[...] Video: Slavoj Zizek: First as Tragedy, Then as Farce [...]

http://www.berfrois.com/

Nice animation. Foolish critical-theoretical nonsense. Z thinks completely in abstractions, and abstractions have been responsible for far more more suffering than charity has. But then Z doesn't support the mitigation of suffering, either, because that would take people's mind off of abstractions and the crudest of utopian political projects. For Z, the goal is not to mitigate suffering or save lives or cure disease. It is to make poverty IMPOSSIBLE. That goal is not only not possible, it is incoherent, not only because “poverty” means different things to different people in different times and places, and is valued differently, but because no human being, certainly not some elite critical-theoretical class, knows how to go about pulling the levers and pushing the buttons of history in such a way as to make make poverty (under any description) impossible. Z believes there is a “solution” to poverty, and that every action on behalf of the poor that fails to align with that chimerical “solution” exacerbates the problem. This is absurd, and it can lead him to provoke us with such cruel inanities as “the worst slaveholders were kind to their slaves” because they contributed to slavery's continuation. This is so abstract a judgment, so far from the concerte conditions in which human suffering occurs, that it is insane or sadistic in the way it valorizes cruelty. Z doesn't care aboiut poor people; he cares about poverty as the abstract thought of a systemic social phenomenon, a function of a social formation as a whole, to which there is a solution. How many critical theorists would it to dream it? How many Stalins to implement it? All solutions are incomplete and partial and take a step back with every two steps ahead. Social change is not predictable in the long run. Feed the hungry. Care for the sick. And when the opportunity comes to take a couple of steps ahead in the social and economic formations where you and others have a little power, go for it! But keep alleviating whatever suffering you can. Keep an ear on the critical theorists, but don't let their abstractions bewitch you.

I've posted a response on my blog, http://www.greenman.co.za/blog/?p=724

From your blog:

“Much disagreement occurs because the arguments are about different things. “Foolish critical-theoretical nonsense.” says Nathan. No it isn’t, says someone else, and off the argument goes, completely missing each other’s points, arguing from a position of ego, not humility towads understanding the other’s position.”

Until I just now posted a response to Nathan, no one had criticised him. Your magnanimity and objectivity is a pose. It is exactly this hollow bourgeois magnanimity that the lecture seeks to offend and expose. And not by turning one's cheek, but by giving the other person a good slap.

This is the third time I hear Mr. Zizek talk–the other two on TV about different topics–and I am disappointed that he always stops at the analysis of the problem stage. I haven't heard him actually offer a solution or even suggest a path to explore to come up with a solution to the social problems he talks about. Having a good understanding of the problem is key to finding a solution, I give him that, but he seems to be paralyzed on that stage. I'd rather take a bunch of business people trying to do something and exploring different options than a million philosophers and academics running around in circles defining the problem in a hundred different ways.

I think he doesnt provide a solution because he wants to become mainstream and Revolution would turn people off to any of his ideas (because it would require work to do this 'revolution' thing and Er'Merikans hate work!) or leave him vulnerable to the elements of the game (the state and capital game baby! and all that entails *jail, murder, dispearance, critque etc.*) and hence he'll be out of a job. Its probably why union's arent vessels of revolutionary struggle on the account or remote chance that they suceed there would be any no need for them. So their job is remain active in this society rather than prepare or create a new one or at least that what Malatesta griped about how anarcho-syndicalism(and probably to some extent guild socialism) was always going to be reactionary. So if Senior Slavoj helped usher in a new world his job would change and probably be forgotten, because everyone would be busy building communities and engaging in democracy and all that jive.

Hi Errick,

Before the industrial age most people around the world lived in poverty. That is a fact. Due to industrialism we no longer starve. If Africa were a tenth the population they are today, perhaps they would starve less. Their natural way of living would never have been able to sustain so large populations as they have today. Furthermore, they would still suffer from a ton of deseases that the western, “evil capitalistic” world has removed.

What removes poverty is scientific and technological advance. Nothing else.

I don't think you quite understand that it was industrial western civilization that introduced disease and suffering to all of the nations, tribes, and people they colonized. The “large populations in Africa” wouldn't be so large if westerners hadn't come to the shores of Africa to profit off their people and make them PAY EUROPEANS to live on the land they were born on. Communities of poverty around the world are generally not to blame for the problems they must endure. I would even be so bold as to say that more people are starving in the world post industrial revolution by a great factor. You just can't see them because your eyes are closed.

Zizek is bypassing human existence for logic soundness. While it's true that momentary charity fixes only a symptom of suffering, he is confusing human happiness for a society's wealth and stability. The ability of consumers to hold the vendors they engage with accountable is analogous to familial bonds and encourages trust. The more we are aware of each other globally, the more we may live peacefully.

This is like listening to a team of communists argue with a team of nurses. Those who seek solution in political action diagnose inequality and propose solutions void of humanity and timeliness for the sake of humanity. Meanwhile the nurses run around in a battlefield dressing station cooks trying to heal the wounded and work with what they have. Is anyone actually wrong? Is anyone actually right? Society has proven itself to be a self-organizing system in which both the communists and nurses play a part. As for me, I'll take my paycheck and have a sandwich.

Has anyone read Zizek's book “Living in the End Times”? It is a weighty book, so I am glad that I was able to hear him speak about a single topic.
He seems to suggest that the solutions rests in the acknowledgement of the problem; admitting the problem changes the behaviors.
The NY Time recently feature a video about e-Waste, “The Sequel to 'The Story of Stuff' 2.0.”
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/10/a-sequel-to-the-story-of-stuff/?hpw
Currently electronic devices become outdated in about 18 month, forcing us the dispose of a product that is filled with highly toxic materials. “Extended Producer Responsibility”, would require the producer to take it back, and make recycling the waste part of the product's true cost.
This is true of other problems as well. Daycare is seen as a solution to the needs for a two income family. Why? What other animal leaves its young in the care of a surrogate? Developmental, babies need the individual care of the mother or parent. Instead of focusing this fact, we shift the attention away from the infants needs to the need for more income, which is often little more than the cost of the daycare.
Understand the problem correctly and there is multiple solutions, not merely one. This is why I believe Zizek refrains from suggesting any, and instead focus on clarifying the issues.

And yes, but here we still are. It still moves…

No one here has the slightest intention of forgetting or ignoring how terrible the age of imperialism was to Africa, China, India, Persia, the Caribbean islands and the sugar and cotton plantations of North and South America. These things happened, and we must live now live in a world in which they did. However, it is doubtful that without the massive excesses of the European colonists, the attempts to create independent republics and free states would have ever been made. And in cases where the west never developed abroad, it was often local movements who seized state power and attempted to modernize their country, often with similarly ruthless disregard for the feudal classes and local people.

To say this does not demand a reconciliation with the past, or a chance to “forgive imperialism”. It simply means that we recognize the world we live in, and make due of the tools we have to improve it. These now include growing access to power and communication technology, an awareness of our limited resources, massive improvements in agriculture, and the mass production of essential commodities.

In Marx's own writings on China and India, he describes the imperialists as the reluctant modernizers of these countries. While they wish to exploit them, they sow the seeds of their own obsolescence in the form of railroads, telegraph wires, and chain gangs, which organizes human beings into blocks of labor, and create the conditions in which they will recognize one another as reluctant equals and demand their freedom. To notice this is to notice the cunning of history.

I thought you were taking your paycheck and eating a sandwich? Zizek is somewhat utopian, in that he supports, and encourages others to support, a change in the structure of power relations in our society, although not along C20 state socialist lines.

Whether you agree with Zizek or not, changes in power relations is coming to the West as natural resources diminish and the usurious practices of banking prove unsustainable in a world where economic growth is no longer possible due to growing populations colliding with diminishing natural resources.

It matters not a whit if you like what I am saying or what Zizek is saying – their will be revolution, whether it is intellectually coherent or feral is the only question remaining.

Very nice animation article.it was very nice to this video..amazing work..

Wow. What a convoluted mess! Lol.

People buy organic because they don’t like pesticides or other chemicals on their fruits. They like them natural, that is their choice.

As for Starbucks…”semantic over investment of burden” blah blah blah. Big useless words from tenured professors with too much time on their hands. He says that you perform a series of ethical duties when buying Starbucks and it makes you feel warm. Who cares about feelings.
The purchases you make (in many companies) goes to dozens of great things INCLUDING payroll. The system works, and he has the audacity to say it is immoral to cure the “horrible evils” that result from private property by donating food/clothes/money to people down on there luck. There are plenty of people who have once needed charity, learned to make a decent living, eventually supported themselves, and returned the favor once they learned how to work a decent job or run their own business.

Slavoj Zizek is a world class loser and most people regard him as such. His ideas are outdated. My ten year old daughter could win a debate with him, and she is down syndrome!