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A Human Example: Zizek

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A Human Example: Zizek

Dunamis
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Posted 09/26/08 - 11:53 AM: Subject: A Human Example: Zizek	#1
I encourage anyone who has a love of philosophy to consider the "human" example of Slavoj Zizek, a Lacanian philosopher and sociologist. A wonderful documentary that focuses not only on his ideas, but his extraordinary personage. A recent, September 9th lecture given in Oregon. Or, this prospective examination of the film Children of Men. Zizeks early books definitely made an impression on me, opening the door to Lacanian thinking and cultural analysis, the melding of philosophy to the matters of social concern. I remember attending one of his lectures a decade ago and asking a question whose premise horrified him. What I suggest is that more than the ultimate validity of his synthesis of Hegel, Kant and Lacan, which can be of interest, it is his lived experience of the significance of philosophy that perhaps gives its most compelling argument for its relevance. As much as Zizek is at pains to not be "human" just like all of us, subsumed in the ideology of normalcy, it really is the affective example of his experience of alienation and his thought out articulation and response to that alienation which allows us to embrace his very sincerity of project, if not his conclusions.
Tractatus theologico-politicus [is a] work forged in Hell by a renegade Jew and the Devil and issued with the knowledge of Mynheer Jan de Witt. - Church Council of Amsterdam If no man ever thinks alone, then we might say that to know really is to think ever less by oneself - Balibar

newtonsapple
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Posted 09/26/08 - 03:44 PM:	#2
I've read a couple of books by him, and some online essays by him, at http://nosubject.com/Main_Page , and saw movies at http://www.lacan.com/lacan1.htm . He's amazing, but still I'm no Marxist.
"Is it possible that existence is our exile and nothingness our home?"

Caldwell
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Posted 09/28/08 - 03:50 PM:	#3
Hi, Dee. I enjoyed the documentary. I went, within 24 hours, from repugnance, to indifference, to affection in watching the 7 part film. Thanks for link and this thread. I didn't know anything about Å½iÅ¾ek before this.

Dunamis
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Posted 09/29/08 - 07:01 PM:	#4
Caldwell wrote: Hi, Dee. I enjoyed the documentary. I went, within 24 hours, from repugnance, to indifference, to affection in watching the 7 part film.. I love this progression. Nice.
Tractatus theologico-politicus [is a] work forged in Hell by a renegade Jew and the Devil and issued with the knowledge of Mynheer Jan de Witt. - Church Council of Amsterdam If no man ever thinks alone, then we might say that to know really is to think ever less by oneself - Balibar

Caldwell
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Posted 09/30/08 - 12:47 AM:	#5
There are other films there I'd like to watch, so, I'll do that soon.

180 Proof
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Posted 09/30/08 - 01:33 AM:	#6
Å½iÅ¾ek's critique of the film Children of Men is excellent & insightful. I only wish it covered more ground. What he said about Cuarón's Y tu mamá también is spot on as well. As for the documentary, some spicy food for thought ... Thanks for the links, Dunamis. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9S3vvPe9IM (This lecture on "Materialism & Theology" was also quite good.)
The question isn't "What do I believe?" but rather "What do I least disbelieve?" Absence of necessary evidence is evidence of necessary absence. [What cannot be done?[What cannot be hoped?[What cannot be known?]]]

ragus
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Posted 09/30/08 - 12:01 PM:	#7
Thanks for the link, 180 Proof. Chance and necessity were claimed by Å½iÅ¾ek both to be irrational according to the Pope. I can't see why he should think that necessity is irrational, Can you help?

sqeecoo
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Posted 09/30/08 - 04:14 PM:	#8
He's pretty charismatic and pretty nonsensical.

Dunamis
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Posted 10/01/08 - 07:45 AM:	#9
sqeecoo wrote: He's pretty charismatic and pretty nonsensical. One always wonders when the accusation of nonsense is applied to a speaker, when a great variety of people find him making sense. Then, it seems, it become a contest of something other than sense. I find "nonsense" an interesting critical category, often used to close down wide swathes of discourse one fundamentally (but not logically) has objection to. One ever attempts to then go back, if pressed, to locate exactly where the "non-sense" is located, to find the error in the replication of sense. And of course, it is not there. It is of course philosophies dream to be able to "outlaw" huge swathes of discourse, to take the doxa of sense shared by 1,000s or millions and purge it of its defective aspects. And at times this is a rather worthy exercise in self-reflection. But when "I don't understand this" becomes "all those people who do understand this are simply nonsensical" one more turn if self-reflection is perhaps needed.
Tractatus theologico-politicus [is a] work forged in Hell by a renegade Jew and the Devil and issued with the knowledge of Mynheer Jan de Witt. - Church Council of Amsterdam If no man ever thinks alone, then we might say that to know really is to think ever less by oneself - Balibar

Dunamis
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Posted 10/01/08 - 07:47 AM:	#10
180 Proof wrote: Thanks for the links, Dunamis. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9S3vvPe9IM (This lecture on "Materialism & Theology" was also quite good.) 180, Glad you liked it. I haven't looked at the materialism and theology lecture yet, but will do. Thanks for the forward.
Tractatus theologico-politicus [is a] work forged in Hell by a renegade Jew and the Devil and issued with the knowledge of Mynheer Jan de Witt. - Church Council of Amsterdam If no man ever thinks alone, then we might say that to know really is to think ever less by oneself - Balibar

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