It's so refreshing to see intellectuals like Zizek not only being accepting but justifying his support through philsophy as he does all he decisions, rather than it being a mere peer pressure thing. Love how genuine he is.
Indeed! But really, if you're just getting into such a complicated and loaded topic with borrowed opinions, you're bound to get people hurt. People should follow Zizek's example
I recall a lecture given by Zizek where he said that. If you are gay in a homophobic society it is because that is deeply who you are. You wouldn't just choose it lightly.
Zizek's paradox about love and determinism also holds true in art. On the face of it, art is the ultimate expression of freedom. However, you cannot simply choose to create great art. Artists often have a very innate sense of determinism, both in whether they create art and in the shape of that art. This is true for all people who have a "calling" in life, art is just an example.
I believe this absolutely - the only freedom is the freedom to do the right thing. Louis Aragon also referred to this: "The fear of being thought to wear a uniform makes some people, who dress in every color of the rainbow, blind to the fact that they are in fact all wearing the same livery, that of the harlequin, and that they are actually using their slapstick not to strike the enemies of freedom but rather to lash out at the only freedom worth having, the freedom to speak the truth."
Beautifully said ❤ I hate when people say queer people must be confused... Yes I am confused! I reject a simple patriarchal view of the world and I have choices about how to live my life. Only fanatics are never confused
exactlyyy! we are confused because we ask ourselves questions. And from 'confusion' and 'questions' comes philosophy, afterall. As Socrates used to say, an unexamined life is not worth living :)@@crzyprplmnky
holy shit it's not. surface-level discussion. don't make a fool out of yourself.
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America has a very simplistic idea of the self and that rock solid sense of self has destroyed so much of our world. Guns, weapons in general so as to kill the ' other ' .
If people are bisexual, they might have latitude in directing their sexual attentions, but human experiences are far from all the same. There are people who are exclusively gay, all their lives, without influence of any other examples, who could no more change their orientations than to retrain their brains to see the color "red" where they now see "green" (meaning the actual sense-impression, not merely the word applied). I have known gay men who married women, denied to themselves what was their real orientation, did not have any gay liaisons on the side, had grown kids. Decades of living pretend-heterosexual lives did not change their same-sex orientation. Conservatives dispute the genetic links of homosexuality (which still exist, though not involving only a single "gay gene" or a unitary cause), and dispute the fact that sexual orientation is often immutable, largely in order simply to justify their bigotry and their political agendas.
Very interesting. Your middle paragraph where you write that they cannot change their same-sex orientation no matter what, do you think there are many men like that? Is there any statistics?
@@SelbstdenkenderI mean, simple question - would you, change? If I were to tell you "Go into same sex relationship", will it change your attraction (you can choose to be in that relationship, but you cannot choose to like that other person if you just don't like them - even Žižek pointed that out)? Probably not. Attraction is like taste - if you just dislike the taste of something, yes, as Žižek says, there are some minor social things behind that, but in reality, it is deeply wired in your brain (I dunno, maybe like - if you taste a pineapple, dopamine kicks in, because you love it; if you eat a strawberry, the opposite happens, because you hate it). Hell, I've met many queer people that genuinely tried to not be queer, because again, who would actively choose such a traumatic thing - who would choose to live in a society, where people still despise them? But they couldn't change it - they wanted, for their family and/or social life, but couldn't. They understood that the only way is to not silence their queer sense, and be open about it, because for them, being heterosexual "was a choice" (as they were playing something they were not). I'm not saying there aren't social elements to it, but if so, it wouldn't explain queer people in homophobic countries like Saudi Arabia, for example. And so I come back to my question - can I make you not straight? Are you "actively choosing to be heterosexual"? Probably not. Thus, being straight is not a choice. And if being heterosexual is not a choice, than so cannot be queer/part of LGBT+ (similarly as I cannot simply convince you to like some fruit that you just hate the taste of - it is a part of you, a part of you that you don't choose - the only choice is whether you eat it despite your taste-preferences; similarly, the only choice with being gay is whether you are open about it, and with being trans is whether you transition - but the attraction/identity itself, cannot be altered). I hope my comment helped!
@@TomiThemselfbullshit. Degeneration exists. There are many men who go try gay shit for fun. And that’s without being homosexual. We don’t live in just any society, we currently live in a society where society is VERY VERY tolerant of gay people and their shit. In fact there are many tv shows and series that unashamedly show homosexuality and lgtb stuff. To be fair, becoming gay nowdays is even seen as something to be proud of. A medal.
@@Selbstdenkender I personally know a case like that, the divorce was a huge hart break for the woman and the kids were shocked, but now they’re friends (which took a few years tho). They were married for over twenty years before he came out.
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@@notyourdoggo7540 @tom-kz9pb has in my opinion the most intelligent voice here. Concise and well expressed. I totally agree
I totally agree with that concept. We are told that ultimate freedom is the ability to do or chose whatever you want. But that's just superficial hedonism. I think that true freedom is commitment.
What he's not understanding is the difference between a choice and the "inner-self" - obviously transitioning is a choice. But is being trans a choice? Of course, being in a gay relationship is a choice (so is being in a straight relationship, also), but is the attraction towards the other/same gender or lack thereof a choice? The transitioning and being a in a relationship are active choices, but these choices don't happen in a vacuum - you can be straight and in a gay relationship (maybe you lost a bet, or whatever, I dunno), which is an active choice, but the lack of attraction towards other men will still make you straight - in another words, the attraction won't change, whether you are in a straight or queer relationship. Nor will the identity change, whether you choose to transition or choose to live in the closet. It is this "inner-self" that drives these choices. Again, these are choices, but they don't just happen in a vacuum - they don't happen without the very unconscious part, which is this inner-self (this identity). The very reason why he's talking about LGBT+ people, but he's not asking "Is being straight a choice? Do I actively choose to not be gay, and to not be trans?", just shows that it's not a matter of queer people being different from cis and straight people (and that they somehow "choose to be different"), but it's rather a matter of which social group is normalised in society. And so, you might be homophobic or not (not saying which), but the very reason that someone would choose to be out in public, is a prove that while "being out" is a choice, being queer is not - because as Žižek said, it's really traumatic. They are choices that are based upon the inner-self, however, if one (like Žižek) were to claim that "the inner self does not exist" and that "there are only the active choices, without any rational inner feelings", than it is quite irrational and countradictory - why would any person, actively choose to "be trans/gay", if it is so traumatic (because of our queerphobic society)? The only answer that comes to my mind for that question is that - no person just chooses to be trans or gay, the only choice is whether they will be out/open about it - and if they choose to actively be out/open about that part of themselves, than it cannot be a choice to be gay/trans, as in this society, no person would want to be part of an oppressed group, just for the sake of it (thus again, being in a gay relationship/transitioning is a choice, but the inner self isn't, and cannot be - for if it were, there would be no queer people, as we live in a society that values those who are cis and straight)... And all of this is even without the Marxist-analysis of how being part of a marginalised group plays into class-conflict... However, I still appreciate his point of view - I like it, because even if it were a choice, he doesn't say "it's a wrong choice". And that's the point - if it is a choice, than queer people who actively choose to be queer, even despite our cisheteronormative and patriarchal structures of society, are truly the freeist people on Earth. Maybe it is a choice (I'd still say that it's not a conscious choice, though), but against these pre-written structures of our society. So if people are queer because they choose to torn apart these structures, not because those structures are inherently bad, but because those structures punish those who are not part of them - than to be honest, that still wouldn't make queer people "bad, immoral and disgusting perverts", as the right wingers say; but rather Marxist revolutionaries that fight against hierarchies (whether those hierarchies are oppressive or not - the question is, are those hierarchies oppressive on their own, or do they punish only those that do not fit the hierarchy - just a thought; but either way, that is quite powerful, rebel-like, and quite frankly cool and Marxist-Leninist - I'm for that! :D).
I think you're reading this perhaps slightly more politically than he intended, no disrespect. I'm also gay, and while my sexual orientation (i.e. being attracted to people of the same sex) is not a choice for me: if I choose to act on it, I am simultaneously freely making a choice but am also acting totally in accord with an internal sense of necessity. Phrased another way, I am "enslaved" by my own desires when I freely choose to be open/out, whereas when I am in an oppressive context or forced into the closet, I am "enslaved" by the (homophobic) desires of another person (for me and everyone to be straight or at least acting straight) but am, through this external "assistance" rendered (behaviourally) free from my own internal inclinations and so on and so on. It perhaps is trite to say, but to choose to live authentically as LGBT is to make a choice where an unchosen internal compulsion renders only one choice available - not sure if that still counts as a choice lol
Fun fact in nature there are animals who can change their gender depending on what is needed. Like clown fish they are all male until one dominant male becomes the female Or snails are twister which are both gender. This is a huge L for phobic people
So to attempt to interpret and rephrase (as this guy is notoriously obtuse at times) he wishes to emphasise that the lgbtq+ cause is about a kind of freedom that must not be mistaken for the superficial freedom to choose, but the far more violent fredom to be, to love, to feel, etc. which is experienced not as a unpressured free choice, but as a viceral necessity. And to apply my own interpretation and infuse it with my own ideas about the same topic: it is nor the freedom to a power, but a freedom from a power. The freedom to accept, embrace, and manage the forceful presence that stems not from choice, but from being.
there is always a gap between what you want and what you really desire ? what you declare that you want is part of a struggle against what you unconsciously desire (want men but really desire mommy? want mommy but really desire men?) You want what you can't have, and you have what you don't want. To have what you want is too much, you'll ultimately become disappointed with it; so you prefer to hold onto the phantasy instead. that just maintains our neuroses. too freudian an answer. want nothing, desire nothing, seek nirvana.
thats absolutely not true. because it would be the case in europe which it isnt. this is just you doing mind gymnastics. slavoj zizek is slavoj zizek, people know him for a while
I like the "+" in LGBT+, it basically a stand-in symbol that includes everybody else. In a way, it's a self defeating designation, as it should be in a truly equal society.
I honestly think that there is no perfect way to solve this issue. The label non-heteronormative is more directional towards a specific poststructuralist understanding of gender roles as Butler described it and I doubt that more people inside of the LGBTQ community would cherish this self-description than using letters that depict their specific sexuality or gender. Usually you can see right leaning queer people rejecting both terms but from my personal experience LGBTQ is probably a lot more accepted especially amongst politically divided individuals inside of the community. I see LGBTQ rather as a listing of very common forms of non-heteronormativity that make up the majority of queer people especially using umbrella terms like trans and bisexual (which includes pansexuality). Of course this in consequence means that some people are left out and that you would have to probably use LGBTI+/LGBTIQ since intersex people are extremely common in comparison but the label itself is not fallacious or non optimal in my opinion. Also I can tell you that leaving out one letter would probably not be the biggest issue speaking from the perspective of someone inside of the community. The issue with leaving out the T is more so playing into the narrative of excluding the T from the community as a whole which is pushed by trans exclusionary forces inside of the community (especially gay and lesbian people). @@toomuchsparetimeproduction7281
Queer means nothing, describes nothing. It is a claim that homosexuality is a freakishness, and that anyone who deems themself freakish, is like a homosexual.@@zesky6654
@@pinktod9253 well it seems to me like cisgendered people are always using the argument of how statistically uncommon transness is to exclude people. Not that not being included in an acronym is real discrimination or anything, but isn’t it the same logic that just because there are fewer people in the + category that they don’t need to be acknowledged. I mean I get nobody is really upset about it so it’s not a real issue, but hypothetically, don’t intersex, asexual etc. people also feel excluded more generally by LGBT+ spaces and rhetoric? Don’t they also face some degree of erasure? Maybe not to the same degree as trans people historically, but I don’t know, just saying. Thanks for your insights though. One thing I don’t understand though is you say non-heteronormative is a post structuralist understanding, but isn’t LBGT+ the exact same thing? Because the “+” is just non heteronormativity implied isn’t it? I mean we all know who the people are that we’re not talking about when we use that “+.” And it’s supposed to include everyone except them. So would a non-post-structuralist thinker really rope together asexuals and bisexuals in a common interest group if they don’t believe it is a similar hegemonic force that discriminates against them? Wouldn’t it be treated as two completely separate things?
Everything is determined by our environment, that's called determinism. Biology is the body's interpretation of our environment. You are not born a certain way, your brain will adapt how you perceive yourself based on your environnement
@@veme2857 Yes. But people are biological entities. The environment has nothing to act upon if there is no biology. If everything is determined by the environment, and not by the objects in the environment, then there might as well 1) not be objects 2) not be any "environment" Another way to approach it is to ask: Why does the same environmental influence have different effects on the current you as compared to the current me?
That is a valid ontological understanding of the world that Zizek obviously does not share himself as someone that focusses heavily on psychoanalysis. Even in this biological understanding (that I would rather share regarding this topic myself) being queer definitely does have a biological basis as far as we know now (Gay genes, gender dysphoria, structural brain differences etc.).
@@pinktod9253 "The Gay Gene" by Richard Dawkins o: That'd be a fun continuation of the series The thing is there's strong biologism and weak biologism. Strong biologism says everything is propagated through a biological system -- even environmental influences; hence, literally everything about a human is biological. And therefore, with strong biologism we'd say it is not nurture vs nature; it's nurture AND necessarily always nature! Weak biologism says indeed, it is. But if a human's functionality is determined by both, we could attribute responsibility to each co-determinant. Hence, with weak biologism we can say that certain functions or traits are better characterized as biological or environmental: in other words nature vs nurture The implication of something being characterized as biological (nature), rather than environmental (nurture), is that it is unchangeable and outside of your free choice. This also tends to imply it is 'real', and should therefore be taken seriously. Would I be correct in presuming this is something you like? Also, I think 'actual being' and 'way of being' should be distinguished (in the way Ian Hacking would think of it). Yes, gay people existed forever. But the way of being a gay person nowadays was very different from the past. And even if the actual being is most accurately characterized as biological, methinks that the way of being is very much environmental, sometimes further complicating the conversation
@@Daaoyispeaking from personal experience. I never chose nor did I ever want to be bisexual. When I discovered my sexuality I tried everything I could to try and be heterosexual, which sent me into an identity crisis and deep depression that I’m still trying to overcome sometimes.
@@williamwood8281I wish he talked less about "wokeness" and other imagined problems and got back to commenting on political economy. His last books have been just him repeating himself
@@Corsac899I think you have valid criticisms, he was a good stepping stone for me to develop my own outlook on philosophy and ideology, but he is definitely approaching a set viewpoint that stifles his more dynamic eras. That said, it would be funny to see how he reacts to said criticism from you: "*sniff* *sniff* EEf yoouuu dun layke what aye say, you can go awf and fawk yourself, you know, but what ees ze motivation for ze fawking of ze self? Ere eez ze question for you. Eez your existence, may existence, not joost a repeat of a repeat of a repeat? May Gohd, eef you don't layke my latest booooks, you can seemply return to Haygel. He said eet better zen aye ever *sniff* *sniff* *sniff* cood mayself!"
@@Corsac899 i feel he's been into the idea of getting rightwingers into leftwing philosophy by repeating his ideas about wokeness and lgbtq+ in every lecture he's held recently. i wish he would just write a book and connect some dots for confused and annoyed leftists who suddenly without the insane amount of abstract philosophical knowledge see him as a rightwing reactionairy. or maybe he's just getting too old, but he seems bright to me
@@SunnyOddnyif he is doing that, than that's at a cost of alienating a lot of his actual followers I think he is a very bright person that unfortunately decides to use his intellect to argue about boogeyman issues
@@thijsjongas someone in the fine art scene who’s lgbt, no. Having to figure out that you’re not like societies standards during your time in school is a lot to take, which can cause you to get depressed or burned out. That in turn causes you to neglect school work and falling behind in the regular school curriculum and art can be a great way to deal with and express your emotions. So if you fall behind too far, art school is the next best option. A lot of lgbt kids (like me and myself) thus get filtered out into the art industry, causing there to be a higher percentage of lgbt people in the art scene than in the general population. The majority of people in the fine arts scene are still very much straight tho. 8 out of 35 people in my uni class are lgbt, which is a lot, but we all have the same story of being filtered out even tho we were all great at science and shit before going through an identity crisis and then ending up in art school. I was still considering studying biology before going to uni because I love it and I’m good at it even tho I had already been in art school for two years. But art just felt easier to cope with and people looked down on me for saying I wanted to do biology. (Not the people in art school tho, they fully supported me. I’m talking about the people at the university fairs) People who fake being lgbt for attention are ridiculed and cast out in the art scene. (And I mean those who actually fake it and not those who were just experimenting)
Who fines who? And what do you exactly mean by canceling? Isn't that just the process of many people deciding that they don't support someone? I don't see anything wrong with that.
@@mamandapanda185 What of your nonsensw do you want me to Google? "LGBTQ fine"? There is just an article about Hungary fining a book store for displaying a book with gay content. I'm asking because your points are so weird that I want to understand what you even want to say.
The reason that concepts of sexual and gender identity are combined into this label is as following: 1. Regarding the arguments against and in favour of allowing people to live gay, trans etc. and have specific rights are widely overlapping. The arguments about queer people grooming children are very old as are arguments about the “natural order” or religious beliefs. Also arguments about “destroying our culture”. In conclusion all queer people are exposed to very similar hatred from overlapping groups of people. Also the topic themselves are very easy to connect since they fall into the same “quadrant”. 2. Splitting an already small group of people into two groups with one group being significantly smaller than the other one would most likely leave out trans people in a very small community without a good reason. Many trans people would be in the LGB Community anyways since they share a different sexual orientation that comes with being more open to being queer generally. 3. LGBTQ is not only a description of different kinds of people but also very importantly a reference to a social movement. As it should hopefully be known especially trans women played a significant role in starting the movement alongside gay rights activists. They were going to the street as a collective and that still happens on CSDs all over the world.
Sorry, I don't buy Zizeks assumption, that a surgery plus a chemical intervention delivers any sort of _freedom_ to the people which think or feel of being in need for a transmutation of their bodies.
@@updreams6892 my suggestion in this case would be u ask a trans-person what kind of _freedom_ she/he has encountered on the daily bases. Plus, are u truly free if u will depend upon medical support and surveillance for the rest of ur life? And we haven't yet discussed physiological and mental complications after the big shift. Tell me what appears so mysterious to u. Zizek factually only has given a less than even superficial parole. He made an assertion without funding it by reasoning or evidence.
@@farrider3339 In my opinion: The freedom which a trans person have in every day life is the freedom of being an authentic self. They can be themselves without feeling like they are in a body which they don't belong in (which is the reason why even anti trans environments people are trans). The "encounter" part is a problem of the current society, which for example because of religion or anti-change reason tries to limit this freedom of being the authentic self. And I the argument with the depends hits a lot of problems. Some are: It's not a real choice. They either feel uncomfortable in their bodies or they transition with medical responsibility. But the medical responsibility is a contra which trans people gladly take for the major plus of being happy. So they have to pay for that freedom but don't we all? I mean after all we have to go to work to effort the freedom to spend our time not working.
In reasoning this way you are heavily shifting the focus away from the point that Zizek made towards a biological problematization of the issue. Also you are altering his definition of freedom regarding the trans question and you question his reasoning based on a fallacious understanding of his definition of freedom. As he stated, his definition is NOT about any biological constants but however purely psychological. His definition of freedom is deciding on something because you feel a necessity of acting in a specific way out of a strong internal feeling. As his comparison to love shows being truly free doesn't mean suppressing your own feelings but rather embracing them if they feel like a necessity. For example falling in love with a person that you feel like wouldn't be your perfect partner from a rational point of view. He is arguing against a rationalist point of view and regarding this matter, against a naturalistic understanding of the topic. This definition definitely fits the issue at hand. You are bringing in a different understanding of freedom regarding people that is regarding a biological, physical dependance on something. You have not explained your definition of freedom but rather put out a rhetoric question that fits your personal definition of freedom without explaining why you think that biology is more important than psychology in this case (and yes you are insinuating this by stating that you are not "free" which you probably also at least partly understand as a psychological matter and not solely as a biological one if you need medication). Apart from that even in a casual understanding of the word "freedom" I feel like you are mixing up the concepts of biology and psychology. There is no real reason to believe that psychological freedom would require a person to be independent from any biological help if you think it through. This concept also applies to other phenomena for example people with Tourettes being free from their restrictions by choosing a physical operation. To add context to Zizeks position on this that goes into the same direction as mine, he stated that trans people are the incarnation of the concept of the cartesian subject being able to fully embrace their psychological truth and seeing themselves as partly disconnected from their body (which in the concept of the cartesian subject is just a mere shell to form). You can answer this if you feel like it and I can give more insight into my position or into critique on yours, I just wanted to keep this one short. @@farrider3339
Let me just raise two points to challenge that statements with more things for you to think about. I like how general your argument is. In the same way then, what do you think about purely cosmetic surgery? (Which gender-affirming surgeries are not) This i see as more debatable but often a good point can still be made from drawing this parallel. Secondly and more importantly, the suicide risk of trans people is massively reduced, when they have access to gender-affirming care. In the replies you continue to argue dependence on medical support. But the comparison to ending up dead is obvious. Or compare it to the continuation of the humiliating life as a trans person without any care or surgery.
Stop saying LGTBT+ people. There is no such thing. One person cannot be all of those things. Besides, here Slavoj is conflating homosexuality with transexuality. They are two different things and now that transgender ideology has taken over, the gap between gay and trans is even wider. Many homosexuals do not agree with the transgender ideologues who preach easy plasticity.
1- He never claimed a person can be all those things at once 2- Everyone is aware sexuality and gender indentity are two separate things, the reason both are conflated in the acronym is because a) they're both related to sex and gender, b) they both have or had similiar social stigmas, c) they both started the movement fighting for their rights hand in hand, and d) separating them into two smaller groups would be unnecessary and leave trans people in a significantly reduced community
@@rodomolina7995 there is no such thing as LGBT+ people. Just like there is no such thing as a ‘gay community.’ They are myths. Trans issues were foisted on homosexuals and now many of us want out. Not because there’s anything wrong with transsexuals but because transgender activists are loons who’ve lost touch with reality.
@@Jamhael1Many times, when they chose to admit to themselves they found someone of the opposite gender attractive. When they chose to have sex with them. When they said yes at wedding. Etc. Sexuality is a choice, reaffirmed by the choices we make daily.
@virno69420 Or some people are born bisexual & just assume everyone is like them, and get extremely insecure when they find out other people were born with a fixed preference. And then, since they don't feel like "the right & normal ones" anymore - they feel like they are "the weird ones" - they have to turn everything into a giant mind game of trying to convince all gay & straight people that they're NOT gay or straight. Now EVERYBODY has to be bisexual & "struggling" with their "choices" - just like they do - so that they don't feel like the odd ones out 🙄 it's just sad & exhausting to people who are gay & straight.
species can reproduce with lgbt individuals amongst them. there are literally species where the majority of recorded sexual activity in the wild is not sexually reproductive. what you say isn’t wrong, but your framing of it is not based, in any way, on reality.
Biology says otherwise, homosexuality occurs among animals as well. Also, where do you get the info on what’s the ultimate goal of human existence. Do you hold any divine knowledge unknown to ordinary man ?
Maintaining a species doesn’t necessarily mean that every individual has to reproduce. A more extreme example of this is for instance ants. Only a few members of the species reproduce whilst the majority of the colony gathers food and protects to ensure their survival without reproducing themselves. Likewise in species with bigger families/communities a few gay individuals can be beneficial as it means there are more adults to take care of and gather food for the infants, raising the chances of the infants reaching adulthood and reproducing.
