Postmodernity

nomos

Administrator
the author of that article is either missing much of the point of the film, or disingenuously misconstruing zizek, deleuze and foucault. there's an anti-intellectual bent to the piece that undermines the discussion.

one of zizek's main arguments in the film is that the embrace of a postmodern condition in which everything is relative and there are no universals has led us to a state of detachment, irresponsibility and ironic remove which, in its aggregate, is far more destructive than any given totalitarian regime. this is not to uncritically embrace totalitarianism. he's making a comparison between late capitalism and soviet rule, but i don't think see him pining for the dictatorship that he was quite happy to see off at the turn of the 1990s. the point is that if we pretend that we are after ideology, that capitalism is inevitable, and that right and wrong are just matters of subjective, situated interpretation, then we are far worse off than a society bound to an enforced moral framework (e.g. "the father who says you will visit your grandmother because i said so."). i'm not a zizek expert, but that's my interpretation and (with some caveats around his attachment to psychoanalysis and stalin) i'd largely agree.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
So Zizek is actually criticising postmodernism, then? Is he a postmodernist himself? Is it a prerequisite of being a postmodernist that you have to hate postmodernism? Jesus, I give up...

one of zizek's main arguments in the film is that the embrace of a postmodern condition in which everything is relative and there are no universals has led us to a state of detachment, irresponsibility and ironic remove which, in its aggregate, is far more destructive than any given totalitarian regime.
This is clearly utter nonsense. A "sense of detachment" vs. gas chambers and gulags, ooh, tricky one...
he's making a comparison between late capitalism and soviet rule,
Why? What's the point? They're clearly completely different!
 
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Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Gah, the problem with that hoax is that it's just *too* good!
I feel a bit :eek: now.
Still, you've got to :D, haven't you?

Edit: Sokal is currently a professor at my university. I should go and congratulate him some time...
 
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Guybrush

Dittohead
It’s pretty good, but I think he could have made it even more impenetrable. As it is, you can almost sense that there is something queer about it — which of course makes the editors’ decision to publish it even more embarrassing.
 

Gavin

booty bass intellectual
This is clearly utter nonsense. A "sense of detachment" vs. gas chambers and gulags, ooh, tricky one...

There is no "vs": the detachment from politics is how populations countenance war crimes, atrocities, "gas chambers and gulags."

There's extensive blogosphere response to the Hari piece, which is guilty of using the po-mo strawman in a way Zizek's work is not (for one, Zizek bothers to define the aspects of postmodernism he thinks are destructive).

http://antigram.blogspot.com/2006/11/three-of-stupidest-books-reviews-you.html

http://splinteredsunrise.wordpress....at-man-with-the-funny-accent-is-confusing-me/
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Look, let's leave aside the question of whether Zizek is or isn't a postmodernist (and the wider question of what postmodernism even is, which seems to be a question so difficult, even the 'Greatest Living Philostopher Known to Mankind' - Alex Callinicos, whoever s/he is - can't answer it) for a moment. Does or does not Zizek actively eulogize Soviet totalitarianism? Because unless Hari is bare-facedly lying, it certainly seems the case that he does. Not to mention giving mad props to, er, Mussolini. And if that's the case, he's an utter imbecile and I'm not going to waste any more time reading about him.
 
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nomos

Administrator
So Zizek is actually criticising postmodernism, then? Is he a postmodernist himself? Is it a prerequisite of being a postmodernist that you have to hate postmodernism? Jesus, I give up...

Why? What's the point? They're clearly completely different!

He is criticising a condition which is commonly called postmodernity or late-capitalism. He's not a post-modernist per se, because he's not championing that which contributes to said condition, but rather critiquing postmodernity from within and arguing (via reference to modernist political movements and forms of governance) for a return to firm political positions and the belief that there are alternatives to capitalism. Part of this move involves an effort to de-naturalize the concept of democracy which is bandied about as an utterly transparent synonym for universal egalitarianism or, simply, "good" (with "evil" summing up everything else) when, in fact, it is an ideological position that is inherently linked to global capitalism.

This is clearly utter nonsense. A "sense of detachment" vs. gas chambers and gulags, ooh, tricky one...
I'm going to throw the "nonsense" ball back in your court on this one.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
...for a return to firm political positions and the belief that there are alternatives to capitalism...

Such as, ooh, Nazism, Stalinism and Maoism? They're pretty damn 'firm', are they not?

Does he seriously believe big bad ol' capitalism is really so awful that those sorts of ideologies are preferable?
 

nomos

Administrator
not going to take the bait mr tea.

it's worth watching that film, though. i think it can be found online quite easily.
 

Gavin

booty bass intellectual
This bizarre sense of moral outrage you feel for a film you haven't seen is telling, Mr. Tea. For what it's worth, I don't recall Stalin or Mussolini or Nazis coming up in the film -- these are out-of-context accusations cobbled together and wildly thrown about by the obviously flailing Hari.
 

gek-opel

entered apprentice
Look, let's leave aside the question of whether Zizek is or isn't a postmodernist (and the wider question of what postmodernism even is, which seems to be a question so difficult, even the 'Greatest Living Philostopher Known to Mankind' - Alex Callinicos, whoever s/he is - can't answer it) for a moment. Does or does not Zizek actively eulogize Soviet totalitarianism? Because unless Hari is bare-facedly lying, it certainly seems the case that he does. Not to mention giving mad props to, er, Mussolini. And if that's the case, he's an utter imbecile and I'm not going to waste any more time reading about him.

Zizek is avowedly anti-postmodernist. He also appears (or certainly recently) to have fallen heavily under the influence of Alain Badiou, who is totally anti-postmodernist. Actually Badiou is probably more worthy of discussion than Zizek as the former is hardly known for his levity, whereas Zizek appears at times to be either taking the piss in a slightly inadvisable fashion (as an in-joke to those in the know perhaps) or otherwise is talking in very specific terms which taken out of context are totally meaningless. See this site: http://parodycentrum.wordpress.com/ for endless informed anti-Zizek propaganda (rather than Johann Hari's dunderheaded shite: Mr Tea, imagine someone flicking thru an incredibly complex science text, I dunno, maybe related to string theory, then deciding "its all nonsense" tossing it aside, and instead lazily taking random quotes from interviews with the scientist who wrote it out of context from a New Yorker piece. Cos that's essentially exactly what Hari has done here with continental philosophy...)

Badiou of course comes out of a French post-Maoist tradition. And he states quite clearly (or quite clearly to me at least) positions against democracy (see here: http://www.16beavergroup.org/mtarchive/archives/000642.php) and an anti-humanist rejection of universal human rights (see his book "Ethics", specifically the first segment). But he argues these positions from inside his theoretical construct. He does what good philosophers ought to do, and rather than start out with an a priori conclusion (ie- what "common sense" tells us) and craft his system to support such conclusions, he instead builds from ontological (and in his case post-Cantorian post-Cohen set-theoretical mathematics) towards them. Tho of course someone like Hari would have no truck with that, preferring opinion journalism which does nothing but re-inforce the status quo.
 

mixed_biscuits

_________________________
I took Continental Philosophy at grad level and, yes, there's a lot of drivel out there.

The cooler cats in the department rightfully avoided the wafflesome moderns and were down with grade-A dudes like Kant and Kierkegaard.

And so, my contribution to this philosophical debate draws to an untimely close. :cool:
 

dHarry

Well-known member
I just read this article on the new documentary about Zizek, it's fucking hilarious:
http://www.newstatesman.com/200704300031

"When Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari say we should all become schizophrenic, when the gay Michel Foucault embraces the murderously homophobic Ayatollah Khomeini, when Zizek suggests a return to Leninist terror - these very positions are admissions that postmodernism is merely an unserious confection by intellectuals."

The Hari piece is indeed hilarious, but as hack journalism at its worst. I'm sure Zizek would find it so, if he actually recognised the ludicrous caricature. Just to add another nail to Nomos and Gek's and firmly shut this coffin, I'll flesh out just one of Hari's (mis)quotes: "I love Mussolini." The actual quote is:

"You know, the democrats in 1925 accused Mussolini: 'You want to rule Italy, but you don't have any program.' You know what was his answer? 'We do have a program: our program is to rule Italy at any price.' I love Mussolini--a great guy, sadly seduced later by Hitler."
(from http://www.rebeccamead.com/2003/2003_05_05_art_marx.htm)

Not uncontroversial obviously, but hardly the same thing, is it? And typical of his liberal-baiting jocular style.

Foucault did support the Iranian Islamist revolt which overthrew the Shah (and he visited Iran at the time of the revolution), and (naively and/or foolishly?) hoped that the new Islamist state could prove to be a viable alternative to capitalism, to which he was bitterly opposed, but he later recanted when he saw how badly the new state turned out (and wrote a letter to Khomeini's president to plead for the humane treatment of prisoners from the old regime).

That Deleuze and Guattari claim is just nonsense.
 
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Slothrop

Tight but Polite
Part of this move involves an effort to de-naturalize the concept of democracy which is bandied about as an utterly transparent synonym for universal egalitarianism or, simply, "good" (with "evil" summing up everything else) when, in fact, it is an ideological position that is inherently linked to global capitalism.
When people say 'democracy' in this sense, are they using it in the general sense, ie people having a say in what happens to them, or are they using it in a more specific sense to mean the sort of implementation of democracy that we have in Britain, America, Germany, France, India, Japan and so on?
 

vimothy

yurp
the point is that if we pretend that we are after ideology, that capitalism is inevitable, and that right and wrong are just matters of subjective, situated interpretation, then we are far worse off than a society bound to an enforced moral framework (e.g. "the father who says you will visit your grandmother because i said so."). i'm not a zizek expert, but that's my interpretation and (with some caveats around his attachment to psychoanalysis and stalin) i'd largely agree.

Is that not a tad reactionary, the idea that an authoritarian moral framework is at least better than non at all (i.e. better than a subjective moral framework)?

"You know, the democrats in 1925 accused Mussolini: 'You want to rule Italy, but you don't have any program.' You know what was his answer? 'We do have a program: our program is to rule Italy at any price.' I love Mussolini--a great guy, sadly seduced later by Hitler."
(from http://www.rebeccamead.com/2003/2003_05_05_art_marx.htm)

Not uncontroversial obviously, but hardly the same thing, is it? And typical of his liberal-baiting jocular style.

Doesn't seem that different, to be honest. He's still describing Mussolini as a "great guy". Of course, Mussolini was much admired at the time, so Zizek is probably in good company (and recognises an ideological fellow, no doubt), but still...

[BTW, Mussolini was not "seduced" by Hitler. Despite Hitler's admiration, Mussolini did not reciprocate and described him as a "barbarian, a criminal and a pederast". He joined Hitler only after France had collapsed and German victory seemed inevitable. Mussolini was simply being pragmatic.]
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
OK, so I'm getting this impression of Zizek through Hari, so it's someone else's interpretation of his ideas.
But all the same, it seems that Zizek is making the positive statement that he condones, even admires, totalitarian regimes such as Mussolini's Italy and the USSR. He certainly seems to hate democracy. "Mussolini was a great guy" is not a misquote, it's a quote.

So is this or is this not the case? If it's not, why is Hari risking his reputation as a journalist (and presumably making himself vulnerable to litigation!) by lying? If it is, then I'm afraid the guy's values and worldview are so far removed from anything I could ever call sane that, for me, he remains the ranting nutter rather than someone worth listening to.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Is that not a tad reactionary, the idea that an authoritarian moral framework is at least better than non at all (i.e. better than a subjective moral framework)?

It certainly sounds like this, doesn't it? That it's better to be wicked but strong, than well-meaning but wishy-washy...

To be fair, I'm certainly no fan of relativism either, but that doesn't mean Fascism or Communism are better than liberal democracy just because have an 'authoritarian moral framework'.
 
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