Many of us scream and shout about Žižek (I have done so too – those comments about Trump in 2016… we could really have done without). Here, however, is an excellent podcast by Žižek which may be fantastically useful for me. I do not want to lose it and welcome any comments, so sharing here.
Some simple notes:
Žižek initially quotes from Freud’s Civilisation and Its Discontents (1930): “… a prosthetic God. When he puts on all his auxiliary organs he is truly magnificent; but those organs have not grown onto him and they still give him much trouble at times”. Another fragment that challenges my uneducated/unthinking cultural response to Freud. But can I really add yet another book to my pile of unread books waiting for some imaginary time when I might get round to them? (I buy it anyway, since it cost me 0.8p on Kindle.)
Žižek discusses Lacan’s objet a, as well as Lamella, a terror of the undead at the core of human subjectivity, and (related to) language as the organ of castration.
He explains “Barbarism is structured culturally”. It is not something that explodes through the surface. It is the surface (or the whole?) It is who we are.
We bang on about being afraid of AI taking over. In fact, we are desperate for it to do so.
Anti-intellectualism and antisemitism are arguably one and the same. (Aaaaah yes, I think to myself. This explains a great deal.)
Recommendation: The Great War and Modern Memory, Paul Fussell (1975).
Don’t accept the simplified and binary media narrative around multiculturalism vs. fundamentalism. Look for the real difference.
I do like this podcast and will need to listen again.
Image made by custom Lamella generator using the words compartmentalisation, replication, metabolism; ongoing project How to Make a Lamella 2023.