SLAVOJ ZIZEK

Started by FreakAnimalFinland, March 14, 2013, 11:14:36 AM

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FreakAnimalFinland

Of course Hegel would disgust anyone who considers individual overtly important. And that's one of reasons he is so essential in modern times, when he basically offers this opposite current.

Putting Hegel together with Marxism might turn off people, so could be very easy to quickly remind that he represents german idealism. Marxism is basically opposite, being materialist worldview (some would call it realism). The fact that Hegel would present State as ultimate form of spirit, would be of course repulsive for individualists, but it's influence is extremely wide.

Looking from Finnish perspective, JV Snellman for example, follows very much of his footsteps. Finlands national philosopher is one to thank to be one of the most powerful "fennomans" of 1800's, with strong role in developing language, own currency etc.

That accepting idea that State is the highest form of spirit, may lead to totalitarianism, is true. It may lead to other things as well. We can only see it when we see end result. I may like Hegel, yet I often prefer those who just took key elements of his works and proceeded further. Perhaps good way of seeing the spirit in movement or transition, taking shapes and forms.
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Jordan

#16
I'm pretty divided on Zizek, though, perhaps less so than I am for the other pop-P.M.ists. Unfortunately I landed on Baudrillard before Debord, and I'll admit that in my formative years I really felt there was something to the general Post-Marxian, Post-Freudian, Post-Saussurean line of critique, but I've grown skeptical of the value of the synthesis of largely discredited ideas beyond being "works of art (for art's sake)"

I still revisit a handful of works by Freud and Marx (Civilization And It's Discontents, the sections on alienation and Hegel in Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, and Capital, to name but a few) but I strongly think that these currents paint themselves into a corner if they fail to acknowledge the more empirical insights coming out of fields like sociobiology/evolutionary psychology, cognitive science, anthropology, genetics etc.

I admire Zizek's style, as I'm sure most of his fans here do too, but I disagree with him on so much, and sometimes I think that there is perhaps very little there beyond style. I can't fathom that consciousness is opaque, when we've recently reconstructed sound and vision as it is reconstructed in the brain (primitively at best, but the field is still in it's infancy) and all sorts of other advancements with fMRI and SPECT and whatnot. My thoughts on this are more inline with the eliminativism of Feyerabend, though not the strong form of that position taken up by  Paul and Patricia Churchland. Alas, all of this is speculative in theory and practice, and the taking of strong positions one way or the other seems premature, to me. I've also been a lifelong student of Surrealism, and I see contradiction as a fertile ground for growth, not a fault. What's needed is a synthesis that takes into account new ideas and concepts, not a rehashing of ideas that more or less stopped developing decades ago.

Hegel is certainly important, if only as a starting point for modern radical thought, as is Feuerbach and some of the other Young Hegelians, as well as some of the much less well known names on the Hegelian right, but Stirner (who was also one of the Young Hegelians, albeit the black sheep of the bunch) in my opinion anyway, destroyed much of their ideology a long time ago. Still, one wouldn't learn much from Stirner's polemic if they had no basis in the Hegelian modes of reasoning that it was attacking, which again, underscores the importance of Hegel as a starting point. Furthermore, many critics have pointed out the Hegelian character of Stirner's own critique of the Hegelians.

EDIT: I should add that I'm generally skeptical of any kind of totalizing unity of thought coming from the natural sciences alone, just as I am skeptical of the same coming from continental philosophy. Still, science has shown itself to be useful in answering certain kinds of questions, and those answers should be incorporated into a totalizing critique. I'm a romanticist at heart, but perhaps we need a kind of analytical-romanticism.

also: I should add that I favour Nietzsche, Stirner, Kierkegaard, even Heidegger to Hegel.

FINALLY: I'd take Zizek's communism over these guys: http://revcom.us/a/256/vilifying_communism_and_accommodating_imperialism-en.html ANY FUCKING DAY OF THE WEEK!!!

FreakAnimalFinland

Quote from: redswordwhiteplough on March 14, 2013, 11:29:45 PM
There's a book in finnish called Heidegger, Zizek ja vallankumous.

Very good book! Took while to buy it, and doesn't appear to be kind of book to hit the discount bin, so just went for the regular priced edition.
This book is more about Heidegger than Zizek. Basically the name says it all: "Heidegger, Zizek and revolution". It observes most of all revolutionary spirit in Heidegger and mirrored through support or criticism of Zizek. Both of these guys representing the idea of necessity that philosophy is not removed from life. That it's not just theory or understanding existence, but invades into concrete human life and politics. It observes criticism towards Heidegger from vast number of sources and different philosophical stands. While it is surprisingly objective and neutral about national socialism (what obviously comes up in case of Heidegger) it does present some tough questions and criticism towards everybody, exposing fragile parts of all mentioned people.
However, the key to whole book is the notion of philosophy and understanding of life as integral part of life, as opposed to separating the two for sake of "pure philosophy". Recommended!
Book exists only in Finnish.
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FreakAnimalFinland

While going up north couple weeks ago, found from bookstore another finnish language Zizek book:
POLITIIKKAA, IDIOOTTI! - vastakkainasetteluja Zizekin kanssa.

Part of the finnish left pamphlet series "into". Operated by Voima newspaper related staff. Book contains translations of various Zizek pieces, which most of all - like name suggests ("Politics, idiot!") steps back from current post-political tendency back to strong oppositions and basic roots of politics. Besides 84 pages of selected pieces, there is 50 pages interview (exclusive for the book) and perhaps very good idea for such educational book, additional appendix with short information of various people and terms mentioned in the book. Cheap and neat. Same series of books includes some works of Pentti Linkola, but most of all appears to be pretty much just rubbish. This book, however, is good one.
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kettu

ive ripped a bunch of his lectures from youtube into mp3s. very cool guy!

Eloy

The Pervert's Guide to Ideology

QuoteSynopsis

Cultural theorist superstar Slavoj Žižek re-teams with director Sophie Fiennes ("The Pervert's Guide to Cinema") for another wildly entertaining romp through the crossroads of cinema and philosophy. With infectious zeal and a voracious appetite for popular culture, Žižek literally goes inside some truly epochal movies, all the better to explore and expose how they reinforce prevailing ideologies. As the ideology that undergirds our cinematic fantasies is revealed, striking associations emerge: What hidden Catholic teachings lurk at the heart of "The Sound of Music?" What are the fascist political dimensions of "Jaws?" "Taxi Driver," "Zabriskie Point," "The Searchers," "The Dark Knight," John Carpenter's "They Live," and propaganda epics from Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia all inform Žižek's stimulating, provocative and often hilarious psychoanalytic-cinematic rant.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUKbhKV7Ia8

FreakAnimalFinland

Quote from: FreakAnimalFinland on July 22, 2013, 05:14:58 PM
Quote from: redswordwhiteplough on March 14, 2013, 11:29:45 PM
There's a book in finnish called Heidegger, Zizek ja vallankumous.

Very good book! Took while to buy it, and doesn't appear to be kind of book to hit the discount bin, so just went for the regular priced edition.
This book is more about Heidegger than Zizek. Basically the name says it all: "Heidegger, Zizek and revolution". It observes most of all revolutionary spirit in Heidegger and mirrored through support or criticism of Zizek. Both of these guys representing the idea of necessity that philosophy is not removed from life. That it's not just theory or understanding existence, but invades into concrete human life and politics. It observes criticism towards Heidegger from vast number of sources and different philosophical stands. While it is surprisingly objective and neutral about national socialism (what obviously comes up in case of Heidegger) it does present some tough questions and criticism towards everybody, exposing fragile parts of all mentioned people.
However, the key to whole book is the notion of philosophy and understanding of life as integral part of life, as opposed to separating the two for sake of "pure philosophy". Recommended!
Book exists only in Finnish.

Update! This book is actually now available in english!
https://www.sensepublishers.com/catalogs/bookseries/perspectives-of-critical-theory-and-education/heidegger-zizek-and-revolution/

Why did Martin Heidegger, the giant of continental philosophy, believe in 1933 that Hitler is the future of Europe? And why does Slavoj Žižek, "the most dangerous philosopher in the West", support Heidegger's right wing militancy?

Heidegger and Žižek are not only erudite thinkers on human being but also incorrigible revolutionaries who even after the catastrophic failures of their favourite revolutions – the October revolution for Žižek and the National Socialist revolution for Heidegger – want to overcome capitalism; undemocratically, if necessary. The two share a spirited and sophisticated rejection of the liberalist worldview and the social order based on it. The problem is not that liberalism is factually wrong, but rather that it is ethically bad. Both argue for building and educating a new collective based on human finitude and communality. In the tradition of the Enlightenment, Žižek advocates a universalist revolution, whereas Heidegger sees the transformation rooted in particular historical existence, inviting a bewildering array of mutually exclusive criticisms and apologies of his view. The crisis that Heidegger and Žižek want to address is still here, but their unquestioned Europocentrism sets a dark cloud over the whole idea of revolution.


Few chapters free PDF found in link above..
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l.b.

Quote from: FreakAnimalFinland on March 18, 2013, 08:59:49 AM
Putting Hegel together with Marxism might turn off people, so could be very easy to quickly remind that he represents german idealism. Marxism is basically opposite, being materialist worldview (some would call it realism). The fact that Hegel would present State as ultimate form of spirit, would be of course repulsive for individualists, but it's influence is extremely wide.

I think the crucial link between Hegel and Marx is Max Stirner, who most people just read as a 'do-whatever-you-want' individualist anarchist, which is a serious misreading. Stirner's book is primarily an attack on the 'Young Hegelians,' Feuerbach chief among them. Feuerbach's book, 'The Essence of Christianity,' says that our idea of God is really just the superlative of all 'good' human traits; knowledge, benevolence, etc. Stirner says that this idea is full of shit, and that Feuerbach has merely swapped 'God' for 'Man' (with a capital 'M'!). When Stirner says we have to ignore and be contemptuous of all 'higher concepts,' he's not trying to make us 'more free' or anything like that. It's an argument against Hegel, where the Idea trumps everything. Stirner says there are no ideas that take precedence over the immediate fact of being.

Stirner thus ruins idealism for Marx personally, leading to his embrace of materialism, and Marx devotes hundreds of pages of 'The German Ideology' to destroying Stirner.

jangbi08

 I never read any of Zizek books but enjoyed a lot of his videos on Youtube. I thought the Laibach one kinda explains the aesthetics behind Industrial and PE somehow. The documentary on ideology was fun to watch too. I'm a fan of Marxist literature myself but I would rather talk about Georges Sorel than other Marxist figures.
I've never actually read Sorel's work either but this guy is such a myterious figure. He started as a marxist revolutionary but made his own wierd version that praises violence and stresses the impotance of myths, wrote books that would make him the father of Fascism. I heard that Mussolini (also from a marxist background) studied his works. Has anybody read the works of Sorel?

Jordan



FreakAnimalFinland

That is full of great quotes!

"My time in the US taught me that it can also have a very clear class dimension. For many middle-class academics and liberals, harassment means they cannot really stand the presence of vulgar, aggressive, ordinary people. Crying harassment is a way for the upper-middle classes – academics, intellectuals and liberals – to keep their distance from ordinary people."
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Andrew McIntosh

That's always been the standard. The fucking middle class just can't handle being called cunts, even if they are cunts.
Shikata ga nai.

cr

Quote from: FreakAnimalFinland on June 05, 2016, 12:43:25 PM
http://www.spiked-online.com/spiked-review/article/migrants-racists-and-the-left/18395#.V1Pu2chpvCT
I can only read this with the imagination of his expressions and strange movements in my head.

Today, early in the morning I watched an 1 hour  interview with Zizek on TV which roughly translates as 'Down with the ideology'.

At the end he said that he just has to talk uninterrupted and continuously, because he has something like an inferiority complex, and in doing so the other has no time to realize that he is talking bullshit.

david lloyd jones

Quote from: Andrew McIntosh on June 05, 2016, 04:26:12 PM
That's always been the standard. The fucking middle class just can't handle being called cunts, even if they are cunts.

so true!