/lit/ - Literature

In all likelihood Kafka probably never "said" that exactly, but it is implicitly said in the Trial and elsewhere.

>>9384302
great thread

Zizek also always quotes Lenin in an odd way:

"Lenin is best remembered for his famous retort “Freedom - yes, but for whom? To do what?”" -Zizek

But I can hardly find any mention of Lenin saying that, besides Zizek saying so.

>>9384302
how is that his legs are skinny, in fact his calves are somewhat tonedand his arms are relatively thin, but his upper body is pudgy?

>>9384693
His fat storage is all on his torso; pretty obvious

>>9384693
That's how a male stores fat.

>>9384302
Kafka implied it though. The divine is terrifying, mysterious, incomprehensible, and dangerous.

In our modern secular world the only way we ever experience those emotions in the same way an ancient man would experience the divine is in encounters with bureaucracy.

Just how *sniff* Bill Gates said, "capitalism *sniff* is the worst thing ever"

the castle is about german idealism trying to retrieve the absolute

>>9384302
In The Trial there is literally a direct comparison between the abstruse bureaucracy K. has to endure and the structures internal to the Church.

Even the way in which Kafka presents it to us: it is mysterious, incomprehensible, self-contraddicting, indifferent. It resembles both nature and divinity, it represents a real new, complex mistery in our perception (or at least in Kafka's perception): all of these traits are inherent to bureaucracy, and more in general to the state itself, and his metaphysical, symbolic power that it mantains while towering over us.

In this bureaucratic jungle you see something bigger, more complex, uncomprehensible that moves everything around itself, while being indifferent to your will: it's the state as a superior mind, unapproachable by the single human being (who could, in fact, really grasp at once the complexity that characterizes a entire state?).

>>9384302
Why is Zizek cosplaying as pre-tomgirl Chris-chan?

>>9384747
deep

The Trial is about the teleological suspension of the ethical

the castle is about jouissance in the absence of pleasure gain which cant be accounted on in objective processes

>>9384302
I hope CWC-core comes back into style

>>9384747
Now that you mention it, Anon, when I read the Trial, the editorialnotice said that Kafka was most proud about the part in the Trial where Josef K. is conversing with a preist in the church, and even published that part separately a few times.

Bureaucracy in Kafka, as most blatantly clear in the Trial and even more in the Castle, is (to use another concept Zizek refers to very often) the Lacanian ''big Other''.
It is a structure which transcends individuals and configures their interactions. It can also refer to ideas of anonymous authoritative power and/or knowledge such as God, Nature, Society, State, Science etc.

>>9384797
It's called Primark. Welcome to europe

>>9384302
i think that's just extrapolation

>>9384747
so by participating in this, we're constructing a God. and barring planetary catastrophe, it will only grow more elaborate, more powerful. Nick Land was fucking right.

>>9384309
Probably the Castle, because that was literally what it was about.

>>9384711
Maybe in a safe country. In America we encounter it among our mentally ill and violent fellow Americans.

>>9384711
Cont... well, not so much the mysterious part.

>>9384324
>>9384302
zizek makes shit up all the time. I would guess 90% of his apocryphal anecdotes are either straight made up or "adapted"

>>9385682
It is kind of cool him actually, forces one to check things oneself rather than straight-up trust his quotes and so on.

Goes well with adapting his method. If I'm going to apply Zizekian critique to something, I must listen but I can't just take anything at face value.

(I would not call the Kafka thing "making up shit" tho, it is just a little bit misleading)

>>9386652
Turning being disingenuous or outright lying son of a bitch into a positive human characteristic. I can't handle these mental gymnastics.

>>9387261
People like Chomsky are boring because they're all facts, facts and facts. Facts alone haven't saved us thus far, they're no weapon against ideology.

Zizek is much more interesting, he is wrong on so many things yet his methods of critique are great tools to adapt.

>>9384747
I will never be able to speak thoughts like that out of my mind. Because of that I will now screencap this argument and recite it. Thanks litchan.

>>9387271
Either he's disingenuous therefore unreliable or he's wrong and therefore also unreliable.

>>9384324
I think Lenin's quote was something about how freedom in capitalist society just means freedom for slave owners.

>>9387261
>>9387287
let me guess, you're one of those new atheist 'I fucking love science' types? do you like sam harris?

get off my /lit/, sophist

>>9387411
Or that time when he told some people critiquing bolsheviks that they're free to criticize, but the bolsheviks are also free to shoot them. Zizek called it a "retort"; after all.

But that one is really odd, Zizek uses it like a straight quote but it probably isn't - the only other option I can think of is that its a translation of something Lenin said in Russian, but that usually gets translated a different way.

>>9387427
This stuff, I remembered a bit wrong but the idea is the same: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1922/mar/27.htm

"Indeed, the sermons which Otto Bauer, the leaders of the Second and Two-and-a Half Internationals, the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries preach express their true nature—“The revolution has gone too far. What you are saying now we have been saying all the time, permit us to say it again.” But we say in reply: “Permit us to put you before a firing squad for saying that. Either you refrain from expressing your views, or, if you insist on expressing your political views publicly in the present circumstances, when our position is far more difficult than it was when the whiteguards were directly attacking us, then you will have only yourselves to blame if we treat you as the worst and most pernicious whiteguard elements.” We must never forget this."

>>9387418
Nah, he's one of those boring moral relativists that excuses the stance with robots replacing everything. More of a JB Peterson kind of guy myself.

It's the same with C. Hitchens. Witty and eloquent, but just like O.Wilde a socialist nonetheless. Just like Žižek.

I just don't agree with him because those ideologies sprouted hell and suffering for the country he and I are from. He being part of critical government organs in Yugoslavia, and has firsthand experience of Mini-Truthing.

He did however stand against the commie regime during the "Proces proti Četverici" and left the "ZKS - Zveza komunistov Slovenije", which was the precursor for the Slovenian spring and the following Independence of Slovenia. He is definitely unorthodox.

Regardless, you haven't proven me wrong,yet. He's disengenuous and is thus unreliable or he's wrong and then also unreliable.

>>9387485
The truth is more like this: when he "quotes" someone, he doesn't always bother with straight quotes. He'll just go with the meaning of what the person being quoted said, sometimes through a work of art, sometimes through something else.

Is this disingenuous? I dunno.

>>9387485
>moral relativist
you don't know what you're talking about, brainlet
Zizek calls himself a 'proud eurocentric' and says there's nothing wrong with enforcing enlightenment values like secularism on the rest of the world
>Peterson
ask me how I know you don't actually read literature and you're just here for virtue signalling
>Hitchens
he's a neocon now
>part of critical government organs in Yugoslavia
he was a dissident, and presidential candidate for the liberal democratic party

>>9387512
Well, then he's paraphrasing and should say so. I just didn't like the mental gymnastics of >>9386652 excusing him. There's only so much credibility you can give someone until it's worthless to even listen to him.

>>9387485
>He's disengenuous and is thus unreliable or he's wrong and then also unreliable.

unreliable as what? a biographer of lenin? even if, so what?

>>9387553
Still unreliable. You said so yourself, he lies. All I did was rephrase it and now you're mad.

>>9384324
>>9387512
case in point, the lenin "quote":

>How, then, do things stand with freedom? Here is how Lenin
>stated his position in a polemic against the Menshevik and
>Socialist-Revolutionaries’ critique of Bolshevik power in
>1922:

>Indeed, the sermons which . . . the Mensheviks and Socialist-
>Revolutionaries preach express their true nature: “The
>revolution has gone too far. What you are saying now we have
>been saying all the time, permit us to say it again.” But we say
>in reply: “Permit us to put you before a firing squad for saying
>that. Either you refrain from expressing your views, or, if you
>insist on expressing your political views publicly in the
>present circumstances, when our position is far more difficult
>than it was when the white guards were directly attacking us,
>then you will have only yourselves to blame if we treat you as
>the worst and most pernicious white guard elements.”16

>This Leninist freedom of choice – not “Life or money!” but
>“Life or critique!” – combined with Lenin’s dismissive atti-
>tude towards the “liberal” notion of freedom, accounts for
>his bad reputation among liberals. Their case largely rests
>upon their rejection of the standard Marxist–Leninist oppo-
>sition of “formal” and “actual” freedom: as even Leftist lib-
>erals like Claude Lefort emphasize again and again, freedom is
>in its very notion “formal,” so that “actual freedom” equals
>the lack of freedom.17 That is to say, with regard to freedom,
>Lenin is best remembered for his famous retort “Freedom –
>yes, but for WHOM? To do WHAT?” – for him, in the case of
>the Mensheviks quoted above, their “freedom” to criticize the
>Bolshevik government effectively amounted to “freedom” to
>undermine the workers’ and peasants’ government on behalf
>of the counterrevolution . . .

the actual quote from lenin is the whole second paragraph and a footnote points you to the source (V.I. Lenin, “Political Report of the Central Committee of the R.C.P. (B.),” March 27, 1922)

the "famous retort" bit is not a quote from lenin at all, but rather zizek summarizing the long paragraph into what he considers its essence. it is entirely clear in context that he's paraphrasing the real quote and not making up a new one. he is not disingenuous at all. it's actually >>9384324 who is being disingenuous by removing the context to make it look like zizek is making up lenin quotes.

>>9387604
All in all, Zizek is just a bit ambiguous at times. I mean, it DOES, to my eyes at least, seem like he is "quoting" a famous retort of Lenin's, while he really isn't. Lenin isn't particularly remembered for saying anything like that. But it is easy to understand that Zizek is summarizing after you realize that Lenin never said such a thing literally.

The Kafka thing in the OP is the same: it isn't WRONG to say that Kafka "said" that, but it is easy to misunderstand to mean that Kafka really said that (rather than just saying that through his literary art).

It is a quote from one of those Perverts Guide films, I think, so it is actually extra odd since there, he also said this: https://youtu.be/yUtW6KIdtxE?t=48
(to summarize: he mentions that "if god does not exist, everything is permitted" thing which is often attributed to Dostoyevsky, then corrects that Dosto never actually said that)

Maybe its actually an intentional piece of irony in the case of the Kafka thing, now that I think about it and relate it to that part.

zizek is a pseud but attacking him for paraphrasing quotes in a lecture? give me a break

>>9387708
>All in all, Zizek is just a bit ambiguous at times. I mean, it DOES, to my eyes at least, seem like he is "quoting" a famous retort of Lenin's, while he really isn't. Lenin isn't particularly remembered for saying anything like that. But it is easy to understand that Zizek is summarizing after you realize that Lenin never said such a thing literally.

some of this is zizek's style, some is simply the lack of context that comes from reading little chunks of text instead of the book/essay it belongs in. in this particular book ("on belief") quotes are always sourced so the lack of an endnote number immediately identifies the lenin thing as a paraphrase and not a quote. plus the pattern of quoting a wordy paragraph and following it up with a snappy paraphrase recurs many times in the book, so you're less likely to be confused if you're reading the whole thing.

the thing about zizek is that he's an internet meme but his actual work (other than when intentionally simplified, like in pervert's guide) is completely incompatible with this internet mode of discussion. this stuff does not divide well into bite-sized chunks. i'm convinced 99% of the people posting "pure ideology!" would not be able to define what zizek even means by "ideology". there was a thread about it a couple of days ago where maybe one or two posts demonstrated a decent grasp of the term.

>>9388310
>is completely incompatible with this internet mode of discussion.
True, it even does not translate very well into short articles (or maybe Zizek is, simply, occasionally pretty bad at writing them - he should know what'll happen if he writes a short-ish, incomprehensible yet provocative Lacanian analysis on trans, gender etc stuff - obviously people get mad, and it isn't solely their fault!)

>some is simply the lack of context that comes from reading little chunks of text instead of the book/essay it belongs in
I'm not sure, I'd just say that his style is such that it is easy to misunderstand, even if you do read everything.

No one ITT was doing anything comparable to those idiots who quote Zizek saying something like "Gandhi was more violent than Hitler". I've read plenty of Zizek and I honestly thought, until I checked, that Lenin had actually said that short "paraphrase" somewhere else than in the linked text. I also had to google if Kafka ever was that literal about his message.

>>9387554
>oh noes! I hafta think?? NO THANKS

>>9387708
Dosto, or rather one of his characters, actually said that in Brothers K. I think it was Dmitri. Sartre never said that, as Zizek claims, but perhaps adapted it or parodied it in his writings.

>>9389462
wtf I hate Zizek now

and AGAYN!

>>9384302
rare Žižek, do you mind if I save it?

>>9389510
Well, I am a communist but I live in a capitalistic regime, currently. So, no, not for free. $5 and it's yours.

>>9389516
I'll get a Chinese knock off instead, free market bitch!!

>>9385682
He just twists actual quotes around to have a different meaning.

>>9389585
No he adds depth to dumb quotes nobody even remembers you idoit

>>9389568
Erm, yer still payin' for that knock-off...
>>9389585
(You) have to go back.

>>9389619
He does both. Not even that guy, but you are a very black-or-white thinker. Very sad.

We still have our unhappy troll with us! How sweet!!

Why are people so afraid to see past their ideological blinders?

>>9390371
It's not fear. It's will.

They don't want to.

>>9387271
zizek and chomsky
>chomsky
lmfao

>>9390407
Why not?

if the Big Other is the trace of an undefinable outside that cant be systematized, shouldnt Zizek try to salvage Kant instead of Hegel, whose system is based on the postulated impossibility of a permanent Big Other?

>>9391892
No.

>>9390852
When you're sitted comfortably within yourself, why would you ever want to move?

>>9391902
why

>>9391931
Hegel's system is based on the impossibility of a permanent Other, or even an 'outside', not Kant's.

>>9391946
but thats what i meant. so question remains why zizek doesnt just let hegel die.

>>9391951
Why would he?

>>9391965
mutually exclusive mindsets obviously, either one is seriously interested in a systemic difference from the Big Other or one tries to explain it away with system-immanent contingency like Hegel.

>>9391986
Assuming a systemic difference from a Big Other implies there's a Big Other in the first place, with all the noumena and postulated God drivel, Hegel and Zizek are on the opposite camp.

>>9391999
>with all the noumena and postulated God drivel
not necessarily. the main thing is that one accepts the difference between a system and an outside, irregardless of the assumptions about this inaccessible outside.

zizek is closer to kant by stressing the big other all the time instead of treating it like an embarassing detail or illusion of contingency like hegel.

>>9392058
I think that's less to do with Kant than Lacan.

>>9392058
>not necessarily. the main thing is that one accepts the difference between a system and an outside

That's precisely what Hegel's Notion, the union of objective and subjective, is wholly opposite of. Being a Hegelian, Zizek would never draw from Kant.

>>9387485

>More of a JB Peterson kind of guy myself

>>9392077
i.e. this unattainable 'outside' that is forever just out of reach is pretty much what Zizek means by 'pure ideology'.

>>9392077
you keep repeating my own thoughts to myself without adressing the absurdity of zizeks project i keep mentioning since the first post. either i'm overlooking something super obvious or the whole premise of zizek/lacan is absurd.

>>9392096
You're a Kantian and he's a Hegelian, you need to change the paradigms you are approaching him with otherwise you'll never get nowhere.

>>9392139
ad hominem, pure ideology

>>9392087
either it's ideology which he wants to eradicate or it's the big other he keeps talking about and which is a fundamental limitation of systems, which hegel didnt accept, but kant did accept. i dont have to be a kantian to objectively notice this difference of approaches.

>>9392154
>ad hominem, pure ideology
Not really, you being Kantian or not is fundamental to the argument.

>>9392154
>which hegel didnt accept

Have you ever read Hegel? I assume not by this statement, the moment of 'in-itself' or fixed rigidity is part of every system, what Hegel rejected was the independence of this 'in-itself' apart from the Becoming of particular things (the phenomena)

>>9391892
>if the Big Other is the trace of an undefinable outside that cant be systematized

i can't speak to zizek's work on hegel but i'm not sure you're using lacanian terms correctly here. the big other is part of the symbolic order, serving as a virtual medium of symbolic registration. it is a feature of the symbolic order, not "outside" anything. when you drop something and you say "oops" despite nobody being there to witness it, you're saying it to the virtual big other (at least that's how zizek explains it, i've never read lacan directly).

>>9392162
pointing out specific flaws is fundamental to an argument, whether or not somebody channels kant will be obvious from there. you just insult people with a hidden premise.

>>9392194
How is it calling him Kantian an insult???

>>9384302
i remember ungoogleable quotes too

Am I very wrong if I treat Zizek's ideology as fundamentally the same as Althusser's? Of course with differences, but ultimately: ideology is the imaginary relationship to material conditions of existence, and those other "main points" of Althusser's.

Zizek doesn't seem to talk about Althusser that much, so I'm sometimes a little confused, if they really are more or less the same notion.

>>9385682
>4chan

>>9392461
zizek's ideology is founded more on psychoanalysis and is kind of a broader term: it's not that you can get indoctrinated into an ideology that will obscure reality, but rather that everyone is actively perpetuating ideology by escaping into it. all social reality is ideologically structured according to zizek.

Zizek is a true man of the people

That's why I'll always trust him

first order approximation of kant: knowledge is green zone, only antinomies and spooks behind boundary

hegel: almost inversion of kant, reason has advanced almost everywhere, the only "outside" of the system are small zones of randomness and contingency

where would you place zizek's Big Other in these?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18qD9hmU9xg

>>9393090

>>9393094
>>9390371

>>9392461
He talks a lot about Althusser in his first book (Sublime whatever). He's mostly Lacan+Althusser+Hegel+Netflix.

>>9387271
Chomsky isn't trying to save anyone
Zizek is fighting ideology with ideology and there is no substance to anything he says

>>9393090
Hegel sees reason dialectically, where the particular and seemingly contradictory terms are subsumed under a high form of universality, e.g. in the law of gravity (in-itself and universal) is contained all particular objects that happen to fall on Earth, the representation of the law is itself the truth of the world of Becoming as the union of subjective activity (numbers, formula and so on) and objectivity (the objects themselves).

>>9393136
>Chomsky isn't trying to save anyone
>literally a leftist political activist

>>9393090
>>9393096
the big other is simply an intrinsic feature of the sociosymbolic order. it's not about epistemology. where on your drawing would you place the concept of language?

>>9393136
>Zizek is fighting ideology with ideology

if you actually read zizek you would see what a moronic statement this is

>>9384767
You could argue that CWC is a man completely consumed by commodity fetishism

>>9393170
reasonable language in green zone and rest in white zone, artistic language close to boundary on either side. what's sociosymbolic order?

>>9384302
why does he dress like Chris Chan

>>9391914
So, we become comfortable and accustomed to our ideology - everyone around us shares it, it is good, why change it and rock the boat. We choose pleasure over pain. Gotcha.
Then, clinging to an ideology is our natural state. If we naturally choose pleasure over pain, we are naturally inclined to the acceptance of ideology; we are naturally inclined to the acceptance of imposed ideas; we are naturally inclined to being deceived; naturally inclined to enslavement.
What is the antidote to this: our intellect? Our ability to reason and rationalize and accept short-term pain for long-term gain? Our ability to defer gratification? How do individuals get past this 'ideological need'? How do societies??

>>9387485
>More of a JB Peterson kind of guy myself.

Cringe

>>9393420
>>>/r/atheism

>>9393170
We already have a map for Lacan.

>>9393481

this graph is the literal visualization of pseudo-intellectualism

>>9393481
where's the Big Other?

Zizek sometimes talks about "changing our dreams": that is very important to note. That is where some of the real pain of critiquing ideology resides: in that it may force one to abandon old dreams, the things they found valuable, so on. Our dreams are a large part of who we are, after all.

But I think here it is obvious that the pain is bigger to some than others: I mean, there's a difference between coffee without cream and coffee without milk after all. A poor oppressed person might literally only change his goals or dreams, dreams which they might be denied anyway in the current situation, a middle class successful IT worker might lose his whole sense of self-worth and purpose.

Another example: obviously gender-related critique might hurt one more if they fully identify with the ideological construction of it and are reasonably comfortable in the current situation, whereas someone else might already be full of non-repressed anxiety related to their gender identity.

>>9393400
I'm fairly sure that it is impossible to completely get past ideology.

>What is the antidote to this: our intellect? Our ability to reason and rationalize and accept short-term pain for long-term gain? Our ability to defer gratification?
Those, critique of ideology and in particular: acts that go against the current dominant forms of ideology. They can be fueled by whatever.

Example: introducing public healthcare in the US might be a moderate anti-ideological act in that it goes against "the American" notion of freedom. "The American" as in the USA, of course. This might create space for a new notion of freedom, which might trigger a bigger sequence of new moderate acts, which might lead to the whole framework of dreams and possibilities changing.

sry I'm not very good at articulating myself in English and I'm dumb anyway

New to Zizek here.

What form of economic organization does Zizek advocate? Cause if it's orthodox Marxism, I'm done with him.

>>9393502
Lacan is the literal physical representation of a pseudo intellectual

>>9393531
He is pretty open about having 0 idea about the specifics of how should organization be done. It is pretty nice really, it'd take a madman to claim to know it right now.

He has spoken nicely about the successful welfare states - except noting that they won't work any more, so he doesn't really advocate for them. He hasn't really said many kind words about 20th century socialism.

>>9393553
>except noting that they won't work any more, so he doesn't really advocate for them

Why does he argue they don't work anymore?
The economies of Germany, of Scandinavia or BeNeLux, all welfare states, are looking relatively good.

>>9393536
t. pleb

>>9393506
O, s(O) is the signified which can only be meaningful through the O. Zizek uses as an example how 'freedom' as s(O) in 'communism' as O is the abolition of exploitation. Where the O 'neoliberalism' it would be something very different.

This is explained in chapter 3 of Sublime Object of Ideology, I'm intentionally sticking to Zizek because it's the only Lacanianism I grasp.

Why the graph? Because structuralists (like Lacan) love their graphs.

>>9393562
He has some clear reasons for sticking to being anti-capitalist and anti-liberal democracy, the four main ones he usually refers to are:

1. Ecological catastrophes. Pretty clear a problem.

2. New forms of "apartheid", that is, larger inequality and division of people into slums and whatever (this is even happening in those nice Scandinavian countries, to a degree - we're not that different from the rest of the world, inequality is growing) (but he, of course, also means globally - who'd advocate for a world order that is good for only a few countries...)

3. New scientific/technological developments that could prove bad for us if they're not subjected to democratic control. He is particularly afraid of biogenetics and such.

4. Private property in the sense of how it works/doesn't work with intellectual property.

He does not believe that the combination of capitalism and liberal democracy can deal with those problems, so he remains a vague sort of communist.

In addition to those four, I'd identify a fifth that he also mentions often: the growth of a capitalism that isn't liberal in the slightest, "capitalism with Asian values" or whatever. China, Russia, some others, maybe new countries, too, if the wrong people get to decide.

btw this stuff comes up pretty soon if you start reading his political writings, so maybe you should do that. Or even listen to his talks.

>>9393645
>Ecological catastrophes. Pretty clear a problem.

But not something unique to Capitalism. Many (formerly) Communist countries are notorious for the massive environmental damage they caused. The main culprit in terms of pollution today is China, a state-directed economy.

>New forms of "apartheid", that is, larger inequality and division of people into slums and whatever

I agree that rising inequality is a problem. One Communism ""solved"", by leaving everyone (minus the ruling bureaucrats) equally impoverished.

>>9393645
>New scientific/technological developments that could prove bad for us if they're not subjected to democratic control. He is particularly afraid of biogenetics and such.

That's also a problem, but these are not subjected to democratic control YET. It's far from impossible to control the market and innovations through democratic means. To produce something as trivial as lightbulbs or eggs, you'd have to adhere to books of regulations. The only reason some corporations are allowed to run rampant is because there wasn't the political will to tame them yet, not because democracy lacks the means.

>Private property in the sense of how it works/doesn't work with intellectual property.

So, instead, he proposes a system that absolutely denies the right of anybody to own property? Is there something I'm missing here?

>I'd identify a fifth that he also mentions often: the growth of a capitalism that isn't liberal in the slightest, "capitalism with Asian values" or whatever. China, Russia

These countries share a Communist past that formed their anti-Humanist, submissive and Fatalist mentality. Communism is a leading cause (besides Islam) around the globe for countries mentally stuck in the past from a Western, liberal point of view.

>>9393723
The thing to note here is that Zizek's "communism" is indeed very vague, it is not the communism of the 20th century. You are not really attacking his positions on most points.
He argues that the reason why these problems lead to his "communism" is that they're problems of the "commons"; that is, things that are or ought to be shared by everyone, nor privatized: our environment, our living space, our very biology, our methods of communication/knowledge/etc.

You should really read him if you want more reasons for his ideas. His critique of ideology also supports his communist position, like when he argues that this or that change is "impossible" due to this or that ideological construct.

http://bigthink.com/videos/slavoj-zizek-on-capitalism-and-the-commons
Here he explains some of his "communism" in a nice little video. He'd like big, international solutions.

>So, instead, he proposes a system that absolutely denies the right of anybody to own property?
His point on that point is more about how capitalism can't be fitted together with it in a productive way. He basically argues that "intellectual property" is, by its very nature, "communist" or anti-capitalist in nature; it resists private ownership.

>These countries share a Communist past that formed their anti-Humanist, submissive and Fatalist mentality.
Whatever the cause, the problem is that some of them are doing very well. So the idea that capitalism is inherently linked to liberal democracy is destroyed. You did not claim that, but it is a pretty common ideological belief. The danger is that capitalism is completely split away from liberal values, because authoritarian capitalism works, it turns out. If authoritarian capitalism works, sometimes even more efficiently, can it really be fought with liberal capitalism? Won't the authoritarian regimes end up the winners?

>>9393536
Its straightforward topological mathematics

https://gregfallis.com/2017/04/14/seriously-the-guy-has-a-point/
Is the Fearless Girl statue, in particular the defence of it, p u r e i d e o l o g y?

It is really beautiful, though: a symbol of capitalism is appropriated to be a symbol of patriarchy - while the girl statue becomes the new symbol of capitalism, even more capitalist than the bull was: not only is it pro-cap, it is also an advertisement!

>>9393521
>a middle class successful IT worker might lose his whole sense of self-worth and purpose
But, if it's all a lie and a convenient deception used to exploit him, isn't he better off losing his sense of worth and purpose? But of course our society doesn't make it that easy: those who 'go along' with the current ideology are rewarded by the system they submit to and help maintain; those who oppose the ideology are cast out and marginalized.
So, they'd be 'free' of ideology, but they would also be 'punished' for abandoning it, forced to live a more difficult life in a society that rejects them. In a very real sense, their lives would be worse for abandoning ideology. Or rather: their MATERIAL lives; their lives as CONSUMERS.
But they would be in touch with reality.

>>9384302
He dresses like fucking chrischan

>>9393723
>that formed their anti-Humanist, submissive and Fatalist mentality
That's not the result of communism, or any other 'ism' - that's what you get when people are forced to live under Tyranny. When your life is dominated by the will of others. When you are oppressed. Oppressed people become fatalistic and submissive and generally lose empathy for each other. We see this in EVERY society.
Try to get past your ideological blinders, friend, and see what's really going on.

>>9393991
>If authoritarian capitalism works, sometimes even more efficiently, can it really be fought with liberal capitalism? Won't the authoritarian regimes end up the winners?
Yes. Provided they know what they're doing, they should have the economy of scale and focus to pull it off more efficiently. It seems perfectly evident that authoritarianism will, in the main, win out over less focused methods.
But authoritarianism is not necessarily anti-democratic: people want a strong focus and a certain direction in which to head. People want good leaders who know what they are doing and are fair. They just don't know how to pick them out of a crowd...so the people must have the power to remove them and install someone else.
It seems we need authoritarianism guided by a strong democracy......?

>>9393991
>The thing to note here is that Zizek's "communism" is indeed very vague

Yes you finally figured out the problem with most philosophers

>>9394397
>trying to figure out new things that have never been thought before is a 'problem'
You said 'most' - which ones do you follow?

>>9394397
I doubt any of you ever read his books.

>>9394333
>Try to get past your ideological blinders, friend, and see what's really going on.
So say the ideologues.

>>9394397
He calls it vague himself, you dummy. He isn't being unclear about it.

If anything, it is a sign of intellectual honesty to not pretend to know everything. He'd be much worse a thinker if he hacked together some poor theory of how society should be organized or if he, god forbid, insisted on the old communist practices.

>>9394448
Wow, you are determined not to put on them glasses, eh? Have fun with that, cuck.

I never cease to be amazed at human stupidity. Slaves fighting to remain as slaves. And laffing about it. Amazing.
And as they read that, they laffed, because they cannot even conceive of how and why they are slaves. Even now, they are concocting a 'witty retort' that completely misses the point and only further demonstrates their utter stupidity and foolishness and enslavement to the system.

>>9395216

Lots of people are satisfied, anon. Millions in the US, UK, Germany, Australia and other "hopeless" Capitalist nations live happy and satisfying lives.

Same cannot be said about countries that only wish they had a functioning Capitalism.

>>9395216

Some slaves are pretty happy. There are men who actually *like* prison because they have trouble making decisions on their own. To overthrow the "system" would cause a lot of disruption and chaos, even if only temporarily, and most people want none of that. Even if the "system" is going to eventually collapse on its own, they would rather just put off the inevitable, and there's something completely understandable about that.

Try to think of things from the perspective of a 37 year old dad with three kids and a boatload of debt. He's not going to attend any antifa rallies, lol.

>>9395216
>Slaves
>s

nice ideology

>>9384693

Many think zhe torsho must match the legsh. I say, No! Zis is precisely zhe point, that zhe legsh, shupport zhe torsho.

>>9384302
why does /lit/ feel the need to speculate over anything and everything zizek says

>>9395921
He is mein gott.

>>9395820
>>9395862
Thanks for proving my point!
>>9395853
Thanks for thinking! You are right, of course: people are happy enough to not rock the boat; or, to put it another way: they aren't miserable enough to change. And human nature dictates we leave for tomorrow what we could do today.

I wonder about these 'slaves' who cling to their 'enslavement'. Do they cling out of genuine blindness to their plight? Do they see it, but don't know what to do(paralysis due to the scope/incomprehensibility of the problem)? Do they see it and say "fuck it, enjoy the ride - YEEHAAAA!!"
i.e. do they cling out of fear? desperation? ignorance? indecision? satisfaction? I suppose the real question I'm trying to ask is: how the hell do you wake people up?

>>9397843
1. People must accept that there are problems incoming and there are current problems. They must feel collectively dissatisfied to the degree where they can't "privatize" their pain (by "privatizing their pain" I mean that they can't switch the social problems for private ones; the jobless is lazy, the poor is not good at financing, so on)

I'd say that that part about privatizing pain (and gain, for that matter) is a big thing for many. Why would the "slaves" (shitty word) do anything if instead of societal, collective problems, they just see a big bunch of private problems? Remember the line from Margaret Thatcher, very fundamental to the ideology of the middle class; there is no society, there are only individual men and women, families and so on. The solution to poverty becomes personal climb up the societal ladder, the solution to environment is private choices in consumption and recycling... The old worker's movement would instead insist on addressing the problems of the whole class or society. They had, to a degree, a principle of political solidarity.

2. There must be a movement which will probably first be built by the mistreated and the politically-minded young or whatever, people who care because of solidarity or have to care because they don't have a future. It may emerge in many ways, probably.
The father of three won't probably come to an obscure rally but heck, maybe he'll come if the movement is big and addressing the real problems. At the very least, maybe he'll respect the movement and wish for it to win. I mean, seriously, its not like even a real, old-school revolution needs even half the population to move their asses to protests. Its not like our first step is a big, fancy rally, no, our first step could be getting a Sanders elected in the US, some democratization movement in the EU, some international organization that actually works for something remotely progressive, etc...

>>9397843
>>9398328
Continuation because I love to post inane rambles.

>i.e. do they cling out of fear? desperation? ignorance? indecision? satisfaction?
Why not a combination of all of them? In many cases though, its not like people are so stupid that they don't understand that something is a problem. But they may choose to deny it because it would be too hard to change our ways, because it'd force us to change what we desire and hold important and who we think we are. Ideology is hard to resist because it isn't a pair of glasses we put on, it is inside us, it forms our whole identity.

Like all this talk about "post-truth" politics; isn't it really a politics of escapism, of post-reality rather than post-truth (who has a political truth anyway)? Instead of addressing a problem we may even recognize, lets shut our eyes from it, lets shut down out border, lets ignore climate, maybe they stop existing if we don't give them attention, maybe by pretending that we are in control, we really are in control. Like the thing I mentioned before about privatizing our pain; isn't that more comfortable than accepting big change... it definitely is for the reasonably successful people; if my pain is private, so is my gain. And even if you only have pain, isn't it more comfortable to think that the pain is deserved?

And this is indeed an ideology of the middle class: they can afford to think like this, they have the private space and the resources to detach from the collective. When the middle class is big enough, it kills the worker's movement. When the middle class shrinks and gets poorer, the ideology still remains and there's no movement to go back to. They don't have gains to privatize, maybe, but they privatize their pains.

And here is again a problem: how to unite such a group of people? Isn't this where right wing populism enters; even if there's no collective movement, you can "unite" the people by playing on their fears of the refugees and terrorists and so on (which everyone reads about in the news), and offering cheap escapism from reality. I don't have an answer to this, not even a guess, unfortunately.

>>9385265
>Nick Land was fucking right.

that should be obvious already

>>9384747
I like this. Kafka as a Lovecraftian writer, recognizing human bureaucracy as an emergent transcendental entity.

>>9384775
But what is the telos in this suspension?
The entire point of the Trial seems to be exactly the complete incomprehensible, transcendental nature of bureaucracy. No telos needed. The action justifies itself.

>>9385265
Yes, society is basically an emergent superorganism. It's using our needs for cute cat pictures and porn and shitposting to create its own nervous system. It's engineering its own consciousness.

It has us filling out captchas all the time.

The bees serve the hive.

>>9384324
It's a famous answer that Lenin made to Fernando de los Ríos, according to the Spaniard, in a visit-interview they had in 1920.

You can read it here: http://www.fernandodelosrios.org/images/obras/viajerusiasovietista.pdf

Page 72: ¿"libertad para qué"?

Freedom is always freedom for something, there's no such thing as "freedom", which is a metaphysical stupidity. But Fernando was a naive and retard socialdemocrat and "humanist". What else can you expect from someone like him. He couldn't understand anything.

>>9398486
Cool! Now I can quote Lenin on that; it is a pretty usable quote.

>>9398328
Interesting. So, to sum up:

The individualistic ideology of the middle class is what allows them to ignore societal problems and misclassify them as private/personal problems.
Address real societal problems that impact every day lives. Promote the empowerment of the democratic public. Give people a stake in decision-making.
>>9398356
> isn't it more comfortable to think that the pain is deserved?
Undeserved pain engenders frustration and rage and a serious desire to change things right now. This last (change) is the purpose of anger and frustration - but change is generally not a value espoused by societies. So the society instills into its citizens the ideology that 'anger is bad' - people then avoid this 'bad' anger, avoid trying to change their society for the better, and subsume society's problems as their own private problems. They turn their righteous indignation at society's problems into unjust anger against their own perceived shortcomings (i.e. 'i deserve my pain, i earned it, i am bad').
I think I gotcha.
So, how to unite a bunch of folk with enough wealth to live separately from the community, with no desire to change society - who in fact feel no responsibility for society at all. Hmmmm...
Well, I guess the first step is to engender some sense of societal responsibility, and grow that sense. Or, hell: do we have to start even before that, with engendering a sense of Personal responsibility and respect?

>>9387271
thats not chomsky, thats alain badiou