Comments on: My Žižek Problem or How Do You Know Whether You Should Really Know About Something That Other People Already Seem to Know?

By: James

James — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 15:17:21 +0000

Re: King
I have have trust that the good old days will return when religious people will stop crowbarring myth into every unrelated discussion.

By: Trevor

Trevor — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 15:49:01 +0000

Um, what about reading the following, for a Coles-Notes-esque catch up:

http://www.iep.utm.edu/zizek/

That’s what I did, after watching his movies and before reading his books :)

By: Matte Scott

Matte Scott — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 06:10:49 +0000

We can be hunter-gatherers of avant-garde information and/or we can cultivate and exchange via a “marketplace of ideas” (and buy from a variety of reputable sellers almost exactly what we crave). But I once heard television channel-surfers described as “grazers” who had to keep moving and consume tons because their diet was not nutritious.
Lacan described an “objet petit a” – the unobtainable object of desire- that he and Žižek relate to Hitchcock’s “MacGuffin”.
The first few pages of Žižek’s books and his movie and television PERFORMANCES are, I think, meant to be sensational. Some people would say that he’s skipped a few things that “the rest of us” know. But why hasn’t he been dismissed?
Žižek gets us Cinema Theorists at least to revisit Lacan- attachment, independence, and subconscious drives. I don’t know if he’s said it in so many words, but getting “us” or each one of us to accurately, succinctly, and confidently argue against either his introductory or explicated claims (or our or “our” lack of ability to do so) could go down in history as his brilliantly neo-Marxist (Hegelian, dialectical) plan.
Žižek is more worth watching than…I don’t even know who his understudies are…because he incorporates more of these tellingly tender issues and “argues” them well enough that he is a fun and challenging opponent.
Find a worthy opponent of your own…define your appetite then see who’s with you- who knows, either one might be Žižek.

By: rupert

rupert — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 18:07:44 +0000

Start with a couple of films of his and then decide if you want to know more– “Zizek” or “The Perverts Guide to Cinema” or watch a couple of interviews on YouTube

By: Gray Fox

Gray Fox — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 17:28:05 +0000

There are few approaches:
1. The age old system of academia on according importance is via how many times someone is cited by others. If an author is being cited a lot in everything you read. Its time to check him or her work out.
2. Get an accessible introductory book on that thinker and try to get some idea how that author approaches issues or topics or problems dear to you. If you like what she is doing with them you can continue or else drop her.
3. Establish a “series” as a framework on what you want to read (eg. you want to read all contemporary philosophical theories of love etc, which would include Zizek) and then work your way through authors that show up on that ‘series’. Of course this method works if reading is transparently integrated into your life (like daily TV watching is for most folks).

By: C. Ehrlich

C. Ehrlich — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 17:50:30 +0000

Here’s another suggestion for Mr. Carter:

Ask recognized experts to list, from their fields of expertise, the most important readings for the curious, yet finite (be sure to stress this), would-be generalist. I’m sure many would be happy to oblige.

Then publish that list for us all (and just be sure to include the names of your sources).

By: David

David — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 15:49:01 +0000

If you have ten minutes, here’s some Žižek:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpAMbpQ8J7g
Enjoy (if you haven’t already)!

By: SMatthewStolte

SMatthewStolte — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 21:12:20 +0000

I suggest asking strangers on the internet.

By: Ye Olde Statistician

Ye Olde Statistician — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 20:20:01 +0000

John Lukacs mentioned something of this in his book THE PASSING OF THE MODERN AGE. He wrote in 1980 that the “Knowledge Explosion” was ill-named because it was not knowledge that had exploded. There was now too much even for specialists to keep up with, even in their own languages. Instead of learning more and more about less and less, people were learning less and less about more and more.

Which ties into that distinction between studiousness and mere curiosity.

By: King

King — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 17:22:56 +0000

Mr. Carter: I share your anxiety of facing the mountain of human knowledge with the Sisyphean thimble-cup of mortality. I have come to regard it as a spiritual problem, touching on gluttony.

We are finite, forgetful, flawed beings. We must make our peace with that. Humility is the beginning of all wisdom. “All I know is I know nothing.” Compare your wretched self with the immensity of the mountain, then compare the mountain to the infinity of the Lord. Your union with true wisdom dwarfs that mountain and makes prior, unaided attempts to conquer it seem naïve if not hubristic.

I gave up a soft life of pure mind at the university and I happily work in the trenches, stumbling across Žižek or Girard as providence would have it, content with my dilettantism (aided by the blessed-accursed internet). Yes, I will forever be inferior to minds more studied and more facile, such as (Dr.) David Hart’s, but I am still close to the source of all life and wisdom, and that forms the basis of all happiness.

Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD,
whose trust is the LORD. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.” The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately corrupt; who can understand it? — Jeremiah 17:7-9

It would be satisfying to enrich my mind intensely with “the best that has been thought and said,” but we have greater priorities and so little time. As powerful as knowledge makes one feel, it is but a means to an end, and there is hidden vanity in the surge of false vitality that often accompanies (and often drives) our pursuit of the intellectual idol. Embrace your limits, hope for transcendence, love the wisdom that teaches you how to love better.

Don’t get me wrong: I share your obsessive hunger to know. All the more reason to be vigilant of its proper place. God bless our curiosity! God allow us the tools to explore his creation! But God protect us from the nagging despair of incompleteness. God protect us from our separation from all wisdom. God protect us from that devilish lie, “If only I had a little more time in this life, I could tackle Spinoza….” Faith says our right-ordered appetites will be satiated beyond the possibility of our present understanding. Our hearts are restless till they rest in Thee, O Lord.

“For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect; but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away. … For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood.” — 1 Corinthians 13:9-12

“How Do You Know Whether You Should Really Know About Something That Other People Already Seem to Know?” You don’t know. There is something even greater than knowing. And that is trust.