Postmodernity

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
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'.
I'm kind of guessing based on a fairly cursory reading of that Badiou article (about which I'll probably mither people for some clarifications later) that what he wants isn't either centalized democracy or totalitarianism, but if someone somewhere is trying or advocating totalitarianism, it means the question of whether or not some form of centralized democracy is the only sensible sort of political system (sorry, the only sensible way for the world to be organized, afaict he doesn't classify what he's interested in as a political system) is still up for grabs.

That's probably a massive oversimplification or plain wrong, so hopefully someone who knows better than me can clarify...
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I wouldn't say democracy as it is currently practised in Britain, or any other particular country, is the ideal political system, but that doesn't mean democracy as a concept has 'failed' and that it should be abandoned, with some other (by definition undemocratic) system sought instead.

The issue of how desirable central democracy is, is something else, though. It's interesting to contrast the case of Britain to, say, the US, where states have a large degree of autonomy, especially when it comes to law-making, or Switzerland, which is so devolved (not that it was ever 'evolved' in the first place) as to be effectively a confederation of semi-independent states with a rather nominal central government, and a political system that takes participational democracy to almost ridiculous heights (voting in Switzerland is not so much a means of electing politicians as a national sport).
 

swears

preppy-kei
postmodernism.gif
 

Immryr

Well-known member
mr tea, you seem to like taking up positions against things you either havent read or seen quite alot. it kind of reminds me of all those infuriated people who wrote to the bbc to complain about jerry springer the musical, without ever having seen it.

quite ridiculous.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Well maybe every person who's ever written or said anything about Zizek has got completely the wrong end of the stick, and misrepresented everything he actually thinks. Maybe. But if that's the case, doesn't it say something about him anyway? People - many of whom rate him highly - have repeatedly quoted him on here or made references to his ideas (such as they are), so I don't think I'm unqualified to have an opinion on him.

I'll freely admit that I'm prejudiced against the guy from the outset because his greatest champion on this forum is probably the most unlikeable wanker I've ever (not) met.
 
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swears

preppy-kei
ok, i have some questions

Isn't Postmodernism just a continuation of Modernism anyway?

Haven't things always been a mix of influences but we've only become hyper-aware of this recently?

Hasn't this "state of detachment" always existed? Did your average medieval serf or 19th century factory worker feel anymore sympathy for the suffering of others than we feel now? From what I've read on the Victorian era, nobody gave a fuck.

And don't we tend to overrate the "moderns" (Great painters, architects of the 20th century) because they made such huge claims for themselves?

All I know is that the term seems overused, as Robert Hughes said it's a "ticky-tack word".
 

Guybrush

Dittohead
"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."
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.]

The thing is that the quotation above is clearly a (rather funny) joke, which is funny precisely because it’s told in such a deadpan manner. There’s just no way to tell if it’s deadly serious or not — unless, of course, you are familiar with his writings.
 

swears

preppy-kei
But that’s because postmodernism is everywhere. Your 80s retro trend? PoMo. Remakes of classic films? PoMo. And so on.

So was the Victorian craze for classical (Greek/Roman) style postmodern?
Was the 1930s nostalgia for the "gay nineties" postmodern?
 

Guybrush

Dittohead
So was the Victorian craze for classical (Greek/Roman) style postmodern?
Was the 1930s nostalgia for the "gay nineties" postmodern?

I don’t know enough about postmodernism to comment on those with any certainty, but recycling, reshuffling and recontextualisation are mainstays of PoMo culture, from what I gather.
 

vimothy

yurp
The thing is that the quotation above is clearly a (rather funny) joke, which is funny precisely because it’s told in such a deadpan manner. There’s just no way to tell if it’s deadly serious or not — unless, of course, you are familiar with his writings.

One of the reasons I like Zizek is that he is such a comic character. He's very well suited to television and clearly is made for the medium of film. I don't think though that it's unreasonable to ascribe anti-democratic sentiments to him (and Badiou), as they have both been fairly explicit about their feelings. "Democracy" is the unfair liberal defense against more radical politics, and the figure of Lenin looms large for both philosophers (or so it seems to me).

There's mountains of fun (I don't take it too seriously, personally) Zizek stuff at lacan.com

And is it meant to be fun? I don't know, it certainly seems pretty facetious.

Have you read Did Someone Say Totalitarianism? It's one of these cultural critics series books that's always on point of sale displays in my local Blackwells. Here's the synopsis from Amazon:

Totalitarianism, as an ideological notion, has always had a precise strategic function: to guarantee the liberal-democratic hegemony by dismissing the Leftist critique of liberal democracy as the obverse, the twin, of the Rightist Fascist dictatorships. Instead of providing yet another systematic exposition of the history of this notion, Zizek 's book addresses totalitarianism in a Wittgensteinian way, as a cobweb of family resemblances. He concludes that the devil lies not so much in the detail of what constitutes totalitarianism but in what enables the very designation totalitarian, the liberal-democratic consensus itself.​
 

Gavin

booty bass intellectual
So was the Victorian craze for classical (Greek/Roman) style postmodern?
Was the 1930s nostalgia for the "gay nineties" postmodern?

Someone else probably knows more about architecture than I do, but I think there's a difference in philosophy... Classical culture was presumed to be the origin of the "civilized" culture of the Victorians; therefore, the reimplementation of classical themes works to reaffirm this metanarrative, to establish continuity with a coherent linear past. Which is different from the self-conscious bricolage of architectural styles in postmodern architecture, which serves to dismantle and confuse narratives either as a critique or as a free play of jouissance, liberated from any kind of idea of continual progress.

Mr. Tea, if you care to bother, many (hundreds?) of Zizek's essays are available online.
 

Guybrush

Dittohead
One of the reasons I like Zizek ...

Fair points. Maybe he is antagonistic towards democracy, but, from what I can tell, he seems more likely to be critical of democracy. Which is an easy thing to be. Actually, everyone should be aware of democracy’s great drawbacks (here’s two: the short-sightedness that comes with the political leaders’ having to adjust their policies so that they get re-elected every four years or so; unpopular [but urgent] decisions’ sometimes being hard to make as the masses don’t like them). Anyway, as I have mentioned before, I think Žižek’s teachings first and foremost should be considered thought-provoking — in the very best sense of the word. Plus he’s a great writer and even better lecturer.
 

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
Someone else probably knows more about architecture than I do, but I think there's a difference in philosophy... Classical culture was presumed to be the origin of the "civilized" culture of the Victorians; therefore, the reimplementation of classical themes works to reaffirm this metanarrative, to establish continuity with a coherent linear past. Which is different from the self-conscious bricolage of architectural styles in postmodern architecture, which serves to dismantle and confuse narratives either as a critique or as a free play of jouissance, liberated from any kind of idea of continual progress.
So is it a question of whether you're reviving things because you want to reaffirm their meaning and significance or whether you're doing it becuase you want to play with their aesthetics without worrying about the meaning or significance? Or is that oversimplifying / wrong?
 

vimothy

yurp
It’s appropriate, then, to recognise the tragedy of the October Revolution: both its unique emancipatory potential and the historical necessity of its Stalinist outcome. We should have the honesty to acknowledge that the Stalinist purges were in a way more ‘irrational’ than the Fascist violence: its excess is an unmistakable sign that, in contrast to Fascism, Stalinism was a case of an authentic revolution perverted.

(....)

It is here that one has to make a choice. The ‘pure’ liberal attitude towards Leftist and Rightist ‘totalitarianism’ – that they are both bad, based on the intolerance of political and other differences, the rejection of democratic and humanist values etc – is a priori false. It is necessary to take sides and proclaim Fascism fundamentally ‘worse’ than Communism. The alternative, the notion that it is even possible to compare rationally the two totalitarianisms, tends to produce the conclusion – explicit or implicit – that Fascism was the lesser evil, an understandable reaction to the Communist threat. When, in September 2003, Silvio Berlusconi provoked a violent outcry with his observation that Mussolini, unlike Hitler, Stalin or Saddam Hussein, never killed anyone, the true scandal was that, far from being an expression of Berlusconi’s idiosyncrasy, his statement was part of an ongoing project to change the terms of a postwar European identity hitherto based on anti-Fascist unity.

The Two Totalitarianisms, Zizek

- http://www.lrb.co.uk/v27/n06/zize01_.html
 

vimothy

yurp
Fair points. Maybe he is antagonistic towards democracy, but, from what I can tell, he seems more likely to be critical of democracy. Which is an easy thing to be. Actually, everyone should be aware of democracy’s great drawbacks (here’s two: the short-sightedness that comes with the political leaders’ having to adjust their policies so that they get re-elected every four years or so; unpopular [but urgent] decisions’ sometimes being hard to make as the masses don’t like them). Anyway, as I have mentioned before, I think Žižek’s teachings first and foremost should be considered thought-provoking — in the very best sense of the word. Plus he’s a great writer and even better lecturer.

Agree with your points regarding critiquing democracy, but don't feel that Zizek is a great exponent of this. He's not writing political science, he's writing about the Humanities, and that's the context I take him in. He's a good film critic, but a bad political critic. He's an ok writer (at times), but I agree absolutley that he's a fantastic speaker and lecturer.
 
N

nomadologist

Guest
you and i must have severely different criteria for determining what's "good", guybrush
 
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