Chomsky vs. Zizek

[QCLeftist]

Hey all,

This is my first post! I will make an introduction later perhaps..

Anyway, I was wondering if anyone here was familiar enough with both Chomsky and Zizek to offer some insight.

While of course similar in the kind of society they're after, their analyses differ wildly...

Zizek has described himself as "Leninist," while Chomsky is strongly opposed.

Zizek comes from the tradition of Continental Philosophy and Critical Theory; Chomsky, from cognitive science and linguistics.

Zizek interprets social phenomena through the lens of Lacanian psychoanalysis; Chomsky, through empirical science (Chomsky believed Lacan was a fraud!)

While Chomsky states that there is nothing at all abstract about human affairs, Zizek believes that society is incredibly complex and needs complex theories for explanation (... hence why much of this work is incomprehensible?)

Thoughts? I guess I just want to open a discussion and haven't seen much around here on Zizek...

[Paulappaul]

They both seem like assholes :thumbup1:

[Die Rote Fahne]

They both seem like assholes :thumbup1:
Quite the critique, I feel smarter having read that intriguingly intelligent piece :rolleyes:

[Red Future]

Indeed quite the criticism ..on a more serious notethere is a Zizek group.You may wish to check it out.

[RedSunRising]

Indeed quite the criticism ..on a more serious notethere is a Zizek group.You may wish to check it out.

Zizek was a hardcore liberal under the psuedo-Socialist regime of Yugoslavia and now he is acting the Stalinist that you could invite to a posh restaurant with a bunch of sociopathtic "socialites", if a "Stalinist" regime actually came along he would take up something else. He is a show man who loves playing the controversial rebel. We need to be very careful of people like him and Badiou who play at being our friends in the capitalist mainstream.

[Rooster]

Zizek was a hardcore liberal under the psuedo-Socialist regime of Yugoslavia and now he is acting the Stalinist that you could invite to a posh restaurant with a bunch of sociopathtic "socialites", if a "Stalinist" regime actually came along he would take up something else. He is a show man who loves playing the controversial rebel. We need to be very careful of people like him and Badiou who play at being our friends in the capitalist mainstream.

How much of his stuff have you read?

[Paulappaul]

Quite the critique, I feel smarter having read that intriguingly intelligent piece :rolleyes:

Someone needs a sense of humor, geez :)

[Tim Finnegan]

They both have some decent insights in some areas, and are weaker in others. Chomsky's solid on international affairs and power politics, for example, while Zizek has some useful things to say on the topic of ideology. Neither offer a One True Path, but, given that they are neither dribbling halfwits nor Stalinists, I wouldn't expect them to claim as much.


Zizek was a hardcore liberal under the psuedo-Socialist regime of Yugoslavia and now he is acting the Stalinist that you could invite to a posh restaurant with a bunch of sociopathtic "socialites", if a "Stalinist" regime actually came along he would take up something else. He is a show man who loves playing the controversial rebel. We need to be very careful of people like him and Badiou who play at being our friends in the capitalist mainstream.
I really don't think that Zizek is interested in befriending leftists of your sort, RedSunRising.

[CornetJoyce]

"I am a Leninist. Lenin wasn't afraid to dirty his hands. If you can get power, grab it. Do whatever is possible. This is why I support Obama. I think the battle he is fighting now over healthcare is extremely important, because it concerns the very core of the ruling ideology. The core of the campaign against Obama is freedom of choice. And the lesson, if he wins, is that freedom of choice is certainly something beautiful, but that it only works against a background of regulations, ethical presuppositions, economic conditions and so on. My position isn't that we should sit down and wait for some big revolution to come. We have to engage wherever we can. If Obama wins his battle over healthcare, if some kind of blow can be struck against the ideology of freedom of choice, it will have been a victory worth fighting for."
http://www.newstatesman.com/ideas/2009/11/381-382-interview-obama-theory
"I'm an old-fashioned continental European. Theory is sacred and we need it more than ever."
- Zizek

Zizek

[RedSunRising]

I really don't think that Zizek is interested in befriending leftists of your sort, RedSunRising.

He claims to be a "Stalinist" :rolleyes:

And you are right. Actually being part of a movement that is getting its hands dirty to actual present day world would be a bit beyond him.

[Os Cangaceiros]

The only time I've ever heard Zizek mention Leninism was when he called it a "disaster".

[Tim Finnegan]

He claims to be a "Stalinist" :rolleyes:
He just says that to wind up liberals, it's not meant seriously. He has repeatedly and explicitly rejected Stalinism as a theoretical and ideological dead-end.


And you are right. Actually being part of a movement that is getting its hands dirty to actual present day world would be a bit beyond him.Why do Maoists always resort to this? The fact that someone in India is waving your banner doesn't actually lend you yourself any credibility, nor does it suggest any additional weight on the part of your political theories. In fact, this is a tendency that Zizek has previously criticised- specifically in regards to Venezuela and the Zapatistas, but it carries over- as providing a rhetorical buttress in defence of ones own non-activity, rather than addressing the circumstances honestly, so I don't think that you're likely to impress him with this sort of cheap quip.

[RedSunRising]

Why do Maoists always resort to this? The fact that someone in India is waving your banner doesn't actually lend you yourself any credibility, nor does it suggest any additional weight on the part of your political theories. In fact, this is a tendency that Zizek has previously criticised- specifically in regards to Venezuela and the Zapatistas, but it carries over- as providing a rhetorical buttress in defence of ones own non-activity, rather than addressing the circumstances honestly, so I don't think that you're likely to impress him with this sort of cheap quip.

Im involved with activism around political prisoners at home. Something that the trendy lefties avoids like the plague (just like they avoided the abortion in the past). I wonder why that is? Has he ever put himself on the line about anything serious? Arundati Roy maybe a liberal but at least she has guts and conviction.

[Jose Gracchus]

Bleh. That's such an airy intellectual's thing to say. It show a complete lack of good faith in the working class itself. "Support Obama"? I can say, having gone from voting for Obama and attending a single of his rallies (I was extremely skeptical, but my girlfriend of the time was not) in 2008 with very primitive political consciousness, to now, after having seriously engaged some of the history of the workers' movement, and of basic realities of the class struggle and the nature of history and production, to believing that if there is any task that a serious "communist" is not suited for, it is telling workers to tail the financial institutions' bought-and-paid PR prop.

He is the Third Term of George Bush, he was not only in many ways one the right-wing of Democratic Party candidates, he has moved vastly to the right and now sits as Bush's basic heir. They are elected to manage an engine of exploitation. Nothing their bought-and-paid economists, often emerging directly out of obliterating defenseless Third World nations and societies at the IMF or some think tank, haggle out in behind doors with the capitals directly involved in the market in question and toss before the working class is something for us to "rally support" for.

Rollout a map of the Middle East. The United States went from, before Bush, some bases scattered about, to two countries invaded and destroyed. Under Obama, the United States now has forces engaged in combat operations in Libya, Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. We lent direct assistance to a Saudi invasion of Bahrain. Its a circa-2003 neoconservative's wet dream. I won't lend a lick of support to a man who's day-to-day perpetuation means the slaughter of innocent men, women, and children.

[black magick hustla]

Im involved with activism around political prisoners at home. Something that the trendy lefties avoids like the plague (just like they avoided the abortion in the past). I wonder why that is? Has he ever put himself on the line about anything serious? Arundati Roy maybe a liberal but at least she has guts and conviction.

what are trendy leftists? you think trotskyists are trendy, when i picture trotskyism in my head i picture dusty book shops with awkward, male nerds in them not fashionistas. of course this is not true (the leftcom stereotype is actually similar lol) but i cant see how trotskyism is trendy at all.

about political prisoners ... if there is such thing as trendy leftists in the US its the insurrectionists with their glossy pubs and their shitty highschool poetry, and they are always going off about political prisoners (the poor blokes that blew up some animal lab and got caught and shit like that).

[RedSunRising]

what are trendy leftists? you think trotskyists are trendy, when i picture trotskyism in my head i picture dusty book shops with awkward, male nerds in them not fashionistas. of course this is not true (the leftcom stereotype is actually similar lol) but i cant see how trotskyism is trendy at all.


Leftists who follow trends, who are always jumping from issue to issue as one or another comes into fashion, this often does go along with being a fashionista but it doesnt have too.

The insurrectionists are mostly young alienated people acting out of despair. While they are nihilistic they have seriousness.

[Rooster]

So which works of Zizek have you read?

[RedSunRising]

In Defense of Lost Causes and the one on Wagner. Ive glanced over others.

[Tim Finnegan]

Im involved with activism around political prisoners at home. Something that the trendy lefties avoids like the plague (just like they avoided the abortion in the past). I wonder why that is? Has he ever put himself on the line about anything serious? Arundati Roy maybe a liberal but at least she has guts and conviction.
What does this have to do with anything that I actually said, exactly? :confused:

[RedSunRising]

What does this have to do with anything that I actually said, exactly? :confused:

Uh yes you asked why do Maoists always resort to pointing at comrades waging actual war far away and I pointed out that that wasnt my point.

[Jose Gracchus]

Am I supposed to be laughing? "Trendy Trotskyists"? > :cool:

[Rooster]

And I think this banding around "trendy" is kinda hypocritical. Surely the most trendy ones are the guys who dress up as Mao and proclaim protracted people's war with no support for those arguments. The guys who make it into a lifestyle; they kinda make me cringe.

[Tim Finnegan]

Uh yes you asked why do Maoists always resort to pointing at comrades waging actual war far away and I pointed out that that wasnt my point.
Oh, that's what it was? But what does that have to do with Maoism-in-general, exactly?

[Rafiq]

I'd rather be ascossiated with the likes of Zizek than Chomsky. At least Zizek has a somewhat good grasp on Marxism, whilst Chomsky is just a liberal who sometimes talks about how great his Anarcho-Libertarian-fantasy society would be awesome to live in, but sais its impossible, so endorses the democratic party.

[RHIZOMES]

I like Zizek more, but he can be a bit pretentious. The problem with Noam on the other hand is his dogmatic empiricism and moralism.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I don't like either's political deficiencies. Chomsky has quite a lot of liberal rhetoric, while Zizek's philosophical pretentiousness can't be underestimated.

[Die Rote Fahne]

I prefer Zizek, he does speed and doesn't afraid of anything.

[∞]

Zizek? Chomsky? Too mainstream...

[∞]

I prefer Chomsky, he bases his assertions on actual events rather than blabble on about toilets and a bunch of other mumbo-jumbo.

FJ73hLQ64Ng

Blah, blah, blah...

I know Chomsky can be liberal-esque, but at least he actually contributed to important aspects to leftists like foreign policy. To me and many others Zizek plays little significance to the left.

[Tim Finnegan]

I prefer Chomsky, he bases his assertions on actual events rather than blabble on about toilets and a bunch of other mumbo-jumbo.

FJ73hLQ64Ng

Blah, blah, blah...
I'm always surprised by how anti-intellectual some "Marxists" can be, even when people are reaching over backwards to pose their observations in very accessible terms. :bored:

[∞]

I'm always surprised by how anti-intellectual some "Marxists" can be, even when people are reaching over backwards to pose their observations in very accessible terms. :bored:

If you actually analyze what he says, 90% the time, its nothing significant. Many other posters here have noted this as "pretentious", but I believe it is just being fascinated whats already in philosophy. Not that I have anything against being fascinated, but he carries on the same drab throughout his lectures and leaves his attendees with nothing refreshing in their head. Also this pseudo- philosophy he practices is just left-wing continuation of Lacan. Have you ever noticed that psycho-analyst theories are never regarded in modern medicine? I remember that in my Freud-reading days that I would constantly ask my Neurologist mother questions regarding his theories (specifically on sexuality). All I got from her was confused looks and "What? How can you assume that?". I decided to grow the fuck up and look past that plethora of intellectual gibberish that was Freud. All these theorists really do is make a make baseless assumptions on humans with small inklings of flawed human logic. This style has no place for any healthy pursuit of knowledge and we can observe this through observing some of the greatest scientific contributions made throughout history. In this regard, Chomsky is a scientist, whereas Zizek is a mystic. The Left can never deviate from empiricism.

[black magick hustla]

Leftists who follow trends, who are always jumping from issue to issue as one or another comes into fashion, this often does go along with being a fashionista but it doesnt have too.
.

i dont think trotskyists jump from issue to issue lol, if anything sometimes it feels they are caught in 1917, with their obsession with trade unions and labor parties when almost everybody i know works precarious, shitjobs where the kind of blue collar shopfloor culture is nonexistant. i can think of much trendier tendencies (some aspects of anarchism, everything i term like hipster communism, zizek, badiou, platypus, frankfurt school) than trotskyism.

[Coyote]

I've never read Zizek but I did like Chomsky's "Occupation 101". Either way, I prefer Parenti.

[Dunk]

I like Slavoj Zizek. Does that make me a rebel here, or a reactionaryliberalpetitebourgeoisrevisionist? :D

[RHIZOMES]

The Left can never deviate from empiricism.

lol fuck that.

Yeah sure, Zizek may not be 'revolutionary' in an explicit sense of the word due to the abstract philosophical complexity of his thought, but is that really a bad thing, is it really harming anyone? I've found there are interesting things you can gain from his thought, but you need a background in philosophy and social theory beforehand. But so what? A lot of his social thought and philosophy I disagree with, but he's made some interesting analyses - his critiques of liberalism, NGOs, charity, 'tolerance' identity politics, is all really solid stuff.

The problem with good ol' Noam, and by extension dogmatic empiricism, is that by taking a purely 'everything must be empirically demonstrated, abstractions are irrelevant' approach, is that you end up implicitly accepting many taken-for-granted mainstream ideas and this is not a radical or revolutionary approach. Noam Chomsky's dogmatic empiricism can be tied quite clearly with his left-liberalism.

Without abstractions, Marxism would have never left the drawing board. No coherent critique of ideology, or even economics (as money is after all a signifying abstraction) can be made without reference to abstractions.

Chomsky and Zizek just occupy two extremes on the sliding scale between abstract and concrete. They are both good resources, if you wanna read about empirical anti-imperialist injustices, Chomsky is the way to go. If you wanna learn all these neat little philosophical concepts, then Zizek is your man. But you have to fill in the blanks - and you have to do that with every philosopher/social thinker, even Marx.

I think Zizek is a bit overrated though, I like how he has been popularising Marxism and critical theory, but when it comes to contemporary social thinkers I have a bit of a liking for Pierre Bourdieu and David Harvey.

[black magick hustla]

i dont think most marxists that use the word "empiricism" as a slur know what empiricism is, and they just kindof use the term empiricism as lenin did. empiricists are not against abstractions - for fucks sake poncaire was an empiricist, who was a mathematician, theoretical physicist, and philosopher of science. it is true empiricists would consider lacanian psychoanalysis monumental poppycock, but it has nothing to do with abstractions. being against zizeks gobbidygook is not being an antiintellectual, is being antibullshit. im gonna start theorizing about penis envy by just staring at the ceiling of my library and state it is reality

[black magick hustla]

also, "empricism" does not lead to liberalism, that was an invention ofpeople with critical theory degrees that have to find a way to justify their continental sensibilities without realizing a lot of what they did was a massive waste of money and time. a lot of the positivists were marxists or at least leaning to the left. most "critical theorists" who are "antiempiricist" are mouthpeaces of social democracy, eurocommunism, and liberalism

[RedSunRising]

i dont think trotskyists jump from issue to issue lol, if anything sometimes it feels they are caught in 1917, with their obsession with trade unions and labor parties when almost everybody i know works precarious, shitjobs where the kind of blue collar shopfloor culture is nonexistant.

There is a lot of truth in that, but the question remains why are they so obessesed with the Trade Unionism and Labour Parties of the 50s, 60s and 70s who's reality back in the day was hardly all that glorious and certainly not revolutionary? Could it be for aesthetic reasons? Could it be a desperate attempt to avoid the miltarary question and the question of the militarized party? Now why would people be behaving like that?

[RedSunRising]

i can think of much trendier tendencies (some aspects of anarchism, everything i term like hipster communism, zizek, badiou, platypus, frankfurt school) than trotskyism.

Badiou is linked up with the Socialist Party in France so despite the confusions of some American Mao-sympathizers and his nostalgia for his radical past he hardly counts as "left" in a meaningful sense. Does Zizek actually support any organizations?

[Franz Fanonipants]

gnome chimpsky

[Ocean Seal]

I'd rather be ascossiated with the likes of Zizek than Chomsky. At least Zizek has a somewhat good grasp on Marxism, whilst Chomsky is just a liberal who sometimes talks about how great his Anarcho-Libertarian-fantasy society would be awesome to live in, but sais its impossible, so endorses the democratic party.
To say the truth, I support them both critically. I think that Zizek is an excellent debater and that if I tried to go against him I wouldn't be able to disprove a single one of his arguments. Zizek is typically a great critic of everything and he's fairly admirable for that. Perhaps he is fixated too much on "thought" and the Hegelian idea of thought being the most important part of action.

Chomsky on the other hand certainly has exposed a series of US myths regarding foreign policy, history, and he cleverly attacks the anarcho-capitalist ideology. Moreover, he also criticizes leftists where they deserve criticism, such as their poor mobilization during the bailouts.

However he also makes a series of poor points

Jefferson was an anti-capitalist
True only in the sense that he favored a slave-owning elite before an industrial capitalist elite
The Bolsheviks were right wing
This is silly and deplorably ignores the struggle of the Soviet people's against imperial warfare, hunger, and the backwards policies of the empire.
Argues that we should vote democrat
This one is truly ironic because the Democrats are in any case "the lesser of two evils" but yet he doesn't defend the Bolsheviks. So supporting a war-mongering capitalist party is ok, but an imperfect socialist party struggling to just maintain some kind of progress in its country can't make any mistakes otherwise its "right wing".

I could go on, but these mistakes are rather common in his philosophy. But for what its worth, the man is still worth listening to for the most part. And some of his texts are rather interesting.

[∞]

lol fuck that.
Yeah sure, Zizek may not be 'revolutionary' in an explicit sense of the word due to the abstract philosophical complexity of his thought, but is that really a bad thing, is it really harming anyone?

Not really. But it isn't productive.


I've found there are interesting things you can gain from his thought, but you need a background in philosophy and social theory beforehand. But so what? A lot of his social thought and philosophy I disagree with, but he's made some interesting analyses - his critiques of liberalism, NGOs, charity, 'tolerance' identity politics, is all really solid stuff.I've seen some of his "solid stuff", and its ok at best. I've never heard him say anything particularly important or something I didn't know. That bores me. But, to be fair he does get across better with his humor (which is better than Chomsky's monotone), but that is all superficial. I've read up on his theories on ideologies and again, I have found nothing interesting. Can you please tell me one ideological contribution that Zizek has made?



The problem with good ol' Noam, and by extension dogmatic empiricism, is that by taking a purely 'everything must be empirically demonstrated, abstractions are irrelevant' approach, is that you end up implicitly accepting many taken-for-granted mainstream ideas and this is not a radical or revolutionary approach. Noam Chomsky's dogmatic empiricism can be tied quite clearly with his left-liberalism.The only problem with Chomsky is not his empiricism. It is his moral-ism. As maldoror suggested, the two to don't equate to the same thing. Many people have suffered from this case of moralism (which is like a the opposite of severe pragmatism I find in Parenti), people like Einstein and Russel seemed to have over-personalized violent occurrences throughout history. It is a little harmful because it creates divisions and inner-party sectarianism, because it cares too much about the past (we must look toward the future). However, the rest of what you're talking about makes little-to-no sense.


Without abstractions, Marxism would have never left the drawing board. No coherent critique of ideology, or even economics (as money is after all a signifying abstraction) can be made without reference to abstractions.
Again empiricism /= no abstractions. What draws me to Marxist theory was it emphasis on Material reality, and the fact it practiced a form of Hegelian philosophy without the mystical bullshit. Marx was able to apply his theoretical assumptions based on the historical reality of class struggle.



Chomsky and Zizek just occupy two extremes on the sliding scale between abstract and concrete. They are both good resources, if you wanna read about empirical anti-imperialist injustices, Chomsky is the way to go. If you wanna learn all these neat little philosophical concepts, then Zizek is your man. But you have to fill in the blanks - and you have to do that with every philosopher/social thinker, even Marx.I agree with you for the most part, though I don't like Zizek's philosophy.

[∞]

Also, Zizek is a severe liberal.

[∞]

I like Slavoj Zizek. Does that make me a rebel here, or a reactionaryliberalpetitebourgeoisrevisionist? :D

Nah, there is actually a member on this forum who declared himself a "Zizekist".

[SacRedMan]

Nah, there is actually a member on this forum who declared himself a "Zizekist".

It sucks that he isn't here now.

[Tim Finnegan]

If you actually analyze what he says, 90% the time, its nothing significant. Many other posters here have noted this as "pretentious", but I believe it is just being fascinated whats already in philosophy. Not that I have anything against being fascinated, but he carries on the same drab throughout his lectures and leaves his attendees with nothing refreshing in their head. Also this pseudo- philosophy he practices is just left-wing continuation of Lacan. Have you ever noticed that psycho-analyst theories are never regarded in modern medicine? I remember that in my Freud-reading days that I would constantly ask my Neurologist mother questions regarding his theories (specifically on sexuality). All I got from her was confused looks and "What? How can you assume that?". I decided to grow the fuck up and look past that plethora of intellectual gibberish that was Freud. All these theorists really do is make a make baseless assumptions on humans with small inklings of flawed human logic. This style has no place for any healthy pursuit of knowledge and we can observe this through observing some of the greatest scientific contributions made throughout history. In this regard, Chomsky is a scientist, whereas Zizek is a mystic. The Left can never deviate from empiricism.
Right, but that's not what you said, because this is a reasonable criticism, while what you previously said was trite and unhelpful*. You can see why I wouldn't infer this from that.

(*Of course, you could make exactly the same comment about my last comment, and I'll admit that's my mistake for making certain assumptions based on a general anti-intellectual tone lurking at the back of this thread, rather than what was actually in front of me.)


Also, Zizek is a severe liberal.
Does that word actually mean anything any more? You really wouldn't know it after hanging around here for fifteen minutes.

[Rafiq]

Also, Zizek is a severe liberal.

No, he's not.

[RHIZOMES]

Not really. But it isn't productive.

Define "productive".


I've seen some of his "solid stuff", and its ok at best. I've never heard him say anything particularly important or something I didn't know. That bores me. But, to be fair he does get across better with his humor (which is better than Chomsky's monotone), but that is all superficial. I've read up on his theories on ideologies and again, I have found nothing interesting. Can you please tell me one ideological contribution that Zizek has made?

It may not appear solid to you because you "already know it", but remember this guy is quite popular in the mainstream where such ideas aren't as well-known.

some good ideas he's had: the 'post-politics' era for one thing. Do you understand psychoanalysis at all? I know you have slagged it off based on a false notion that because it isn't valid in scientific psychology it can't be valid anywhere, but to really understand the interesting stuff he says about politics you need to know a bit about psychoanalysis. (ib4philosophyelitesstrawman)

This also may sound a bit irrelevant but I have been reading a book by one of my lecturers/colleagues (what a surprise, I'm in academia) about modern-day capitalism and he uses Zizek in some very interesting and non-liberal revolutionary ways.


The only problem with Chomsky is not his empiricism. It is his moral-ism.

His moralism is also related to his empiricism, he takes his morals as a given empirical reality - just like he does liberal human rights discourse.


As maldoror suggested, the two to don't equate to the same thing. Many people have suffered from this case of moralism (which is like a the opposite of severe pragmatism I find in Parenti), people like Einstein and Russel seemed to have over-personalized violent occurrences throughout history. It is a little harmful because it creates divisions and inner-party sectarianism, because it cares too much about the past (we must look toward the future). However, the rest of what you're talking about makes little-to-no sense.

Agree with all that (except the last sentence, lol).


Again empiricism /= no abstractions. What draws me to Marxist theory was it emphasis on Material reality, and the fact it practiced a form of Hegelian philosophy without the mystical bullshit. Marx was able to apply his theoretical assumptions based on the historical reality of class struggle.

To say Marx represents the truth of 'material reality' is itself an abstraction. What is 'reality'? What counts as 'abstract' gibberish? This whole outlook on Marx's thought I find problematic, his social thought is far more full of abstractions than you may realise. For example, his analysis of 'value' is an abstraction, as is his idea of 'species-being' or 'commodity fetishism'. They are subjective abstract concepts drawn from Karl Marx's judgements of objective material reality. Abstract doesn't mean wrong in any sense of the word, but by acknowledging the abstractions Marx has made is to be a better revolutionary theoretician in that you can critically test if they still hold up or if they need modifications.


agree with you for the most part, though I don't like Zizek's philosophy.


That is fair enough, its just when people bring up 'empiricism' as their only critique against a philosopher I reach for my gun. :P


Nah, there is actually a member on this forum who declared himself a "Zizekist".

People who call themselves "Zizekists" are completely missing the point of critical theory and continental philosophy. It makes me facepalm so much. If it was any forum other than this one I would think they were taking the piss.


Also, Zizek is a severe liberal.

I also agree with this, this is why he isn't really my favourite social theorists. He can come up with interesting isolated ideas but his psychoanalytic theory is far more consistent than his Marxism. He lets his own nationalism get in the way of making his analysis of the ethnic situation in former Yugoslavia consistent with the rest of his "liberatory" philosophy.

Bring on Badiou, Bourdieu or Harvey any day. :)

[black magick hustla]

some people here need to read a book on philosophy of science because they have absolutely no idea of what empiricism means. chomsky is a moral realist, empiricists would never consider moral values "empirical".

[NewSocialist]

I like both of them. But while Zizek is entertaining and occasionally a bit insightful, I feel Chomsky offers much more to people in the way of analysis and critique.

Chomsky is a strict empiricist and rationalist (and, thus, devoted to the scientific method), whereas Zizek is a dialectician who still adheres to Lacanian psychoanalysis (psychoanalysis being viewed as having been discredited for years now, in the eyes of most scientists).

[NewSocialist]

some people here need to read a book on philosophy of science because they have absolutely no idea of what empiricism means. chomsky is a moral realist, empiricists would never consider moral values "empirical".

Has he ever explicitly claimed to be a "moral realist"? Maybe he simply believes that certain conceptions of morality are just beneficial for humanity.

[∞]

Define "productive".
It may not appear solid to you because you "already know it", but remember this guy is quite popular in the mainstream where such ideas aren't as well-known.

I guess...but then we're just valuing him on his charm. And by productive I mean able to do something, able to mobolize people's thoughts or actions.


some good ideas he's had: the 'post-politics' era for one thing. Do you understand psychoanalysis at all? I know you have slagged it off based on a false notion that because it isn't valid in scientific psychology it can't be valid anywhere, but to really understand the interesting stuff he says about politics you need to know a bit about psychoanalysis. (ib4philosophyelitesstrawman)

I honestly don't want want to know any more than I do about psychoanalysis.


This also may sound a bit irrelevant but I have been reading a book by one of my lecturers/colleagues (what a surprise, I'm in academia) about modern-day capitalism and he uses Zizek in some very interesting and non-liberal revolutionary ways.

Well anything is possible. :)


His moralism is also related to his empiricism, he takes his morals as a given empirical reality - just like he does liberal human rights discourse.

But the problem only arises once he ties his moralism into his empirical data. For the most part he lets the facts speak for themselves (in many of his books like Failed States etc.), but during some lectures his tone gets too personal about things.



To say Marx represents the truth of 'material reality' is itself an abstraction. What is 'reality'? What counts as 'abstract' gibberish? This whole outlook on Marx's thought I find problematic, his social thought is far more full of abstractions than you may realise. For example, his analysis of 'value' is an abstraction, as is his idea of 'species-being' or 'commodity fetishism'. They are subjective abstract concepts drawn from Karl Marx's judgements of objective material reality. Abstract doesn't mean wrong in any sense of the word, but by acknowledging the abstractions Marx has made is to be a better revolutionary theoretician in that you can critically test if they still hold up or if they need modifications.

The thing about his abstractions are that, they have a basis in history. Anyone who has read Capital will tell you that hes constantly relating what hes talking about to the past. In fact, the book itself is like a historical observations on many economic systems. One very riveting chapter was when he compared the market structure of Medieval times to his time. Through his own analysis of these things he was able to make abstractions. Abstractions were there, but still had a base in reality. They weren't completely out-of-the-blue.



That is fair enough, its just when people bring up 'empiricism' as their only critique against a philosopher I reach for my gun. :P

It wasn't the only one.




People who call themselves "Zizekists" are completely missing the point of critical theory and continental philosophy. It makes me facepalm so much. If it was any forum other than this one I would think they were taking the piss.

Its pretty fucking stupid.


I also agree with this, this is why he isn't really my favourite social theorists. He can come up with interesting isolated ideas but his psychoanalytic theory is far more consistent than his Marxism. He lets his own nationalism get in the way of making his analysis of the ethnic situation in former Yugoslavia consistent with the rest of his "liberatory" philosophy.

Bring on Badiou, Bourdieu or Harvey any day. :)

Never really read or heard much from those guys, might be good though.

[human strike]

I love Zizek. He's awesome and actually right a fair bit of the time. I find Chomsky has a nasty habit of pointing out the obvious. Yeah they say he's an expert on international affairs but frankly I find him to be a good historian on this subject and little else - his observations on current international politics I find to be rather lacking in not only insight but I also disagree with his interpretation of it all. So I pay very little attention to Chomsky, he's a bore. Zizek I will listen to whenever he has anything to say.

[SacRedMan]

Lol almost everyone here iz trolling on Zizek but do you guys even read or watch his works?

[RedSunRising]

To be Communist means to be part of a Communist organization.

Why is Zizek not in a member of any Communist organization if he is oh so radical?

If Chomsky a member of the IWA or the IWW?

[∞]

To be Communist means to be part of a Communist organization.

Why is Zizek not in a member of any Communist organization if he is oh so radical?

If Chomsky a member of the IWA or the IWW?

Chomsky is a member of the IWW.

[Tim Finnegan]

To be Communist means to be part of a Communist organization.

We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things.
Sae wheesht.

[Old Mole]

I have problems with both, but mostly with Zizek. Ive read some of his works and they are entertaining, but from a revolutionary perspective it is utterly useless. Its just a bunch of meta-political stuff about how capitalism creates chocolate flavoured laxatives and how that is wrong. Chomsky, with all his flaws, has at least contributed in progressive causes. Zizek's involvement in politics is limited to having candidated for a liberal party in his home country. To me Zizek is a product of the bourgeois academic version of "Marxism", he is related to politically worthless theorists like Adorno for example.

[Tim Finnegan]

I have problems with both, but mostly with Zizek. Ive read some of his works and they are entertaining, but from a revolutionary perspective it is utterly useless. Its just a bunch of meta-political stuff about how capitalism creates chocolate flavoured laxatives and how that is wrong.
Well, setting aside the specific merit of Zizek's own work, I would suggest that a mature ideological critique of contemporary capitalism is necessary to any revolutionary movement. There's a tendency on the left to reduce ideology to particular political-economic doctrines that can be argued against in the same way that a liberal might argue with a conservative, without properly addressing the fundamentally bourgeois ideological framework in which most people (and a good few Marxists, the cynic in me wants to add) continue to operate in, with the result that leftist arguments are not only ineffective on many liberals, but are actually incomprehensible to them. Zizek, for all his flaws, at least attempts to address this to a degree which more "political" Marxists over-look in favour of this week's party-building scheme of choice.

[Dunk]

I have to ask a crude question I've always wondered: Is Slavoj Zizek on coke? All the time?

[caramelpence]

To be Communist means to be part of a Communist organization.

Why is Zizek not in a member of any Communist organization if he is oh so radical?

If Chomsky a member of the IWA or the IWW?

What Communist organization are you a member of?

Predicted answer: "Followers of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism do not divulge organizational secrets to the enemies of the International Communist Movement".

[RedSunRising]

What Communist organization are you a member of?

Predicted answer: "Followers of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism do not divulge organizational secrets to the enemies of the International Communist Movement".

Communist Dawn Group. Its in the formative stages but getting there.

[Old Mole]

Well, setting aside the specific merit of Zizek's own work, I would suggest that a mature ideological critique of contemporary capitalism is necessary to any revolutionary movement. There's a tendency on the left to reduce ideology to particular political-economic doctrines that can be argued against in the same way that a liberal might argue with a conservative, without properly addressing the fundamentally bourgeois ideological framework in which most people (and a good few Marxists, the cynic in me wants to add) continue to operate in, with the result that leftist arguments are not only ineffective on many liberals, but are actually incomprehensible to them. Zizek, for all his flaws, at least attempts to address this to a degree which more "political" Marxists over-look in favour of this week's party-building scheme of choice.
While it is true that many revolutionary leftists lack a sufficent critique of capitalist ideology the thing with Zizek and hundreds (maybe thousands) of leftist intellectuals is that they are the opposite of the "political" Marxists. Indeed they have very sophisticated theories on the cultural sphere and ideology but these theories are created in the bourgeois academia and they leave no place for the proletariat and revolution. It is easy to find out about mr Zizek's not so attractive views on politics, he seem to think that "we", that is western left-leaning intellectuals, should not act now, they should lean back and think things over. As if the proletariat should sit kindly and endure oppression while mr Zizek writes another book about Lacan and Hitchcock, because this is probably essential to their struggle.

Just as bourgeois academics like Zizek has abandoned class struggle today so they have done historically, Herbert Marcuse, another talented theorist on bourgeois ideology, proclaimed that the proletariat wasnt a revolutionary class anymore and that the intellectuals (that is, a fraction of the bourgeoisie) now has the power to change the world in the right direction. And Adorno's betrayal of the students and all that is progressive is well known. They havent made their political choices despite of their "cultural marxism", they did it because of it. Extreme focus on ideology makes people (for some reason) think that Capital plans everything and that the autonomy of the working class is nothing.

Summa summarum, I agree with you but I think that Slavoj Zizek and people like him are bound to fail in their criticism of capitalism, because A) they are dependent on it to maintain their positions as intellectuals (Zizek has actually pointed this out himself, clever as he is)B) One of the primary attributes of academic marxism is overestimation of Capital's power to control the minds of the workers and because of this another primary characteristic of these currents is the underestimation of the power of the proletariat.

If we want to really create a coherent critique of capitalism as it is today with all its aspects I think we must root are theories in practices and avoid making it all a question of intellectual exercises. This is all rather sketchy, I will elaborate my views if asked...

[caramelpence]

Communist Dawn Group. Its in the formative stages but getting there.

Do you have a website?

[o well this is ok I guess]

There's nothing particularly sophisticated about Zizek's jokes.
They're mostly on the level of fart jokes.

[Rowan Duffy]

If Chomsky a member of the IWA or the IWW?

Chomsky has an IWW card.

[Pawn Power]

Quite the critique, I feel smarter having read that intriguingly intelligent piece :rolleyes:

I'm not sure about Zizek but Chomsky has dedicated his life to anti-imperialism and leftism in general -- tirelessly supporting groups and organizations fighting for a whole spectrum of important issues. Seems like the opposite of asshole.

[Kadir Ateş]

Anyway, I was wondering if anyone here was familiar enough with both Chomsky and Zizek to offer some insight.

While of course similar in the kind of society they're after, their analyses differ wildly...

Zizek has described himself as "Leninist," while Chomsky is strongly opposed.

Zizek comes from the tradition of Continental Philosophy and Critical Theory; Chomsky, from cognitive science and linguistics.

Zizek interprets social phenomena through the lens of Lacanian psychoanalysis; Chomsky, through empirical science (Chomsky believed Lacan was a fraud!)

While Chomsky states that there is nothing at all abstract about human affairs, Zizek believes that society is incredibly complex and needs complex theories for explanation (... hence why much of this work is incomprehensible?)

Thoughts? I guess I just want to open a discussion and haven't seen much around here on Zizek... So far as I've read, Zizek never establishes his critique in an class-based analysis, but uses a variety of bourgeois theorists in order to make the case for his own brand of Leninism (still trying to figure out what it might be). Of the more Marxian-inclined works I've read, I would strongly recommend Violence (2008), which attempts to deal with the subjective and objective forms of violence which sustain bourgeois society. It is also one of his less obtuse and Lacanian works, but it did have the usual stream-of-consciousness passages that made me want to tear the eyeballs out of my skull.

Chomsky I'm less impressed with to be honest. He reads more like a petty bourgeois leftist in terms of his analysis of class struggle. Not to say he gets his facts wrong, but rather than turning to the works of Marx or even a class struggle anarchist (as he fancies himself an anarcho-syndicalist), he prefers to quote small passages from the works of Adam Smith and Alexander von Humboldt where find themselves at odds with the antagonisms of capital accumulation. Borrowing one's critique form classical political economy or Liberalism isn't a very good way in my opinion to really uncovering the laws of motion of capital. Which is probably why Chomsky's position of ideology is also fairly vulgar as well, as he basically states that it is a matter of common sense. Needless to say, it's a bit more complicated than that.

Though I have enormous respect for Chomsky as an activist and scholar, I feel that his analysis of capitalism is very weak.

[the zizekian]

Jonathan Derbyshire writes (in the NewStatesman, October 2009):

Žižek tells me a story about a friend of his going to meet Noam Chomsky, the "most influential public intellectual" in America. "My friend told me Chomsky said something very sad. He said that today we don't need theory. All we need to do is tell people, empirically, what is going on. Here, I violently disagree: facts are facts, and they are precious, but they can work in this way or that. Facts alone are not enough. You have to change the ideological background.

[[email protected]]

Zizek is basically a Stalinist Western Buddhist from what I can gather from cursory readings of a few of his books. I can't really tell though how much is "ironic" and how much of it is irony making the truth. He's certainly a Communist and likely Marxist-Leninist.

IDK, he's a witty stylist, but I don't think he has much of any importance to say (or anything to say, really). He seems to be a limousine liberal. He mostly hangs out with rich celebrities and makes nonsensical Lacanian commentaries on movies. His Levi-strauss' "Cooked and the Raw" (thoroughly debunked in Anthro at least 25 years or more ago) inspired lecture on feces convinced me he's basically a fraud. Try not to laugh uncontrollably.

Google "Slavoj Žižek on toilets and ideology"

Chomsky's political books tend to annoy me, I prefer Bookchin but at least I know he's talking about politics, even if I disagree.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

Considering I don't understand a word of what Zizek says but can actually comprehend a Chomsky book, I'm going to say I like Chomsky a lot more. But it is a cheap win by default, neither one of them are like my heroes or anything.

[Rafiq]

The thing is, Zizek doesn't pretend to be a champion of the proletariat or have the solution to capitalism. Chomsky is a Bourgeois Rationalist while Zizek is a Dialectical (though many times inconsistant "Soft") Materialist.

Zizek supporting Obama isn't surprising, he's not a champion of Revolutionary socialist Doctrine. But Chomsky, Chomsky likes to paint himself as a revolutionary socialist and for this, his support for the democrats (and apoligia) is of greater treachary.

At least Zizek isn't in La La land and doesn't consider support for Obama to be something of an ethical duty or a strategic victory for the proletariat.

But, both their support for him are to be denounced.

[Rafiq]

Zizek is basically a Stalinist Western Buddhist from what I can gather from cursory readings of a few of his books. I can't really tell though how much is "ironic" and how much of it is irony making the truth. He's certainly a Communist and likely Marxist-Leninist.

IDK, he's a witty stylist, but I don't think he has much of any importance to say (or anything to say, really). He seems to be a limousine liberal. He mostly hangs out with rich celebrities and makes nonsensical Lacanian commentaries on movies. His Levi-strauss' "Cooked and the Raw" (thoroughly debunked in Anthro at least 25 years or more ago) inspired lecture on feces convinced me he's basically a fraud. Try not to laugh uncontrollably.

Google "Slavoj Žižek on toilets and ideology"

Chomsky's political books tend to annoy me, I prefer Bookchin but at least I know he's talking about politics, even if I disagree.

Zizek isn't a Buddhist or a Stalinist, sorry. He hates buddhism, actually.

[~Spectre]

. But Chomsky, Chomsky likes to paint himself as a revolutionary socialist and for this, his support for the democrats (and apoligia) is of greater treachary.

Pure fabrication on your part.

[the zizekian]

The thing is, Zizek doesn't pretend to be a champion of the proletariat or have the solution to capitalism. Chomsky is a Bourgeois Rationalist while Zizek is a Dialectical (though many times inconsistant "Soft") Materialist.

Zizek supporting Obama isn't surprising, he's not a champion of Revolutionary socialist Doctrine. But Chomsky, Chomsky likes to paint himself as a revolutionary socialist and for this, his support for the democrats (and apoligia) is of greater treachary.

At least Zizek isn't in La La land and doesn't consider support for Obama to be something of an ethical duty or a strategic victory for the proletariat.

But, both their support for him are to be denounced.

Precisely because Zizek is a dialectician, he can, as a Marxist, support Obama. A dialectician thinks that any politician can trigger a communist revolution just by being caught in a specific political process. That is precisely what has happened to Obama: he, first, with his healthcare reform, shows that the American “freedom of choice” is a worthless ideology and then, he triggers the Occupy movement with his bail out plan.

[Anarpest]

Precisely because Zizek is a dialectician, he can, as a Marxist, support Obama. A dialectician thinks that any politician can trigger a communist revolution just by being caught in a specific political process. That is precisely what has happened to Obama: he, first, with his healthcare reform, shows that the American “freedom of choice” is a worthless ideology and then, he triggers the Occupy movement with his bail out plan.

Are you serious?

[Dogs On Acid]

So Rafiq, if Chomsky supports Obama he's still a Communist, but if Chomsky supports Gore, he's a Bourgeois intellectual.

Seems legit.

[the zizekian]

Are you serious?

Yes, from “Yes we can!” to “We are the 99%!”, that’s class struggle at its best!

[the zizekian]

Zizek (theory) vs. Chomsky (facts):

In February 2002, Doug Henwood asked:

Chomsky and people like him seem to think that if we just got the facts out there, things would almost take care of themselves. Why is this wrong? Why aren't "the facts" enough?

Zizek answered:

Let me give you a very naive answer. I think that basically the facts are already known. Let's take Chomsky's analyses of how the CIA intervened in Nicaragua . OK, (he provides) a lot of details, yes, but did I learn anything fundamentally new? It's exactly what I'd expected: the CIA was playing a very dirty game. Of course it's more convincing if you learn the dirty details. But I don't think that we really learned anything dramatically new there. I don't think that merely "knowing the facts" can really change people's perceptions.

[Rafiq]

So Rafiq, if Chomsky supports Obama he's still a Communist, but if Chomsky supports Gore, he's a Bourgeois intellectual.

Seems legit.

No, he loses the title as a communist the minute he supports either of them. Chomsky is not a communist, not only because of his reformism, but his Bourgeois Rationalism, his moralism and anti radicalism. Zizek has no problem scaring Liberals. Chomsky, on the other hand, licks their ass.

Chomsky's criticism of capitalism, in the end, is via the Bourgeois-Moralist method, calls for "Democracy", etc.

He also calls himself a conservativist and an adherer of Thomas Jefferson, slave rapist. In all, he has nothing to do with the radical emancipation of the proletariat. At least Zizek offers us a method of understanding the dynamics of Bourgeois Ideology and of Liberalist Mythology, all Chomsky does is point out the obvious, i.e. "Corporate Liiieeeeeessssss".

[Rafiq]

Zizek (theory) vs. Chomsky (facts):

In February 2002, Doug Henwood asked:

Chomsky and people like him seem to think that if we just got the facts out there, things would almost take care of themselves. Why is this wrong? Why aren't "the facts" enough?

Zizek answered:

Let me give you a very naive answer. I think that basically the facts are already known. Let's take Chomsky's analyses of how the CIA intervened in Nicaragua . OK, (he provides) a lot of details, yes, but did I learn anything fundamentally new? It's exactly what I'd expected: the CIA was playing a very dirty game. Of course it's more convincing if you learn the dirty details. But I don't think that we really learned anything dramatically new there. I don't think that merely "knowing the facts" can really change people's perceptions.

Exactly, everyone knows invasion of Iraq was about oil, yet they let the liberalist american ideology persist. Hence why zizek loves kung fu panda, at the same time Martial arts is made fun of, the ideological message of Martial arts "Philosophy" is forfilled.

[the zizekian]

We can explain I think why Zizek, and not Chomsky, is a revolutionary simply by noting that a revolution is imaginable only within a non-linear (anti-evolutionist or dialectical) language theory.

[x359594]

No, he loses the title as a communist the minute he supports either of them. Chomsky is not a communist, not only because of his reformism, but his Bourgeois Rationalism, his moralism and anti radicalism. Zizek has no problem scaring Liberals. Chomsky, on the other hand, licks their ass...

If reformism means that the capitalist mode of production can be made to serve everyone equally, than Chomsky is certainly not a reformist. He's stated several times that capitalism is a form of economic fascism.

Chomsky has never toadied to liberals. From the beginning of his public career he's excoriated liberals, starting with his attacks on Anthony Lewis, the New York Times, Arthur Scheslinger Jr., Samuel P. Huntington, the entire interventionist liberal establishment, Zionist liberals like Alan Dershowitz, (Ziziek seems to have a soft spot for Israel: http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/07/14/zizek-and-the-gaza-flotilla/,) Susan Sontag (over the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia) and many others.

As for Zizek, I like First as Tragedy, Than as Farce and a lot of his film criticism. In his public lectures he's a stand up commedian of the Left though not quite as funny as George Carlin and certainly funnier than Chomsky.

What I find questionable in his theoretical formulations is the way he uses Jacques Lacan's version of psychoanalysis. There's a lot of jargon to cut through and I sometimes get the feeling of being tossed around in a cement mixer of word paste.

[Anarpest]

We can explain I think why Zizek, and not Chomsky, is a revolutionary simply by noting that a revolution is imaginable only within a non-linear (anti-evolutionist or dialectical) language theory.

Perhaps, if everyone's political views were consistent with their language theory...?

[the zizekian]

What I find questionable in his theoretical formulations is the way he uses Jacques Lacan's version of psychoanalysis. There's a lot of jargon to cut through and I sometimes get the feeling of being tossed around in a cement mixer of word paste.


Here is why it is absolutely necessary for a revolutionary to use an obscure language:

There is a well‑known, very Hegelian joke that illustrates perfectly the way truth arises from misrecognition, i.e., the way our path towards truth coincides with the truth itself. In the beginning of this century, there were a Pole and a Jew sitting in a train, facing each other. The Pole was shifting nervously, watching the Jew all the time. Something was irritating him. Finally, being unable to restrain himself anymore, he exploded: “Tell me, how do you Jews succeed in extracting from people the last small coin and in this way accumulate all your wealth?" The Jew replied: "Okay, I will tell you, but not for nothing; first give me five zloty" (Polish money). After receiving the required amount, the Jew began: "First, YOU take a dead fish; you cut off her head and put her entrails in a glass of water. Then, around midnight, when file moon is full, you must bury this glass in a churchyard." "And," the Pole interrupted him greedily, "if I do all this, will I also become rich?" "Not too quickly," replied the Jew, "this isn't all you must do; but if you want to hear the rest, you must pay me another five zloty!" After receiving the money again, the Jew continued his story. Soon afterwards, he again demanded more money, etc., till finally the Pole exploded in fury: "You dirty rascal, do you really think that I didn't notice what you were aiming at? There is no secret at all! You simply want to extract the last small coin from me!" The Jew answered him calmly and with resignation: "Well, now you see how we, the Jews . . ."

[the zizekian]

To me, Zizek was right to criticize Chomsky for not using his illusions in favour of Obama:

http://www.lrb.co.uk/2008/11/14/slavoj-zizek/use-your-illusions (http://www.lrb.co.uk/2008/11/14/slavoj-zizek/use-your-illusions)

[x359594]

To me, Zizek was right to criticize Chomsky for not using his illusions in favour of Obama...

"Nothing was decided with Obama’s victory, but it widens our freedom and thereby the scope of our decisions..."

In other words, just about what Chomsky said as the main reason for voting for Obama. Zizek wrote that in 2008. Now it's 2012. The Obamabots are out in force peddling the same mystifications as before.

[the zizekian]

Yes we can… be the 99%!

[Rafiq]

If reformism means that the capitalist mode of production can be made to serve everyone equally, than Chomsky is certainly not a reformist. He's stated several times that capitalism is a form of economic fascism.

Chomsky reduces socialism to a Utopian dream that can never be for filled. So, in turn, like most other Postmodern Leftists, he focused on Small scale issues, and told us to sit back until hte revolution comes. He has never openly endorsed and called for a proletarian revolution, because he's a coward who doesn't want to piss off the Liberals


Chomsky has never toadied to liberals. From the beginning of his public career he's excoriated liberals, starting with his attacks on Anthony Lewis, the New York Times, Arthur Scheslinger Jr., Samuel P. Huntington, the entire interventionist liberal establishment, Zionist liberals like Alan Dershowitz,

Do you know what Liberalism even means? Chomsky is a classical liberal, who licks the ass of real liberals.


(Ziziek seems to have a soft spot for Israel: http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/07/14/zizek-and-the-gaza-flotilla/,) Susan Sontag (over the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia) and many others.


For you to say Zizek has a soft spot for Israel is grounds for Antisemitism.


As for Zizek, I like First as Tragedy, Than as Farce and a lot of his film criticism. In his public lectures he's a stand up commedian of the Left though not quite as funny as George Carlin and certainly funnier than Chomsky.


You dismiss him as a stand up comedian because he's not a Bourgeois Rationalist like Chomsky, i.e. He's not simplistic enough for you. This "Joking" business is really, to quote him, "Breaking the ice" into philosophy. He's just published a book, actually, that is I believe over a thousand pages long with no jokes in it.


What I find questionable in his theoretical formulations is the way he uses Jacques Lacan's version of psychoanalysis. There's a lot of jargon to cut through and I sometimes get the feeling of being tossed around in a cement mixer of word paste.


Maybe you need to move beyond the Liberalist constraint Chomsky has put you in and expand your vocabulary and understanding of philosophy.

[the zizekian]

Zizek has absolutely no sympathy for Israel; he defends Palestinians as the “Jews of the Jews”. He nonetheless thinks that more horrible things happen in Congo than in Palestine.

[x359594]

Do you know what Liberalism even means? Chomsky is a classical liberal, who licks the ass of real liberals...

Enlighten me please.


...For you to say Zizek has a soft spot for Israel is grounds for Antisemitism...

His or mine? If mine, does that make me a self-hating Jew? Since you know so much about me I'm sure you discerned that I'm Jewish (and you probably even know my Hebrew name.)


...You dismiss him as a stand up comedian because he's not a Bourgeois Rationalist like Chomsky...

I suppose to those who are lacking in humor calling someone a stand up comedian is a dismissal, but in fact some of the sharpest criticism has come from comedians, from Mark Twain's skewering of US imperialism at the turn of the 19th century to Charlie Chaplin's satires of capitalism in Modern Times and Monsieur Verdoux and his attack on Hitler and Nazism in The Great Dictator, down to Lenny Bruce, the aforementioned George Carlin, Margaret Cho and Suzanne Whang to name but a few insightful comedians.

[Art Vandelay]

I suppose to those who are lacking in humor calling someone a stand up comedian is a dismissal, but in fact some of the sharpest criticism has come from comedians, from Mark Twain's skewering of US imperialism at the turn of the 19th century to Charlie Chaplin's satires of capitalism in Modern Times and Monsieur Verdoux and his attack on Hitler and Nazism in The Great Dictator, down to Lenny Bruce, the aforementioned George Carlin, Margaret Cho and Suzanne Whang to name but a few insightful comedians.

Bill Hicks.

[x359594]

...Do you know what Liberalism even means? Chomsky is a classical liberal, who licks the ass of real liberals...

Zizek explains liberalism in an interview:

SŽ: First of all, I don’t have any big problems with liberalism. Originally, liberalism was quite a noble project if one looks at how it emerged. Today it is a quite fashionable criticism, with feminists, anti-Eurocentric thinkers, etc., to dismiss liberalism in principle for preaching the equality of all people, but in reality privileging the white males of certain property, addressing automatic limitations. The next usual accusation is that liberalism is ultimately founded in what the American moral-majority religious Right likes to call secular humanism: the idea is that there is no Supreme Being or mystery in the universe. Their criticism is that this idea—that the ultimate prospect of humankind is to take over as master of his own destiny—is man’s arrogance, criticizing that it always misfires and so on.



First, I don’t think it is as simple as that, for two reasons. It is a historic fact that at the beginning, the idea of human rights and all of those liberal notions, effectively in a coded way implied the exclusion of certain people. Nonetheless, in this tension between appearance and reality (appearance: everyone has human rights; reality: many, through an implicit set of sub-rules, are excluded), a certain tension is set in motion where you cannot simply say that appearance is just a mask of the reality of oppression. Appearance acquired a social emancipatory power of its own. For example, of course at the beginning, women were excluded, but then very early on, women said, “Sorry, why not also us?” Then blacks said, “Why not us?” And workers, and so on. My point being that all of these groups that criticize liberalism emerged out of these early bourgeois liberal traditions. It set certain rules—this tradition of universality of human rights and so on—and in this way it opened up the space. So that is the first thing to say for liberalism.


BLVR: So even though liberalism was started by a limited few, built inside of it is the ability for all others to use it to their benefit?


SŽ: Yes. The second thing to say for liberalism is that originally it was not an arrogant attitude, but it was quite a modest, honest attitude of confronting the problem of religious tolerance after the Thirty Years’ War. In the seventeenth century, all of Europe was in a shock, and then out of this traumatic experience, the liberal vision came. The idea was that each of us has some existential or religious beliefs, but even if these are our fundamental commitments, we will not be killing each other for them. To create a coexistent social structure, a space where these inherently different commitments can be practiced. Again, I don’t see anything inherently bad in this project.

[[email protected]]

Zizek isn't a Buddhist or a Stalinist, sorry. He hates buddhism, actually.

He gets Western Buddhism from Heidegger (and Heidegger got it largely from Kakuzo's Teaism from the Book of Tea) and Hegel. Post-Derrida, a good portion of the Academic Communists in Continental Philosophy participated in the Return to Hegel. The overlap between Continental philosophy after Schopenhauer/Hegel and Buddhism, esp in philosophy of mind and metaphysics is pretty large, esp. today. Unfortunately, much Buddhistic philosophy is untranslated, except by Cleary, who's a fine translator but terrible with footnotes.

According to his writings, Z's by and large either a Marxist-Leninist or a Stalinist. I'd say the latter, but he couches so much in irony it's hard to tell.

IRL, I'd say he's just another academic opportunist selling a chic ideology to the masses, this time it's a Psychoanalytic Marxism oriented around the medium of film. That's not even terribly original, it's just this time it's Lacan and Marx with a dash of post-structuralism and pseudo-Marxist MST3K, rather than Freud and Marx e.g. Marcuse's Eros and Civilization, Norman O. Brown's Love's Body (which also adds Nietzsche into the mix) or Deleuze and Guttari's nonsensical foray into hipster Communism, Capitalism and Schizophrenia.

Z's about as Marxist as the Che t-shirt your kid buys for twice the retail of a similar t-shirt, at Hot Topic, which is manufactured in a sweatshop somewhere in Taiwan.

Sorry about the fact you can't admit your hipster hero has a wallet photo of Broseph Stalin, a wad of cash underneath it, a ferocious cocaine habit, and a waiting limousine to take him to his next standing room only seminar.

[KurtFF8]

This could be helpful, here's what Zizek has to say about Chomsky from Zizek's book Revolution at the Gates (p4):


It is crucial to emphasize this relevant of "high theory" for the most concrete political struggle today, when even such an engaged intellectual as Noam Chomsky likes to underscore how unimportant theoretical knowledge is for progressive political struggle : of what help is studying great philosophical and social-theoretical texts in today's struggle against the neoliberal model of globalization? Is it not that we are dealing either with obvious facts (which simply have to be made public, as Chomsky is doing in his numerous political texts), or with such an incomprehensible complexity that we cannot understand anything? If we wish to argue against this anti-theoretical temptation, it is not enough to draw attention to numerous theoretical presuppositions about freedom, power and society, which also abound in Chomsky's political texts: what is arguably more important is how, today, perhaps for the first time in the history of humankind, our daily experience (of biogenetics, ecology, cyberspace and Virtual Reality) compels all of us to confront basic philosophical issues of the nature of freedom and human identity, and so on.

[Rafiq]

I'm sorry, everyone, currently all Chomsky threads will be addressed when I return home for a trip. Please don't dismiss my silence as compromise.

[the zizekian]

Contrary to Chomsky who roots language in genetics, Zizek, as a Saussurian and Lacanian, roots genetics in language.

[Rafiq]

He gets Western Buddhism from Heidegger (and Heidegger got it largely from Kakuzo's Teaism from the Book of Tea) and Hegel. Post-Derrida, a good portion of the Academic Communists in Continental Philosophy participated in the Return to Hegel. The overlap between Continental philosophy after Schopenhauer/Hegel and Buddhism, esp in philosophy of mind and metaphysics is pretty large, esp. today. Unfortunately, much Buddhistic philosophy is untranslated, except by Cleary, who's a fine translator but terrible with footnotes.

http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/2/western.php


According to his writings, Z's by and large either a Marxist-Leninist or a Stalinist. I'd say the latter, but he couches so much in irony it's hard to tell.


Obviously you haven't read anything by Zizek. Zizek isn't either of those things, at all. He's not a revolutionary communist, if you did not know. He has no "tendency".


IRL, I'd say he's just another academic opportunist selling a chic ideology to the masses, this time it's a Psychoanalytic Marxism oriented around the medium of film.

Just because it's too complicated for your dumb ass to articulate doesn't mean you can go about completely dismissing him.


That's not even terribly original, it's just this time it's Lacan and Marx with a dash of post-structuralism and pseudo-Marxist MST3K

Have you read anything by Zizek? I'm just curious, as by the looks of it he offered a pretty in depth criticism of post structuralism.



Z's about as Marxist as the Che t-shirt your kid buys for twice the retail of a similar t-shirt, at Hot Topic, which is manufactured in a sweatshop somewhere in Taiwan.


Zizek is a Marxist, I don't think you can provide my anything that shows otherwise. He's, if anything, a 3/4ths Marxist. Provide me a text that signifies his works antithetical to Marxism. Or do you think all Marxists are revolutionaries? If so, you're a moron.


Sorry about the fact you can't admit your hipster hero has a wallet photo of Broseph Stalin,

He's not "My hero". He's just useful at times and is better than Chomsky.


a wad of cash underneath it,

Cool lifestylism bro.


a ferocious cocaine habit,

Now you're just talking out of your ass.


and a waiting limousine to take him to his next standing room only seminar.


I believe he takes a cab.


As for the rest of this shit hole, I'll reply more to this and the Chomsky thread when I get some rest. I just got home from a pretty late flight blah blah you get the story.

[the zizekian]

Zizek is a Lacanian and Chomsky once called Lacan an "amusing and perfectly self-conscious charlatan".

[Franz Fanonipants]

lol wait Chomsky says capitalism is "economic fascism"?

[the zizekian]

lol wait Chomsky says capitalism is "economic fascism"?

Zizek thinks that fascism was the ultimate effort by capitalism to avoid becoming communism.

[escapingNihilism]

Zizek thinks that fascism was the ultimate effort by capitalism to avoid becoming communism.

this is, of course, hardly an original thought.

[the zizekian]

Zizek thinks that fascism was the ultimate effort by capitalism to avoid becoming communism.

Zizek thinks also that in Nazism, in its beginning, there was a consciousness that capitalism was the problem.

[Franz Fanonipants]

the point is calling something "economic fascism" is fucking stupid

[the zizekian]

Zizek thinks also that in Nazism, in its beginning, there was a consciousness that capitalism was the problem.

It is capitalism which is a problem for Jews not the other way around.

[Kollontaist]

My thoughts: Neither of them are profoundly useful for a revolution struggle, and their critiques come across as somewhat liberal. That said, Zizek is extremely entertaining and he does take the whole "Ideology" thing to amusing extremes, he's great fun to listen to and even more enjoyable to read - the fact he's making Marx fashionable again is absoulutely to be commended. Chomsky is doing extremely important work (particularly in the US) with his tirades against US foreign policy. Given that he's such a prominent intellectual, he plays a very important role in making people think hard in an otherwise un-critical environment. Both are to be commended, and i'm very glad they are writing :D But I don't think anyone takes them "seriously" in a revolutionary sense. :)

[Kollontaist]

Zizek thinks also that in Nazism, in its beginning, there was a consciousness that capitalism was the problem.

He has a point. The genesis of Nazism as we know it arose out of strong anti-capitalist sentiment (Strasserism) - the Nazis held the Jews accountable for the meltdown of the banks in Germany.. Ironically they also disseminated propaganda to the contrary effect with the "Jewish Bolshevism" thing.

[the zizekian]

He has a point. The genesis of Nazism as we know it arose out of strong anti-capitalist sentiment (Strasserism) - the Nazis held the Jews accountable for the meltdown of the banks in Germany.. Ironically they also disseminated propaganda to the contrary effect with the "Jewish Bolshevism" thing.


As Zizek insists: "there is a lesson to be learned from Hermann Goering's reply, in the early 1940s, to a fanatical Nazi who asked him why he protected a well-known Jew from deportation: 'In this city, I decide who is a Jew!'.

[MEGAMANTROTSKY]

He has a point. The genesis of Nazism as we know it arose out of strong anti-capitalist sentiment....
This statement is odd to me, since it runs counter to most literature I have read on the Nazi party. Nevertheless, I disagree with that thesis. It's true that the Nazis used anti-capitalist language in their appeals to win over the people, and this language prevented the whole of the German bourgeoisie from endorsing them. But the class character of Nazism itself was based in the petty-bourgeoisie and in no way seriously opposed capitalism. This can be seen in how during the Third Reich the essential structure of private property was completely untouched, not to mention the rise of their corporations. Hitler even made several trips during his campaign convincing members of the bourgeoisie that he would leave private property alone. The Nazis were also anti-proletarian. In fact, the pre-fascist bands in general were made of strikebreakers and armed thugs.

And Strasserism, from what I've read, was not the "genesis" of the Nazi party, but its left wing. It was based in the SA, or the "Stormtrooper" regiment, led in part by Ernst Röhm. But the SA became too radical for Hitler's backers in the industrial sect, calling for a "second revolution" after Hitler became chancellor. Worse, they were gaining steam. Alarmed, the bourgeoisie pressured Hitler to quiet them down or get rid of them altogether. Hitler eventually acquiesced and purged (murdered) the party of its left wing in the Night of the Long Knives of 1934. After that the SA became largely irrelevant, even though they were still allowed to exist. Strasserism did not live past the womb.

This is why I believe it to be incorrect to say that German fascism's genesis rose out of anti-capitalist sentiment, because the Nazi party was not anti-capitalist in actions, only in words.

Sources: Fascism and Big Business, by Daniel Guerin; Inside Nazi Germany: Conformity, Opposition and Racism in Everyday Life, by Detlev J.K. Peukert

[the zizekian]

Zizek’s thesis about fascism is I think that it wanted to go back to a pre-capitalist (feudal-like) corporatism and that it came to exterminate the Jews as a second-best policy or an acting-out rampage, only after it loses the courage to attack its first target: capitalism per se.

[Kollontaist]

You have to remember that the Freikorps (the imperial proto-fascist thugs which coalesced into the NSDAP) were closely aligned in some respects to the SPD in the WW1 period and immediately after. The Freikorps were contracted out by the SPD to defend their bourgeois government, and Luxemburg and Liebeknecht were killed by them for oppposing it (by the Freikorps). The left wing of the Nazi party - the Strasser bros and others - were nourished on anti-capitalist politics through this connection. Though yes, the Nazis never retained more than a populist anticapitalist rhetoric, which Hitler quickly disbanded of in later years.

[the zizekian]

Zizek wrote about Lacan and Chomsky:

For many, Jacques Lacan represents postmodern theory at its height — that is, at its worst. Lacan, so say his detractors, made a career out of obscurantism, and may not even have believed very much of what he said. Noam Chomsky once indicated such a hypothesis when he explained that “my frank opinion is that [Lacan] was a conscious charlatan, and he was simply playing games with the Paris intellectual community to see how much absurdity he could produce and still be taken seriously.” Even Lacanians might find it in their hearts to forgive Chomsky such a remark, since it was Chomsky who, after asking Lacan a question concerning thought (at the latter’s 1968 presentation at MIT), received the reply, “We think we think with our brain; personally, I think with my feet. That’s the only way I come into contact with anything solid. I do occasionally think with my forehead, when I bang into something.” As if to condense the aura of contrariness and enigma he cultivated in such exchanges, Lacan often relayed his teachings through now-infamous maxims and mathemes, those Zen koans of the French postmodern era: “Desire is desire of the Other,” “There is no sexual relation,” “The Woman does not exist.”

http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/new_literary_history/v032/32.1hanlon.pdf (http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/new_literary_history/v032/32.1hanlon.pdf)

[Kollontaist]

Not only was Lacan full of shit, he was also boring and incomprehensible - not something that can be said for Zizek.

[the zizekian]

Though yes, the Nazis never retained more than a populist anticapitalist rhetoric, which Hitler quickly disbanded of in later years.

Like any politics, Nazism was entirely the product of the class struggle. This reality escapes the grasp of Nazis I think precisely because it was and still is today so easy to adopt the cheap populist rhetoric of anti-Semitism. I think also that Lacanians are better able than Chomskians to explain that a superficial rhetoric is a very important ingredient to go ahead with ethnic cleansing.

[Kollontaist]

I disagree that "rhetoric" over a long period of time was enough to convince the German people of fascism; that is a pitifully shallow analysis. It was desperation, and a radically changed environment, a creation of a new mundane which gave the go ahead for Nazi policy. In that sense, Arendt can better explain Nazi Germany than Lacan or any Lacanian i'm aware of.

[the zizekian]

I disagree that "rhetoric" over a long period of time was enough to convince the German people of fascism; that is a pitifully shallow analysis. It was desperation, and a radically changed environment, a creation of a new mundane which gave the go ahead for Nazi policy. In that sense, Arendt can better explain Nazi Germany than Lacan or any Lacanian i'm aware of.

The rhetoric of anti-Semitism is persistent precisely because it doesn’t care about facts.

[Kollontaist]

...Ok, but that can't in a million years explain the fascist subjugation of a people. If you a reduce a long term trade in class fortunes, a cultural phenomenon down to a simple linguistic trick, then you have done nothing more than analyzed a particular Nazi propaganda poster. Perhaps I haven't read Lacan correctly (wouldn't be surprised), but he doesn't seem to offer any more coherent tools than this.

[the zizekian]

...Ok, but that can't in a million years explain the fascist subjugation of a people. If you a reduce a long term trade in class fortunes, a cultural phenomenon down to a simple linguistic trick, then you have done nothing more than analyzed a particular Nazi propaganda poster. Perhaps I haven't read Lacan correctly (wouldn't be surprised), but he doesn't seem to offer any more coherent tools than this.

Language is such a trick that humans look all like Nazis in the eyes of other animals.

[JustMovement]

NO NO MORE THE ABOVE STATEMENT WAS MEANINGLESS
-explain it or retract.

[the zizekian]

NO NO MORE THE ABOVE STATEMENT WAS MEANINGLESS
-explain it or retract.

You prove my point with your dictatorship.

[JustMovement]

the troll is like canned laughter, his very presence relieves us from having from having to be agressive ourselves.

[the zizekian]

the troll is like canned laughter, his very presence relieves us from having from having to be agressive ourselves.

A troll wants can get something out of cheap negations.

[Kollontaist]

Yeah sorry but that's utter bullshit, a poetic turn of phrase and nothing more. Of no use for explaining anything concretely.

[the zizekian]

Yeah sorry but that's utter bullshit, a poetic turn of phrase and nothing more. Of no use for explaining anything concretely.

Language is such a trick that it's all too easy to explain anything after the facts.

[the zizekian]

Capitalism functions inherently not as private egotism or greed but almost as a religion, profit matters, things must expand, things must develop…even if we all go to hell it has to reproduce itself. The question is not are people moral enough or not but why can’t they act in a moral way. In what social circumstances are people allowed to act upon their moral views and so on… and here I am not just abstractly blaming capitalism. Look only at the suspicious role of not only theology but also art and poetry. No ethnic cleansing without poetry. You need to arouse people to do something as horrible as ethnic cleansing with a national ethnic myth which gives people the perverse strength to kill other people. For this you need something spiritual -- poetry.

— zizek

http://zizekianrevolution.tumblr.com/page/11 (http://zizekianrevolution.tumblr.com/page/11)

[∞]

Capitalism functions inherently not as private egotism or greed but almost as a religion, profit matters, things must expand, things must develop…even if we all go to hell it has to reproduce itself.

What is wrong with things developing? All modern economic thoughts base their ideas on systems that can produce things sufficiently.


The question is not are people moral enough or not but why can’t they act in a moral way. In what social circumstances are people allowed to act upon their moral views and so on… and here I am not just abstractly blaming capitalism.


This is a somewhat legit point. However, capitalism more or less promotes a moral system rather than forbidding you to practice your own. Meaning within capitalism you can find it morally wrong and practice your belief with no physical disabling you.


Look only at the suspicious role of not only theology but also art and poetry. No ethnic cleansing without poetry. You need to arouse people to do something as horrible as ethnic cleansing with a national ethnic myth which gives people the perverse strength to kill other people. For this you need something spiritual -- poetry.[/B]

I don't even want to know what the fuck is this supposed to mean.

[the zizekian]

What is wrong with things developing? All modern economic thoughts base their ideas on systems that can produce things sufficiently.

What you have to understand here is that the problem with capitalism is that, in order to have the bare minimum to live, one is forced to enrich the richest first.

[∞]

What you have to understand here is that the problem with capitalism is that, in order to have the bare minimum to live, one is forced to enrich the richest first.

Yes.

What does that have to do with the criticism of economic growth.
The kind of things I only hear primmies talk about.

[the zizekian]

... on systems that can produce things sufficiently.

Trying not to deviate from the topic here, I think both Chomsky and Zizek would agree that there is no concept of sufficiency in capitalism and therefore capitalism is not really about economy.

[∞]

Trying not to deviate from the topic here, I think both Chomsky and Zizek would agree that there is no concept of sufficiency in capitalism and therefore capitalism is not really about economy.

explain.

[the zizekian]

explain.

For Zizek, symbolism, restraint and economy go together.

[Kollontaist]

For Zizek, symbolism, restraint and economy go together.

Sorry but that is utterly meaningless - explain what you mean or noone is going to listen to you.

[the zizekian]

For Zizek, symbolism, restraint and economy go together.

To his children, a father loses his symbolic title of father when he uses raw violence to make them behave.

[Revolution starts with U]

I think what Zizek is talking about is development for development's sake, rather than development for humanity's sake. Capitalism treats growth like a religious creed, not for any reason other than to beat the dominated into submission. He's saying you don't get this "genocide" without that religious/spiritual/poetic creed that it's "good for the economy."

I could be wrong.

[the zizekian]

I think what Zizek is talking about is development for development's sake, rather than development for humanity's sake. Capitalism treats growth like a religious creed, not for any reason other than to beat the dominated into submission. He's saying you don't get this "genocide" without that religious/spiritual/poetic creed that it's "good for the economy."

I could be wrong.

The main parallel that Zizek sees between symbols and capital is that both are betting on the future to solve their internal contradiction.

[Luís Henrique]

What does that have to do with the criticism of economic growth.
The kind of things I only hear primmies talk about.

There is no "economic growth" in abstract. At this moment, we only have capitalist economic growth, which is accumulation of capital, which is on the other hand impoverishment of labour power sellers.

Luís Henrique

[the zizekian]

By staying at MIT, Chomsky is only legitimizing the US imperialism. The MIT is forming the engineers for the US industrial-military complex.

[Tim Finnegan]

Is there something particular to MIT, or do you just dislike engineers in general?

[the zizekian]

By staying at MIT, Chomsky is only legitimizing the US imperialism. The MIT is forming the engineers for the US industrial-military complex.

Conservatives thrive by allowing one critic to become an insider.

[Ocean Seal]

By staying at MIT, Chomsky is only legitimizing the US imperialism. The MIT is forming the engineers for the US industrial-military complex.
Except Chomsky isn't an engineer, he's a linguist, which only in the most abstract sense benefits the military industrial complex as I suppose that progress generally expands tech including the military tech.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

Chomsky is a Utopian, Zizek is a realist

Chomsky tries very hard to be sectarian, while Zizek plays with Stalinism to shock people.

They both are in my opinion not precise and just want to hear themselves talk. While Zizek talks about random shit (that happens to be interesting and entertaining at times), Chomsky tries to focus on anything and everything but the class analysis (although i think he is a good academic with his analyses of the US State).

Zizek is a Leninist, Chomsky an Anarchist.

[Tim Finnegan]

Chomsky is a Utopian, Zizek is a realist
Although in practice they're both pro-Obama social democrats, so this amounts to little more than a biographical detail.

[the zizekian]

Except Chomsky isn't an engineer, he's a linguist, which only in the most abstract sense benefits the military industrial complex as I suppose that progress generally expands tech including the military tech.

Linguistics has already very concrete applications in anti-terrorism defense.

[Dialectical Wizard]

Žižek is a comedian, Chomsky is a scientist.

[Tim Finnegan]

Soldiers eat bread. Bread comes from grain. Farm-workers make grain. Therefore, all farmer-workers are Enemies Of The People.

[honest john's firing squad]

http://zizekianrevolution.tumblr.com (http://zizekianrevolution.tumblr.com/page/11)
please no

[the zizekian]

Soldiers eat bread. Bread comes from grain. Farm-workers make grain. Therefore, all farmer-workers are Enemies Of The People.

Chomsky is institutionalised; farmers much less.

[rupture epistemologique]

people tend to simplify Zizek's role way too much now.

[enver criticism]

to understand them,you would better read something by Alain Badiou

[KurtFF8]

to understand them,you would better read something by Alain Badiou

Meh, some Badiou can be even more convoluted than Zizek. For example his article in The Idea of Communism is horrible in my opinion.

[Valdyr]

Meh, some Badiou can be even more convoluted than Zizek. For example his article in The Idea of Communism is horrible in my opinion.

What's your problem with it?

Anyways, to answer the question Zizek. A lot of people seem to just think of him as some funny guy who does weird film reviews and is a communist for shock value. Of course, this is the view that the bourgeois media promotes of him. But whatever one may think of his specific politics (which I don't disagree can be..interesting), he has a lot of important serious philosophical work on Hegel and Marxism. I'm reading his new book right now, which is his "serious" opus on his philosophy.

[Hiero]

What's your problem with it?

Anyways, to answer the question Zizek. A lot of people seem to just think of him as some funny guy who does weird film reviews and is a communist for shock value. Of course, this is the view that the bourgeois media promotes of him. But whatever one may think of his specific politics (which I don't disagree can be..interesting), he has a lot of important serious philosophical work on Hegel and Marxism. I'm reading his new book right now, which is his "serious" opus on his philosophy.

And he loves it. He stared in a documentory called Zizek!.

[black magick hustla]

read a science textbook instead

[Tim Finnegan]

And he loves it. He stared in a documentory called Zizek!.
To be fair, I'm not sure that Astra Taylor constitutes "the bourgeois media".

[KurtFF8]

What's your problem with it?

Anyways, to answer the question Zizek. A lot of people seem to just think of him as some funny guy who does weird film reviews and is a communist for shock value. Of course, this is the view that the bourgeois media promotes of him. But whatever one may think of his specific politics (which I don't disagree can be..interesting), he has a lot of important serious philosophical work on Hegel and Marxism. I'm reading his new book right now, which is his "serious" opus on his philosophy.

Besides the unnecessary redefinition of terms like "Idea" "Event" "History" etc., his whole argument about the "ontological location of" Communism is a bit silly. He abstracts it to such a point to where it's hardly a useful concept for revolutionaries in my opinion.

[Valdyr]

Besides the unnecessary redefinition of terms like "Idea" "Event" "History" etc., his whole argument about the "ontological location of" Communism is a bit silly. He abstracts it to such a point to where it's hardly a useful concept for revolutionaries in my opinion.

Those terms make sense in the context of his broader philosophy, especially "event."

As for the second bit, he's a philosopher. Does everything he says have to be "useful" to revolutionaries in the immediate sense? As a philosopher, abstracted second-order investigation is kind of what we'd expect of him. Why should we pawn off our collective responsibilities as a movement (effective tactics, etc.) to the few prominent intellectuals that we have, who are already buried in their own projects?

[cynicles]

I can't really say much about Zizek, except that I enjoy reading him, but I find it harder and harder to believe that Chomsky is a radical. He works within the terms set by ruling class dogma waaay too often and seems to frequently dodge debates with people who don't agree with him unless they're easy pickings like a stupid conservative. Overall I was shocked to here some of the things he had to say about Palestine, his refusal to be creative and propose any solutions beyond those laid out in the "rules" or "laws" and his hostility to engage in any debate with someone who might intellectually challenge him.

[Hiero]

To be fair, I'm not sure that Astra Taylor constitutes "the bourgeois media".

He likes the image is what I meant, even when propogated by lefty film directors.

[KurtFF8]

Those terms make sense in the context of his broader philosophy, especially "event."

As for the second bit, he's a philosopher. Does everything he says have to be "useful" to revolutionaries in the immediate sense? As a philosopher, abstracted second-order investigation is kind of what we'd expect of him. Why should we pawn off our collective responsibilities as a movement (effective tactics, etc.) to the few prominent intellectuals that we have, who are already buried in their own projects?

I'm aware that the terms have to do with his broader philosophy, but he makes a failed (in my judgement) attempt at defining them for the purposes of that book. Thus his intervention in that conference, and the goals of that conference seemed to offer little.

I'm not saying that he should have focused instead of tactics and the like, but I just don't see where his philosophy was useful in this case (contrast that to, say, Althusser: whose intervention was very much so tied with abstract philosophy)

[∞]

They're both bourgeois just in very different ways.

[Rafiq]

Although in practice they're both pro-Obama social democrats, so this amounts to little more than a biographical detail.

Though the difference being that Chomsky identifies as a full blown Anarchist while Zizek isn't secretive of his arevolutionary state of affairs.

People like Zizek for what he has to offer in regards to the situation, i.e. They like his analysis of film, his understanding of Ideology in the purest sense, etc.

[Bandito]

I have to ask a crude question I've always wondered: Is Slavoj Zizek on coke? All the time?

He has tics you asshole.