Zizek: seems like a nob

[ska invita]

“the problem with Hitler was that he was not violent enough.”

Based. Got to admire that sort of philosophy.

maybe theres some context that we're missing - i doubt it - but if anyone want to look it up its
In Defense of Lost Causes (London: Verso, 2009), p151 (Žižek’s emphasis).

 

[yield]

maybe theres some context that we're missing - i doubt it - but if anyone want to look it up its
In Defense of Lost Causes (London: Verso, 2009), p151 (Žižek’s emphasis).

"However what one is tempted to add here is that, in the case of Nazism (and fascism in general), the constellation of violence is rather the opposite: crazy, tasteless even, as it may sound, the problem with Hitler was that he was not violent enough, that his violence was not "essential" enough. Nazism was not radical enough, it did not dare to disturb the basic structure of modern capitalist social space (which is why it had to focus on destroying an invented external enemy, Jews)."

 

[Favelado]

Was there any philosophy in it? I haven't heard him philosophise in a long time... have to agree with Chomsky: what is his philosophy? What is Zizekism? Just seems a manic hot taker these days. He definitely has opinions.

Fair enough - it's true that as I typed 'philosopher' I considered the potential for incoming poster-flak. Change the noun as suits then.

 

[yield]

Was clear and correct about Macron, admittedly on old article

Don’t believe the liberals – there is no real choice between Le Pen and Macron
Slavoj Zizek 03/05/17

Are we not allowed at least to raise the question: yes, Macron is pro-European – but what kind of Europe does he personify? The very Europe whose failure feeds Le Pen populism, the anonymous Europe in the service of neoliberalism. This is the crux of the affair: yes, Le Pen is a threat, but if we throw all our support behind Macron, do we not get caught into a kind of circle and fight the effect by way of supporting its cause?

 

[The39thStep]

maybe theres some context that we're missing - i doubt it - but if anyone want to look it up its
In Defense of Lost Causes (London: Verso, 2009), p151 (Žižek’s emphasis).

As you say if you or rather he hangs around long enough he will say the opposite of what he has previously said. Look at his history of contradictory statements on Israel and Palestine. If he were a stick bending that much he would snap.

There are some insights or were some insights in his work but he is on a downward spiral. The other issue for me is exactly who is his audience now , who does he inspire?

 

[RD2003]

Was clear and correct about Macron, admittedly on old article

Don’t believe the liberals – there is no real choice between Le Pen and Macron
Slavoj Zizek 03/05/17

He's right, but loads of people on here were saying this about centrists 20 years ago and none of us are famous.

 

[ska invita]

He's right there, but loads of people on here were saying this 20 years ago and none of us are famous.

yes for sure, though also personally I dont fully sign up to that argument, i get the point, but its not such a crime in a two horse race to not vote for the openly fash candidate.

 

[ska invita]

As you say if you or rather he hangs around long enough he will say the opposite of what he has previously said. Look at his history of contradictory statements on Israel and Palestine. If he were a stick bending that much he would snap.

There are some insights or were some insights in his work but he is on a downward spiral. The other issue for me is exactly who is his audience now , who does he inspire?

this article seems to have put together some of the more recent confused and contradicting pronouncements

Do you condemn Žižek?

Amid the genocide in Gaza, the incoherence of Western philosophers has come to the fore.

www.aljazeera.com

 

[ska invita]

This is pretty amazing, AI Zizek talks to AI Herzog.... Forever.... Recommend with volume

The Infinite Conversation

An AI generated, never-ending discussion between Werner Herzog and Slavoj Žižek.

www.infiniteconversation.com

 

[Favelado]

hahahaha

 

[ska invita]

There some genuine amazing philosophical insights in this, more than I've ever got from him directly!!

 

[Favelado]

I watched a conversation he had with Will Self where Self asked him 'What do you want us to DO?', which I think ties in with your sense that there's nothing concrete in what Zizek says. Slavoj replied he wanted people to think - as in just sit at home and think presumably - so that felt like an admission of sorts.

 

[Pickman's model]

I watched a conversation he had with Will Self where Self asked him 'What do you want us to DO?', which I think ties in with your sense that there's nothing concrete in what Zizek says. Slavoj replied he wanted people to think - as in just sit at home and think presumably - so that felt like an admission of sorts.

i think i've posted earlier on the thread about the time i saw zizek give an entertaining speech, the gist of which was 'think for yourself' at the end of which a woman in the audience asked zizek what people should do. i just held my head in my hands.

 

[chilango]

As you say if you or rather he hangs around long enough he will say the opposite of what he has previously said. Look at his history of contradictory statements on Israel and Palestine. If he were a stick bending that much he would snap.

There are some insights or were some insights in his work but he is on a downward spiral. The other issue for me is exactly who is his audience now , who does he inspire?

I found his books useful when I was doing my PhD. Some nice turns of phrase and pointers to ideas/thinkers I wouldn't have encountered otherwise.

 

[Favelado]

i think i've posted earlier on the thread about the time i saw zizek give an entertaining speech, the gist of which was 'think for yourself' at the end of which a woman in the audience asked zizek what people should do. i just held my head in my hands.

Had a look for the post but couldn't see it.

 

[Pickman's model]

Had a look for the post but couldn't see it.

I once saw slavoj zizek speak. At the end of the lecture, which seemed to me an hour long exposition on 'think for yourself', a woman demanded of him 'what should we do?'

Soz, on a different thread

 

[ska invita]

.

 

[Favelado]

i think i've posted earlier on the thread about the time i saw zizek give an entertaining speech, the gist of which was 'think for yourself' at the end of which a woman in the audience asked zizek what people should do. i just held my head in my hands.

Life of Brian comes true

 

[LDC]

Zizek interviewed by Sakar on Zizek's 75th birthday.

 

[Rimbaud]

I am a fan of Zizek, and I often think of this 2009 article by him which I remember reading at the time which was very prescient. I have copied the extract in which I think he recognised our future trajectory and saw Berlusconi as the model for the future - enter Trump and Boris Johnson who are very similar figures.

Slavoj Žižek · Berlusconi in Tehran: The Rome-Tehran Axis

www.lrb.co.uk

It is democracy’s authentic potential that is losing ground with the rise of authoritarian capitalism, whose tentacles are coming closer and closer to the West. The change always takes place in accordance with a country’s values: Putin’s capitalism with ‘Russian values’ (the brutal display of power), Berlusconi’s capitalism with ‘Italian values’ (comical posturing). Both Putin and Berlusconi rule in democracies which are gradually being reduced to an empty shell, and, in spite of the rapidly worsening economic situation, they both enjoy popular support (more than two-thirds of the electorate). No wonder they are personal friends: each of them has a habit of ‘spontaneous’ outbursts (which, in Putin’s case, are prepared in advance in conformity with the Russian ‘national character’). From time to time, Putin likes to use a dirty word or utter an obscene threat. When, a couple of years ago, a Western journalist asked him an awkward question about Chechnya, Putin snapped back that, if the man wasn’t yet circumcised, he was cordially invited to Moscow, where they have excellent surgeons who would cut a little more radically than usual.

Berlusconi is a significant figure, and Italy an experimental laboratory where our future is being worked out. If our political choice is between permissive-liberal technocratism and fundamentalist populism, Berlusconi’s great achievement has been to reconcile the two, to embody both at the same time. It is arguably this combination which makes him unbeatable, at least in the near future: the remains of the Italian ‘left’ are now resigned to him as their fate. This is perhaps the saddest aspect of his reign: his democracy is a democracy of those who win by default, who rule through cynical demoralisation.

Berlusconi acts more and more shamelessly: not only ignoring or neutralising legal investigations into his private business interests, but behaving in such a way as to undermine his dignity as head of state. The dignity of classical politics stems from its elevation above the play of particular interests in civil society: politics is ‘alienated’ from civil society, it presents itself as the ideal sphere of the citoyen in contrast to the conflict of selfish interests that characterise the bourgeois. Berlusconi has effectively abolished this alienation: in today’s Italy, state power is directly exerted by the bourgeois, who openly exploits it as a means to protect his own economic interest, and who parades his personal life as if he were taking part in a reality TV show.

The last tragic US president was Richard Nixon: he was a crook, but a crook who fell victim to the gap between his ideals and ambitions on the one hand, and political realities on the other. With Ronald Reagan (and Carlos Menem in Argentina), a different figure entered the stage, a ‘Teflon’ president no longer expected to stick to his electoral programme, and therefore impervious to factual criticism (remember how Reagan’s popularity went up after every public appearance, as journalists enumerated his mistakes). This new presidential type mixes ‘spontaneous’ outbursts with ruthless manipulation.

The wager behind Berlusconi’s vulgarities is that the people will identify with him as embodying the mythic image of the average Italian: I am one of you, a little bit corrupt, in trouble with the law, in trouble with my wife because I’m attracted to other women. Even his grandiose enactment of the role of the noble politician, il cavaliere, is more like an operatic poor man’s dream of greatness. Yet we shouldn’t be fooled: behind the clownish mask there is a state power that functions with ruthless efficiency. Perhaps by laughing at Berlusconi we are already playing his game. A technocratic economic administration combined with a clownish façade does not suffice, however: something more is needed. That something is fear, and here Berlusconi’s two-headed dragon enters: immigrants and ‘communists’ (Berlusconi’s generic name for anyone who attacks him, including the Economist).

 

[ska invita]

"I think that this is the ultimate horizon of hope, when people in the
street simply say no to those who
rule them and simply take over power themselves.
The true hope lies in this.

More and more I have the feeling that
the good old emancipatory idea of revolution is over.
What we will have in the next decades will be the result of
what we can call a new type of counterrevolution: out of the old order
a new form comes up.

The old emancipatory idea of revolution didn’t work.
Let’s not be too disappointed with this situation.
A true emancipatory process never succeeds.
I think that every revolutionary situation breaks out when
people know that it’s their last chance to do something
when they are desperate.

So, I am even prepared to accept that we
might not get to a situation of revolutionary change
but only a type of self-organization among people who
will say, “We don’t like those who rule us
let’s take over and organize society in a
better way.” But this will be the last thing.
It’s more of a desperate necessity."

----A.I. Zizek (The Infinite Conversation)

 

[petee]

"Was the infamous Kristallnacht in 1938 — this half-organised, half-spontaneous outburst of violent attacks on Jewish homes, synagogues, businesses, and people themselves — not a carnival if there ever was one?"

not an act of terrorism against a scapegoat population, not the destruction of people's livelihood, not a message about what was in store. the quote above is in aid of minimizing J6:

"The intrusion of the mob into the US Capitol building obviously also wasn’t a serious coup attempt, but a farce."

no, shithead, it was a message: we could have done worse, and next time we will.

Denying US divisions perpetuates Trumpism’s delusions - ABC Religion & Ethics

Marx’s remark that history repeats itself first as a tragedy, and then as a farce, is well known. What happened on 6 January at the Capitol was not a coup attempt, but a carnivalesque farce that revealed the depth of the divisions that run across the United States. But now, with Joe Biden’s...

www.abc.net.au

so, "when people in the street simply say no to those who rule them and simply take over power themselves", looks a little different when it's not self conscious workers doing it.

 

[Pickman's model]

Too much coke