Slavoj Zizek?

[Rainsborough]

I have recently discovered this mans ideas, but it would seem that he is not popular amongst many here. Without producing a rash of silly answers, can I ask why?

[Rafiq]

I like him...

[Apoi_Viitor]

http://www.revleft.com/vb/all-philosophical-theories-t148537/index.html

[Ocean Seal]

I have recently discovered this mans ideas, but it would seem that he is not popular amongst many here. Without producing a rash of silly answers, can I ask why?
He is rather popular among many, including me, but a lot of people don't like him because they believe that he's a trendy leftist because he was a pro-west liberal when he lived under Yugoslavia.

[AnonymousOne]

I loved his book on movie critiques, but like most post-modern philosophy I find him entirely fucking useless. Not as bad as Derrida or Spanos, but still I dislike it when people are vague or in the case of Derrida/Spanos outright obscurantism.

[Die Rote Fahne]

Im a fan. I like his style, his amphetamine induced ranting and wild movements.

Living in the End Times is a great book.

But, you'll get a mixed opinion here. Some even think he's a liberal and not a Marxist for reasons such as friendship with Lady Gaga.

[OhYesIdid]

I like him. As Foucault said: "you do not seriously expect de to have said and lived so much and then to never change my mind?"

EDIT: If he's also tapping GaGa, then all the more power to him.

[Decolonize The Left]

http://www.revleft.com/vb/all-philosophical-theories-t148537/index.html

Indeed. Rosa already put this to rest.

- August

[scarletghoul]

zizek is awesome


I loved his book on movie critiques, but like most post-modern philosophy I find him entirely fucking useless. Not as bad as Derrida or Spanos, but still I dislike it when people are vague or in the case of Derrida/Spanos outright obscurantism.
I certainly wouldnt call Zizek 'vague', and would hesitate to call him a postmodern philosopher tbh. he is always using familiar examples to illustrate his points, and is really the opposite of derrida in terms of style. the only thing that makes him difficult to understand (aside from the complexity of some ideas) is the fact that he rambles.. a lot ..

[OhYesIdid]

Indeed. Rosa already put this to rest.

- August

Fuck-dammit, you're goinna make me read all of that, aren't you? Sigh, here we go...

[Decolonize The Left]

Fuck-dammit, you're goinna make me read all of that, aren't you? Sigh, here we go...

Take your time with it, no one's rushing you. It's dense and often difficult to understand, but the underlying point is very simple and important.

- August

[OhYesIdid]

It's dense and often difficult to understand,

Indeed, so here come the stupid questions:


This Rosa guy seems to declare philosophy useless because it is often based on a priori statements, right? But aren't Kantian and Hegelian thought systems a rejection of them?
Rosa declares it "non-sense" because metaphisical philosophers don't agree in a word's sole meaning, or sense, right? But this seems obvious to me, as philosophy is not a set ideology, or even a system, but rather an attitude (indeed, a love of knowledge) that influences people to endeavor in abstract sciences like phenomenology, logic, or ethics, and construct ideologies within them, such existentialism, rationalism or logical-positivism. Right?

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

I think when people say he is vague it is because he often holds many contradictory positions in a short time - or rather, he says things and it's hard to know which are serious and which are just trolling, or if any is-- he is something of a trendy person in some regards, but I think that's more to do with accidental appeal with the college hippie types rather than Zizek himself.

I really like listening to his speeches though, and regardless of what one thinks of him, he can be quite thoughtful and amusing, as well as capable of presenting things in an interesting manner that makes you think. A lot of the videos of his lectures sadly got taken down from Youtube by copyright pigs. :crying:

[LewisQ]

He's more of a stand-up philosopher than a serious political analyst. I think he's entertaining. I don't take him seriously enough to be annoyed when he says something I disagree with, as he often does.

[Decolonize The Left]

Indeed, so here come the stupid questions:


This Rosa guy seems to declare philosophy useless because it is often based on a priori statements, right? But aren't Kantian and Hegelian thought systems a rejection of them?
Rosa declares it "non-sense" because metaphisical philosophers don't agree in a word's sole meaning, or sense, right? But this seems obvious to me, as philosophy is not a set ideology, or even a system, but rather an attitude (indeed, a love of knowledge) that influences people to endeavor in abstract sciences like phenomenology, logic, or ethics, and construct ideologies within them, such existentialism, rationalism or logical-positivism. Right?



Basically, all philosophy starts using words we all use in everyday life. It then takes these words and removes them from their common context in order to treat them individually in a vacuum ('what is freedom?'). By doing so, it looses it's grasp on what the words actually mean and so begins to theorize as to their possible meanings within the new context of philosophy. Naturally, these new meanings are vast and in need of clarification and exploration and hence you have the study of philosophy.

Rosa's point, which she was attempting to distill from Wittgenstein, is that this study of philosophy is useless to everyday people who already understand what the words mean. We don't need to 'theorize' because we're working and we already 'get it,' just not in the philosopher's terms. So to tie it all back in to this thread, Zizek talks a lot about shit which doesn't mean anything because we already understand what he's talking about - just in the context of our everyday lives.

- August

[Rooster]

Zizek does make some common points that most marxists make but he comes about them from a different direction (at least as far as I can see). Some books are kinda boring most of the time, especially his long ones, but his shorter and more popular stuff is pretty good. He's got a book coming out about Lenin that I might get.

[28350]

he's okay
my godmother and her husband are very close to him; he dedicated one of his books to them

[Brah Brah Bro]

zizek is a total baller, all these people critic'n him are boring contrarians who just don't want to admit that zizek is more of an O.G. marxist than they are. he's not boring, you are boring.

[Tim Finnegan]

I like him. He suffers from a tendency to over-indulge in highly abstract theory (most as Chomsky suffers from the very opposite), and his stream-of-conciousness style can sometimes shift from lively to just rambling, but he has some decent commentary social, cultural and ideological matters. Nobody to put on a pedestal, but, then, I suspect that to be the very last thing that he'd want.


I loved his book on movie critiques, but like most post-modern philosophy I find him entirely fucking useless.
I'm given to understand that Zizek is a modernist. I think that you may be using that term in its colloquial anti-intellectual sense, rather than its proper sense.

[L.A.P.]

He is rather popular among many, including me, but a lot of people don't like him because they believe that he's a trendy leftist because he was a pro-west liberal when he lived under Yugoslavia.

Maybe he realized how much liberal democracy sucked when he finally got his wish to live under it.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

Zizeks's critiques of liberalism and post-modernism are spot on. "A Plea for Leninist Intolerance" is great and makes for a good read.

http://www.egs.edu/faculty/slavoj-zizek/articles/a-plea-for-leninist-intolerance/

Other than this he's all over the place.His "project for re-animating Lenin" consists of MIT computer hackers.He says "Stalin saved civilization" then spends pages discussing the political manipulations of Stalin and the horrors of the gulags. Sometimes I can't see where he's going with his points.
On Youtube and elsewhere he does a very poor job of advocating for socialism and Marxism. Many activists think the guy's interesting to read but is something of a poser.

The rumors of his friendship with Lady GaGa were a hoax. The story that was planted or picked by the New York Post (far from a leftist paper) was concocted by a French neo-Situationist group as a put on.