The Zizek Conference

[neprimerimye]

Well, in that respect my perspective is that of someone who is pretty familiar with various kinds of logic. I'm not sure that generalised ignorance on the matter is necessarily a reason to adopt dialectical thinking over another kind of logic (as you point out, any familiarity would be an improvement in this limited regard for most people). Nor am I convinced that dialectics reflects the essence of underlying reality, if such a thing is even possible.

Fair enough I realised that you are familiar with questions of method probably more than I am if you have any university background in such questions. but that does not tell me what your perspective on such questions is.

And you are quite correct that ignorance is no reason to refer dialectics over any other form of logic but as I said my own perspective should be quite clear to anybody with a little knowledge of philosophy.

 

[Santino]

He is totally great in my opinion. What are you reading?

'Infinite Thought', or something. Definitely something to do with infinite. I'm struggling with the set theory a bit.

 

[Masseuse]

His book on St Paul and Universalism is well worth a look IMO.

Went to see Zizek at the ICA a couple of years ago. I was attracted to his polemical stance on most things, it's quite entertaining after all. But tbh it is quite clear lately that he's just being contrary for the fuck of it - the attention seeking fat sweaty salivating bastard.

Even as a layman I could tell he had got a couple of basic points about Badiou completely arse-backwards as he pontificated on stage spraying us all in spit.

Seriously, don't get sucked in. The man is an eejit and he wears fucking awful jumpers.

 

[Fruitloop]

I stand corrected. It woz the jumpers wot did it.

 

[Masseuse]

At least Derrida had ace hair.

 

[Col_Buendia]

So did Foucault.

 

[Fruitloop]

His book on St Paul and Universalism is well worth a look IMO.

Went to see Zizek at the ICA a couple of years ago. I was attracted to his polemical stance on most things, it's quite entertaining after all. But tbh it is quite clear lately that he's just being contrary for the fuck of it - the attention seeking fat sweaty salivating bastard.

Even as a layman I could tell he had got a couple of basic points about Badiou completely arse-backwards as he pontificated on stage spraying us all in spit.

Seriously, don't get sucked in. The man is an eejit and he wears fucking awful jumpers.

What did Zizek have wrong about Badiou? I'm genuinely intrigued (which is depressing in itself...)

 

[Masseuse]

What did Zizek have wrong about Badiou? I'm genuinely intrigued (which is depressing in itself...)

Oh jesus, do you really want me to bore you? It was in relation to Badiou's theory of the event. I'm a little rusty on Badiou now, read him yonks ago, but basically Zizek was trying to "predict" events in world situations - such as Middle east politics/palestine etc. Badiou is very clear that the event (in badiouian terms) is something that cannot be predicted - it emerges from the void (er, see set theory) and by its nature is something that takes its surroundings by suprise.

There were other things he said i was a bit dubious about, or that he seemed to be using to try and fit his own agenda, but I have forgotten them now.

Asleep yet?

 

[Fruitloop]

Sorry, what?

I guess Zizek has his own reasons to misrepresent Badiou even though he's a groupie at heart, because Badiou is fairly emphatic on the limits of psychoanalysis as an adjunct to Marxism.

 

[neprimerimye]

Went to see Zizek at the ICA a couple of years ago. I was attracted to his polemical stance on most things, it's quite entertaining after all. But tbh it is quite clear lately that he's just being contrary for the fuck of it - the attention seeking fat sweaty salivating bastard.

Seriously, don't get sucked in. The man is an eejit and he wears fucking awful jumpers.

So what you're saying is that Zizek is the Paglia or Burchill of philosophy?

 

[Fruitloop]

All comparisons to Paglia are unfair. Personally I can't say her name without spitting.

 

[Masseuse]

Well.... he is clever. No doubt about it. And certainly important in the field of Lacanian studies. But he's just off on his own trip now. There doesn't seem much going on in the way of a broader discussion or debate, which is what philosophy should all be about. He just seems to be yet another academic who is more into making his own little niche the all important thing, rather than casting his net a bit more widely in the search for truth (however you decide to take that term ). It's all a bit narcissistic really. I think his head has been turned by the girly groupies.

 

[neprimerimye]

All comparisons to Paglia are unfair. Personally I can't say her name without spitting.

But why dear heart? After all she does not wear uncool sweaters. On the other hand her hair is not as lovely as that of Naomi Wolf. Although her books are as worthless.

 

[neprimerimye]

Well.... he is clever. No doubt about it. I think his head has been turned by the girly groupies.

Agreed and its the acid not the groupies from what a chum who toils at Birkbeck says.

Passed him the other week while doing a bit of research in Senate House Library for what its worth. Wild staring eyes and that was just me!

 

[Fruitloop]

Zizek's criticism of Badiou is all about Lacan, unsurprisingly. He associates Badiou with irresponsible liberals who stridently demand great projects in favour of freedom and justice whilst relying on conservative forces to maintain the social order for them, or shrinking from the concrete acts that would actually bring these project into being - chiefly because Badiou insists that in the transition from Being (the established order of things that makes knowledge possible) to the Event (the radical departure that, like the resurrection or revolution generates a Truth that can only be perceived by fidelity to the Event itself) the Void from which the subject constitutes itself, ie the gap between Being and Event shouldn't be identified with the subject - to do so is to ontologize the subject in the Void, to attempt to structure the Void in a way that is illegitimate. Lacan on the other hand (at least according to Zizek) locates the prime mover of the gesture of subjectivization that fills this Void in the death drive, and the content of the Subject as both the Void itself and the gesture that eternally bridges this void and allows Truth to emerge.

In Zizek's view, the failure of radical politics in the past has been not to succumb to the void between Being and Event, but rather its attempts to avoid confrontation with the Void (and thus the death drive), and instead to directly impose Truth in the realm of Being. The radical discontinuity that Badiou discerns between Being and the Event (he asserts that from the standpoint of Knowledge/Being there simply is no Event - the Event is something which can only be recognised from within the Event itself) which limits the psychoanalytic function to Being, ie to the existing ordering of things, creates a Kantian line of demarcation between the order of Being (the professor's comfortable university tenure) and the radical demand for justice and freedom made from within the terms of reference of a Truth Event (the professor's public pronouncements). The bit of Lenin that Zizek wants to assume is the part which is authentically prepared to take hold of power and use it, which is to say to convert the Truth of a particular Event into a new order of Being.

 

[Fruitloop]

Since I'm monologue-ing, the question of whether you can determine an Event in advance of its occurence: obviously in Badiou's terms you can't, because that would ontologize the void from which the Event emerges. Badiou it seems to me here is anti-dialectical, since in his view by the time something can be viewed as a totality (i.e. as a Oneness) then its structure is already constituted. The Event attaches itself to the Void of each situation, ie to the 'lie' of the situation that the Event makes apparent. Zizek basically seems to agree with the idea that the subjective perspective is what frames an Event, turning it into a One by means of a metastructure in which the Event's Oneness is already constituted, and that this metastructure can only arise from a perspective that is already engaged with the Event.

Still, I guess you can still examine the absence or superfluousness - the lie - of a particular situation as a potential point for Events to occur - much like the way you can't determine where lightning will strike, but can surmise that a tall metal pole is a more likely recipient than a pig, or whatever.

 

[Fruitloop]

I really feel that this is so totally relevant to the Wales forum

 

[Fruitloop]

But why dear heart? After all she does not wear uncool sweaters. On the other hand her hair is not as lovely as that of Naomi Wolf. Although her books are as worthless.

She has just never said anything of any value whatsoever. I mean, the Beauty Myth had plenty of the kind of true-but-obvious statements that probably wouldn't need restating if their weren't a huge financial advantage to trying to convince people that up is down and black is white, but I really can't recall a single thing that Paglia has said, and I've been to a few of her lectures.

At least Roger Scruton is infuriating enough to be memorable - Paglia doesn't even scale these heights. Give me a spitty Lacanian in a bad jumper any day over these clowns!

 

[Brockway]

I like Paglia and Burchill - they are both entertainers. Don't agree with everything they say of course but at least they know how to say it.

 

[neprimerimye]

She has just never said anything of any value whatsoever. I mean, the Beauty Myth had plenty of the kind of true-but-obvious statements that probably wouldn't need restating if their weren't a huge financial advantage to trying to convince people that up is down and black is white, but I really can't recall a single thing that Paglia has said, and I've been to a few of her lectures.

At least Roger Scruton is infuriating enough to be memorable - Paglia doesn't even scale these heights. Give me a spitty Lacanian in a bad jumper any day over these clowns!

I have to say that I find it amusing that for all the fury you vent against Paglia you have attended her lectures. Why did you bother she is so obviously a third rater who used fake outrage in order too boost an otherwise unremarkable career. very sensible from her popint of view mind you as she did garner a lot of attention and sales that she would otherwise not have been able to command.

As for Naomi Wolf she too is a third rater albeit one with wonderful hair and entry into elite circles. The same might be said of Scuton although I cannot recall his having such lustrous locks. In fact I can't remember much of him at all.

And thats the point really many of these figures drift into view and then drift out again having said or done nothing of value. I suspect that the same will be said of Zizek eventually who currently graces the media and postures as a leftist on the back of his academic prowess. But regardless of his academic work his contributions to popular culture and politics seem, to me at least, of no value at all.