Link to Article and Podcast:
What is the Question? Slavoj Zizek in conversation on the Crisis
The
Elvis of the intelligensia, Slavoj Zizek, hot-links in our one-way
conversation…
…from
nominating George W. Bush (for his trillion-dollar bail-out) to the
Communist Party to Kung-Fu Panda,
…from
John McCain (”Bush with lipstick”) to Naomi Klein,
…from
Barack Obama’s risk of the “John Kerry syndrome” to the
experience we’re all having of putting on the reality sunglasses in
John Carpenter’s “They Live,”
…from
the movies “Fight Club” and “300″ (which he says
left-populists should be studying) to his reading of gold-digger Kate
Croy in Henry James’ Wings of the Dove as a plausible model of
political militancy,
…from
Immanuel Kant’s notion of the sublime, to racist jokes with a moral
purpose.
Slavoj
Zizek: theory time
In
New York on the last day of an American tour, absorbing the demise of
Yankee Stadium and maybe of Wall Street as we thought we knew it,
Zizek’s talk is a blast-furnace but not a blur. The theme through
all Zizek’s gags is that the financial meltdown marks a seriously
dangerous moment — dangerous not least because, as in the
interpretation of 9.11, the right wing is ready to impose a
narrative. And the left wing is caught without a narrative or a
theory. “Today is the time for theory,” he says. “Time to
withdraw and think.”
Dangerous
moments are coming. Dangerous moments are always also a chance to do
something. But in such dangerous moments, you have to think, you have
to try to understand. And today obviously all the predominant
narratives — the old liberal-left welfare state narrative; the
post-modern third-way left narrative; the neo-conservative narrative;
and of course the old standard Marxist narrative — they don’t
work. We don’t have a narrative. Where are we? Where are we going?
What to do? You know, we have these stupid elementary questions: Is
capitalism here to stay? Are there serious limits to capitalism? Can
we imagine a popular mobilization outside democracy? How should we
properly react to ecology? What does it mean, all the biogenetic
stuff? How to deal with intellectual property today? Things are
happening. We don’t have a proper approach. It’s not only that we
don’t have the answers. We don’t even have the right question.
Slavoj
Zizek of In Defense of Lost Causes, in conversation with Chris Lydon,
September 22, 2008 It’s almost impossible, I discovered anew, to
interrupt Zizek. And impossible also to stop listening. Here’s the
experiment: if you can break out of the Zizek spell, leave a comment
Richard
Carlson
102
Vogt Road
Port
Angeles WA 98362
10/20/08
Tracy
Parrott
Great thoughtful and wide-ranging talk on contemporary times – the unexpected turns of the ideological/factual wind. What I found most interesting is the aporia of the (still) humanist subtext – there is a bankruptcy of ideological narrative and at the same time we have no option outside of the commitment to belief. At some unmentionable depth, Zizek's gods have all fallen, yet he would stick to championing fascism of the left. In this racially inflected postcolonial multi-flavored neo-liberal globalist authoritarian capitalism/republican feminism, our commitment stares at the radically lonely abysmal onto-theological emptiness at the center of belief and tries its hardest to rally its chummy orthodoxies. This is the Age of Religion.
More than ever before, the battle lines are drawn, paradoxically, in the very home of the Truth, with the Mother's message from `1967: “Men, nations, continents! The choice is imperative: Truth or the abyss.”
DB
————————————————————————–
March 22, 1967
It's very interesting…. Because of this “message” for the new year
“Men, countries, continents! The choice is imperative: Truth or the abyss.”
(everybody is talking about this message everywhere, it has given a good jolt; even in government circles, everywhere), because of this message, everyone is claiming to be a “defender of the Truth.” They ask me questions, and everyone is surprised that truth as he conceives it isn't established in the world. So I am beginning to be forced to wage war for the Truth against all the conceptions of the truth! And that's rather interesting.
For instance, there is here that old idea of vegetarian food. Some people write to me indignantly that these “holy rules” are being increasingly broken in the Ashram! Someone wrote to me a first time, asking me to answer; I neglected to. So he wrote a second time to tell me, “What can we do if you don't answer?” I answered (they'll probably bite their tongues at my reply), I replied something like this:
“Truth is not a dogma that one can learn once and for all and impose as a rule. Truth is as infinite as the supreme Lord and It manifests every instant for those who are sincere and attentive.”
I could have added other things but didn't, so as not to wage battle too openly!
The same day, that is, just today, I got another letter…. The whole letter ranted and raved about all that's going on in the Ashram, saying, “What! This place is worse than the world!” and so forth. (All this in the name of “truth,” naturally.) So (laughing) I answered:
“Were Truth to manifest in such a way as to be seen and understood by all, they would be terrified by the enormity of their ignorance and false interpretation.”
I hit hard this time.
And it's going on.
Day after day it's like that, growing acute. Everyone is the “defender of the Truth.” One about food, another about money, another about business, another about relationships … – everyone has his hobby-horse.
The wonderful thing is that till now not one has told me, “Maybe my opinions aren't true?” – not one! “Maybe my way of seeing or feeling isn't true?” – not one. They are all in full Truth!
It's very interesting.
The defenders of the truth are often worse than the enemies of the truth.
(Mother nods approvingly)
But I can't say anything about that because I am the one responsible, I told them, “Cling to Truth.” -The Mother
Yes, even being fully aware of the monumental failures of the vast totalizing ideologies of the left, Zizek is diligently at work -in self-effacing irony- trying to reinvent them, having despaired in the complete uncertainty post-modernism has wrought.
Jameson approach to utopias has some similarities which may not be surprising since Zizek has electric dreams of him and utilizes his tool of cognitive mapping
In this chat with Mother, besides being altogether
uncomfortable in how it relates to the current state of affairs in the Ashram she left behind, she oh so humorously
seems to anticipate the ironic Zizekan twist
rich
Great Rich – not only can't stop listening – but can't stop laughing. Thanks for posting. I guess after all the PH discussions – this gave me a real break