[Glice]

I think you get precisely that problem with anyone who's heavily entrenched in Lacan. Relatedly, there's someone I know who was told by their lecturer to 'grow some balls' when reading Derrida. The points in each are diffuse and complex, and I think it's dangerous to reduce specifically these philosophers to bite-sized forum post-length. Which obviously leaves ample room for detractors to say there's no content.

I don't think it makes Lacan any more or less meaningful than Wittgenstein just because you can summarise Wittgenstein in a paragraph or so. Wittgenstein has one project, whereas Lacan (and post-Lacanians such as Zizek) deal with a more diffuse array of popular culture, psychoanalysis, film theory, leftist politics, the frissions of Maxism and so on. Personally, the fact that Zizek can write just as comfortably on CNN's rendition of 9/11 as he can Althusarrian ethics makes him a fascinating character; and while I'd never say that diversity was the most important capacity of a philosopher, it's certainly something that's largely absent in the 'mainstream' of philosophy.

Edit: Wittgenstein has, obviously, precisely 2 projects. But we all ignore the first one, amirite?

[ni'k]

 

this just arrived today so everything else has to go on hold

[The Earl Of Slander]

 

Well I say I'm reading it. I certainly was up until I started uni about 8 weeks ago, and loving it. Was like half way through, and thinking it might be a candidate for the best novel ever written if it pulled off its promise. Then however uni hit, and I haven't read a word since due to a shitstorm of busy. Hopefully I'll pick up again and finish it over the holidays though...

[chicka]

Naked Lunch - thanks for the pointers. Very visual

[ni'k]

cities of the red night is available on amazon.uk for 39p!

you should read that one next.

if your new to bhurroughs citites is the best starting point.

[Keeping It Simple]

 

[demonrail666]

Originally Posted by ni'k

and this one i've read 10 times online already, but needed a real life copy - they should hand this out on the street instead of bibles

 

I got that the other day. I haven't started it yet but from the reviews it seems pretty good. I was a bit nervous ordering it off amazon though, incase it flagged me as some kind of combat trouser wearing terrorist.

[demonrail666]

Picking up on the discussion about Zizek, did anyone catch this interview on the BBC news the other night?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_cuMxR64t0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_ce8L_AiA8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2calhnMCMvw

Love him or loathe him, this really is solid tv gold

[ni'k]

Originally Posted by demonrail666

I got that the other day. I haven't started it yet but from the reviews it seems pretty good. I was a bit nervous ordering it off amazon though, incase it flagged me as some kind of combat trouser wearing terrorist.

that's what they want you to think!

a surveillance state works both ways.
they don't have the time/energy/resources to successfully flag/monitor/track you but they want you to think that they do so you will monitor your behaviour accordingly. there is an author who has dealt with this but i can't remember his name.

the real control lies in your own imaginary hallucination of what control is.

BUT HEY, IN CASE YOU CIA//MI5/MOSSAD GUYS ARE ACTUALLY READING THIS THEN I, NI'K AM THE REAL TERRORIST MASTERMIND YOU HAVE BEEN LOOKING FOR ALL ALONG. THAT I WOULD ADMIT THIS ON A PUBLIC FORUM ONLY PROVES THAT I AM WEAVING A COMPLEX WEB OF DOUBLE BLUFFS, FALSE APPEARANCES, DIVERSIONS AND DISTRACTIONS. WHEN THE TIME IS NIGH AND OPERATION ******* COMES TO PASS, YOUR DEMISE WILL BE IMMINENT.

[ni'k]

Originally Posted by demonrail666

Picking up on the discussion about Zizek, did anyone catch this interview on the BBC news the other night?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_cuMxR64t0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_ce8L_AiA8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2calhnMCMvw

Love him or loathe him, this really is solid tv gold

there was also a hardtalk interview with badiou. this kind of stuff is exactly what my license fee that i don't pay should go towards. well, not really since all the fancy graphics/music/studio stuff is a waste of cash. but the actual interview was good, in that zizek came across very well and sackur's questions highlighted the conservatism of blind faith in liberal paraliamentarianism. his resistance was useful to see because it highlighted, to me at least, how entrenched emotionally we are in certain values, and how we instantly equate anything outside of them as immoral totalitarian facism.

as i've been posting i've been listening to this, which is his latest available online talk i think.
http://backdoorbroadcasting.net/2009...alyptic-times/

the hardtalk interview and the talk i just linked to aren't the best introduction to zizek.
get on amazon and buy some of his books, they are pretty cheap right now.

and go to http://www.youtube.com/user/TheMariborchan this channel and pick one you like the sound of

[Glice]

That's a really good interview with Zizek - I think he did well to articulate relatively complex points in a format that's not ideally suited to it. Interesting that Sackur came across as an agent provocateur of middle-class ideology (and unsurprising given he's from the Beeb) in the face of a general 'pessimism' towards political ideology.

[ni'k]

Originally Posted by Glice

That's a really good interview with Zizek - I think he did well to articulate relatively complex points in a format that's not ideally suited to it. Interesting that Sackur came across as an agent provocateur of middle-class ideology (and unsurprising given he's from the Beeb) in the face of a general 'pessimism' towards political ideology.

it's a horrendous format. it's ludditte and sackur/the bbc knows it. there is no need for a time limit and the usual "i'm afraid that's all we have time for" in the age of the internet. at least you'd think the bbc could let it go on for as long as it needs to, broadcast the edited version and put the full version online. but who gives a shit about the bbc and their so called "expertise" which usually involves being a coked up/drunken celeb egotist and towing the state line until the anxiety and self hatred of your own image drives you further down the road of coked up/drunken celeb mediocrity. a gross generalisation maybe, but one born of the jealous exasperation of being internetless/poor and trying to gain some insight from the tv, all the while wishing it would shut up and let you talk for once.

i've made this point before - the internet needs to move beyond the web2.0 stage of being a digital reproduction or alternate version of allready existing pre digital media. the interativity and democracy if technology that the bbc and their ilk love to promote needs to be taken away from their poisoned grasp.

yet when you do this you end up in a position like simon reynolds describes in a resonance fm interview; being wary of not putting too much content on his blog and instead saving it for a new book. i don't criticise reynolds for this, as he said himself he has a son to feed. i think many of us are in this same position. now that our lives have become so commodified there is a potential intellectual commodity in our own minds that might translate into cash/survival in the future. so how much do we "give away" and how much do we "hold back"? are we comprised by our very status as potentially commodified subjects? the coming insurrection would seem to get around this impasse, but isn't even the potential revolutionary scenario that it describes merely commodified by the very act of its transcription? can what zizek/the invisible committee say lead to an affective anti-capitalism? if it can then this would mean that it is an intellectual commodity that will bring down capitalism, which by its nature seems impossible. or have i just gone way off track with this line of thought?

[ni'k]

demonrail - here is the blogsite for maribochan with even more stuff http://mariborchan.com/

[demonrail666]

Originally Posted by ni'k

zizek came across very well and sackur's questions highlighted the conservatism of blind faith in liberal paraliamentarianism.

Yeah, although I actually find those kinds of interviews quite interesting to watch. PBradley mentioned the MarxismToday2009 one which is great but the clearly sympathetic crowd meant that Zizek really didn't have to think for the whole 45 minutes or so. Sackur's questions are banal but they do at least force Zizek into an unusual position (for him at least) of having to justify certain claims that his usual audience would just take for granted.

[Conrad]

High Society by Ben Elton

[demonrail666]

Originally Posted by ni'k

there was also a hardtalk interview with badiou.

I just finished watching that one. I didn't know that much about him prior to the interview, just a name I kept hearing mentioned. He seems less impressive than Zizek, although that might be because I found his whole anti-globalisation thing far less interesting than Zizek's more broader project. Either way, for all its faults that Hardtalk series really is great. I just wish the BBC would have the nerve to give it a regular evening slot on say BBC4. It always annoys me that in its effort to justify the licence fee the BBC commisions the kinds of programmes that could be found on any commercial channel while stuff like Hardtalk is relegated to the graveyard shift.

Have you started that Capitalist Realist book yet? It keeps coming up as a recommendation on Amazon and I've been thinking of getting it.

[ni'k]

that isn't one of badiou's best interviews. i've only read "the meaning of sarkozy", which you should get off amazon aswell as capitalist realism.

i read half of capitalist realism yesterday morning - a lot of the content has already appeared on the k-punk blog so if you've read that you will be familiar with it. i would recommend buying it, since you'll get it off amazon for about a 5iver and it's worth reading. i can't really comment too much because i haven't finished it yet. the parts about education in the uk are FANTASTIC, particularily for me since i've been through it.

[demonrail666]

Cool. I'll definitely pick it up now. I'd been thinking about Badiou's book on Sarkozy too, actually. Although that has less to do with any interest I have in Badiou than it does a general curious fascination that I have with Sarkozy himself. Have you read Bernard Henri-Levi's 'Left in Dark Times'? That has a really interesting take on Sarkozy while at the same time offering a very good analysis of the decline of the Left that's quite similar at times to the ongoing one offered by Zizek.

[ni'k]

ah, i haven't read levi but i have watched this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HxNImFZTgw debate with zizek. you'll find levi mentioned indirectly in "the meaning of sarkozy" when you read it.

[demonrail666]

I just watched the Zizek-Levi debate. Absolutely fascinating, especially when it turned to the Palestine-Israel issue - which, I have to say, I thought Levi won quite emphatically. Saying that, when the question asking them both about why they still believed in the Left, I was far more in agreement with Zizek. A brilliant debate. Thanks so much for linking it!

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to ni'k again.