Zizek: seems like a nob

[revol68]

but what's so profound or even novel about this? why do we need him to say what plenty others before him have said far more coherently and succinctly



Well to be fair when i first asked to 'to what end' it was in response to a post of yours that said this:-



So you were setting him up as the 'fucking daddy' - you were saying he was attempting to do something, that seemed to me you saw as something particularly profound/revolutionary/novel/unique/useful, so in that context I find it a bit odd, not to mention pretty contradictory, that when challenged on what the purpose of him doing this was, the discussion slips back to something which suggests that to ask what the purpose of that something is, is crude utilitarian bollocks. You put him forward as attempting to do something that sounded like you thought useful, so I was merely asking you why you thought it was so and for what purpose he was doing it.

well, nothing in of itself, but certainly within political philosophy Zizek was quite a breath of fresh air, I remember first hearing of him about 2002 or something and being like "finally, someone kicking the cunt out of Foucault fan boys and drippy Derridaistas", arguing unapologetically for universalism and class struggle against the prevailing current of identity politics and post modern relativism. It was essentially a defence of Marx's underlying philosophy but one that was fully engaged with the debates of post structuralism, that is not simply rejecting them as nonsense but actually taking the criticisms more seriously than the most post structuralists.

of course if you aren't interested in that kind of thing it's of no great relevance, he's just another public intellectual with a few pithy remarks and better than average politics, but sure some people think the same about Marx.

 

[revol68]

Yeah we need more Philosopher Kings

Not that type of return.

 

[love detective]

well, nothing in of itself, but certainly within political philosophy Zizek was quite a breath of fresh air, I remember first hearing of him about 2002 or something and being like "finally, someone kicking the cunt out of Foucault fan boys and drippy Derridaistas", arguing unapologetically for universalism and class struggle against the prevailing current of identity politics and post modern relativism. It was essentially a defence of Marx's underlying philosophy but one that was fully engaged with the debates of post structuralism, that is not simply rejecting them as nonsense but actually taking the criticisms more seriously than the most post structuralists.

Right I get you a bit more now - thankfully all that post structuralist stuff passed me by (and I would imagine most people) so never really needed an antidote to it - see if you stand still for long enough you eventually become ahead of the game!

of course if you aren't interested in that kind of thing it's of no great relevance, he's just another public intellectual with a few pithy remarks and better than average politics, but sure some people think the same about Marx.

true - but I can't imagine bulletin boards being stacked full of long threads in 150 years time arguing about what Zizek really meant

 

[Knotted]

What are the parameters of theological discussion? Is reality the main concern? No it's 1) scripture and 2) what we fancy and 3) reconciling 1)&2). Zizek's self-declared militant atheism means very little considering his love of certain theologians. Is the important thing about atheism the technicality of rejecting God or is it in the rejection of all the bumf that comes with God?

 

[revol68]

You confuse interest in the theory of truth with interest in the truth itself. I think Zizek wants to theorise a form of non-relativistic reality which we have access to which is nevertheless quite unimportant and plays second fiddle to some sort of theological/Lacanian/Hegelian psychoscape (my words no Zizek's). It's very striking - you should watch some of his brilliant youtubery and put down his bloody awful books. He's very expressive - which as I say I think is very important in philosophy.

I think this is the reason why his politics falls so short of any satisfactory revolutionary outlook. Reality is where the fucking pain is. The fluffy stuff about Jesus is just escapism.

Have you read many of his books, cos most of them are concerned with the truth of modern capitalism and liberal democracy. His little aside into christian theology is just that, though of course as a Hegelian and a Marxist you could say a securalised christianity is at the core of his writings.

I've seen enough of him in videos and the like, he's very entertaining but his books are much better, he has much more room to explain his often counter intuitive proclamations. Zizek is not one of those wankers who gets caught up so busy in justifying a theory of truth that every assertion he makes is qualified into inanity, infact he takes the piss out of the likes of Butler for being unable to call a glass of water a glass of water.

The idea that most of his work is fluffy stuff about jesus is just nonsense btw.

 

[revol68]

What are the parameters of theological discussion? Is reality the main concern? No it's 1) scripture and 2) what we fancy and 3) reconciling 1)&2). Zizek's self-declared militant atheism means very little considering his love of certain theologians. Is the important thing about atheism the technicality of rejecting God or is it in the rejection of all the bumf that comes with God?

Well Zizek isn't one of your crude wanker atheists like Dawkins or Hitchens, he is a philosopher who recognises the massive influence of christianity on western thought and so feels no shame in engaging with it, to see what truths it does contain, to look at the contradictions within it and how it contains the seeds of atheism and materialism.

 

[butchersapron]

Well Zizek isn't one of your crude wanker atheists like Dawkins or Hitchens, he is a philosopher who recognises the massive influence of christianity on western thought and so feels no shame in engaging with it, to see what truths it does contain, to look at the contradictions within it and how it contains the seeds of atheism and materialism.

You sound like articul8 now. Apart from the end bit.

 

[revol68]

You sound like articul8 now. Apart from the end bit.

aye but Zizek didn't need to join a church to examine it's contradictions.

edit: Terry Eagleton on the otherhand...

 

[revol68]

anyways I have to say this new book of his is a struggle, just started it and so far it's a tough tough read, makes The Ticklish Subject look like his My Booky Wook.

 

[Knotted]

Again you're confusing the importance of Zizek's theory of truth/reality with the importance of reality itself. It's all very well enthusiastically affirming that there really is lion in the room and it really is biting your arm off and Judith Butler yah boo sucks etc. But then there is the actual lion and you might want to do something about it.

Zizek isn't concerned with capitalism. He's concerned with a critique of ideology - and this again is largely flights of fancy (not outright fantasy - just overgeneralisations suitable for a Grumpy Old Men talking head). For Zizek, capitalism is not something described by Marx in Capital, it's not something to do with extraction of surplus value, it's something to do with the type of society that expresses ideologies to be critiqued by Zizek. What is the working class for Zizek? Wage earners or objects of oppression or what? I bring up the theological stuff only because it's more obvious he is going astray here.

 

[revol68]

Again you're confusing the importance of Zizek's theory of truth/reality with the importance of reality itself. It's all very well enthusiastically affirming that there really is lion in the room and it really is biting your arm off and Judith Butler yah boo sucks etc. But then there is the actual lion and you might want to do something about it.

Zizek isn't concerned with capitalism. He's concerned with a critique of ideology - and this again is largely flights of fancy (not outright fantasy - just overgeneralisations suitable for a Grumpy Old Men talking head). For Zizek, capitalism is not something described by Marx in Capital, it's not something to do with extraction of surplus value, it's something to do with the type of society that expresses ideologies to be critiqued by Zizek. What is the working class for Zizek? Wage earners or objects of oppression or what? I bring up the theological stuff only because it's more obvious he is going astray here.

You really are just talking shit now.

Firstly Zizek understands the capital-labour relationship, and certainly doesn't view it as simply an ideology per se, it's what allows him to critique the frankfurt school, as well as crude Marxist's who fetishise the working class as a positive entity rather than as a negation of itself.

The fact you think the idea of ideology is so disconnected from Marx's analysis in Capital suggests you don't know what you are talking about, neither does your dicthomony of "wage earners or objects of oppression".

One chapter in "Living In Times" alone would show up your claims for absolute bollocks

 

[revol68]

Jesus if you are going to have a pop at Zizek, why not do it on his bullshit Leninism, or how his notion of the radical act is too bound to the notion of the messiah which shows in his hard on for the likes of Lenin and Robespierre, not to mention his shocking lack of historical knowledge.

 

[Knotted]

and certainly doesn't view it as simply an ideology per se

I didn't actually say that though. What are the challenges Zizek sees to capitalism - environmentalism, "post-human" cybernetics and intellectual property rights (if I remember rightly). Nothing to do with the working class in any case. You're being evasive.

 

[Knotted]

The fact you think the idea of ideology is so disconnected from Marx's analysis in Capital suggests you don't know what you are talking about, neither does your dicthomony of "wage earners or objects of oppression".

Did I say this? Zizek's critique of ideology is (almost) completely disconnected with Marx's critique of ideology, though. And there isn't a dichotomy of wage earners and objects of oppression - I'm talking about the defining characteristic. Is the proletariat defined by the need to sell their labour for a wage? Again you're being evasive.

 

[Knotted]

To illustrate the point - Zizek sees the Book of Job as the first critique of ideology - before Marx and Freud. Yet does Zizek ever look at property relations in ancient Israel? His critique of ideology is abstract and independent of class and capital and history.

Edit: In Marxist terms - Zizek's philosophy is strictly bourgeois. It critiques current ruling class ideas as if they were eternal and always with us, making the bourgeoisie the permanent, natural ruling class and this is cemented by his use of Lacan in terms of psychological structures which are super historical and super political. Zizek's social liberal, pro-capitalist restoration politics are directly connected with his social/critical "theorising". Zizek's "Leninism" is like his Lenin - a man who magics radical change by the revolutionary act - the working class are not the motor of revolution but rather the recipients of Leninist wisdom. This "Leninism" is not just "authoritarian" in anarchist terms, but more importantly it's comfortably hopeless, abstract revolutionising.

 

[articul8]

also I like him cos he sticks the boot into the Frankfurt School for abandoning class struggle in favour of wankky critiques of instrumental reason and such

The critique of instrumental reason isn't "abandoning class struggle" - it was a way of examining the historical/material conditions for the emergence of class domination.

 

[articul8]

Reality is where the fucking pain is.

That is a perfectly Lacanian proposition.

 

[butchersapron]

The critique of instrumental reason isn't "abandoning class struggle" - it was a way of examining the historical/material conditions for the emergence of class domination.

Domination! Domination! Domination everywhere!!!

 

[articul8]

Domination! Domination! Domination everywhere!!!

You can laugh, but their concern about instrumental reason saw them oppose both US capitalism and stalinism, war and the arms industry, a critique of the environmental implications of existing forms of production, the cheapening and commodfication of sexuality...etc. Not such a bad record to defend.

 

[butchersapron]

And the w/c.

They sound a bit like Laurie Penny actually.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I mean do you think someone as well versed in german idealism isn't aware of Kant's argument, do you think Kant is the final word on such matters or rather opens a massive can of worms that continues on in Hegel, through Marx and on into the post structuralism.
.

I don't think Kant opens a massive can of worms. Rather, he gathers the worms together, puts them back in the can, and seals it from inside.

I don't claim in-depth knowledge of Hegel, but to my thinking he doesn't so much continue from Kant as misunderstand him with his ideas about Geist - attempting to say something about the noumenal that he has no right to say. Certainly, that was Schopenhauer's criticism of Hegel, and it seems a fair one to me. And even to this day, you hear philosophers, scientists and other commentators saying things that show that they haven't fully grasped what Kant said. Even now, over 200 years later, imo Kant has not been fully absorbed.

Kant isn't the final word, but if someone who is interested in the limits of knowledge were to ask me who to read, I would direct them towards Kant first, I think.

 

[articul8]

They sound a bit like Laurie Penny actually

Fuck off! They went to the US to avoid a nazi genocide (those that made it - Benjamin RIP )

Maybe Marcuse got a bit daft in the 60s. They didn't hate the w/c. That's a lazy, ill-informed cliche

 

[butchersapron]

Fuck off! They went to the US to avoid a nazi genocide (those that made it - Benjamin RIP )

Maybe Marcuse got a bit daft in the 60s.

That's the spirit - run away.

 

[articul8]

Oh FFS. When the alternative was Auschwitz?

 

[butchersapron]

Every militant KPD that stood and fought was worth more than the lot of them. And the choice wasn't death camps or exile in 1933.

 

[articul8]

Really not your place to judge people for fleeing the onset of nazi persecution. Jewish academics were already being purged from their jobs.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

At risk of wanting things both ways, I think it is possible to applaud those who stayed and fought the system while not condemning those who left at the first opportunity. I can imagine that if a state were starting to introduce racist laws and I had the opportunity to leave, I'd be likely to take it. If you have children, you could see it as your moral duty to take it.

 

[love detective]

Kant isn't the final word, but if someone who is interested in the limits of knowledge were to ask me who to read, I would direct them towards Kant first, I think.

Absolutely

Critique of Pure Reason is hard to get into at first, not just because of some of the fairly impenetrable language employed but the sheer profoundness of the topic, but it's definitely worth the perseverance and worth reading a guide alongside it to stop you just giving up at the beginning (i used this one which was really helpful).

While it may not be the final word it lays the ground for so much that came after it, so even that is worth it alone in terms of context & scene setting

I ended up getting into Kant as a route into Hegel but instead of moving on to him after CPR, I ended up ploughing through the two other critiques (practical reason and judgement), although not to the same extent as the first one, but was surprised just how much of an integrated system the three ended up being - and far more radical than i'd ever thought it would be

 

[Knotted]

Well Zizek isn't one of your crude wanker atheists like Dawkins or Hitchens, he is a philosopher who recognises the massive influence of christianity on western thought and so feels no shame in engaging with it, to see what truths it does contain, to look at the contradictions within it and how it contains the seeds of atheism and materialism.

What are the merits of atheism and materialism? Surely it's not about resolving moral problems in theology. What next? Atheist priests? Why would they be better than theist priests? Besides I can imagine the reception Zizek gets from religious types - "I agree with him up to the point where he sees atheism as the solution" just as you agree with him up until the point he come out in favour of Lenin etc. They're just as good at weasling as you are.

I can understand where you are coming from - Zizek is a breath of fresh air compared to the rest of bourgeois philosophy (people used to say the same about Roy Bhaskar). But why do you expect to find anything politically decent in bourgeois philosophy? Such "radicalism" is about letting the gas escape from the pressure cooker.

 

[8ball]

There are plenty of atheist priests...