but hes right about a lot of things. kind of sad that this 72 year old is one of the most influential intellectual on the left today
edit: I think this post was taken in the wrong way. You should read Zizek, he does have good ideas. I call him a "grifter" not to shut down his ideas, but rather as an acknowledgement of his limitations.
If I could sticky this to the top, I would. Zizek is complex and if all you know about him is from memes and 6 minute clips on YouTube, you're gonna be missing so much critical context. The idea that he's a "grifter" is laughable.
His point on this initially rubbed me the wrong way but its technically correct if you think about it. In general identity within politics is only as revolutionary as the people who's identities are questioned or discriminated against.
Now if the identity wasn't discriminated against then the identity itself isn't inherently revolutionary on its own. Its the actions of society on those people that makes them revolutionary. Or something. I'm not that intelligent.
My question is why he felt the need to mention it but I dont really know the context of where the entire discussion started from so I can't draw a conclusion. It does feel like a kind of irrelevant point to make which is why i didn't like what he said.
I like the way he pronounces capitalism
Cahpitaliischm :zizek-preference:
you can talk about how he regurgitates the same ideas constantly, or critique some of his contrarian takes, but they are rather trivial and he's frankly a good intellectual by all means. most importantly, he's not interested in doing a revolution. he is content with writing books, giving lectures, etc. he has no political project that is actionable. of course, its totally understandable for a 72 year old to be in such a state.
most importantly, he’s not interested in doing a revolution.
is this supposed to be ironic?
the most aggravating thing is that he's very open about grifting, he himself said he's writing the same book for the past 20 years
sorry dude but this is a stupid take. He's a grifter because isn't launching a revolution? what the fuck are you doing then?
that's not what I said. I think you guys are taking "grifter" too seriously of an accusation. I'm simply saying that he does what he does not because of his commitment to a communist revolution, but rather to make a living and maintain his reputation. basically all academics are grifters in this sense. it doesn't mean that their ideas are inherently invalid, it is just a limitation to be acknowledged when engaging with them.
Not really a grift. At least, not on the level of Andrew Wakefield or Alex Jones; he has some interesting things to say, but as with many intellectuals (and artists, for that matter) he is only capable of talking about the same few things, because that's all he really knows.
Not that I know what those things are, because I've never read any of his books, but still
Those auto-generated websites are trash-tier and never accurate
I like the phraseology. I feel like I'm having a mild stroke...
"Joe Blow is famous actor and played dog character voice actor in much liked comedy movie Bow Wow. Hit movie franchise in addition many sequels followed and also that fans wanted from dog actor and prequel. J. J. Abrams and Blow in talks for discussion of time warp sci-fi series with title name Formulaic Seven."
So grifting means someone puts up a fake political persona in order to get cash. I don't think he makes enough money to count as a grifter. Maybe he's contrarian and puts things in a way to get the most attention, but I don't think it's fake. I think he really thinks communism means international cooperation of dem soc States.
Anyone insisting that socialists never abandon their authenticity for the sake of attention is insisting that we lose in the Information Age. Authenticity is just another brand because the way we judge authenticity is through brand relations. It would literally be difficult to match the level of depravity and deception of reputation manipulation that capitalists do, and yet we insist on our figureheads being “authentic” as if they were breadtubers we were trying to consume
Zizek is pretty good all things considered, just dont consume him through youtube videos or through the heaviest of his books. His articles or short pieces are usualy quite digestable (for zizek standards) and interesting. At least he , even now, has still new things to say and insights to give (many of which not easy to arive at) even if a lot is him throwing shit on the wall. Especially compared to other "figureheads" like uncle Noam who sadly hasnt tried to give a new insight or analysis in 20 years
For example Jacobin kinda sucks yeah, but his talk there last month was quite interesting. His historical views and anecdotes on the Russian revolution and that chaotic period and using that as base to make an argument of "return to Lenin" and his visionary and undogmatic "radical opportunism"(meant in the best possible way by zizek)
Agreed about his bad AES takes cause it seems he doesnt even read history/news from them beyond weird things he hears here and there. I have read most articles and interviews he has given about trans issues and people and while i dont think he is actualy transphobic ,him trying to overly phillosophise and hegel and lacan a subject like this into a knot makes his takes almost impossible descipher or be of value and they are much easier to be seen as reactionary, while again i dont think they foundementaly are (funnily enough some of his takes would fall in the most radical parts of trans liberation). But man, just dont even try on this
I realize I'm opening up a jar of worms by asking this - especially when you just explained how indecipherable a lot of these opinions are - but would you mind elaborating a little? I only have a passing knowledge of Zizek through memes and a few YouTube videos/internet debates.
Here is him on his own words about the subject. Goes of tangets and does some obtuse philosophy as he often does
https://zizek.uk/a-reply-to-my-critics-re-the-sexual-is-political/
First claim: “all Zizek is saying is that opposition to transgender people represents an anxiety which in his theory occurs because of sexual difference; i.e. transgender people disrupt the binaries we construct in order to place ourselves into discrete genders…” No, I’m not saying that at all: I don’t talk about the anxiety experienced by heterosexuals when they confront transgender people. My starting point is the anxiety transgender people themselves experience when they confront a forced choice where they don’t recognize themselves in any of its exclusive terms (“man,” “woman”). And then I generalize this anxiety as a feature of every sexual identification. It is not transgender people who disrupt the heterosexual gender binaries; these binaries are always-already disrupted by the antagonistic nature of sexual difference itself. This is the basic distinction on which I repeatedly insist and which is ignored by my critics: in the human-symbolic universe, sexual difference/antagonism is not he same as the difference of gender roles. Transgender people are not traumatic for heterosexuals because they pose a threat to the established binary of gender roles but because they bring out the antagonistic tension which is constitutive of sexuality. In short, transgender people are not simply marginals who disturb the hegemonic heterosexual gender norm; their message is universal, it concerns us all, they bring out the anxiety that underlies every sexual identification, its constructed/unstable character. This, of course, does not entail a cheap generalization which would cut the edge of the suffering of transgender people (“we all have anxieties and suffer in some way”); it is in transgender people that anxiety and antagonism, which otherwise remain mostly latent, break open. So, in the same way in which, for Marx, if one wants to understand the “normal” functioning of capitalism, one should take as a starting point economic crises, if one wants to analyze “normal” heterosexuality, one should begin with the anxieties that explode in transgender people.
My identification as “man” or “woman” is always a secondary reaction to the “castrative” anxiety of what I am. One—traditional—way to avoid this anxiety is to impose a heterosexual norm, which specifies the role of each gender, and the other is to advocate the overcoming of sexuality as such (the postgender position). As for the relationship between transgender and postgender, my point is simply that the universal fluidification of sexual identities unavoidably reaches its apogee in the cancellation of sex as such. In the same way as, for Marx, the only way to be a royalist in general is to be a republican, the only way to be sexualized in general is to be asexual. This ambiguity characterizes the conjunction of sexuality and freedom throughout the twentieth century: the more radical attempts to liberate sexuality get, the more they approximate their self-overcoming and turn into attempts to enact a liberation from sexuality
To recapitulate, not only do I fully support the struggle of transgender people against their legal segregation, but I am also deeply affected by their reports of their suffering, and I see them not as a marginal group, which should be “tolerated” but as a group whose message is radically universal: it concerns us all; it tells the truth about all of us as sexual beings. I differ from the predominant opinion in two interconnected points that concern theory: (1) I see the anxiety apropos sexual identities as a universal feature of human sexuality, not just as a specific effect of sexual exclusions and segregations, which is why one should not expect it to disappear with the progress of sexual desegregation; (2) I draw a strict distinction between sexual difference (as the antagonism constitutive of human sexuality) and the binary (or plurality) of genders. Both these points are, of course, totally misread or ignored by my critics.
Yeah I had to go back and read that line again. I like Zizek a lot but he could also be a cis philosopher that doesn't understand trans identity and if his Lacanian psychoanalytic terminology hurts more than helps, just throw it in the trash. I tied that back to his previous line about Marx:
So, in the same way in which, for Marx, if one wants to understand the “normal” functioning of capitalism, one should take as a starting point economic crises, if one wants to analyze “normal” heterosexuality, one should begin with the anxieties that explode in transgender people.
Bourgeoisie economists thought of capitalism as functioning normally during the "boom", but they thought of the sock market "bust" as an aberration, unrelated to the normal functioning of capitalism. In fact, the boom and bust are two sides of the same coin. During the boom, profits are soaring because capitalists think they can make more and more money with worse and worse investments until the snap back to reality. Marx was the first to show that the crash was also a constitutive part of capitalism. If you want to understand a system fully, you also have to understand the exceptions to the rules. To return to the matter at hand, when we talk about the way that our society fails trans people, it reveals the way that our way of thinking about sexuality as a whole is a failure, but it is easier to ignore that in heteronormative culture. It only becomes apparent at the point of crisis.
my point is simply that the universal fluidification of sexual identities unavoidably reaches its apogee in the cancellation of sex as such. In the same way as, for Marx, the only way to be a royalist in general is to be a republican, the only way to be sexualized in general is to be asexual.
The Marx reference is, I believe, a reference to the 18th Brumaire. Monarchists (who opposed voting and elections) turned out and voted for Napoleon III (to overthrow democracy). If they were true believers in monarchy, they would not have voted, and Napoleon wouldn't have won. Zizek is always interested in these sorts of contradictions. Young adults today are given more "permission" from society to engage in sexual freedom than any other time in history, but they are having less sex than their parents. He sees an anxiety that cannot be put it into words.
Zizek is adamant that sexual anxiety is never going away, and that it will always be used as cannon fodder for the reactionaries. Part of the reason sexual anxiety will never go away is because sexual desire comes from the pre-linguistic, lizard part of your brain and so it can't be expressed in definitions, language, or binaries like male and female. We cannot understand our sexuality. All attempts to understand it are pathological. It is pathological for conservatives who project their sexual anxieties on trans people. Unfortunately, it is also pathological for leftists who want to help as well.
We should do everything in our power to help our trans comrades, but in 15 years there will be another crisis of sexual anxiety. That's my take at least.
Maybe? I think his point more than sexual anxiety and sexual fantasy are two sides of the same coin and you can't have one without the other so you should learn to live with both. I think he is accusing post-gender theorists of heading down that path. But I haven't read enough gender critical theory to say (or volcel thought lol).
Was wondering why class reductionist types seem to love the guy. This partially explains it
For a while Google's translation AI would autocorrect schnif to Zizek, and I found that hilarious. I don't know if it still does, but YouTube comment autotranslatation does.
Is he still doing his “toxic masculinity is actually empowering because it makes strong women” weird thing?
It says a lot that his cancel culture shot sounds exactly like something Crowder would say
Idk I never liked him that much so I may be biased.
When did he say anything like that? I watched a lot of lectures and I feel like I would have remembered that. The only thing I remember him saying about toxic masculinity was something about Thatcher having to be more brutal than the male politicians in order to get support from the diehards.
Zizek tends to explain how things are more difficult and have multiple facets compared to the binary stance most people take on issues. I think that leads to a lot of misinterpretation, in combination with his absurd stream of consciousness writing and talking.
He wrote a whole damn oped about it but ok dude I don’t think I’m smarter then anyone if I was smart I’d stop commenting on leftist I fighting posts like a sane person.
Definitely a weird take, he doesn't seem to have understood what people mean by the word. But if you replace "toxic masculinity" with "stoicism" in the article it makes sense. This is where we see his grifting side, he wanted to write an article about a hot topic and get it published in the Independent and took a lukewarm take.
That is pretty much my view of him. Well said. Same can be said for a lot of his cancel culture rhetoric. Idk maybe it’s the language barrier, but it’s really weird seeing people here throw the baby out with the bath water for the slightest mistake certain figures make lbut then defending tooth and nail awful takes from other people like Zizek or god forbid Shoe on Head. It’s such a weird dichotomy.
Hell doesn’t he shir on Castro all the time? That alone would get other thinkers or influencers on the eternal shit list on this page
I think of him as a pipeline, he still has interesting things to say about ideology which we sort of take for granted by now. He gives you a bit of communism with a glass of anti-communism to swallow it down.
Problem is that pipeline goes both ways. Plenty of stupidpol weirdos say they got their start with him
There are better pipeline ways.
I was hoping the left would cancel him after Castro died, he basically said Castro accomplished nothing and should be forgotten. Fuck Zizek, he's your typical ivory tower academic, was never a fan. I'm no fan of Chomsky, but at least he puts himself out there against US imperialism and Palestine.
