waving new nation paradigm that is continually regurgitated by the media. I don't know what crawled up your ass, I might as well ask you why you are so keen on the U.S. paying Al Qaeda to fuck with Serbia back in the '90s!

But Gavin, I don't really think the US has encouraged the breakup of either Russia or Iraq

No, but Serbia is a historical Russian ally, so fucking them up does weaken Russia. Combined with the "Color Revolutions" along Russia's border and the message supporting Kosovo sends to other minorities in Russia (including Chechnya)... I guess the jury can still be out on this one. And as for Iraq, we will just have to disagree, or maybe take it to another thread. I think that dividing the country along ethnic lines has been in the cards for a while and certain policies (walls, arming various militias) are exacerbating this.

iirc you were on the kosovo thread again getting misty-eyed about milosovic?

i don't buy the hollywood version, but 'what actually happened' doesn't reflect so well on the serbs.

again, the US acting in its interests is challenging-opinion material. what state or actor on the international stage doesn't do this?

xpost

haha the US *wishes* it could control iraq to that degree.

No, but Serbia is a historical Russian ally, so fucking them up does weaken Russia

"fucking them up"

banriquit, you keep drawing these false dichotomies and putting me into them instead of responding to my posts. I have reservations about encouraging Kosovo independence and disagree with the mainstream narrative about these events -- oh I must be a misty-eyed apologist for the savage Serbs! What exactly does dragging the discussion down to this level accomplish other than re-establishing your "big dawg" status on this thread?

again, the US acting in its interests is challenging-opinion material. what state or actor on the international stage doesn't do this?

Yes, well, no shit. Yet people still believe we invade other countries for some sort of greater good, like stopping bad guys. I guess we shouldn't bother to remind them how the world actually works.

that seems to me a pretty big dichotomy: acting in self-interest/stopping bad guys.

but to respond, ok:

No, but Serbia is a historical Russian ally, so fucking them up does weaken Russia. Combined with the "Color Revolutions" along Russia's border and the message supporting Kosovo sends to other minorities in Russia (including Chechnya)...

tbh my reaction is like, AND? i don't really have a dog in this fight. on the whole i'll take my capitalism with (on the whole) the rule of law rather than without.

And as for Iraq, [...] I think that dividing the country along ethnic lines has been in the cards for a while and certain policies (walls, arming various militias) are exacerbating this.

i seriously don't think the US has the power to direct events the way you're suggesting here; i don't even know if they anticipated the break-up and the transfer of power to iran. this is not a great example of US cunning.

that seems to me a pretty big dichotomy: acting in self-interest/stopping bad guys

I'm sorry, I thought you agreed the U.S. works (and by works, I mean invades/bombs/imposes sanctions) in its own self-interest, not to stop eeeeevil terrorists or promote magical democracy freedoms.

on the whole i'll take my capitalism with (on the whole) the rule of law rather than without.

Well, that's your preference. I should point out laxalt's excellent point that breaking up nations into smaller bits makes them weaker in practically every case -- the rule of law is too weak to do anything to stop corporate abuse, or prevent exploitation from larger powers.

i seriously don't think the US has the power to direct events the way you're suggesting here; i don't even know if they anticipated the break-up and the transfer of power to iran. this is not a great example of US cunning.

Again, this is a much larger debate, and I am not really ready for it before my first cup of coffee. One narrative says that the ethnic strife was a "powder keg" just waiting to explode and the U.S. ignorantly had no idea (ethnic powder keg metaphor also used for Yugoslavia, interestingly enough). While I agree there are historical ethnic tensions, I think the U.S. has exacerbated them, and has engaged in many actions that weaken the national sovereignty of Iraq, pushing it towards breakup. Arming competing militias, building walls around neighborhoods, etc. It's a big question, one I consider often -- is the U.S. interested in Iraq as an independent nation-state or not? They say they are, although some others (Biden) are explicitly supporting break up.

I'm sorry, I thought you agreed the U.S. works (and by works, I mean invades/bombs/imposes sanctions) in its own self-interest, not to stop eeeeevil terrorists or promote magical democracy freedoms.

well, you know, stopping terrorists may have been part of the afghanistan invasion. probably would not have gone down without 9/11. promoting democracy has historically (zizek disputes that it is a necessary relationship, but this is a side-point) promoted markets. it's not like killing bad guys and promoting democracy IMPEDE their interests.

Well, that's your preference. I should point out laxalt's excellent point that breaking up nations into smaller bits makes them weaker in practically every case -- the rule of law is too weak to do anything to stop corporate abuse, or prevent exploitation from larger powers.

this makes no sense at all. kosovo is always going to be run by a larger power! it's not news that small states can't function independently. so that's why, given the choice, US-style capitalism is probably going to work out better than russian-style capitalism for kosovo. i'm not saying it's going to be paradise, and the weirdness of a US muslim protectorate... for another thread.

Yes, I agree, we have derailed Zizek's thread long enough (though he certainly supported ethnic nationalism when he was involved in Slovenian politics), though I'll leave you with an interesting interview I just re-read in which Samatha Power (brought up as a candidate for new celebrity egghead!) gets kneecapped by Democracy Now over Kosovo.

Isn't it not so much whether a nation is run by a larger power or not, it is about the power that corporations wield.

Wait, what terrorists were being stopped by the Afghanistan war again?

Isn't it not so much whether a nation is run by a larger power or not, it is about the power that corporations wield.

i don't know, is it? in these specific cases, tibet, palestine, kosovo, how does that figure?

Wait, what terrorists were being stopped by the Afghanistan war again?

-- laxalt, Saturday, April 19, 2008 5:41 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

i'm sure you can google this.

lol mccaine in nyt pwning tho. his constituency recognize & ignore while he cat-strings huckabees zombie cohort?

rong thred

mkcaine for presinedt

"Yeah I wasn't skitting you" <--- not heard skitting you since school.

Zizek has become a bit of an opinions4u troll. Which is why he gets the Guradian work and stuff I guess.

I still kinda like him though, and K-Punk need somewhere to glom his ideas from.

K-Punk need somewhere to glom his ideas from.

http://www.soulstrut.com/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/snapgraem26wuch9.gif

damn son

Anybody seen the "Zizek blathers on about Lacanian readings of Movies" doc? Looks interesting.

yeah you totally sold that!

i think he takes a fresh look at such critically neglected films as 'psycho' and 'blue velvet' through the optics of freudian psychoanalysis.

Mentioning this K-Punk thing reminds me of something...a few years ago I was reading ILM and somebody brought that blog up, so I took a look at it. WTF is that guy on about? Do any of you understand it? I get this way with thinkers in "critical theory": like the words sorta make sense individually, but together it sounds like pure nonsense (this thread, at least at the top, is like that to me also) e.g.

""The truly radical assertion of historical contingency has to include the dialectical tension between the domain of historical change itself and its traumatic 'ahistorical' kernel qua its condition of (im)possibility."

I'm not afraid of egghead rambling---I am/pretend to be an egghead, even, and get paid for it. But I will have worked all day today to write like one page of clear philosophical text: it won't be mysterious and sexy like what I quoted there, but I will have communicated a thought. What's the attraction of text like that?

er by "What's the attraction of text like that", I mean of Zizek's. So much for communicating a thought!

hahahaha. don't even go there. it comes under i a richards's category of 'prudential speech'.

i think he takes a fresh look at such critically neglected films as 'psycho' and 'blue velvet' through the optics of freudian psychoanalysis.

-- banriquit, Saturday, April 19, 2008 6:55 PM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

Yeah it's not the "fresh readings" that attract me so much as the comedy. I lol'd considerably at "Zizek!" even if the whole thing was the filmmaker's thinly disguised mash note to dude.

my post was meant as a zing -- britishes style.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=D9FXyr-LLeI

zizek's finest moment afaic

Oh I know dude that's why I put "fresh readings" in zingquotes. xxp

lol Lacan = mad fresh rite

omg do want xp to latebloomer

You've been Zizekrolled!

Bah! Can somebody find for me the Zizek interview/essay where he talks about atheism and the death of God. It's driving me crazy, I read it on the internet somewhere fairly recently and didn't bookmark it and I really want to find it again because I can't quite remember what he said that I thought was cool.

that sounds like 70% of his output

don't get my hopes up like that

bump, because I still haven't found it.

Slavoj Zizek, 59, was born in Ljubljana, Slovenia. He is a professor at the European Graduate School, international director of the Birkbeck Institute for Humanities in London and a senior researcher at the University of Ljubljana's institute of sociology. He has written more than 30 books on subjects as diverse as Hitchcock, Lenin and 9/11, and also presented the TV series The Pervert's Guide To Cinema.

When were you happiest?

A few times when I looked forward to a happy moment or remembered it - never when it was happening.

What is your greatest fear?

To awaken after death - that's why I want to be burned immediately.

What is your earliest memory?

My mother naked. Disgusting.

Which living person do you most admire, and why?

Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the twice-deposed president of Haiti. He is a model of what can be done for the people even in a desperate situation.

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?

Indifference to the plights of others.

What is the trait you most deplore in others?

Their sleazy readiness to offer me help when I don't need or want it.

What was your most embarrassing moment?

Standing naked in front of a woman before making love.

Aside from a property, what's the most expensive thing you've bought?

The new German edition of the collected works of Hegel.

What is your most treasured possession?

See the previous answer.

What makes you depressed?

Seeing stupid people happy.

What do you most dislike about your appearance?

That it makes me appear the way I really am.

What is your most unappealing habit?

The ridiculously excessive tics of my hands while I talk.

What would be your fancy dress costume of choice?

A mask of myself on my face, so people would think I am not myself but someone pretending to be me.

What is your guiltiest pleasure?

Watching embarrassingly pathetic movies such as The Sound Of Music.

What do you owe your parents?

Nothing, I hope. I didn't spend a minute bemoaning their death.

To whom would you most like to say sorry, and why?

To my sons, for not being a good enough father.

What does love feel like?

Like a great misfortune, a monstrous parasite, a permanent state of emergency that ruins all small pleasures.

What or who is the love of your life?

Philosophy. I secretly think reality exists so we can speculate about it.

What is your favourite smell?

Nature in decay, like rotten trees.

Have you ever said 'I love you' and not meant it?

All the time. When I really love someone, I can only show it by making aggressive and bad-taste remarks.

Which living person do you most despise, and why?

Medical doctors who assist torturers.

What is the worst job you've done?

Teaching. I hate students, they are (as all people) mostly stupid and boring.

What has been your biggest disappointment?

What Alain Badiou calls the 'obscure disaster' of the 20th century: the catastrophic failure of communism.

If you could edit your past, what would you change?

My birth. I agree with Sophocles: the greatest luck is not to have been born - but, as the joke goes on, very few people succeed in it.

If you could go back in time, where would you go?

To Germany in the early 19th century, to follow a university course by Hegel.

How do you relax?

Listening again and again to Wagner.

How often do you have sex?

It depends what one means by sex. If it's the usual masturbation with a living partner, I try not to have it at all.

What is the closest you've come to death?

When I had a mild heart attack. I started to hate my body: it refused to do its duty to serve me blindly.

What single thing would improve the quality of your life?

To avoid senility.

What do you consider your greatest achievement?

The chapters where I develop what I think is a good interpretation of Hegel.

What is the most important lesson life has taught you?

That life is a stupid, meaningless thing that has nothing to teach you.

Tell us a secret.

Communism will win.

What is your greatest fear?

To awaken after death - that's why I want to be burned immediately.

That's OTM. My greatest fear is dying and being a consciousness trapped in a dead body.

http://www.jewcy.com/post/defense_zizek

Good stuff.

Eh, I'd say he's constructing a bit of a stawn man there.