/lit/ - Literature

Off of a cliff.

>>6684410
It's amazing how few people on /lit/ have actually read Zizek -- myself included. You'd do better off asking on /r/criticaltheory or /r/askphilosophy.

>>6684450
People here do read him. After reading him, some of us still think he's full of shit. Critical theory is useless.

>>6684410
Read The Indivisible Remainder. His best work.

>>6684410
Welcome to the Desert of the Real is pretty solid I enjoyed reading it quite a bit and liked how Zizek didn't digress or drone too much in it and how clear the point was

>>6684469
Why do you think its useless? I go back and forth on whether I actually buy it myself even though I find it intetesting

>>6684469
What I mean is the ratio of 'know-him/read-him' is far more unbalanced than any other thinker on here, even Nietzsche because Zizek has youtube videos.

>Critical Theory is useless.

Good one.

>>6684487
I think it's useless because 1) literary criticism in and of itself is useless and 2) critical theory has very few meaningful applications in more practically useful areas of the humanities and social sciences, largely due to the fact that these other areas deal with hard data rather than analogies and metaphors. Philosophically, it has some merit, but Zizek in particular couches his psychoanalytic theories in fancy language and Lacanian cryptomystical pseudoscience while refusing to provide an actual political platform, choosing instead to make Stalin jokes and let his followers pick up on what they should believe based on the word of their master. If you make more points with things that happen in films than with real-life events, and you want to be taken seriously, you shouldn't be taken seriously, unless you're confining your claims to film analysis. Zizek doesn't confine himself at all, which is the problem.

>>6684515
>I think it's useless because
>1) [It] is useless and
>2) [It] has very few meaningful applications

And later on I also liked
> cocuhes his psychoanalytic theories in fancy language and
>Lacanian cryptomystical pseudoscience

You aren't too good at argumenting, are you?

>>6684541
You don't have very good reading comprehension, do you?

>>6684541
>retyping quotes
Everytime someone does this I whyne

>>6684515
>literary criticism in and of itself is useless
If you choose what you spend your time on based on usefulness you should be on /sci/ or /diy/ as /lit/ probably isn't the board for you.

>>6684568
It isn't a matter of what you spend time on, it's a matter of rigour and the advancement of knowledge. Books full of falsehoods passed off as true would be better off not written.

>>6684617
Just because it lacks 'rigour,' as you say,' doesn't make it useless or not worth doing. When someone approaches you and says, "Hey man, what do you think of Proust?" do you tell them to shut up and to spend their time on something else?

>>6684636
I'd discuss Proust with them. I wouldn't expect the conversation to have much utility, though.

>>6684557
I just summarized the first items to showcase how tautological they were.

>>6684617
Then you should be raging against all those science journals full of forced experiments and all the millions wasted on deciding if eggs are good or bad to you.
If anything understanding how narrations mold our thinking is a pretty important field of study, both when analyzing history and in molding the future.

>>6684655
"Utility" in what sense? Sure, reading Proust didn't fill my belly and I couldn't put "Read 'In Search of Lost Time'" on my resume (though some would call it an accomplishment!), but art is an end-in-itself. Now let's look at Deleuze's book on Proust. Again, this work of literary criticism isn't going to cure cancer or help us be more productive at work, but if we already accept art and Proust are valuable, I fail to see why a work enhancing our appreciate of such would be considered useless.

Now of course I'd agree any essay/work that doesn't enhance our appreciation of art/literature is largely useless, so I can understand your frustration with the field, but that's another thing entirely from "literary criticism in and of itself is useless."

>>6684669
>science journals
A large part of my critique is the unscientific nature of Lacanian psychoanalysis. I'm not against experiments that yield accurate information about the world, I'm opposed to nonsensical claims about reality based on things that happen in fiction. Analyzing narrative structure with works of fiction as samples is one thing, but analyzing the human mind largely through the portrayal of characters in novels and expecting to come to sound scientific conclusions about psychological questions (psychology is in fact a science, so objections to this goal are unfounded) is laughable. Entertaining? Yes. Rigorous and worth taking seriously in a scholarly setting? No.

>>6684683
Again, it's a matter of rigour. Critical theory as a discipline is useful within literary criticism, and I'm perfectly willing to concede that. However, in *scientific* or more data-oriented areas of scholarship, it has very few applications. I'm not saying that 'useless' things are bad, either, since I'm not a utilitarian. I'm saying that critical theory is useless outside of a useless discipline (literature enriches life, but is not utilitous) and shouldn't be taken too seriously.
Again, I'm not a utilitarian, so when I say something is useless I don't mean that it gas no value whatsoever. It simply doesn't have many applications in practical (useful) disciplines.

>>6684515

It's useless for you because you're not creative enough to come up with uses for it. You're mad about this.

Critical Theory =/= literary theory bumbaclot.

>>6684712
>Critical theory as a discipline is useful within literary criticism,

Hmm, now I'm curious as to what you think critical theory is. Adorno's writings on the culture industry has greatly enriched my life, for example, and it has nothing to do with literary criticism.

>>6684690
So you dislike people using literary criticism for other fields, and somehow you turn that into the entire field being pointless. Narratology and semiotics are useful fields to study many things, from deepening out understanding of history (for example by presenting new interpretations of old sources or consolidating possible sequences around limited data), the ways human society works (for example understanding power structures prolongued beyond their origin), and even how some elements of the brain work (for example taking in consideration historic reactions to certain material and tying it to our reaction to it).
It's not the best possible resource and it has many possible pitfalls, but it's a pre scientific method to deal with things we can't fully analyze yet. Brain scans have given evidence to things Freud just proposed out of his own intuition just like the LHC corroborated and expanded mathematical theories born from explanations presented by intuition. Thinking that science doesn't need basic proposals to jump start experimentation is not understanding how science works.

>>6684723
Like I've said, it has some interesting philosophical insights, but in areas that are more about real-world scenarios than imaginary thought experiments, there isn't much you can do with it.
>Critical Theory =/= literary theory
I made that distinction in the first sentence of >>6684515. If you're >>6684541, please reread >>6684547.

>>6684742

You may not understand this, but crafting compelling narratives is essential to the burgeoning industry of Public Relations. If you think literary studies can produce no insight as to the production of such narratives, you are not worth continuing conversing with.

Get a clue.

>>6684733
Reread my first post, where I explicitly distinguish between critical theory *as used in* literary criticism and its applications outside of it. Adorno's writings on the culture industry are insightful but, because of their painfully Marxist bent, should be taken with a grain of salt, whether his observations about the empirical state of society are correct or not. It's ludicrous to ever accept a source's word as absolute truth.

>>6684753
Public relations? That's the best you've got?

>>6684753
>burgeoning industry of Public Relations
It has been a thing since before the greeks had an empire, mate.

>>6684515
Reddit: The Post
> critical theory has very few meaningful applications in more practically useful areas of the humanities and social sciences, largely due to the fact that these other areas deal with hard data rather than analogies and metaphors
>Lacanian cryptomystical pseudoscience while refusing to provide an actual political platform, choosing instead to make Stalin jokes
>If you make more points with things that happen in films than with real-life events, and you want to be taken seriously, you shouldn't be taken seriously

>>6684758
Public relations includes politics and propaganda, I guess. It should in this case at least.

>>6684760

>>6684758

Neither of you have really refuted my point.

>>6684766
first poster here, I was refering to this >>6684764

>>6684761
I'm sorry I believe in an objective reality that's worth studying. Not sure when that started to mean you browsed Reddit.
>>6684764
I realize that, and that's why I'm not convinced public relations is a good industry, or that narrative theories being used within it makes critical theory worthwhile.
>>6684766
It isn't a very good one. I don't even oppose the study of narratives. My objection is with the methodology of critical theorists.

>>6684410
That cover makes me think the title should be, "First As Tragedy, Then As Farts".

>>6684779
>I realize that, and that's why I'm not convinced public relations is a good industry, or that narrative theories being used within it makes critical theory worthwhile.
You're thinking about it the other way around. You don't study it to exploit it but to understand how it was exploited through history to have a better understanding of it.
I mean, you could and it could work, but that's like studying chemistry to understand how animals behave. There are shorter ways to reach that goal.

And you're ignoring this post >>6684740
I'm sorry if it's too much bad english to bother

>>6684783
But farts are both tragedy and comedy, your title has too many implications.

>>6684755
>It's ludicrous to ever accept a source's word as absolute truth.

Oh I agree, but what I'm getting at is that doesn't make it useless.

Let's look at Zizek. One of my favorite insights from him is his thoughts on cultural capitalism and how charity can in fact perpetuate a harmful system -- that by embedding a charitable donation within a product (his examples are Starbucks and Toms), the consumer gets their desire and guilt-alleviation in a single product, and thus, they feel satisfied with the status quo and won't seek to further any more changes.

Is the psychoanalytic analysis of charity donations as cultural capitalism's way of alleviating consumerist guild not useful? Or how corporations have learned to exploit this? Why not? Surely this could lead to changes in one's own behavior and allow for the development of a properly useful praxis towards changing the system (e.g. reminding ourselves such donations aren't enough).

Or when he talks about "The Real" and how many things we buy are only copies of copies, pure simulations, and how it explains why people are so often disappointed in what they buy and instead of their desire being satisfied, it is reinforced. As Zizek says, the goal of psychoanalysis today is to "allow you to not enjoy," to be okay with that void creating by marketing agencies. How is that not useful is diagnosing what people really enjoy and what they don't? Or, again, support developing a praxis as to how to create a society out of this 'desire-machine?'

Yes, yes, Zizek could be wrong, there's no 'empirical data,' but so what? How would you suggest we go about such a field? Better to have answers we aren't too sure of ("oh, that sounds plausible!") than no answer at all, no?

>>6684796
Wait, I'm confused. Do literary theorists study public relations, or do public relations experts study literary theory? Your point isn't very clear.
As for your other post, I don't think literary criticism is 'pointless.' I think art and discussion of art are vital parts of life. I don't think aesthetic observations necessarily carry over into other areas, however; see my objections to psychoanalytic theories based on film characters' psychologies rather than the psychologies of actual living human beings available for empirical observation.

>>6684779

Whether or not PR is a good industry is irrelevant you fucking sophist. It is irrefutably a part of the "real world," which is what your point was about.

>>6684804
You're misunderstanding what I mean by useless. I mean within the context of the quest for knowledge about the actual state of affairs in the world, which is what academic research is all about, literary theory doesn't tell us about anything but literature, which doesn't have a use value per se in the sciences or outside of its own field but is vital to life.
>Is the psychoanalytic analysis of charity donations as cultural capitalism's way of alleviating consumerist guild not useful?
It would be more useful if Zizek provided data rather than anecdotes to support the claim. This is the problem with Zizek. And no, I'm not even a Chomskyite; people who claim this dichotomy exists are just trying to make excuses for the lack of substantial evidence in Zizek's oeuvre.

>>6684811
But does that mean that critical theory is full of good scholarship?

>>6684816
>I mean within the context of the quest for knowledge about the actual state of affairs in the world

>It would be more useful if Zizek provided data rather than anecdotes to support the claim.

Okay, so how do you propose we get to 'actual knowledge' and 'data' with questions like "Why do some products make us feel this way," "why do we feel compelled to enjoy," or "how does the relationship between consuming and donating work?"

And besides, scientific anti-realism isn't unpopular, but none of those people would it has any effect on whether or not we should do it.

>>6684829
Yea—no... No...

>>6684835
>how do you propose we get to 'actual knowledge' and 'data' with questions like "Why do some products make us feel this way," "why do we feel compelled to enjoy," or "how does the relationship between consuming and donating work?"
We ask for definitions and axioms and figure out what we mean when we say these sentences, and then set about to determine if the presuppositions in these sentences are correct presuppositions or incorrect presuppositions, not failing to address empirical psychological data collected by reputable psychological institutions. At the same time, we consult marketing data, consumer reports, and any other data we may think can help us arrive at accurate conclusions about the world.
One big problem is that Zizek makes presuppositions that he never calls into question. Discarding the analytic method is pointless and shortsighted. The divide doesn't exist and every adequate philosophical method should embrace every other one.
>nd besides, scientific anti-realism isn't unpopular, but none of those people would it has any effect on whether or not we should do it.
Scientific antirealism is simply incorrect. So is scientism. There's a middle ground between the two that's worth occupying.
This is exactly the problem. They don't care about how true the things they say are, in the end. Zizek is right to ground everything in universal capitalism, but that doesn't mean every point he makes using the significance of commodities in our lives is based in fact.
I'm not equating facts and truth; I'm saying that the truth embraces the facts dialectically, and that facts can't be facts if they aren't true.

>>6684921
>We ask for definitions and axioms and figure out what we mean when we say these sentences, and then set about to determine if the presuppositions in these sentences are correct presuppositions or incorrect presuppositions, not failing to address empirical psychological data collected by reputable psychological institutions. At the same time, we consult marketing data, consumer reports, and any other data we may think can help us arrive at accurate conclusions about the world.

Well, Zizek spends a lot of time stressing about if we are indeed asking the right question. He inverts the famous quote into: "We have spent the 20th century trying to change the world. The point is to interpret it."

I don't see how any of those would be particularly useful to the core of the questions Zizek tries to answer. Yes, we can use empirical data to, say, see if when Starbucks implemented the charity-aspect into their products if sales went up, but that only answers if the tactic works, not 'why' we do it or if it does indeed make us complicit in and content with the status quo of cultural capitalism.

>Scientific antirealism is simply incorrect.

Maybe, but my point is in the same way those who accept it don't advocate for avoiding science, we shouldn't avoid doing/reading critical theory even if we believe it doesn't get at the truth of affairs.

>They don't care about how true the things they say are, in the end.

I disagree, it's just more difficult to determine the 'truth' of their assertions. And besides, something like Lacan's "The Real" isn't even something that attempts to get at the truth, but rather provides a useful model for analyzing and diagnosing people and society.

Anyway, I feel like we aren't going to make any progress from here, so let's just agree to disagree. Thanks for the civil and pleasant discussion.

>>6684963
>Well, Zizek spends a lot of time stressing about if we are indeed asking the right question.
His critique of ideology isn't what I meant. Do you understand what logical presuppositions are? Zizek uses a lot of terminology that seems highly questionable. While he assumes that liberal and communist ideology ask the wrong questions, he doesn't ask too many questions about the validity of the words he uses or the problems that arise when you base your conclusions on false premises.
>we shouldn't avoid doing/reading critical theory even if we believe it doesn't get at the truth of affairs.
We should also immediately criticize it for not getting at the truth of affairs.
>something like Lacan's "The Real" isn't even something that attempts to get at the truth, but rather provides a useful model for analyzing and diagnosing people and society.
Could you please explain the concept to me?

>>6684410
Living in the End Times

>>6684410
reading this at the moment myself
what did you think of it?
i was thinking of reading 'Trouble In Paradise' as my next Zizek

>>6684515
Useless in what terms? I think like most of critical theory and left continental thought, it is driven by a real impulse towards freedom of thought, what the subjectivity of freedom could be like in the present. This isn't a question discussed much for some reason in other disciplines, although to me it feels central.

>>6685106
Honestly I think the first part is extremely good. When he starts mentioning Lacan I get lost because I've never read Lacan so I think that will be next.

>>6685044

I invite you to read Zizek book in the OP image before continuing since you think Zizek is like a philosopher trying to do a Hegel system or something, which isn't the real truth of affairs about zizek

>>6684690
It's about the world as experienced not the world as subject to science. Science is apolitical, science has no eidetic image, science is unplanned. Increasingly technology looks like an irrational investigation into rationality: what is the difference between an iPhone 5 and 6? What is the content of the progress of history. Those questions seem to the best most 'useful' through which to see the world. Science as a system of social integration and planning is the blind slave of capital.

People here doubting Lacan haven't read him, object-relations can be understood as quasi-fictional and it doesn't hurt the integrity of the system at all. It's the thinking the subject's relation to the object as something that's the point. Moreover, it's a psychoanalytic system, not a school of philosophy. It is designed simply to bring the subject of psychoanalysis to his interpretive subjectivity - in this sense Zizek would claim that psychoanalysis avoids capitalist ideology. Read the shit before your criticize lmao.

>>6685122
which Lacan texts?

>>6685178
I couldn't tell you off the top of my head. But lots of quoting Foucault and Lacan. Which I'm not at all familiar with.

>>6685195
I briefly studied them in an English Extension course a couple years back and found Foucault a lot more accessible than Lacan, which is why I asked which texts you planned on reading
I can't recommend any Lacan off the top of my head either but I reckon you should read Discipline and Punish for Foucault

>>6684410
Read this a few years ago, currently enjoying Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism?

>>6685119
I find critical theory's advocates to stifle free thought more often than not. Lots of philosophers discuss freedom of thought, there isn't anything original or unique in doing so.
>>6685125
I've read several of his books and I'm not accusing him of being a systemized, I'm accusing him of blatantly disregarding anything like order in the way he makes his arguments. He claimed that The Parallax View was systematic, by the way.
>>6685128
So why use Lacan to make that point? It seems intuitive to me but every time I see someone use the term here a Lacanfag corrects the user, even when they mean what you mean.
Your point about science is a non sequitur. Zizek doesn't even claim that there is no qualitative scientific progress these days. There's not much difference between iPhone generations but there's a difference between the first airplane and a rocket built by SpaceX. It's the nature of capitalism to exaggerate differences between essentially identical commodities, but that doesn't mean 'science' as you narrowly understand it doesn't make progress. As for questioning the content of the progress of history, I haven't seen much of this among Lacanian. Even Zizek basically accepts a form of Fukuyama's ideas about universal neoliberalism.

>>6685138
What does Lacan have that Hegel doesn't have?

>>6686661
the doubt

>>6686845
That's one quality. Give me a few more. The fact that Hegel came to conclusions doesn't scare me.

>>6684515
Holy shit what an awful post

>>6684515