The Phenomenal Slavoj Zizek

john eden

male pale and stale
It depends what the aim is.

Some people think that making a small individual difference to climate change is pissing in the wind because ultimately what has to change is the economic system. Others think that it is precisely that incremental beavering away which can create a culture where it becomes the norm or is at least much higher on the agenda.

It is undeniable though that the green movement in the UK has been a lightning rod for middle class puritans who like to look down their noses at poorer people who are less "enlightened" and more "materialistic".
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
It is undeniable though that the green movement in the UK has been a lightning rod for middle class puritans who like to look down their noses at poorer people who are less "enlightened" and more "materialistic".

Things is, though, stuff like changing to energy-efficient bulbs actually *saves* you money. Sure, they cost a few quid to start with, but they last forever and pay for themselves in a few months in reduced energy bills.

I think a lot of people in this country - and, I have to say, a lot of poor(er)/working class/unemployed people - seem to be pretty crap at considering the long-term consequences of short-term expenditure. Look at the mess so many people are in with credit card debt, hire purchase, 0% finance and all the rest - in fact it's likely the massive unchecked growth of these industries in recent years has brought this about this situation. Sp like a lot of things, it's a case of a small initial investment of cash or effort to reap a long-term benefit.
 

john eden

male pale and stale
Perhaps but you have to factor in the huge industries which have sprung up to encourage people to consume vast quantities of crap and get into debt.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Perhaps but you have to factor in the huge industries which have sprung up to encourage people to consume vast quantities of crap and get into debt.

Yeah yeah, that's what I meant by the unchecked growth of companies whose purpose is to encourage people to piss their money away and then pay it back twice a few years down the line. It's a bad situation and it should be more tightly regulated, but at the same time I think people ought to take more responsibility over their own finances. If you can't afford something, you probably shouldn't buy it.
 

john eden

male pale and stale
Our Great Economy relies on a credit/housing bubble, tho.

You're not trying to suggest that we get rid of all this Amazing Financial Growth that has made everyone middle class recently are you?
 

josef k.

Dangerous Mystagogue
Lightbulbs

I'm getting really fed up with the self-satisfied doom-mongering of people who've 'seen through it all' and are seemingly happy for the whole world to go to hell because it's our just deserts for being so profligate and consumerist.

I agree with this - and think that there is a sense in which Zizek gives to his readers the same thing that he says that ecology gives to its advocates; this is, the sense that they are resisting, that they are doing something, and so on... so that they can then look down there noses at the people earnestly buying energy saving light bulbs, for example...
 
What using energy efficient lightbulbs gives people is the same as what reading Zizek gives people though?

i'm imagining an "if" after the first what here (right?) therefore making a similar point to JK's above...and to some extent this is a valid criticism, though it can be applied to most theoreticians. However i would say that Zizek seems to me too provocative and scattergun to induce a sense of comfort. he might not offer solutions but he might also encourage people to go and investigate issues for themselves

Iso that they can then look down there noses at the people earnestly buying energy saving light bulbs, for example...

no one looks down their noses on the act itself. it's something which in a best case scenario would be normative. it's the insidious marketing and context that allows people to think they are therefore "doing their bit". as i said a pacifier of sorts. Also

It is undeniable though that the green movement in the UK has been a lightning rod for middle class puritans who like to look down their noses at poorer people who are less "enlightened" and more "materialistic".

this shit right here^^^
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
"I think a lot of people in this country - and, I have to say, a lot of poor(er)/working class/unemployed people - seem to be pretty crap at considering the long-term consequences of short-term expenditure."
Yeah, but if you can't afford to make the short term outlay for the long term saving then it's not that easy. It's obviously better value to buy a year long bus pass but there are lots of Londoners who can't afford that so they get fifty-four weekly ones instead - it's not that they don't realise that it's more expensive or that they are stupid or something, it's just that in any given paypacket they won't have the necessary x hundred pounds left over to buy the year pass.
 

vimothy

yurp
Our Great Economy relies on a credit/housing bubble, tho.

You're not trying to suggest that we get rid of all this Amazing Financial Growth that has made everyone middle class recently are you?

Actually, asset bubbles rely on monetary policy (they don't simply spring from "Our Great Economy"), and the monetary policy that encourages bubbles (intead of, say, more unemployment) is generally regarded as leftist/liberal/progressive and the do-nothing liquidationists (a la Mellon) are generally thought of as being very conservative. 'Kay?
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Yeah, but if you can't afford to make the short term outlay for the long term saving then it's not that easy. It's obviously better value to buy a year long bus pass but there are lots of Londoners who can't afford that so they get fifty-four weekly ones instead - it's not that they don't realise that it's more expensive or that they are stupid or something, it's just that in any given paypacket they won't have the necessary x hundred pounds left over to buy the year pass.

Fair enough, but these bulbs cost like a fiver each. That's a packet of fags, or not quite two (London) pints. And stuff like recycling doesn't cost anything, all it requires is a (very small) amount of effort.

Edit: got to pity these poor working class types who don't even know how many weeks there are in a year... ;)
 

noel emits

a wonderful wooden reason
Sneering at people putting principles into action is sheer hipsterism is it not? The cry of the culturally castrated lashing out at those who still have the balls to believe. ;) That notion that individuals can not make a difference and the accompanying capitulating disavowal of responsibility are two of the most pernicious trendy lies going around right now. Just because what you can do might appear quite meagre on the face of it doesn't mean you should not do it. On the contrary it means it's easy! So why not do it! Afraid you might feel pacified? Or is it the sense that you might then be granting admission to a larger world of responsibility?. But regardless of an action's immediate visible efficacy, the gesture is important in and of itself, and also crucially in its intent, I would argue. Both as reproducible 'revolutionary' act, and also as a motion towards bringing awareness of an issue closer to everyday consciousness. Something those of us in the relatively comfortable West can always do with.

Economic change is absolutely key ultimately, but we can achieve some of the aims of that change now, i.e. living differently as a society and with our environment. It has to start somewhere. It make sense to live by example, even if just for yourself.

I think also the notion of this self-deluding middle-class green contingent for whom ecological issues are a pacifying crutch is a bit of a myth. And a nice comforting hipper-than-thou one at that, rather like some others I could mention. There are of course some blatant contradictions in people's actions, but is it down to venal hypocrisy or is it more about ignorance and the constraints of circumstance? I dunno, seems churlish to knock people for trying, since when was that a crime?

So is Zizek's work very much philosophy as hipsterism? I do enjoy (;)) his stuff quite a bit - he hits on some right good ideas, and is more often than not entertaining and provocative, but his main project actually lies in attempting to be 'ahead of the game' in his iconoclastic reversals does it not? I think that actually works though, it serves a purpose, at least in concert and contrast with other commentators.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Great post, noel.

I think also some of the opposition to the DIY green stuff comes from the fact that it can involve buying things - even if it's just buying different things from what you'd otherwise buy, like efficient vs. normal bulbs or local market vs. supermarket veg - and this can trigger a reflex anti-consumerism in some leftists, because Nothing Good Can Ever Come From Buying Stuff. That and, as you hint at, a k-punkish loathing for all things *spit* middle-class.
 
this seems to have gone a bit awry. i don't think anyone has suggested that being ecologically conscious is a bad thing. i certainly don't think there's any reason to be making statements like:

I think also some of the opposition to the DIY green stuff

as it isn't like there's significant opposition of any kind to "diy green stuff". everyone still has their personal freedoms here no matter what is or isn't said.

it isn't about the acts themselves, which is the way the discussion here has gone, but the way they are framed, the surrounding discourse. Noel it may be your opinion that green politics as a pacifier is a myth, but i'm saying i've seen it in direct action amongst people i know. in such cases it can be seen as part of the acceptance of capitalism as an omnipresent "background noise" that cannot be opposed and rather has to be accepted whilst avoiding its power dynamic, to paraphrase the lecture (at two removes). most of the politically conscious people i know have drifted that way and i miss the idealism they used to have, as , well, idealistic as it may have been.

As for John Eden's point, i came across a recent council supported initiative to show people around local eco-homes- places for the most part 80%+ of the population could not afford to live in. the glossy accompanying literature with its litany of wall heating and solar panels was virtually pornographic and i don't think had anything to do with being socially conscious or a desire to make the world a better place.

also might it be possible to have a conversation on here allowing for the colloquial, humour etc. without accusations of elitism, sneering or the dreaded h-word coming into play? this doesn't have to be about the supposed or inferred personalities of the posters, there's more important stuff to talk about than that
 
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IdleRich

IdleRich
"I agree with this - and think that there is a sense in which Zizek gives to his readers the same thing that he says that ecology gives to its advocates; this is, the sense that they are resisting, that they are doing something, and so on... so that they can then look down there noses at the people earnestly buying energy saving light bulbs, for example..."
Strong support for this viewpoint here

"The conservatives are very materialistic and they dress this up with their new greenness but it's just a new form of consumerism. All these things are status symbols, like Liz Hurley's Gloucester Old Spot pigs."
from Rachel "sister of Boris" Johnson in a puff piece for her new book, the sequel to Notting Hell - Shire Hell.

"in such cases it can be seen as part of the acceptance of capitalism as an omnipresent "background noise" that cannot be opposed and rather has to be accepted whilst avoiding its power dynamic"
What about the people who thoroughly embrace capitalism and think it's the best system and who choose to buy energy efficient lightbulbs? What I mean is, just because someone is "green" and isn't anti-capitalist it doesn't mean that they abandoned their principles - maybe they never had those principles in the first place and hold political opinions of their own that just happen to disagree with yours.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
What about the people who thoroughly embrace capitalism and think it's the best system and who choose to buy energy efficient lightbulbs? What I mean is, just because someone is "green" and isn't anti-capitalist it doesn't mean that they abandoned their principles - maybe they never had those principles in the first place and hold political opinions of their own that just happen to disagree with yours.

Indeed, there's nothing inherently green about socialism, or inherently socialistic about being green - see the USSR's environmental record, passim. In fact there's always been a (usually fairly fringe, admittedly) environmentalist element on the right, and even the far right - though this has of course tended to be overshadowed by concerns in big industry.
 

josef k.

Dangerous Mystagogue
What about the people who thoroughly embrace capitalism and think it's the best system and who choose to buy energy efficient lightbulbs?

Or indeed, the people who thoroughly embrace capitalism and don't give a shit about energy saving lightbulbs, or indeed, anything, besides making money...
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Or indeed, the people who thoroughly embrace capitalism and don't give a shit about energy saving lightbulbs, or indeed, anything, besides making money...

Well once our hypothetical capitalist has made lots of money, how does he choose to spend it? Is he, Ebeneezer Scrooge-style, as thrifty as possible, valuing only the number of noughts in his bank statement? Because in that case, he'd definitely buy energy-saving bulbs, because they save you money in the long run.
Or might he buy normal bulbs just to show off how little he cares about saving a few quid here or there, because it makes no difference to him? Or does he think the electricity company is a deserving cause and should get as much money as possible? Or is he, in fact, a major shareholder in an electricity company?
Sorry, rambling a bit here...
 

josef k.

Dangerous Mystagogue
Indeed... all of which raises the question:

How important is ideology anyway?

Are we sure that it's real?
 
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