Slavoj Zizek is crazy, bombastic and possibly a genius.
Wikipedia has this to say:
He has been labelled by some the “Elvis of cultural theory” and Foreign Policy listed him on its 2012 list of Top 100 Global Thinkers, calling him “a celebrity philosopher.”
Slavoj Zizek fans are telling you: I think differently, often radically. I am a little nihilist. This is my intuition, and I’m still figuring out my own reaction.
The below notes are from his Authors@Google talk, one of his more thorough talks on YouTube.
- ideology — the network of ethical, political, social prejudices — is everywhere, it structures our lives
- Donald Rumsfeld’s famous quote before the Gulf War — “there are known knowns, known unknowns, etc…”
- but what about unknown knowns? knowledge so embedded in our lives that we don’t know that we know them
- another example of unknown known: structure of toilets; there are 3 types (French toilets have hole in the back, German hole in front, UK doesn’t matter because it’s circular and big bowl of water)
- this positioning is not purely utilitarian
- analogous to European trinity, which is a way of describing all European society — Germans (conservative, thinkers), France (evolutionary, into politics), UK (liberal-centrist, utilitarian, into economics)
- when you really dig into why toilets are constructed the way they are, that’s the only way to account for it (Germans are metaphysical, reflective, French want it to disappear, UK is a blend)
- maybe even more than eating, shitting is reflection of a civilization
- how do we deal with ideology today?
- Niels Bohr, in response to why he followed a particular superstition, said, “I don’t believe in it, but I was told it works even if I don’t believe in it”
- that’s how ideology works today
- we practice beliefs without believing in them
- in the past we publicly believed things and privately didn’t; now we publicly don’t believe things and privately do
- there is a vaguely Dalai Lama-esque spiritualism
- we believe much more than we admit to believing
- think about canned laughter on TV — the purpose is not necessarily Pavlovian (to trigger your laughing), but literally that it laughs for you, it does the work for you; why does it work?
- like Tibetan prayer wheel, it prays for you, it does the work
- Israel is most atheist country in world, but its claim to land relies on God giving them the West Bank; ironically 60-70% of Israeli Jews don’t believe in God
- most important is that we believe others believe; we need that more than our own belief
- Gore Vidal — well-known bisexual
- when they asked him, “was your first sexual experience with a man or a woman?”, he replied, “I was too polite to ask”
- it’s impossible to fully understand each other, because we don’t even understand ourselves
- we’re missing a code of discretion
- religion is often employed after-the-fact to justify certain actions
- example: Japanese Zen Buddhist community, which ostensibly is about peace and non-confrontation, how did they think about the invasion of China, the atrocities Japan committed in 1930s, 40s?
- with exception of a few dissidents, not only did the Zen Buddhist community fully support the war but provided justification for it!
- Suzuki, a Zen Buddhist who became well-known in the US in 1960s and 70s, was writing different texts in 1930s and 40s, arguing that Japanese invasion of China was work of love, to heal them; even gave advice on how a soldier can train himself psychologically to kill: the Buddhist belief in overcoming your “false self”, stabbing an enemy becomes depersonalized, you’re a 3rd party observer; military discipline is a great way to achieve Enlightenment
- Suzuki’s meditations are authentic, and he’s not saying it’s purely militaristic, it’s just that the stories and narrative we construct about and for ourselves are always ideological
- another example: hardcore porn
- a porn film must have some narrative, yet it’s incredible how self-mocking they are
- they do this on-purpose; “you can see it all, but the price you pay is to remove emotional involvement” (i.e. you can’t have a dramatic and touching film with hardcore porn)
- gonzo sex — embedded journalism; don’t even pretend it’s a story; cameraman gives directions, woman talks to camera like it’s a director, this is high point of censorship — afraid to even have a minimum of narrative
- in ideology, there’s always tension between what’s explicit and what’s understood
- to penetrate social circle — whether a company, a nation, a social group — you must know the rules, but the rules are always mysterious
- for example, in corrupt countries there are prohibitions which are meant to be violated (e.g., it’s illegal but accepted to bribe a cop or bureaucrat)
- for example, in Japan, work contracts have 40 days of holiday but you’re not supposed to take more than 20
- this is how links between people are created, like a shared secret
- “not only that something is prohibited…but prohibition itself is prohibited from being stated publicly”
- Stalinism — not only was criticizing Stalin prohibited, but even worse was announcing this publicly; so if you came to Stalin’s defense and said, ‘you cannot criticize Stalin’, that was just as bad as criticizing him!
- evolution of advertising
- at first advertising was utilitarian — you should buy a truck to get work done in the field
- then it was symbolic — status symbol, Land Rover = I have money
- today, it’s neither utilitarian nor symbolic, it’s about self-actualization, self-fulfillment, buy a Land Rover and you will be your best self, achieve your dreams
- for example, organic food — why do we buy a rotten, 2x pricier organic apple; it’s not because we REALLY believe it’s better for our health, it’s to make us feel good (“I’m more authentic, I’m helping the world”)
- beneath official message, always subtext
- ideology always offers you some bribery
- in Nazi Germany it was sacrifice for your country, do your duty; hidden message: kill some Jews, have some fun, be powerful
- in 1900s American South, it was Christian values, community, family; hidden message: rape some women, lynch black people, have some fun
- how about donate $20, feed a child in Africa? hidden message: don’t worry about poverty and global inequality, spend $20 and payoff your conscience
- how to understand Sarah Palin, hidden message was: giving voice to rage of ordinary people, but things will stay same in background
- previously female politicians were phallic, imitated men — Indira Gandhi, Margaret Thatcher (me: even Hillary to a degree)
- Sarah Palin is more feminine yet still strong; mother, sex object AND leader, this “sarcastic assertiveness”
- in Obama, skinny, big ears, something of the slightly weak/emaciated guy in him, Sarah Palin subtly alludes to it
- in education today, we need more philosophy, even to solve basic problems like bioethics, abortion
- most modern liberalism is “global capitalism with a human face”
- maybe liberal democratic capitalism isn’t the ultimate horizon
- Marxists always believed train of history was on their side
- Intellectual Property is closer to Communism than Capitalism — hard to contain within limits of private property
- look at Bill Gates, went from garage to richest man in world in 30 years, hard to say his markets work properly, that they accurately reflect his contributions
- loves the details
- look at totalitarian speeches e.g. Hitler; when audience applauses, Hitler accepts
- look at communist speeches, e.g., Stalin; when audience applauses, Stalin joins the applause
- God is the original proxy; I don’t know, but He knows for me
- what is evil? something that brutally interrupts the status quo; it’s a cut
- Jesus Christ is evil embodied for traditional pagan religions
- one way to look at evil: we are doing something terribly great, something crazy, just need to do it more slowly, it’s the negative dimension/realization that what you’re doing is a huge change
- in order to say “don’t be evil”, you must already dwell in the space of evil