Slavoj Žižek

The Subject Supposed to Loot and Rape - Slavoj Žižek

Philosopher/psychoanalyst Slavoj Žižek examines the racist reaction to Hurricane Katrina, and argues there is a deeper logic at work, reflecting globalisation's simultaneous freeing of trade in commodities and segregation of people.

According to a well-known anecdote, anthropologists studying “primitives” who supposedly held certain superstitious beliefs (that they descend from a fish or from a bird, for example) asked them directly whether they “really” believed such things. They answered: “Of course not—we ‘re not stupid!

Jacques Lacan's Four Discourses - Slavoj Žižek

Žižek in 'explores Lacanian theory' shocker.

Although Lacan's notion of "university discourse" circulates widely today, it is seldom used in its precise meaning (designating a specific "discourse," social link). As a rule, it functions as a vague notion of some speech being part of the academic interpretive machinery.

Hegel - Chesterton: German Idealism and Christianity - Slavoj Žižek

Žižek gets theological.

According to a commonplace, Judaism (and Islam) is a "pure" monotheism, while Christianity, with its Trinity, is a compromise with polytheism; Hegel even designates Islam as THE "religion of sublimity" at its purest, as the universalization of the Jewish monotheism:

Over the Rainbow Coalition - Slavoj Žižek

Philosopher/psychoanalyst Slavoj Žižek reveals the intolerant kernel of liberal multiculturalism - tolerant of all except antagonism, that is the class antagonism that is the basis of capitalist society.

The credentials of those who, even prior to its release, virulently criticize Mel Gibson's Passion seem impeccable: are they not fully justified in their worry that the film, made by a fanatic Catholic traditionalist with occasional anti-Semitic outbursts, may ignite anti-Semitic sentiments?

The Obscenity of Human Rights: Violence as Symptom - Slavoj Žižek

The anxious expectation that nothing will happen, that capitalism will go on indefinitely, the desperate demand to do something, to revolutionize capitalism, is a fake. The will to revolutionary change emerges as an urge, as an "I cannot do it otherwise," or it is worthless.

With regard to Bernard Williams's distinction between Ought and Must, an authentic revolution is by definition performed as a Must - it is not something we "ought to do" as an ideal we are striving for, but something we cannot but to, since we cannot do it otherwise.

Multiculturism or the cultural logic of multinational capitalism? - Slavoj Žižek

The loopy leninist (lite) takes aim at the homogenous heterogenity of modern capitalism.

An interesting game to play whilst reading Zizek is "Cut and Paste Counting", see how if you can spot the joins.

Against the double blackmail - Slavoj Žižek

Slobodan Milosevic, political blunder of the year

Madder than a Red Bull and Vodka fuelled Hen Party, the sloth of Slovenia gets rough and ready with Humanitarian Interventionism. The safe word is "McGuffin".

The prize-winner in the contest for the greatest blunder of 1998 was a Latin American patriotic terrorist who sent a letter-bomb to a us consulate in order to protest against the Americans interfering in local politics. As a conscientious citizen, he wrote on the envelope his return address; however, he did not put enough stamps on it, so that the post office returned the letter to him.

The parallax view: Karatani’s 'Transcritique. On Kant and Marx' - Slavoj Žižek

The philosophical basis for social action, as recast in Kojin Karatani’s striking Transcritique. On Kant and Marx. Slavoj Žižek investigates the irreducible antinomies of production and circulation — or economics and politics — as envisioned from the gap in between.

SLAVOJ ŽIŽEK: THE PARALLAX VIEW

Against human rights - Slavoj Žižek

Alibi for militarist interventions, sacralization for the tyranny of the market, ideological foundation for the fundamentalism of the politically correct: can the ‘symbolic fiction’ of universal rights be recuperated for the progressive politicization of actual socio-economic relations?

SLAVOJ ŽIŽEK AGAINST HUMAN RIGHTS

The depraved heroes of 24 are the Himmlers of Hollywood - Slavoj Žižek

Jack Bauer: not only tortures others but condones his superiors putting his own life at stake

In this short article Žižek shows how the popular TV series is essentially a reflection of newly acceptable fascistic behaviour - torture, expendability of subordinates - in the 'war on terror', concluding that "24's real problem [is] not the content itself but the fact that we are being told openly about it."

On Sunday, the fifth season of the phenomenally successful television drama 24 will start in the US. Each season is composed of 24 one-hour episodes and the whole season covers the events of a single day.

Biopolitics: Between Terri Schiavo and Guantanamo - Slavoj Žižek

Žižek draws on Giorgio Agamben's notion of Homo sacer - someone who is biologically alive but deproved of all rights - in order to understand the rationales and causes of the 'war on terror'.

Welcome to the desert of the Real - Slavoj Žižek

The philosopher-psychoanalyst Slavoj Žižek’s take on the aftermath of the September 11<sup>th</sup> attacks, including his trademark references to popular culture to explain his Lacanian psychoanalysis. He presents a choice: “there are two fundamental ways to react to such traumatic events which cause unbearable anxiety: the way of superego and the way of the act”, and it is in ‘the act’ in which he sees the possibility to escape “the reassertion of the barbaric violence” (note: this is not the longer book of the same name).

[i]America's "holiday from history" was a fake: America's peace was bought by the catastrophes going on elsewhere.