It might be interesting if Zizek could stay sober enough to maintain some basic level of coherency, but I imagine the whole conversation would consist of Peterson trying to pin Zizek to a specific definition or position.
@@lucasfabisiak9586 As he puts it in the video, Peterson is busy trying to be the wise man - he doesn't theorize the way Professor Zizek does. I also find Peterson to be a little too stiff and not as interested in the questions that Zizek raises.
I would like to see this, but I have a feeling it would look something like Peterson asking specific questions and Zizek "answering" with his usual off-road monologues. Seems to me like Zizek brings up interesting points and reveals troubling paradoxes without ever fully delving into them.
I dont think it is interesting. Zizek is "real". Peterson just internet cult leader and biznessmen. Man sell selfhelp book. "Do this and that and you life can change". Its discusting
Alienated TV that's partly true. Peterson's INITIAL fame came as a result of his public stance on transgender pronouns. But his SUSTAINED and continuously growing fame has stemmed from his psychological and philosophical work, upon which his self-help material is based. If all there was to the guy was his anti-trans-pronoun position, he would have faded away long ago.
Zizek comment sections are always fascinating. It's always marxists shitting on him because he doesn't worship the USSR, right wingers shitting on him because they think he's a traditional marxist who worships the USSR, and pretentious people who mock him for not being the stereotype of a snobby philosopher. It's a shame really, the things he says are legitimately interesting.
@@Jomo326He used jokes precisely to illustrate his philosophical points, which would otherwise be much more difficult to convey. And i frankly find it hard to believe you missed his criticism of feminism (metoo), political correctness, his points about Marxism, his problems with Jordan Peterson, his criticism of direct democracy, anti semitism and so much more..
Peoples may find this man’s many tics funny but how many of thoses fools, could even wrapp their minds around even contemplating the very idea to give his lectures in front of international television cameras and in front of the most prestigious academic institutions if they had thoses very same tics or other visible disorders. I believe that the peoples who laugh at this man, being put in his shoes under the same conditions would never leave their hidding places and pretty much die there. I think this man has some of the biggest pair of pure solid brass testicules... and he also happens to be an academic super heavyweight...
Zizek is one of my favorite people to listen to. He says many interesting things here, some of which seem incompatible. 22:21 He says all functioning democracies require a fundamental agreement or consensus in the background, and that the disintegration of this fundamental agreement leads to political polarization and ideological civil war. I agree with that, particularly in the U.S., but there's still a common culture of consumerism holding it together. He then says that he believes we should adopt a "culture of discretion", where people tolerate "otherness". 50:31 He then goes on to say that he believes in "well functioning" bureaucracy, and a society with "proper distances" where people don't have to like each other, or really understand each other, as long as they tolerate each other. Metaphorically, I would describe this position as a kind of ideological isolationism, where multiple ideologies exist and none try to dominate the other. But the problem with this position is that the "well functioning" bureaucracy he envisions is a product of, and subject to, ideology. Really, the fundamental agreement or consensus he described as a necessity for a functioning democracy is just a common ideology. And if the common ideology that united society has disintegrated, how can a new one be established voluntarily? I don't think it can. And that's mainly because when the common ideology disintegrates, so does identity. So the old identity declines (nationalism, democratic liberalism) for several reasons, and new identities gain prominence (political parties). And typically, this fundamental divide and loss of common identity can only be resolved if a nation splits voluntarily, which I don't think ever happens, or through a civil war, which I think almost always happens. But what's interesting about this ideological divide in the U.S. is that it's happening at a time when people are totally dependent on civilization, technology, infrastructure, etc., with a high standard of living, and still united by consumerism, so there is no actual potential for a real civil war. Nor will it split voluntarily, because it would be too disruptive to the economy and infrastructure, and at their core, people are still consumers. It will be interesting to see how this issue resolves, but I suspect that in the long run it won't matter, because everyone will be too busy playing video games.
I agree with your point but. there is probably an answer to your doubts if you read some of his books or watch more talks where he addresses your criticism. He says ecological disaster or some other form of chaos could spark people to create a different system as a result of capitalism. What the new system is he says, he does not know exactly. But, the new system would be something global and, I am guessing less democratic so that ecological disasters and problems that require quicker stronger action can be accomplished. I do not know a lot so take what i say with a grain of sand or salt. I would like to talk or point out the topic of veganism because from my research animal agriculture causes a lot of problems and, I would argue the majority of problems are societies face today. I agree though that the way that humans think and act is ultimately why we have problems. I also am writing this comment just to sound smart lol but, I am trying to just to focus on the problem; and, I learned so much from watching these talks. I cannot wait to buy his books.
Bureaucracy, in my opinion, shouldn't be seen as a product of ideology. It can be envisioned as a structure that interacts with these isolated ideologies but that, at its core, its pure objective is to be efficient in the completition of its processes within society. Whether society has a common ideology or a mixture of isolated ideologies is irrelevant to the functioning of this bureaucracy. However, indeed it will be subject to the ideologies that establish the ends of its administration and processes.
@@ebrem557 Lol no human bureaucracy functions without a common set of beliefs whether it be profit or patriotism. Ideology cannot be disentangled from any organized human endeavor.
He pretty much orated and discussed much of what he has written-- a lot from "Less than Nothing", "Sublime object of Ideology" and of course "Contingency, Hegemony, Universality: Contemporary Dialogues On The Left". Nonetheless, its interesting to listen him!
Zizek has a lot of interesting things to say, but his critique of wisdom seems to confuse the concept with popular "wise" cliches. Socrates was a lover of "wisdom" as something which he couldn't attain, and Plato certainly didn't see true "sophia" in the sophists. It's odd too, since he is a philosopher and the traditional definition of that term is a "lover of wisdom" - not in the sense of loving popular cliches, but striving towards deeper knowledge (like, say, an understanding of how ideology structures our experience and lifestyles).
The "lover of wisdom" trope, which leads to the development of the hysterical questioning subject Z is staning, is a transvaluation, of the existing wise man/priest figure who "has" or reveals wisdom the, the methods of access always being somewhat mystified and exclusive. Petersons participation in the wise man/preist trope are numerous, but most telling for me is his role as a purveyor of paywalled personality tests.
i think he is saying wisdom is self fulling prophecy that only serves its own oppertunistic purpose that can be somewhat problematic like stabilizing something that is unsustanable like surplue enjoyment, jouiisance...
I get the popular notion of wisdom that he is talking about, but those are all examples of sophism, rhetoric and popular belief. I think the point of being a philosopher is that you recognize that those don't constitute actual wisdom, but only a mirage. It's analogous to pseudoscience as a kind of pseudosophia. By abandoning the concept of wisdom in my mind you're throwing out the baby with the bathwater, since wisdom is itself still a useful concept (recognizing false consciousness and ideology, for example, is a form of wisdom in the Platonic sense - literally, trying to escape the cave). Instead of giving wisdom to false prophets like Peterson, claim it for ourselves.
Zizek is a hegelian and that s why he rejects even the ancient Greek notion of wisdom that you praise. Zizek demands a resolution, he prefers someone like Peterson over philosophers who invest themselves in truth and ponderous philosophical discourses that lack materiality. That s why a lot of philosophers don t like Zizek, claiming he is posturing, he combines film, music, psychoanalysis, cultural criticism, metaphysics, theology, philosophy, politics, economy. He demands unity and thereby transgression... Jordan Peterson is wrong, no question, Zizek hates Jung, but Zizek still prefers an idiot thinker like Peterson over a not-yet-hegelian like Brandom. Peterson may be wrong, but at least he dares to be. Brandom is just hiding behind truth, turning philosophy into some useless language.
The main thing I have always hated about the philosophy community is that so many of us make idols of these thinkers.... they are not infallible and deserve criticism and rebuttals when they make blunders in their arguments. While you may agree with someone on a great many topics, you should be weary of this idolization that isn’t conducive to intellectual rigor or growth..
Do you have an actual point, and is it something that applies to this vid? I ask bc it seems like you're just generalizing and grandstanding for attention. Nothing relevant to say specifically? Fine. Take your spitball shop talk to a more appropriate discussion.
@@VeggieRice I won't repeat my point because it is pretty obvious what I meant. With respect to having anything to say that actually applies to this video, I'm quite confused why you even said that. Comment sections are open spaces for any discussion. I had watched a few videos before watching this and noticed a trend from their comment sections and from in person experience at philosophy lectures/events. I commented what I did to see if it was a phenomenon others noticed as well and it clearly was since some people liked my comment. Just because a discussion seems overgeneralized or pointless to you doesn't make it invalid....
@job RothbergI don't hate the community. You can hate an aspect of something and not hate the thing as a whole. I understand where you are coming from with what you said and while I agree that the community should theoretically be the way you say it is, it is a human endeavor and because of that, it is going to have issues in meeting the theoretical goals it has. I don't think all people are like this or that the community is much worse in this respect than other communities but it's also not perfect. This was just me pointing out an imperfection.
Fair enough. If one holds a philosopher in one's heart how can one become a philosopher? If one holds the buddha in their heart, how can they become a buddha?
How did I just hear about this guy?! He utterly fascinates me, and has an ability to disarm peoples apprehensions with his speaking style, humor, and authenticity. Really appreciate the talk Slavoj and Cambridge.
The text info says he is a psychoanalyst. This is not true. He studied psychoanalytic thought but does not work as an analyst. He has admitted this in other public places, I think it was an interview where he said this.
@@extraemontamontes3618 actually you do. i don't know if zizek is an analyst, but there are rigorous requirements for becoming a qualified psychoanalyst, including doing at least 50 hours of analysis (on yourself) with a qualified analyst in the field.
The best part about these Q&A sessions is how it demystifies an ivy league education and proves definitively that students of Cambridge are no more intelligent than your average 12 year old.
he has been touching his watery face, spitting, yet the interviewer looks at him with sheer admiration. That there is the power of brut, radical and being-piercing thought !
Wow I have never listened to Zizek. I know he is a popular figure to the left but I have not gotten around to looking into him before this. I was blown away how much he explained that I can totally relate to. I dont know if he is right as everything we are dealing with a subjective opinion about the state of politics society etc but I have written down at least 5 points which I have had running through my head over the past year. Can anyone explain, unfortunetly I am not the smartest, when he refers to the failure of PC on the left is not that its fanatical, but its precisely not Marxism? In what way is it not?
The idea is that today’s left obfuscates basic questions of power relations and economic relations as cultural problems, problems of tolerance etc. Zizek often points out Martin Luther King Jr. to make the point, namely that if you google his speeches, he never once mentions the word “tolerance.” To him, it would have been laughable to say white people don’t tolerate black people enough, because the problems he identified were socio-economic in nature. I hope this helps clarify the topic
For Maxists, PC concerns about separate race, gender, nationality issues are all distractions from class, and are so by design. Divide the working class along identity lines as the PC pseudo-Left and alt-right do, and you disempower them. Marxists were pretty much always vociferously against PC. Now you are smarter-ish.
samson hahah I’m still dumb as they come. But much appreciated. That makes sense at least as a theory. I guess I need to listen more to Zizek as I too am having difficulties working out where I sit in the PC environment debate. I personally would prefer open free speech that may not be PC but is that what other people like/want, I’m not sure.
@@hamzariazuddin424 Congratulations! 'Not knowing' is true wisdom! We will learn more in one day of 'not knowing' than we will in a 4 years of 'knowing'. The absurd PC brigade are the Petite Bourgeoisie using their privilege to intellectually stomp on the Proletariat... Marx would not approve... ;)
Zizek's time allocation is like this: 30% of time, saying things; 30% of time, explaining things said; 40% of time, "and so on and so on", beard and nose grabbing, sniffing.
***Spoiler Alert*** I was in such a good mood after listening to Zizek, only to have it spoiled by the youngster say that Omorosa will be speaking later. Who's speaking next week? Yanni Varoufakis and Andrew Dice Clay?
I warned Daffy about his coke and meth habbit years ago, but no. I said, Daffy, I know it increase your creativity and philosophical ideas, but at what cost, Daffy?! At what cost? Not to mention the toll it will take on your looks and your nervous system will undergo irreparable damage. Did Daffy listen? No.
Fools Gold Found agree to a certain degree with your take on Peterson, but you‘re dead wrong on Zizek. One of the greatest intellectual frauds of the past decades.
I love his Lacanian use of something phrased as symbolic castration. That is where we do not get what we inherently desire because of socioeconomic law.
i love zizek, and i agree with him on almost everything, our politics are pretty much identical, but the only reason i’m not a “zizekian” is because is so dogmatically hegelian and lacanian. he always gets caught in the dialectical loop
I think Zizek would be more comprehensible if he just told his jokes and linked them by the epistemology of the inexorably paradoxical. But is seems likely that being perfectly understood is his life's mission to avoid. The best thing about him is that he always draws back from actually being prescriptive.
I can find the book the student mentions: The Capitalist Unconscious: Marx and Lacan by Samo Tomšič but have nothing to go on to find the books Zizek mentions: one on Brazilian secret police's warped buddhism and the other purportedly with the title "the Nazi ethics" but I find no such book title.
I'm not sure about the book on Brazilian authoritarian spirituality, but I believe the other book he is referring to is actually called "The Nazi Conscience".
Even though i like Zizek's narrative and has some good points, he is completely misrepresenting JP's ideas and fundamentally I really dont believe they are intellectual enemies . 2 examples are that at 37:08 he says that JP became famous for his reaction in transgender peoples ideas but that was completely not the case. The reason it became viral was because it was a matter of free speech, at no point ever did JP argue for or against transgender ideology, his whole "beef" was with freedom of speech. Also what i've noticed is that everyone who hasn't really put the time to really understand what JP is suggesting about the lobsters just says the classic "Oh he compares lobsters to humans which is mad lets just dispense with it" but the funny thing is that he is specifically referring to the serotonin system and how it works in lobsters and states that its the exact same system we have as humans (which is biologically proven by the way) to prove his point that the importance of hierarchies is biologically built into us. I don't really know why all those who oppose JP say his points are based on pseudo science when like on every point he makes he refers to the studies made and if you go check them the results are in 100% Anyways it would be really interesting to see a debate between them because they have completely different mechanisms to confront problems.
if hegel was a fucking normal straightforward human being, we could have listened to zizek, without all the nervous ticks and lisps. I think zizek would enjoy himself too.
Peterson interviewed Pinker,they didn't debate. They agreed on pretty much everything, either Žižek didn't actually watch the video or he is deliberately trying to mislead.
Hopefully someone can reply to this and explain it to me. But i'm skeptical about something zizek is saying from 1:05:00 onwards. He appears to be saying that most people understand Marx' idea of commodity fetishism backwards. The common view of the idea would be that we chase an abstract illusion by elevating commodities as a higher goal beyond their material usefulness. But then zizek says that Marx actually meant to say the opposite thing. Namely that commodity fetishism, when reading marx closely, means that we seek to consciously manufacture our illusion of meaning through the act of gaining material usefulness while being aware of the facade. Or something like that. My problem: isn't the 'common view' exactly what the word 'fetishism' originally means? If zizek is right then why didn't marx call it 'reverse commidity fetishism?'. It seems to me that he used the word for a reason.
You know it is possible to confront the problems we face without losing ones head in theory, as Zizek has. One still living social critic who never gets lost in theory and yet manages brilliant critiques of modern society is Wendell Berry. In both his non-fiction works like "The Unsettling of America" his essay collections like "What Are People For?," and his beautiful and profound novels like "Jayber Crow" and "The Memory of Old Jack," Berry lays bare the evils of our time. I would say Berry is the opposite of Zizek. Zizek is all theory, theory, theory. Berry has no theories, not at least in the political sense, taking ideological sides is against his principles; perhaps one of the reasons Berry is so often ignored is because of his strict refusal to join political organizations. Anyways, if one would be interested in reading a thinker diametrically opposed to Zizek, at least in his manner of getting his ideas across (though also in other areas), check out Wendell Berry.
This is the first video I've seen where it was the audience that was the problem, just the ridiculous look on their faces, the painful expressions, I really wish the camera would stop panning to the crowd, it's just too much, hahahahaha.
I don't understand why gender is needed as a necessary part of an identity. Whether I am called a man or a woman does not change my perception of myself, i.e. the identity that I give myself. And the fact whether or not I can identify with the category assigned to me or the other individuals in it does not change my perception of myself. What does a teaspoon have in common with a tablespoon? Are they interchangeable? How often does something like this happen? Is a spoon's identity based on how other people (or spoons) perceive it or how it perceives itself? A serial number, for example, is sufficient to clearly identify a spoon. Whether a serial number describes a spoon or a fork or a knife doesn't matter - well, unless you have utilitarian intentions with these individuals. But the fork can't care less what numbers appear in its serial number. No one (probably including me) can write down the identity that I give myself anyway. How other people (want to) categorize me doesn't matter to me and I can't influence it anyway. Name, date of birth and place of birth are sufficient to identify a human individual. The (biological) gender is not necessary for this, at best as a useful attribute for managing personal data in a medical context.
They are equilibrium, I feel. I have profound respect for both of them and their ideas and views, and its fascinating to watch and listen to both of them.
Jeez, I just read a few comments and a lot of them are about de "sniffing tic". Is just a tic. If you rewatch the video, you'll notice he do it when he's trying to explain something shortly... Almost all the time..
First the high priest says "O my God I'm nobody, not worthy of your attention...", then the rich merchant says "O my God I'm nobody, not worthy of your attention...", then the professor says "Professor? Did you call me a professor? I'm nobody, not worthy of your attention...",
