The video is way too long to watch, and watching Zizek's continual body scratching, face touching, and hand waving for that long is just too painful. But they are probably talking past each other.

But they are probably talking past each other. — Bitter Crank

Not actually,

Even if it is difficult for a clinical psychologist to understand a philosopher (who knows that he would be on thin ice if he would start talking about clinical psychology and hence sticks to philosophy), the two make it through the discussion. To the outrage or disappointment of their supporters, they find a lot of common ground.

I watched it all the way through. At least Zizek managed to be more concise than usual, whilst Peterson didn’t really seem to add much new to what he’s already said in the past.

Hopefully they’ll continue to the ‘exchange’ and that this was more of an appetizer for future discourse. I’ve been tempted to read some of Zizek’s stuff as he’s certainly entertaining if nothing else.

Wasn’t at all surprised they mostly agreed, but was hoping they’d both have come to the event with better preparation ... maybe next time?

I’ve actually found Russell Brand’s recent dialogues much more engaging to listen to than this one. Maybe I’ve just heard from both Peterson and Zizek too much to be as fully engaged with their words as when I first come across them.

I’m still hoping to see Stephen Fry take either one of them on (so to speak) in some form of debate/discussion. It would be nice to see such public interest in more mainstream academia too. Sadly it seems most of these kind of events only gain momentum due to political agendas - like with the Atheist movement to affect US education by supporting/defending the teaching scientific knowledge.

Peterson: Marxism is like this! Stalin! Russia! Evil! Bad!
Zizek: Well, my brand of Marxism is different from what you think it is. In fact when I think about Marxism I think about climate change and how Donald Trump sucks.
Peterson: Oh. I guess we don't disagree as much as I thought we did.
Zizek: Communist liberals in universities suck!
Peterson: Yes!

[A summary of their debate].

RT had a great article about the debate called ‘Crustacean Jung v Cocaine Hegel’: Zizek-Peterson debate blowout sparks meme war:

“You may have your own personal idea of Hell. Mine is an eternity trapped in a room with Jordan Peterson and Slavoj Zizek.” — Nathan Robinson, Current Affairs

Zizek's actually missing a lot of nuances about China. From the outside, it looks like a "strong authoritarian state." But the national government has less control over local government than in the US.

When the national government in the US can decide on something [rare I know], it has the mechanisms to force state governments to comply. In China, that's not the case. Instead, the local governments in China pretend to comply, and then through a combination of bribes and relationship building continues to do whatever it was that they were doing.

Russia has a similar problem.

Also, China is a lot happier now than 80 years ago. Granted that modern China has issues, lots of issues, but at least they're not starving.

[A summary of their debate]. — YuZhonglu

Pretty much exactly as I thought then. Saves me watching it to find out.



:lol:

Of course insert Zizek jokes and that was quite a good summary! Haha!

Maybe they’ll be more. The most eerie bit was when Peterson referred to the “violent overthrowing of the rich” which led some fanatics in the audience to cheer quite blood thirstily at the idea ... sad that there are people out there like that, but reassuring that everyone else in the audience likely stared at them with befuddled pity (maybe they were roused from such appalling behaviour to consider what it was they were actually cheering for?)

Rhetorically, I don't think you should really treat it as a debate. There were no pre-planned points of contention, just vague terms: 'happiness, communism, capitalism'. Zizek also wasn't really talking to Peterson, Zizek was using it as an opportunity to speak to Peterson fans.

There were plenty of points where Zizek could really have hammered down on Peterson; just look at Zizek's bitch face when Peterson's floundering for examples of 'Post-Modern Neomarxists' or when Zizek corrects him on Foucault (Foucault wasn't a Marxist, he was a major critic of Marxism). But he didn't, why?

Zizek really wanted to exploit the cognitive dissonance of him agreeing with Peterson on most major points, when it's likely people (extreme fans) were expecting one to 'own' or 'destroy' the other.

In that interview with Russia Today, Zizek frames it like that too, apparently Zizek agreed to the debate but wanted to set the terms for it. The terms of the debate allowed lengthy exegesis before critique, so Zizek could present his idiosyncratic worldview criticising the same points Peterson would - simultaneously undermining Peterson's arguments (based on an inaccurate caricature) and appearing attractive to his viewer base.

"in a debate on whether capitalism or Marxism better leads to happiness." --seriously, that's what they were debating? How stupid.

There were plenty of points where Zizek could really have hammered down on Peterson; just look at Zizek's bitch face when Peterson's floundering for examples of 'Post-Modern Neomarxists' or when Zizek corrects him on Foucault (Foucault wasn't a Marxist, he was a major critic of Marxism). But he didn't, why?

I’m not so sure this wasn’t gone over? I believe the point was the focus on use of power, and viewing society as oppressed versus oppressor? That was where the relation to Marx was held - Foucault is a purposefully slippery customer though. I’m not a massive fan and given that he is most definitely a postmodernist and Peterson’s view - rightly or wrongly - was that postmodernism smuggled in Marxist ideas, it isn’t a massive stretch to associate Foucault with Marxism by association in that manner as well as via his mentors. Of course Foucault never liked any kind of label and quite openly stated opposition to some of Marx’s ideas regarding history - he nevertheless had some similarities to Marxist ideas in the use of power and the narrative of oppression in an historical sense (I’ve only read Madness and Civilization myself and this is apparent enough in that text; he may have switched positions later, and as I’ve heard he was prone to doing so quite often).

By all means educate me on his views. He is someone I am very willing to read more of - in fact I very nearly purchased The Archeology of Knowledge recently, but I’ve got quite a back-log at the moment.

Thanks

If you're willing to aggregate to 'analysis of power' = 'oppressed vs oppressor narratives' = 'Foucault' = 'Marxism' you may as well call Marxists left liberals.

Anyway, Foucault's methodology is very much non-Marxist, he traces cultural shifts using art works, tropes, systems of ideas - eventually subordinated to the master concept of 'discourse', and he looks at the interface between discourse and social life and social institutions a lot. There's no central emphasis on 'material conditions' or class antagonism as you would expect from a Marxist, even if you could broadly call what he writes as creating a historical critique of ideology in something similar to the Marxist sense of the term.

Even the sense of 'oppressor and oppressed' as an intentional, causal relationship between identity groups isn't really present, power relations in Foucault is far more diffuse and systemic, arising as mechanisms of relation between social institutions, people and discourse.

You can find some sympathy with Marxist critique, but it's largely historically limited.

I'm not a Foucault scholar though, I've read Madness and Civilisation recently and The Order of Things a long time ago, so take what I say with a pinch of salt.

To be clear ...

If you're willing to aggregate to 'analysis of power' = 'oppressed vs oppressor narratives' = 'Foucault' = 'Marxism' you may as well call Marxists left liberals.

I wasn’t saying this. I was stating what I recall Peterson saying about Foucault; as I said “rightly or wrongly” that appeared to be his claim.

The whole affair was rather flat and I can’t pretend I was listening all that intently. I’m much more interested in dead thinkers than living ones :)

I wasn’t saying this. I was stating what I recall Peterson saying about Foucault; as I said “rightly or wrongly” that appeared to be his claim. — I like sushi

Yeah, that's the equivocation Peterson uses all the time. Zizek 'agreed' with it in the debate, but it was pretty clear that Zizek thought the old framework of class was supplanted by the framework of the 'identity politics' bogeyman. So Peterson emphasised the equivocation as a criticism of Marxism, Zizek emphasised the equivocation as signalling the death of Marxism as a political project.

So Peterson emphasised the equivocation as a criticism of Marxism, Zizek emphasised the equivocation as signalling the death of Marxism as a political project. — fdrake

Who is a Marxist anymore?

I think that there are many intelligent leftists here, but nobody in the Forum comes close to the old-school Marxists that I grew up in my country. Nobody here talks the old lithurgy. The talk with no meaning that anybody that lived during the Soviet times or visited the Workers Paradise would instantly recognize. That lithurgy sounds so funny today.

I remember Bitter Crank saying that he was in the left circles when he was young and he's older than me, so he would remember. Of course the Euro-Marxists of that time were a different breed from American Marxists.

It's actually the analysis of power which Peterson has a problem with. All the stuff about "postmodern" is circling a certain move of social analysis, in which social relationships and expressions of power are understood.

Peterson, for lack of a better term, is a certain sort of traditionalist, who understands the organisation of society based on a certain kind of our myth. In his view our society is organised by meaning of myths. It's not, as Foucault analyses, a set of material states organised through how people exist and relate to each other.

For Peterson, it doesn't matter Foucault is aligned with some version of neo-liberalism and capitalism. The way Foucault analyses society is too scientific . Describing our society being organised in terms of how people exist and relate to each other tosses Peterson's precious myths. It means we understand the organisation of our society to be formed by our existence, by how we choose to treat people, rather than through a mythical tradition.

For the mythical identies of Peterson, his supporters and the closely aligned alt right, this is never acceptable because it topples the mythical tradition as the means by which social organisation occurs.

Diffuse is probably worse to Peterson. It means understanding a social relation though the specific and individual, rather than a lens of a singular tradition.


It's hard to cite the meaning of a myth as one's social origin, when you concive one's social situation as an individual event caused by a range of complex interactions with many other things and people.

There were plenty of points where Zizek could really have hammered down on Peterson; just look at Zizek's bitch face when Peterson's floundering for examples of 'Post-Modern Neomarxists' — fdrake

This is literally the only part I watched.

"Who are these Marxists?! Name one!"

Peterson's ice cream in the desert look is priceless as his whole cultural Marxism schtick is exposed as the stinking pile of dog dirt it always was. Cue puzzled look at his laptop and tremulous attempts at saving face. Reminds me of when Sarah Palin was asked to name one newspaper she read.

Toasted. And moving on...

Peterson mopping the floor with his opponent as usual.

"Peterson mopping the floor for his opponent..."

There ya go. All fixed now.

Toasted. And moving on... — Baden

Peterson mopping the floor with his opponent as usual. — matt

There ya go. All fixed now. — Baden

Yet an important comment from Zizek was that "This isn't a competition". But of course the Tribalists don't care about that. Philosophy is about winning the argument!

Pffft. Don't take yourself so seriously. I saw a tiny segment as I pointed out above where Peterson got owned and then I made a joke. If Zizek has a tribe (is that the one where everyone has a perpetual cold?) I'm not in it. But he is smarter and more interesting than Peterson as many others are.

So long as the floor gets mopped (preferably by someone else), I care not. I like clean floors, but I don't like putting work into it. Get what I mean?

There were plenty of points where Zizek could really have hammered down on Peterson; just look at Zizek's bitch face when Peterson's floundering for examples of 'Post-Modern Neomarxists' or when Zizek corrects him on Foucault (Foucault wasn't a Marxist, he was a major critic of Marxism). But he didn't, why? — fdrake

Yes, the whole debate was a long discovery of the fact that Perterson has just taken for granted the US right-wing meme term "neo-marxist" to refer to identity politics, but there are no actual examples of neo-marxists and Peterson suddenly realized that it's a problem for a critical thinker.

Zizek let it slide because Peterson was so impressed by basic Hegelian / Marxist analysis of our situation as well as Zizek's "seductive charisma, especially to a younger audience" that he wanted to found a "Zizekism" right then and there.

Perterson lost the debate of defending capitalism when he recognized that the destruction of the oceans was a problem: to paraphrase "There's been some good things too for the environment, like more trees in Europe -- ok, yes, there's a total catastrophe in the oceans -- but good things have happened too". Zizek did come back to this point a few times, but there was never any answer, just a long ramblings about personal responsibility to get eventually to the basic point of "take the plank out of your own eye before trying to take the sliver out of the eye of your brothers" but in a new hip psychobabble version. Discussing the oceans would have been the "Marxist v Capitalism" point of contention, and choosing to avoid that issue and instead praise Zizek was why there was no debate.

In short, just two Marxists agreeing that the commodification of everything is a major problem.

By the way, Zizek is totally wrong about ecological change. Oh yes, it's happening, but his disaster scenarios are utter rubbish.

By the way, Zizek is totally wrong about ecological change. Oh yes, it's happening, but his disaster scenarios are utter rubbish. — YuZhonglu

Scenarios in the debate, or that he elaborates in other places? In either case, what's utter rubbish about them?

Don't take yourself so seriously. — Baden

I don't. Sorry if I look like that.

I saw a tiny segment as I pointed out above where Peterson got owned and then I made a joke. — Baden

OK, I watched the whole thing and thus I hope I'm not coming off being too concerned of this, but...

There is the issue that Peterson was indeed flabbergasted: because Zizek didn't defend Marxism and didn't try to refute Jordan's arguments. So umm... :chin: And where I personally agree totally with Zizek is his view that the whole idea of Cultural Marxists being the culprit is nonsense. Hopefully Jordan got it, because I've had a problem with that view for a long time.

The simple fact is that the Ivy League Academia isn't lost in PC culture and safe spaces and all the humbug because of postmodernists and/or Cultural Marxists, it's lost there because of feckless administrators that in their 'White Guilt' hypocrisy and their urge please the students (thanks to the competition between universities) have given a small vocal minority, that likely don't actually represent the majority, too much room to play their own 60's fantasy of making similar advances as the civil rights movement did before them. Yeah, MILK THE GUILT!

And same goes to the so politically correct Canadian lawmakers: oh, they are so well hearing the minorities. Yet that doesn't make them marxists, but anyway.

(And of course Slavoj doesn't like the victimhood culture etc. either, but who's looking for agreements between the two.)

Is Peterson actually thinking about Marxism, or is he thinking about a shallow idea of Marxism formulated by reading, per his own admission, only one de-contextualized agitprop piece written by a young Marx?

Given how badly Marxism as a governing ideology has played out (even Zizek accepts that) you can't blame him for not reading it.