/lit/ - Literature

>>20247237
I was willing to read this guy but seeing how many anons criticize him for supporting Covid lockdowns and his lukewarm takes on other subjects I think I’m going to skip him.
He has nothing to offer

>>20247251
>I disagree with a particular aspect of his thought therefore his entire life's work is worthless.
Mental illness right here, folks.

>>20247237
I actually like Zizek, even if he can be banal sometimes. His insistence on tracing a dialectical twist and turn in literally everything is wily and is unironically an inspiration for closely following modern cultural trends. I see similarities in his thought to Adorno, too, which makes him kind of based.

>>20247264
>I didn't read a single book but I'm going to make a thread on the literature board
Mental illness, folks.

>>20247268
He's like a shitty modern version of Socrates lol

>>20247270
Articles are literature anon

he's alright and lively. an our boomer, I say.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XbQg5eVxuM

>>20247237
He's a CIA agent.

I've been enjoying his articles in Compact magazine, which I believe he also edits.

>>20247268
Why is it a good thing to make everything a dialectic (i.e. narrative)?

I have never read anything of his but I have watched one or two videos. Content and meaning I don't know, not because of lack of memory but because it was impossible to take him serious due to the cocaine driven sniffles.

>>20247268
>which makes him kind of based
> A certain gesture of manliness, be it one’s own, be it that of another, deserves mistrust. It expresses independence, surety of the power of command, the silent conspiracy of all men with each other. Earlier one anxiously called it, awe-struck, the whims of lords, today it is democratized and is played by film heroes for the benefit of the lowliest bank employee. The archetype for this is the good looking man in a smoking jacket, who enters his bachelor’s pad alone one late evening, turns on the indirect lighting, and pours a whisky-soda: the carefully recorded fizzing of the mineral water says what the arrogant mouth does not; that he despises whatever does not smell of smoke, leather and shaving cream – above all, women, and for that very reason they swarm all over him. For him, the pinnacle of human relations is the club, the site of a respect founded on a considerate inconsiderateness. The joys of such men, or on the contrary of their models, which hardly anyone alive really matches, for human beings are always better than their culture, have altogether something of the latent act of violence. By all appearances, this is threatened to others, though he has long since had no need to do so, sprawled on his easy chair. In truth it is past violence against himself. If all pleasure sublates earlier displeasure [Unlust], then here displeasure is raised – as pride in bearing it – unmediated, untransformed, stereotypically into pleasure: unlike wine, every glass of whiskey, every puff on the cigar still recalls the reluctance, which it must have cost the organism, to accustom itself to such powerful stimuli. According to their own constitution, the he-men would thus be what they are usually presented as in film scripts, masochists. The lie is concealed in their sadism, and it is as liars that they truly become sadists, agents of repression. That lie is nothing other than repressed homosexuality, which emerges as the only approved form of what is heterosexual. In Oxford one can differentiate between two kinds of students: the “tough guys” [in English in original] and the intellectuals; the latter are equated almost without further ado to those who are effeminate. There is a great deal of evidence that the ruling class polarizes itself according to these extremes on the road to dictatorship. Such disintegration is the secret of integration, of happiness of unity in the absence of happiness. In the end the “tough guys” are the ones who are really effeminate, who require the weaklings as their victims, in order not to admit that they are like them. Totality and homosexuality belong together. While the subject falls apart, it negates everything which is not of its own kind. The opposites of the strong man and the compliant youth fuse into a social order, which unreservedly asserts the masculine principle of domination.

>>20247358
Elaborate on that
I definatly feel like he has a hidden pro US agenda

>>20247358
>>20247458
See his work on Serbia in the 1990s, which made him famous before Sublime Object hit shelves in English.

>>20247251
He tends to "problematize the critique." Like, the people who are like "I'm not gonna be duped" and put the vaccine in my body because "I don't know what's in it" are already putting stuff in their bodies all the time that they don't understand. And the way ideology works is by conditioning people to be "skeptical" of everything already. It's interesting to hear people say "I don't trust Hollywood" because those movies brainwash people into liberal values, but a common theme in those movies is that strangers aren't to be trusted, the government is corrupt and "out to get you," the virus is actually a secret bioweapon that's being used by shadow forces, etc. etc. etc.

Or, like, "I'm not going to be duped by Crooked Hillary." Okay yeah, she sucks, but the result is that people got duped by a showbiz actor. The belief that you're not capable of being duped is a sign of the ultimate dupe. I thought it was funny to learn the other day that Trump endorsed Dr. Oz in the Pennsylvania Senate race and his supporters are mad about it -- because Oz is clearly an actor and that creates this weird dissonance, like Trump is betraying "Trump." I don't think Zizek lets the liberals off the hook here, of course, the notion that politics today functions by making a big joke about everything is just a Jon Stewart / Daily Show ethos.

>>20247554
Are you talking about the NATO bombing of yugoslavia?
As far as I know he supported pretty much every US intervention. I think only in like the last 10 years or so he shifted the tone about the middle eastern interventions after seeing how fucked up the region became due to the result of it

>>20247237
He wrote this, so yea im thinking based.

>>20247237
Zizek is one of the few leftist intellectuals who i find if general interest though to some extent i actually question his credentials as a left-winger himself
he opposed the regiem in yugoslavia he grew up in and he now condemns the "nationalism" and "imperialism" of Russia and China
As much as he seem largely opposed to the utterly incoherent chomskyite critique of the left
He strikes as leaning towards being something of a trot (or at least having trot sympatheis)
over all his concentration on hagel arguably speaks to a reactionary bend
but over all its really hard to say considering how often the man contradicts his own positions from years ago (not only in his speech, which may be forgivable, but in his writing as well)

>>20247632
Hehe, I remember he defended Jordan Peterson for not bothering to read all of the communist manifesto, as a lot of material is not meant to be read. Criticizing Hegelians who read all of Hegel and know word by word as it is important something is left to interpretation

>>20247644
He is very much against Russia and China and was opposed to Yugoslavia years ago. Also when you say trot you talking about being a trotskyist?
what would you say are his biggest contradictions

>>20247414
It's not that anything is 'made' dialectic, it's that we live in a world of contradictions and necessarily cultural goods produced from within said society will express logical contradictions that that only a dialectical reading can trace and illuminate. It's so fucking based and the only good thing the Germans have given our species.

>>20247237
I care for his metaphysics, his politics are boring and normie

>>20247661
> Also when you say trot you talking about being a trotskyist?
Yes.
(which historically would put in in closer allience with neo-conservatism and US political concensus which his popular label would suggest)
>what would you say are his biggest contradictions
Mainly his flipping on China as a model for global socialism and his strange embrace/critique of covid era crisis policy
To his credit he akncolwedges and accepts the inherent contradiction between hagelian idealism and marxist historical materialism (comming down firmly on the side of hagel on the question of determinism and dialetics)
But he braodly doesn't seem to have a self articulated central socialist vision as such and mainly spends his time cataloging and describing the counterviailing forces in history along with the significance of their ideological and material roots.
to be clear i am a right-winger so the common ground i share with him is mainly in the realm of relation over his specific coherent arguments.
But on the whole he strikes me as someone who is many ways much like the best of the modern left who succesfully prossessed the events of the 80s and 90s.
He's a man looking amoung ruins trying to find something which is useful; yet who is also deeply cynical about the efficacy of any given object.

>>20247684
>cultural goods produced from within said society will express logical contradictions that that only a dialectical reading can trace and illuminate
who the hell cares

>>20247684
I like his cultural critiques. His review of "Zero Dark Thirty" was good because the movie shows torture but "ah, the torturer is being tortured by torturing people... makes you think." Plus the CIA agent defies gender stereotypes!

This is how ideology works: it doesn't brainwash people, it's a license, and here it gives the liberal viewer a a license to view torture "in all its complexity," which is distinct from a simple right-wing jingoist film. But that's why it's so dangerous. What if the movie was about a rapist? Ah, but there's a human cost to the rapist and it takes a toll...

His attitude was like, no, this is just appalling; and rape, like torture, should be "dogmatically" rejected outright.

Thoughts on his Ukraine articles? I feel like he is overestimating Zelensky's authenticity

>The US, which wants to protect Ukraine from being raped, is sounding alarm bells about the imminent threat of rape so that it can assert itself as the protector of post-Soviet nations (this protection can only remind us of a local mobster who offers shops and restaurants protection against theft in his domain, with a veiled threat that if they refuse his protection, something might happen to them)
this is the first time I've seen Zizek make such a claim for the US, what did he man by it though?

>>20247237
He thinks Varoufakis isn't a neoliberal. Supporting the current but Lacanian is even more risible than actually having the balls to own it like the average libtard does.

>>20247799
I actually watched this a few days ago, you have to be stupid or not paying attention if you think Zero Dark Thirty condones torture.
The movie actually makes a point in showing how they were getting nowhere with the detainee program, an attack even goes off while they were torturing one of the terrorists.
They only start picking up bin Laden’s trail AFTER they discontinued the detainee program.
The film’s message is that torture doesn’t work.

>>20247932
not everyone who upholds capitalism is a neoliberal

>>20247698
Zizek reminds me of Tony Cliff a bit in the sense of Trots who didn't think the USSR was really socialist outside of a brief period. There's also a lot of refusal to accept the "lesser evil" so supporting an "anti-imperialist" country doesn't make sense even critically because that's just not a social revolution. I think related to this is the notion that socialism is like an extension of liberalism which attempts to salvage what's good about it as liberalism falls a part. The problem with this point of view is that you end up picking a "lesser evil" anyways even if you don't call it that (i.e. supporting Biden over Trump).

Which relates to this:

>>20247878
The way Zizek seems to look at it, Europe's commitment to Ukraine is half-hearted and doesn't resolve the impasse. Ukrainian nationalism is contradictory and contains right-wing nationalism but also liberal beliefs. That's also true for Europe, though. But I read an article he wrote in 2014 where he said that Europe should just dump the right and embrace the "liberty, equality, fraternity" ethos. In the article you quoted, he said Putin is a rapist who is acting out of impotence, and the U.S. is acting in a mob-boss way to "protect" Ukraine but that's also a reflection of a kind of impotence with the U.S. trying to act tough but not being as tough as it used to be.

>>20248003
Everyone who accepts austerity measures from imf and comission is

>>20247561
Trump will be reelected and then begin publicly executing swamp dwellers. Look up Dark MAGA and trust the plqn.

>>20247932
If you read Yanis's comments about ukraine and Zizek's comments I'm pretty sure they are never talking to each other ever again

>>20247878
It means exactly what it says.
The West hypocritically pretends to be the good guys but then bombs another middle eastern country for oil.
People are growing tired of the blatant lies from politicians and the media.
If you want to be the protector of the ex-USSR fine, but stick to the part and don’t do that shit where you say one thing and then do something else.
The world is tired of the dishonesty.

>>20248013
Like I understand that but what is this "threat" Zizek is talking about that the US is giving if they don't accept their servives?

>>20247237
I can't even remember one thing he actually said

>>20248045
Economic sanctions, being made a pariah in the world stage

>>20248020
no lol, the most leftist bourgeois government will do that when forced to. capitalist crises regularly produce states that can't survive without extra credit and the creditors will always make sure that there's some mechanism by which sooner or later the money is squeezed from the proletariat of the debtor state.

>>20248020
>>20248112
case in point: https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2022/03/25/pr2289-argentina-imf-exec-board-approves-extended-arrangement-concludes-2022-article-iv-consultation

>To paraphrase a well-known line from one of the early novels about Hannibal Lecter, nothing happened to her; she happened to the world. Yes, her project is a ridiculous fake, but she nonetheless acts as a sublime figure because she elevated this ridiculous project into a Thing, a Cause for which she is ready to stake her entire life. Whatever she is, she is not cynical but utterly naïve, and we need such naivety today for a precise reason: Anna is FREE in clear contrast to Hayut who just follows his egotist need to manipulate others and profit on them. Freedom does not reside in a hidden core of my Self that eludes the grasp of others, a position from which I manipulate others from a safe distance. Freedom resides in my very unconditional identification with the role I decide to play for others.

That’s why, back to Ukraine, Putin and Orban are manipulating figures like Hayut, while Zelensky, who effectively was an actor, is somebody who plays his role sincerely, fully identified with it. In this (and only in this) respect he is like Anna, although at the highest ethico-political level.

I'm not sure if I agree with this, is fetishising Zelensky really the right move here?

I actually respect him a lot for having a pragmatic view on the international financial and political order we are facing and I actually think he has successfully generated more original and interesting takes than other commentators by talking about how our current satanworld hellworld can be molded into something more humanitarian and beneficial for the drone classes. Instead of seeking to replace what we have. In short he is a bit of a bootlicker and although that does not cease to be pathetic he is also an intelligent bootlicker of sorts and there is a grain of truth in the vast bridge that separates a banking mogul in terms of hierarchical position and competence form a modern worker wageslave. In terms of his oration skills he is a bit too wordy although he can be very funny sometimes.

>>20248319
Me again, also he isn't catholic, so cringe