Zizek Studies:

Now let’s push the issue a little deeper in terms of setting aside terms like “totalitarian” and “fascism” and focus on the term (the buzzword (“freedom” in terms of how the German’s might have seen it at the time.

Now if we were to look at it superficially, we might look at it in terms of the German’s suffering some really harsh economic times while the Jews were prospering: mainly because of their willingness to commit fully (via their close family ties (to economic prosperity: to set aside all other desires for the sake of it. And I’m sorry, but I cannot doubt that there were Jews that argued that if the Germans made the same commitment as them, they would be prospering as well.

Therefore: while we can see the anti-Semitism of the Nazi’s as a result of resentment (that is at a superficial level (we can also see it as a resentment of the message being presented (one we can all be uncomfortable with: that success in the market is a matter of committing fully to it: the opposite of freedom.

Hence the inclusion of another buzzword, “socialism”, in the acronym NAZI.

This is not to say that it was the Jew’s fault or that we should sympathize with the NAZI’s. It is simply to say that if we set aside such molar terms as “totalitarianism” or “fascism”, and actually try to understand the situation others have been in (including the Germans in the 30’s (we get all that closer to stopping it from happening again.

What taught me the most about fascism was the Rwandan genocide;

It started w/ the Belgium colony that divided them into 2 classes: the hutus that had the hard features of normal Africans and the Tutsi’s (with sleeker features that were more appealing to the Belgiums (who were given more privileges than the Hutus.

Now, knowing human nature, is there any doubt in your mind that that Tutsi’s (from time to time ( abused that advantage?

This is not to justify what the Hutu’s did. I just want you to understand why they did it and why you are perfectly capable of it.

“And it is useless to try to redeem ‘totalitarianism’ through division into subcategories (emphasizing the difference between the Fascist and the Communist variety): the moment one accepts the notion of ‘totalitarianism’, one is firmly located within the liberal-democratic horizon. 1 The contention of this book is thus that the notion of ‘totalitarianism’, far from being an effective theoretical concept , is a kind of stopgap: instead of enabling us to think, forcing us to acquire a new insight into the historical reality it describes, it relieves us of the duty to think, or even actively prevents us from thinking.”

“– the moment one shows the slightest inclination to engage in political projects that aim seriously to challenge the existing order, the answer is immediately: ‘Benevolent as it is, this will necessarily end in a new Gulag!’ The ‘return to ethics’ in today’s political philosophy shamefully exploits the horrors of Gulag or Holocaust as the ultimate bogey for blackmailing us into renouncing all serious radical engagement. In this way, conformist liberal scoundrels can find hypocritical satisfaction in their defence of the existing order: they know there is corruption, exploitation, and so on, but every attempt to change things is denounced as ethically dangerous and unacceptable, resuscitating the ghost of ‘totalitarianism’.” -Zizek, Slavoj (2014-04-08). Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism?: 5 Interventions in the (Mis)Use of a Notion (The Essential Zizek) (Kindle Locations 99-105). Verso Books. Kindle Edition.

Now think about it: given the way that global producer/consumer Capitalism is undermining our democracies while making it SEEM as if our democracies are still intact, doesn’t it seem possible that a benign dictator might actually be better at giving us an authentic experience of freedom by being able to do what they think is best for people (that is being a person themselves (rather than the system we have now that deludes us into believing we are electing people who represent our interests when, in fact, all they are actually representing is the interest of their country club buddies?

Of course, we should take pause at this because as Hollywood (the so-called leftist conspiracy (repeatedly tells us: while power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. The notion, according to Hollywood, is that no matter how well intended a dictator may start out, they will always end up in folly. But how do we actually confirm this assertion?

And this is not to assert that we should necessarily look to a dictatorship as the answer to our problems. It is simply to point out that liberal democracy may not be the ultimate antidote to oppressive social and political systems that we’re led to believe it is, especially when you consider the emerging aristocracy/oligarchy that we’re dealing with now via global producer/consumer Capitalism.

Of course, thinking this way, of thinking outside the so-called box, puts us at a risk that, as Zizek rightly points out, even the academic so-called left are willing to avoid by keeping their arguments within the perimeters of producer/consumer Capitalism.

They, like the rest of us, have fallen under the spell of defining totalitarianism as what happened in Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia when, in fact, true totalitarianism cannot actually exist. Think about it: the only real totalitarianism we have experienced is in fiction such as Orwell’s 1984 or Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid Tale.

But allow me to make a point based on personal experience: when 1984 actually came along, we all breathed a sigh of relief that it didn’t fulfill the Orwellian vision. But at that very time, L.A. was chasing the hookers off Sunset Boulevard and closing down Glendora Mountain road (a favorite party spot on weekends (while Nancy Reagan was repeatedly saying “just say no to drugs”, thereby taking part in the initiation of the war on drugs (that is along w/Joe Biden who was screaming for the creation of a drug czar (while her husband, Ronny, was overseeing the beginning of a reactionary movement (motivated by us finding ourselves in the economic shadow of Japan (and the economic movement based on the philosophy of Freidman and Greenspan: all of which haunts us to this day in very real forms of oppression.

The point is (and I believe this is the point that Zizek is trying to make in this book (we need to let go of the term “totalitarianism” (something that has only existed in works of fiction (and start focusing on the forms of oppression we are actually dealing with.

Actually the division between Hutu and Tutsi predates the Belgians by a long time.

The Tutsi were a more pastoralist mobile and warrior-like group; whilst the Hutu were sedentary agriculturalists.
As it a common model for such situations, the Tutsi had already taken a commanding role in the affairs of the region, and had replaced the superstructure of society forming a ruling class over the sedentary Hutu, by the time Belgium came on the scene.
The racist ideology was employed by them to favour the “superior” Tutsi, as with them lay the key to controlling the Hutu. Control the Tutsi and you control them all.
It had less to do with appearance than the power structures already in place that the Belgae exploited.

“The last thing we need is a dictator. In fact that is what the oligarchy we have is. the continuation OF the dictator”

Yeah, it’s a form of dictatorship based on a kind of parliament of aristocrats that over-rides and controls the democracies of the people: that which is suppose to look out for our interests.

And I understand, zz, that the word “dictator” strikes fear in the hearts of most people. I’m scared of it myself. And I’m not saying we should turn to one. All I’m saying is that the only thing that may be able to deal with the beast we are facing is the good fortune of actually finding a benign dictator that can take us out of the inverted totalitarianism we are dealing with (in which economics is given privilege over state (by casting aside the illusions that producer/consumer Capitalism has cast over us and putting state back into its proper role: that as check and balance (for our sake (to corporate power.

You need to understand that in order to push back the power that the aristocracy/oligarchy (the economic coup ( has accumulated, everything has to be on the table: running from an expansion of the public economy, to socialism, and to outright communism if that is what it takes. This is because (and make no mistake about it (the rich will do everything they can to maintain their privilege at our expense.

To give you sense of the urgency involved, you have to consider a point made by Chris Hedges: that what we are dealing with now is a kind of inverted totalitarianism (and I hate to use that term given the study I’m in now (in which the market is given privilege over state: that in which our present aristocrats/oligarchs are validated by the market: the fact that we buy the products that allow them the wealth and power they have. Now compare that to classical totalitarianism where state is given privilege over the market.

Now think about the situation we are in now economically: one in which the differential between the exchange value of everything and the actual buying power it creates is so large that there is no possible way it can sustain a respectable economy. This is why our economy is no longer based on what we can afford to buy, it is now based, via credit, on what we may be able to afford in the future. Now what happens when that flow of exchange collapses and the market is no longer there to justify the privilege of the aristocracy/oligarchy? Do you think they are just going to give it up, say “game over”, and walk away from that privilege?

Or is the more likely possibility that they’ll turn to classical totalitarianism by giving the state (which they own, BTW, along with the military (privilege? The scenario I’m waiting for is some Republican suggesting that people who are in debt, rather than turn to bankruptcy, turn themselves over to slavery until their “debt is paid”. It might also be suggested as a more practical alternative to welfare and unemployment.

(And, BTW, I do believe that the Republicans (along with the tea party (the brownshirt appendix to the repugs ( are that smug, obtuse, hateful, and evil. There is no doubt in my mind about how low they would go to protect the interests of their country-club buddies.)

Now maybe I’m wrong. And I actually hope I am. But then maybe the radical possibility of a benign dictator may be the only hope we have given where our liberal democracies seem to be leading us.

Context: shroomery.org/forums/addpost.php

Thanks for the history. But it still doesn’t change the dynamic for my purposes: the Tutsi’s were given privileges that they likely, being human, abused. And it, in the long run, underwrote the the Hutu’s sense that what they were engaging in was an act of revenge.

It’s not to blame it on the Tutsi’s or to argue that the Hutu’s were justified. The genocide they participated in was evil. The main point here is for us to take pause before we try to distance ourselves too far from such acts of evil: to recognize the possibility within ourselves.

No I wasn’t able to download it however I found a good article in the ‘International Journal of Zizek Studies’, vol.3 no.1, which is an extremely interesting article dealing with ideas You may be interested to explore.(referring to whether i was able or not to download Difference&Repetition) a no to that.

“The embodiment of this surplus is the toothpaste tube whose last third is differently coloured , with ‘YOU GET 30% FREE!’ in large letters – in such a situation I am always tempted to say: ‘OK then, give me only this free 30 per cent of the toothpaste!’ In capitalism, the definition of the ‘proper price’ is a discount price. The worn-out designation ‘consumer society’ thus holds only if one conceives of consumption as the mode of appearance of its very opposite, thrift. Here, we should return to Hamlet and to ritual value: ritual is ultimately the ritual of sacrifice which opens up the space for generous consumption – after we have sacrificed to the gods the innermost parts of the slaughtered animal (heart, intestines), we are free to enjoy a hearty meal of the remaining meat. Instead of enabling free consumption without sacrifice, the modern ‘total economy’ which wants to dispense with this ‘superfluous’ ritualized sacrifice generates the paradoxes of thrift – there is no generous consumption; consumption is allowed only in so far as it functions as the form of appearance of its opposite. And was not Nazism precisely a desperate attempt to restore ritual value to its proper place through the Holocaust, that gigantic sacrifice to the ‘obscure gods’, as Lacan put it in Seminar XI? Quite appropriately, the sacrificed object was the Jew, the very embodiment of the capitalist paradoxes of thrift. Fascism is to be situated in the series of attempts to counter this capitalist logic: apart from the Fascist corporatist attempt to ‘re-establish the balance’ by cutting off the excess embodied in the ‘Jew’, we could mention the different versions of the attempt to restore the premodern sovereign gesture of pure expenditure – recall the figure of the junkie, the only true ‘subject of consumption’, the only one who consumes himself utterly, to his very death, in his unbound jouissance.” -Zizek, Slavoj (2014-04-08). Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism?: 5 Interventions in the (Mis)Use of a Notion (The Essential Zizek) (Kindle Locations 664-681). Verso Books. Kindle Edition.

Now in order to get at what is at work here, we first have to understand the Economics 101 concept of the Paradox of Thrift. On one hand, despite the popular doxa and mythology among Republicans and Neo-Cons that investment is the driver of a strong economy, the only real driver in the real world is demand. I mean all the investment in the world isn’t going to do shit for us if no one has the money to buy the product. On the other hand, when it comes to the struggles of the poor under producer/consumer Capitalism, the Capitalist must defer to the alibi of free-will and thrift:

“If you would have spent your life “putting a little back”, you might be able to enjoy a better retirement at a younger age.”

And the problem here is rooted in an inherent contradiction that lies within the very logic of Capitalism itself. If you ask a Capitalist about the power that the rich can accumulate with their wealth and the exploitation of both consumers and producers that is sure to follow, they will resort to arguments about the god-like entity of the Invisible Hand of the market: that it will counter any negative effect on your average producer/consumer. But when you bring up the misfortunes of your average producer/consumer, the whole conversation switches to an issue of free-will and self determination. But which is it? Either this god-like entity of the Invisible Hand has the power to overcome the actions and excesses of the rich, in which case it is perfectly capable of overcoming the actions of the average producer/consumer. Or it does not, in which case the free-will and actions of the Capitalist are perfectly capable of overcoming the efforts of the average producer/consumer. Either way, the average producer/consumer is perfectly screwed –despite what the mythology of Capitalism might lead us to believe.

And the marketing strategy of “30% more” is how Capitalism overcomes the Paradox of Thrift by enfolding it within an act of consumption much as Starbucks does social responsibility.

The truth is that producer/consumer Capitalism is far more dependent on consumption than what we gain through production, to the point of not being just dependant on the buying power we have from production at any given time, but from the buying power we might gain in the future: hence our economy’s high dependence on credit. The other truth is that if everyone engaged in thrift (the moral imperative that Capitalism pimps as alibi (our economy would collapse almost immediately. I would point to the last point made in the quote:

“– recall the figure of the junkie, the only true ‘subject of consumption’, the only one who consumes himself utterly, to his very death, in his unbound Jouissance.” -Ibid

Note here, for instance, the denial that drives the willingness of Capitalists to keep the consumption going in the face of man-made global warming and the ultimate depletion of our natural resources. How can we not think of Capitalism as anything more than a sickness? We focus, in our discourses, on how despicable lawyers are. But many of them are actually working for just causes such as the ACLU and labor and environmental issues. What are business men and marketers doing but administrating the Land of the Lotos Eaters we presently find ourselves in?

The brilliant point that Zizek makes here is in pointing out how the dynamic can be traced to pre-Capitalist forms of social organization. When it comes to Capitalism as a form of oppression, there is nothing new under the sun. It simply utilizes old forms in more subtle ways: such as the old divine right theory that now manifests as “the market has spoken” when it comes to the rich.

In other words, no matter what ideological flag we fly, there will always be a handful of people who think they deserve a little more than everyone else, even if it comes at the expense of everyone else. And therefore, the role of the dissident: the artist, the poet, the philosopher, the intellectual: will always be secure.

“I stand by Ayn Rand. I reread some of her writing on and she is profound and truthful. It is pointless for me to try to convince anyone of this - she is hated as the Great Satan of Greed. But she only opposed the banal form of Christian pathos, of all - consuming (literally) equality. “

First of all: as you should. I mean we all gotta find our flow.

Secondly: it seems we find some common ground in that Marx is considered the great Satan of egalitarianism as well as the primary blame for the atrocities of both Stalin and Mao Tse Tong.

And finally: what we’re both probably dealing with is the misuse (much as happened with Nietzsche (of our respective heroes. As I like to say:

Ideology does nothing; people, however, do.

The problem for me, however, is that Rand seemed pretty clear on her assumption that the only way anyone could achieve “self valuing” was through Capitalism and clearly rejected Marxism (perhaps because of her reactionary sentiment towards having come from Stalinist Russia (as a means of people finding (to put it in Maslow’s terms: self actualization. Plus that, it became pretty clear to me in Atlas Shrugged II (the movie version (that anyone who attempted to pass policy that interfered with the workings of the market was basically a “looter”: much as Jews were “Rats” to the Nazis and Tutsie’s were “cockroaches” to the Hutus. And while it may well be impossible for me to ply you from your embrace of Rand, it would be equally difficult for you to convince me that there was not a fascist element in her use of the term. Or are you going to try to tell me that she didn’t actually use it in the book?

The interesting thing here, though, is the common ground between Rand and Marx. You and Iona argue, in the typical KTS fashion of the Neo-Nietzscheian gospel , that it is ultimately about people finding their higher selves. But let’s try a perfectly valid description of Karl Marx (one that Zizek actually fits:

A guy that found his higher self and was willing to sacrifice (live in poverty (to create a society in which everyone could find their higher selves as compared to submitting themselves to the role that producer/consumer Capitalism imposes on them. And while Marx may have suggested a final end (communism ( that was egalitarian in nature, it was merely an even playing field in which individuals could freely work towards their different levels of achievement. Now granted: Zizek may not have made quite the sacrifice that Marx did. But I would far rather see a man or woman (such as Zizek, Bill Maher, Jon Stewart, or Melanie Klein (get rich looking out for the little guy as compared the sociopathic approach of entitlement such as that of Gene Simmons, Jack Welch, or even Rand. The former just seem more heroic (in a very Nietzscheian sense (than the latter. This makes the following feel like petty nit-picking:

“Every so-called progressive or leftist or socialist type is basically just operating by a fake psychological mechanism of partial denial of self-valuing in order to gain some self-value in other ways, but none had the strength to truly live their philosophy of deliberate lack and rejection of excess. Leftist and communists who rise in social position or wealth always gather luxury and vanity around themselves. “

Now here’s the problem with this: no one is denying that the progressive or the leftist or the socialist is acting out of self interest. They (like Marx (are basically seeking a world that would accommodate people like them: the intellectually and creatively curious. The main difference is that they have moved to the next evolutionary step of the cooperative model in recognizing that looking out for the interest of others is, ultimately, in their interest (of putting their baser impulses in cooperation with their higher cognitive functions: that which the meat of the brain has evolved into (and moving beyond the competitive model which puts our higher cognitive functions in the service of our baser impulses: that, BTW, which leads to the really bad reasoning above - along w/ our possible extinction via producer/consumer Capitalism.

It is, as far as I’m concerned, the distinction between using intellectual pursuit as a way to make the world better (the cooperative model (and simply engaging in a pissing contest (the competitive model.

It’s odd that Zizek (as far as I know or have read (never mentions Foucault: especially given Foucault’s emphasis on the relationship between so-called knowledge and power: what strikes me as a form of hegemony. As I like to say:

The minute someone brings up such words as rational or reason or objective, you have to ask 2 questions:

By which criteria is an assertion deemed to rational, reasonable, or objective?

And who has the power to define these criteria?

Now as far as the last term, objective, Zizek does deal with this in The Plague of Fantasies (I believe that is the book ( when he (in perhaps a Hegelian manner (synthesizes the mind/body (subjective/objective (dichotomy into the subjectively objective and objectively subjective -which makes perfect sense to me. And he does bring up the issue of authority as defined by the power structure: the one who is suppose to know.

Still, Foucault, despite the obvious relationship, is never brought up.

The thing about fancy, son, is that it is a necessary and important part of our makeup. And as coincidence would have it, I’m reading Zizek’s Plague of Fantasies which (once again: coincidentally (in the first few pages I have read has pointed out that fantasy is not so much a compensation for something we desire and cannot get as a mechanism for figuring out what it is we desire. In fact, no one who has achieved anything has done so without fancy. I mean its kind hard imagine how anything could start anywhere else but a daydream.

But I should first explain to you what I mean by fancy in relationship to imagination. I’m mainly working from the distinction between fancy and imagination made by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in an essay brought to my attention in a creative writing class –one that is increasingly showing significance in my philosophical process. Fancy is more primal and base of the brain, which why it gives so much pleasure. It’s what the mind does when we let it do what it naturally does. Therefore, it would naturally follow that what lies behind it are our natural drives and desires. Imagination is a little more cognitive (and therefore a little more uncomfortable (in that it is a matter of playing our fancies against the reality of things and including our findings. Unlike fancy, imagination takes a little work. We can see a correlation here with something else Coleridge said:

“It’s alright to build castles in the sky. The idea is to build foundations under them.”

However, too often, fancy that fails to make the leap to imagination can all too often end up being dangerous and destructive. To give you a personal example: I am what I am because of a lot of daydreaming (fancy. And I have spent a large part of my life building foundations under those castles in the sky. The thing is that that propensity for fancy is always there and tends to get accelerated when I’m drinking. This combination of fancy and alcohol has been the source of every embarrassing moment I have had on these boards. I, of course, always start out with imagination which results in the daily rhizome. But once I get to certain point, fancy (my primal impulses and desires (seems to take over. And that is a big part of the pleasure we get from alcohol.

And as I go into Zizek’s Plague of Fantasies for the 100th time (excuse the hyperbole: the fancy (I realize that this week will give me an opportunity to further explore the social, political, and philosophical implications of failing to make that leap from fancy to imagination. If you really look at it, son, it is fancy that our system, via media, tends to exploit to keep us passively accepting our exploitation through producer/consumer Capitalism: American Idol, Who Wants to be a Millionaire, name your poison. If there is anything that Capitalism sells best, it is possibility: fancy. Those hipsters and geeks quoting Nietzsche are not Nietzsche’s fault –anymore than NAZI Germany was. They’re the result of a one-sided embrace of the fanciful aspect of Nietzsche much as NAZI Germany was.

“Something I need to point out: hipsters really are not problem to me.
To me, they’re basically caught in the crossfire between a Marxist cynicism about Capitalism and the very fact that Capitalism has adopted (via marketers (them as the ideal producer/consumers.” –Me

“They are the product of a younger generation just going fuck it… we are just going to live our lives… deal with the world as it is and have fun.” –Andy

“ I’ll buy into that, Andy. But what it suggests to me is a kind of nihilism that if not adding to the problem, will allow it to continue. In that sense, it is as perfectly implicit in our possible self destruction through climate change or our enslavement through global capitalism. It’s no wonder they are the flavor of the day for marketers.” –yes, me again……

Once again, I’m sure the hipsters are fine people with a lot of different political views. However, as Andy’s point confirms, one of the main concerns I have with them (and the term “concerns” is important here in that it is not a sweeping judgment of hipsters as a whole (is that they remind me a lot of the sports bar culture that emerged in the 90’s under the Clinton boom: a lot of people sitting around all tight fisted, flush with prosperity, and acting like they did it in a vacuum. And because of this (for reasons they will claim to be enlightened or radical: the same ones that got Jr. in (our next president will likely be republican.

And as luck would have it, my present reading of Zizek’s Plague of Fantasies sheds a little light on this on page 27:

“The lesson is therefore clear: an ideological identification exerts a true hold on us precisely when we maintain an awareness that we are not fully identical to it, that there is a rich human person beneath it: ‘not all is ideology, beneath the ideological mask, I am also a human person is the very form of ideology, of its ‘practical efficiency’.”

Now in order to crystallize this, I have to backtrack to the page before which offers up a criticism of the Robert Altman movie MASH which I consider a powerful response to right-wingers who harp on some supposed left-wing Hollywood conspiracy which completely neglects the very fact that Hollywood is run by corporations. He points to its perfect conformity in that while its anti-militarianism is expressed through a healthy dose of “cynicism, practical jokes, laughing at pompous officials, and so on,” the MASH crew performs their jobs exemplarily and thus present no threat to the military machine. It conforms while seeming to not conform. And I would humbly offer my own example concerning James Thurber’s story The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Anyone who has read the story knows that it is the ultimate anti-Rand story in that it starts with a weak hen-pecked man who compensates through his daydreams and ends (triumphantly, mind you (with a weak hen-pecked man who compensates through his daydreams. But let’s take a look at what the Hollywood corporate machine has done with it so far. First we had the Danny Kaye version which basically got turned into a common Hollywood musical and dance spectacular. Enough said about that. But even more insidious (while actually being entertaining (was the Ben Stiller Ayn Rand fuck fantasy of Walter Mitty opposing all odds and actually becoming a hero. As the corporate mentality constantly reminds us: if you will it enough, you can make it happen.

To give you another personal and anecdotal example of how so-called anti-ideology can end up ideological: I was in a bar back in 90’s. One of the big movements then was thrash/rap metal that included bands like Limp Biscuit. That night, I watched a guy walk up to the bar with that Limp Biscuit look: the kaki shorts, the le tigre shirt, and the short brimmed hat turned sideways or backwards (I can’t remember which. Okay: a man trying to find his identity; nothing wrong there. But it turned comical when I watched another man walk up to the bar in the exact same dress. I had to wonder if they were wearing the same cologne. Probably should have smelled them but I think I was going nose blind by that time. And imagine how embarrassed they would have felt face to face.

The point is (and I hope the hipsters are listening (that there is no final realm of non-conformity that can put us beyond the status quo. Power will always assimilate what is available to it: even what defies it. So we have to defer to what Deleuze and Guattari referred to as a constant nomadic flight: to keep moving even while standing still. We have to keep the radars moving in the hope that they will eventually break down.

“On a somewhat higher, more “spiritual” level, one usually fails to take note of how a free play of our theoretical imagination is possible only against the background of a firmly established set of “dogmatic” conceptual constraints: our intellectual creativity can be ‘set free’ only within the confines of some notional framework in which, precisely, we are able to ‘move freely’ –the lack of this imposed framework is necessarily experienced as an unbearable burden, since it compels us to focus constantly on how to respond to every particular empirical situation in which we find ourselves.” –from Zizek’s The Indivisible Remainder

“As I understand it, Zizek ties this in with the delicate balance required between contraction and expansion: the speed of the universe’s expansion which, were it too fast for gravity to keep in check, would rip everything completely apart.”

And to kick off this particular rhizome (for effect perhaps (perhaps even a cheap one:

“To give you an example, I recently started on an immersion into Zizek’s The Indivisible Remainder: On Schelling and Related Matters. What I didn’t think about going into it was that I know absolutely nothing about Schelling. I, therefore, at the “library”, for my study point, attempted to learn about him through Wiki and the Stanford page on philosophy, but only realized those would require an immersion in itself. Nor was Blackburn’s Dictionary of Philosophy much help. It just became a distracting use of resources. I therefore decided to just focus on the book, write about it as if Schelling was not involved, and leave him for another immersion.”

As it turns out, much to my surprise, while an immersion might deepen my understanding of the book, I’m actually getting by based on themes that overlap with those in other books of Zizek I have read. What I’m mainly noting here is the relationship between expansion and contraction which, as I go along, I will attempt to connect with Zizek’s emphasis on Lacan’s Jouissance: that push/pull way in which we find ourselves engaging with reality throughout many of our activities. (And please note that I am fumbling around with a lot of new material.) That said, for today’s quote I turn to page 40:

“It is the same with the couple of expansion and contraction: in Weltalter [a German term (one among many) that hopefully my German jam-mate, Harald, may be able to help me with], ‘expansion’ expresses God’s love, His ‘giving away’ of Himself; ‘contraction’ expresses His destructive rage, His egotistical withdrawal into-Self; in ‘positive philosophy’ we again have an inversion: expansion is now identified with the destructive rage which draws every finite, limited, firmly delineated being into its formless vortex, whereas the contractive force is conceived as creative, formative, as the activity of providing things with a stable form which alone guarantees their ontological consistency.”

First I would clarify that what Zizek is talking about here is the two later phases in Schelling’s process. And this, of course, goes back to an earlier point I made in this immersion:

““Some scholars characterize Schelling as a protean thinker who, although brilliant, jumped from one subject to another and lacked the synthesizing power needed to arrive at a complete philosophical system.” -from Wikipedia

“Perhaps we can think of Schelling as the prototypical rhizomatic thinker.”

But can’t we also see the old school element involved in Schelling’s obsession with expansion and contraction as well the perfectly understandable conflict (and consequential vacillation (an intellectual process might go through attempting to accommodate its religious beliefs with its philosophical ones? And we can see how both models might work for Schelling. On one hand (and I’m speaking metaphorically here, we can see expansion as God’s love in that it is what allows us to be as compared to not being and contraction as that which pulls us back to not being. (And I would note here an analogy that Zizek makes with Eros and Thanatos: the life and death instincts.) On the other, we can perfectly understand the reversal in which expansion is seen as the evil threatening to rip everything apart while contraction seems like the good that pulls everything back into order. Think, for instance, of Robert Frost’s classicist point:

“We rise out of disorder into order. I would sooner write free verse as play tennis with the net down.”

And while I consider myself more of a free verse person, I still gotta sympathize when Frost describes poetry (much as I would language (as a momentary stay against confusion.

“Schelling’s thesis here is much more subtle: both Good and Evil are modes of the unity of Ground and Existence; in the case of Evil, this unity is false, inverted -how? Suffice it to recall today’s ecological crisis: its possibility is opened up by man’s split nature -by the fact that man is simultaneously a living organism (and, as such, part of nature) and a spiritual entity (and, as such, elevated above nature). If man were only one of the two, the crisis could not occur; as part of nature, man would be an organism living in symbiosis with his environment, a predator exploiting other animals and plants yet, for that very reason, included in nature’s circuit and unable to pose a fundamental threat to it; as a spiritual being, man would entertain towards nature a relationship of contemplative comprehensive with no need to intervene actively in it for the purpose of material exploitation. What renders man’s existence so explosive is the combination of the two features: in man’s striving to dominate nature, to put it to work for his purposes, ‘normal’ animal egoism –the attitude of a natural-living organism engaged in the struggle for survival in a hostile environment –is ‘self illuminated’, posited as such, raised to the power of Spirit, and thereby exacerbated, universalized into a propensity for absolute domination which no longer serves the end of survival but turns into an end-in-itself. This is the true ‘perversion’ of Evil: in it, ‘normal’ animal egoism is ‘spiritualized’, it expresses itself in the medium of Word –we are no longer dealing with an obscure drive but with a Will which, finally, ‘found’ itself.” –from the section “Evil as the perverted unity of Existence and Ground” in Zizek’s The Indivisible Remainder….

I would first point out (and I think Zizek would appreciate this (as exhausting as it was to type this quote out word by word (that is as compared to the copy and paste advantage you have with e-books (there is something to be said for doing so. You get the opportunity to get to know the writer in ways that you wouldn’t otherwise. And now that the work is done, I will get to break this quote down and use it as a source for enough rhizomes to finish this present immersion.

I would start by noting the overlap between this point and both Rorty’s and Deleuze’s issue with the subject/object model of consciousness and the environment it is working in. By distinguishing the activities of the brain from the environment it is acting in, we set ourselves up for the old platonic hierarchy in which the mind, in its god-like nature, floats above the objects that occupies its space and passes judgment upon them. And we only need go back to Sartre’s issue with solipsism to recognize the real problem here: the fact (and may the wrath of Professor Strunk rest in its grave (that the other is always an object occupying our space. The assumption that they have a perceiving thing, much like ours, requires a leap of faith.

As I work in the overlaps, the antidote I keep seeing in my studies is for us, as individuals, to simply think of ourselves as objects acting in space with other objects acting in space: interacting.

Just a couple of quotes and points before I leave this particular immersion, Zizek’s The Indivisible Remainder, and move on to the next:

“One more thing should be noted about the blind rotary motion of God prior to the Word: this motion is not yet temporal, it does not occur ‘in time’, since time already presupposes that God has broken free from the closed psychotic circle.”

Now first I would admit that this will seem a little self indulgent in that what I’m mainly noting here is an overlap between my process and that of Zizek’s. It’s a little like saying, “See? I told you so,” when, in fact, all I may be doing is reading myself into it. In my defense, though, I have come to believe that philosophy, or the backbone of one’s philosophical process, is the act of engaging creatively with the world, of thinking what one thinks, and playing it against the writings of those who have gotten further in that process. Beyond that, there is only the check and balance of Alexander Pope’s dictum in A Little Learning:

“A little learning is a dangerous thing ;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring :
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.”

In other words, given the process of self flattery by which we come to know a philosopher, all we can really do is keep playing our perspective against theirs, be open minded, and hope that doing so expands our own processes out a little more.

That said (a reminder in case you got distracted:

“One more thing should be noted about the blind rotary motion of God prior to the Word: this motion is not yet temporal, it does not occur ‘in time’, since time already presupposes that God has broken free from the closed psychotic circle.”

What I’m mainly focusing on here is the phrase ‘closed psychotic circle’ and the preceding ‘blind rotary motion of God prior to the Word’. The overlap I’m mainly seeing is with my concept of the psychotic response to the nihilistic perspective (in which all assumptions float on thin air (in relation to the symbolic order. In it, I see the psychotic response, similar to Schelling’s God ‘prior to the word’, having no real criteria by which to judge action, receding into its own semiotic bubble with its own semiotic rules (its own language games (that alienates it from the general symbolic order.

I would also like to cover something that has seemed implicit throughout my 15 hours with this book: Zizek’s understanding of Lacan’s Jouissance. This was somewhat confirmed by the fact that this book was published in 1996 while Plague of Fantasies (the book I got my sense of Zizek’s sense (via Lacan (of Jouissance (was published in 1997.

“What we have here is Schelling’s grandiose ‘Wagerian’ vision of God in the state of endless ‘pleasure in pain’, agonizing and struggling with Himself, affected by an unbearable anxiety, the vision of ‘psychotic’ mad God who is absolutely alone, a One who is ‘all’ since he tolerates nothing outside Himself -a ‘wild madness, tearing itself apart’.”

And I would also note that both quotes were extracted from the chapter: Schelling in-itself: The ‘Orgasm of Forces’. What has been implicit to me throughout this immersion is the push/pull tension (the jouissance surveyed in Plague of Fantasies (that can be attributed to the tension between expansion (which wants to be something (and contraction which wants to return to the nothingness it was before it became something.

The end result of joissance is masochism. Once realizing the unsatisfying nature of all things, one tries to become satisfied by being unsatisfied.

The creative drive is never satisfying, the movie is made, you fawn over it, then you move on to something else. There is no such thing as satisfaction, only stimulation. Food is better than sex, food is more sexual than sex.

I think what you mean is that food is more satisfying than sex. But then, just like we always get horny again, we equally get hungry sooner or later.

“In his seminar on the ethics of psychoanalysis, Lacan elaborates the distinction between two types of contemporary intellectual, the fool and the knave….

….In short, the right-wing intellectual is a knave, a conformist who refers to the mere existence of the given order as an argument for it, and mocks the left on account of its ‘utopian’ plans; which necessarily lead to catastrophe; while the left-wing intellectual is a fool, a court jester who publically displays the lie of the existing order, but in a way which suspends the performative efficiency of his speech.” –From Slavoj Zizek’s The Plague of Fantasies

Now as most of us of the boards (those of the intellectually and creatively curious kind (know, a philosophy is only as useful to us as it is useful to us: in other words, it only works to the extent that we can apply it to our everyday reality at whatever level of advancement that happens to be. And this is one of those instances in which Zizek is exceptional in fulfilling that criterion –especially as concerns the type of dynamics and M.O.’s (methods of operation (we see on the boards .But I would start by first pointing to the two jokes that Zizek uses as analogical to the two dynamics.

That of the fool is about two peasants, a husband and wife, walking along a dirt road when they encounter a tarter. The tarter tells the husband he is going to rape his wife while the husband, at the threat of death, will hold his balls so that they don’t get dirty. After the tarter does what he said he would, and rides away, the husband laughs. The wife, indignant, asks how he could laugh when she had just been raped, to which the husband responds that he let the tartar’s balls drag in the dirt.

That of the knave is about a man who goes to a bar and has a monkey that keeps running up on the counter and dipping his balls in his drink. When the man questions the bartender about it, the bartender refers him to the singing violinist there for entertainment. The man asks him:

“Do you know why that monkey keeps dipping his balls in my drink?”

:to which the entertainer smiles, says ‘sure’, then starts strumming his violin and sings:

“Why does that monkey keep dipping his balls in my drink….”

Corny jokes, I know. But they do capture the two dynamics at work here. But in order to crystallize, I would offer my own analogy (or joke if you will (as concerns Democratic and Republican politicians. When a democratic politician approaches you and tells you to bend over, they at least give you the promise of a reach around –which they will eventually have to fulfill in some lesser capacity if the promise is to hold any water. The Republican, on the other hand, will simply tell you to bend over because, if you don’t, everyone goes horny. Corny joke again, I admit. But while fashionable cynicism keeps making the argument that there is no difference between the two, I would argue that it is a difference (given the political system we have (between putting up some resistance to the emerging aristocracy/oligarchy and just bending over, pointing to our asses, and saying “just put it there.”

And we see the knave dynamic all over FOX News. I see it especially in shows like Red Eye which, in all honesty, I have only seen (my friend at work always has it on (and not actually heard what they are talking about. But I can see it all over it (and I may be wrong but doubt it: this kind of in-crowd dynamic in which all efforts at actually making things better are dismissed based on what the commentators can make snide remarks about, a lot of misdirects (straw men and red herrings (from the very real sufferings that leftist fools are attempting to address.

“Within psychoanalysis, this knowledge of drive, which can never be subjectivized, assumes the form of knowledge about the subject’s ‘fundamental fantasy’, the specific formula which regulates his or her access jouissance. That is to say: desire and jouissance are inherently, even exclusive: desire’s raison d’etre (or ‘utility function’, to use Richard Dawkin’s term) is not to realize its goal, to find full satisfaction, but to reproduce itself as desire. So how is it possible to couple desire and jouissance, to guarantee a minimum of jouissance within the space of desire? It is the famous Lacanian objet petit a that mediates between the incompatible domains of desire and jouissance. In what precise sense is objet petit a the object-cause of desire? The objet petit a is not what we desire, what we are after, but, rather, that which sets our desire in motion, in the sense of the formal frame which confers consistency on our desire: desire is, of course, metonymical; it shifts from one object to another, through all these displacements, however, desire none the less retains a minimum of formal consistency, a set of phantasmic features which, when they are encountered in a positive object, make us desire this object -objet petit a as the cause of desire is nothing other than the formal frame of consistency. In a slightly different way, the same mechanism regulates the subject’s falling in love: the automatism of love is set in motion when some contingent, ultimately indifferent, (libidinal) object finds itself occupying a pre-given fantasy-place.” -from Zizek’s Plague of Fantasies

I am, of course, doing as Deleuze encourages me: writing at the edge of what I know. And I mainly bring that up in case I manage to totally fuck this up. That said:

The main thing that inspired me to copy this paragraph, word for word, from the book is that it has brought me closer to an understanding (or rather crystallized my instincts about it (of the objet petit a (translated as the small object (as I have ever gotten before. This mainly has to do with Zizek’s association of it with the metonymical: or the way one isolated object can set off a whole chain of associations: a process often driven by desire. And I hate to be perverse here (but then how does one not when talking about Zizek or Lacanian Jouissance without doing so? (but consider the foot fetish. A foot, in itself, is awkward and ungainly. But the foot of a woman arched and slicing the air (the objet petit a (as if actually rubbing against it, is everything to the man making love to her since it is a sign of her jouissance. We can see the same dynamic at work in a hardened nipple on the breast which is also known to be a sexual cue.

In fact, as Desmond Morris pointed out in his largely forgotten The Naked Ape, women tend to be experts in the objet petit a in the way they make themselves up before going out: the red lipstick that suggests a swollen vagina as well as rouge which suggests the flushed regions that emerge when a woman is sexually attracted to a man.

(Of course, women since Morris’ time have responded by painting their lips black (Goth chicks don’t smile; but I’m guessing they still have jouissance (but that only points to the semiology involved by rejecting it.)

The main point I am trying to get to here is that the objet petit a can only set one out on a journey to fulfillment that can never be truly fulfilled. And it is fantasy that drives that journey forward. This, as far as I’m concerned, is the main problem with porn. It veers from the subtlety of jouissance (that subtle mix between pleasure and displeasure (by heavy-handedly representing what is, ultimately, an internal experience through what can be externally seen (the climax (through the money shot which, via the grossness of it, alienates men as much as it might women. The money shot leaves men feeling disgusted with themselves.

Granted, porn does exploit women. But it alienates men as well by moving beyond the signs (the objet petit a’s (and failing to see the real turn on: the way the woman responds: the metonymical circuit of signs.

Zizek, in the intro to The Plague of Fantasies, brings up three expressions of the objet petit a: subtraction, protraction, and obstruction. So for today’s rhizome, I want to fumble around with the three (play with what I understand (or what I think I understand (in the hope of playing it against what Zizek is actually saying and, via a dialectic between the two, come closer to what Zizek is actually saying (the scholarly route (while maintaining my own sense of it: the creative route. But I would first point out the role that jouissance plays in this and my own understanding of it. While the term is often associated with sexual climax, I associate it with sexual pleasure (the ecstasy (and the kind of push/pull nature of it: that subtle mix of pleasure and discomfort that constitutes the way we experience pleasure in general. Alright then:

Subtraction:

This to me, in a genealogical sense, lays at the core of the objet petit a (that which our present understanding of Jouissance is rooted in (and was best described by the Freudian fetish. For instance, in the foot fetish, the foot is seen as an object in itself with properties that refer to sexual experience: an awkward thing with veins (pulsing with life (that curls and slices the air during the sexual act. The important thing to understand here (as Zizek describes later in the book (is that this particular expression of the objet petit a is especially (or most obviously (metonymical in nature: it points to something it can never truly fulfill in itself. It leads to a nothingness that always pulls the subject back to the object that can never truly fulfill what it points to. Hence: the push/pull nature of Jouissance.

Protraction:

Here I’m reminded of an installment of the Hell Raiser series in which the protagonist is led through the various chambers of Hell. In one chamber, a couple is seen engaging in an eternal sexual act that will never reach climax. Now think about what a pleasant Hell that would be –that is defined by Jouissance. Jouissance, in our world, is defined by working towards a threshold that will take us out of a place we are really enjoying at the time. Still, we eventually work our way to that threshold. And after we do, it always becomes a matter of lowering our expectations: the role of efficiency in Jouissance. Now imagine the eternal suffering of never actually being able to reach that threshold.

Obstruction:

The best example to use here is Sam Raime’s movie A Simple Plan. A group of men find a crashed plane that, owned by drug dealers, holds a great deal of money. Their plot to keep it without being revealed leads to an escalation that results in all but the main couple being killed through a series of blocked attempts at reaching the final goal. We can see a similar dynamic at work in Macbeth.

But the classic expression of this lies in the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice: the ultimate expression of Jouissance. Orpheus almost gets there (almost gets Eurydice out of Hades (only to succumb (to be blocked (by his desire to see her yet again. It is Orpheus (the musician (that defines the role that Jouissance (that longing: that push/pull effect (plays in music: that moment when a song makes you want to fold into yourself.