Theorem: The attempt to represent Substance with perfect objectivity necessarily fails.
Proof: The mind tries to use its memory as a map to represent the territory of the field of perception. The problem is that the conscious being is one element in this field. If the mind tries to represent itself representing itself, it runs into an infinite regress like two mirrors facing each other. Even if the mind were a perfect cartographer, it must necessarily represent the point where it represents itself by a metalinguistic symbol that stands for something like "self-description goes here". If it does not, it gets stuck in an infinite loop until it runs out of memory and returns an error. QED. — absoluteaspiration
"If only we had an X state, we'd basically have peace," is a fantasy of peace without having to love the monstrous Neighbor whose very existence gets under your skin. Since antagonism is the result of deep problems immanent to the very constitution of the subject, these statements are structurally fallacious. — absoluteaspiration
We openly acknowledge the irreducibly monstrous dimension of the Neighbor and love him anyway because we must.
In other words, the only answer is dedicating oneself to the Cause of emancipation. With this final gesture, pride's spine is finally shattered, but no God remains to guarantee humility's reward. — absoluteaspiration
Slovene philosopher Slavoj Zizek argues against mystical attempts to alter states of consciousness. Instead, he says we should "censor our dreams" and engage in emancipatory struggle as the only road to salvation. — absoluteaspiration
How did you reach that notion of ideal community? — absoluteaspiration
We do the only thing we can do, censor our fantasies and brutally formalize where we stand. — absoluteaspiration
In other words, the only answer is dedicating oneself to the Cause of emancipation. — absoluteaspiration
Who says that a community within those parameters is ideal? — absoluteaspiration
Zizek says that the "end of inquiry" is itself an impossible fantasy. — absoluteaspiration
Regarding emancipation, dedication to the Cause leads to salvation in the purely negative sense that you'd hate yourself if you didn't do it. — absoluteaspiration
When you desire something, that is because you misperceive the object of your desire as the object small a. Often, it appears to be a shard of the glory you lost when you underwent your traumatic experience, whatever that was. Nevertheless, all this talk of lost glory is usually located strictly within the coordinates of the constitutive fantasy of your subjectivity, not in the facts of external reality. — absoluteaspiration
For Lacan, 'it is not enough that the analyst should support the function of Tiresias. He must also, as Apollinaire tells us, have breasts'[13] – must represent or incorporate the (missing) object of desire. — Wiki
These signs defy clear classification into subjective and objective, blurring the boundaries of Substance from within. — absoluteaspiration
The love that's required is not a sentimental outpouring, only joining the same Cause as comrades. Don't be too proud to love your Neighbor. That's the only way to prevent the Sinthome from killing us all.I can't love the neighbor. I can't hold that occasional love fixed. Nor can I believe in the shattering of pride, but only in the transformation of its object. — Eee
Once you can leave Zizek's version of Plato's Cave, the only Causes that makes sense are universal rebellions against oppression. For example, Zizek endorses ultimately creating a society where everyone will be free to develop their latent potential to the fullest.And who are we emancipating for what? — Eee
No one is endorsing this, Zizek least of all. His motto is "Don't act. Just think!" The world can't be "fixed" by creating totalized utopias. But if you want nothing fixed, then you want me to compromise with what I desire, and I won't live like a monk to please your ideological tastes!Stop dreaming and fix the world, you fakers! — Eee
Not being an American, I'm not familiar with the specifics of the GOP, but from what I do know, their approach is fundamentally obscurantist, appealing to the preservation of the American way of life, etc. Obscurantist "justice" corresponds to Stage 7, and represents everything Zizek is fundamentally opposed to. Stage 8 revolutionary justice starts from the standpoint of those left out by the system and potentially appeals to everyone.Even the GOP thinks it fights for freedom. — Eee
The "community" you quoted me referring to consists of the subject inside Plato's Cave, the subject outside it and the "difference" between them. That is as far from ideal as you can possibly imagine. That "we" are the people who see each other as a monstrous Neighbor that pokes their psychic wounds.To answer playfully, from you & Zizek. — Eee
If you believe Zizek's theory, we love the Neighbor to save ourselves. Dedication to the Cause might lead to more physical pain, but everything else Hurts lots more in a spiritual way, as explicated by materialist psychoanalysis. That's the theory whose outlines I tried to explain above. I see three choices:Isn't it also latent in the Cause of emancipating others? — Eee
Zizek would beg to differ. He doesn't want us to identify with the humanity of others. There is no comradeship in mere identification. He wants us to choose love despite our differences. Whether comrades are human, robot or alien, if they are on the side of liberating everyone, Zizek doesn't care.The idea that race, gender, nationality is a merely surface is an expression of humanism. — Eee
Zizek thinks we should give up that notion entirely for all the reasons I've been going on about.This is what all the fighting about. It's the clash of groups with different notions of the ideal community. — Eee
The Cause is not tied to any future perfection we're trying to reach. We are fighting out of sheer desperation, because we have run out of options, and we must. Zizek doesn't believe in progress, only the fight itself. If anything comes of it, that's a bonus, though definitely contextual and probably a temporary one. In terms of pessimism, he's right up there with David Benatar.A person could also hate themselves in retrospect for 'wasting' their whole life trying. — Eee
I don't believe that they believe it. If they had faith in their Cause, they wouldn't be so consistently wrong about every single detail. But they clearly only care about winning arguments out of pure spite, not being authentic. There is no ideal theory that is specifically Leftist. They can all can be subverted into serving conservatism if people refuse to care enough.They are also soldiers of emancipation & truth, in their own eyes. — Eee
I'm no expert, but my understanding is that in Lacanian psychoanalysis, the analyst is a master who forces the subject to be free. He does this by pretending to be an oracle and letting the subject talk until until she speaks the fateful Word that he must repeat back to her. The analyst's job is identify that Word among all the things she says and keep bringing it up until it is forced to fall into her World and complete her subjectivation so that she can stop repeating her pathological behavior.The son gives up on the existence of the secret, and the false father gives up on his claim to possess it. — Eee
I really should point out that according to Zizek, the subject inside Plato's Cave is essentially masculine and the subject outside it is essentially feminine regardless of biological sex. These are two different subjectivities.And all of this spiel is only bearable or sensible within the fraternity (or sorority if anyone prefers, since the human is not essentially sexed. Reason's only genital is the tongued mouth.) — Eee
For once, Zizek actually agrees that immediacy is a myth. His formulation is something like, there is a void of ambiguity traversing the world of ideas, splitting each idea from within: "A rose that is not X is no rose at all, where X is the void of ambiguity in the heart of the ideal Rose," is the feminine formulation. "That is a rose and nothing else, where that nothing is a thing-like void," is the masculine formulation.To me the secret symbolizes an immediate access to truth, perfectly present to a perfectly distinct ego. — Eee
I don't know if you'll read all this, but thanks again. Real life beckons once more.Doubting with Zizek the end of inquiry, I think instead we'll never know who we are. — Eee
I hope you're not tired of this debate because I finally found time for it. — absoluteaspiration
Zizek least of all. His motto is "Don't act. Just think!" The world can't be "fixed" by creating totalized utopias. — absoluteaspiration
Zizek doesn't believe in progress, only the fight itself. — absoluteaspiration
The "good" community comes from comradeship in the same Cause of universal emancipation. — absoluteaspiration
If you believe Zizek's theory, we love the Neighbor to save ourselves. — absoluteaspiration
Are you proposing a fourth? — absoluteaspiration
Zizek thinks we should give up that notion entirely for all the reasons I've been going on about. — absoluteaspiration
I don't believe that they believe it. If they had faith in their Cause, they wouldn't be so consistently wrong about every single detail. But they clearly only care about winning arguments out of pure spite, not being authentic. — absoluteaspiration
he's terrified that liberals are out to get him. — absoluteaspiration
I really should point out that according to Zizek, the subject inside Plato's Cave is essentially masculine and the subject outside it is essentially feminine regardless of biological sex. These are two different subjectivities. — absoluteaspiration
The manly man relies on others to tell him what to do and feels like a failure if he doesn't obey, but he chooses the people or ideas that he is determined to obey and switches these all the time based on what he himself wants. — absoluteaspiration
For once, Zizek actually agrees that immediacy is a myth. His formulation is something like, there is a void of ambiguity traversing the world of ideas, splitting each idea from within: — absoluteaspiration
When you lose all hope, you spend your time giggling at word games of infinite complexity. — absoluteaspiration
I don't know if you'll read all this, but thanks again. Real life beckons once more. — absoluteaspiration
That sounds right. I suspect there is contempt in the apparently compassionate tolerance of what is false to us. 'Some people aren't even worth arguing with.' This reminds of the ironist. 'Let the inferiors think they have faces & identities. They need training wheels. 'First, it makes no sense to speak of a relative truth that doesn't apply universally. For a claim to be considered true, it must, by definition, be presumed to be universally valid for everyone. If others reject the validity of a claim that I believe to be true, that's because they are mistaken, not because they hold a different subject position or come from a different culture. Second, talk of respecting difference or otherness fetishizes empty abstractions and is effectively meaningless, mere grandstanding rhetoric. In practice, respecting another's belief or practice requires us to take it seriously enough to judge whether it is true or false, right or wrong. — review
This sounds right, too. And I'd add that humanists tend to ignore their own foundation in universal reason. It's the water they swim in. Finally there is perhaps no sharp line between the metaphorical and the literal. The quote above focuses on embodied beliefs that hide beneath a layer of conscious cynicism. 'Because I know that capitalism (or some other X) is bad and have the right bumper sticker, I can keep on playing my small role in perpetuating what I 'know' is bad. ' Zizek's work is itself one of the fun ways we can spend our free time, once we get home from our jobs. And his books are on sale next to The Power of Now or 12 Rules for Life. The product is identity, or ways of (consciously) being.Žižek does contribute something new to Anglo-American debates about the status of belief in postmodern societies with his account of disavowed belief, which begins with a simple premise: "today, we believe more than ever" (6). The catch is that contemporary believers are confused and fail to recognize the extent or the nature of their beliefs, particularly when it comes to "religious matters" (5). Thus, to the German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk's oft-cited formula of cynical reason - "I know what I am doing; nonetheless, I am doing it ... " - Žižek adds a final clause: " ... because I don't know what I believe" — review
I think this is also true, especially after reading The Masks of God. Even today's supposed believers in God and afterlife mostly live just like everyone else. Grand narrative beliefs are not like believing that the cat is on the mat. All kinds of profound myths have a quasi-philosophical content. Its just that relying more on imagery adds an often desirable ambiguity and suggestiveness.A failure to comprehend how belief externalizes itself in material practices led "Enlightenment critics [to] misread 'primitive' myths" (6). By imposing their model of "literal direct belief" on people from tribal cultures, these critics regarded the myths as simply ignorant or naïve (6) — review
This is fascinating, but it's also much like the grumpy, traditional response to pomo. It's not so far from Jordan Peterson. Those who are serious about ironic distance are failing at their own project, like Stirner in his weaker moments. The anti-foundationalism I've been exposed to is more about an awareness of the futility of forging an explicit foundation. And we don't need such a foundation, since our being-in-the-world and being-in-language already is our dark foundation. We are already intelligible to one another. The explicit foundationalist is often some version of the father, attempting to fix an image of reason and normalize a discourse in his own favor. If it's pomo to say so, then we're all pomo to the degree that we see the rationalizations of others take the form of reason. That's the ordinary madness of philosophers. Their 'delusions' are abstract.Žižek, it's worth noting, frequently uses postmodern as a term of abuse. When he does so, typically, it's to signal his opposition to the postmodernists' tendency to place their directly held beliefs at a remove. And who might these postmodernists be? Žižek's examples include: Deconstructionists whose skepticism requires the positing of "an Other who 'really believes'"; ironists who incessantly place their remarks within scare quotes and (borrowing from Umberto Eco) self-conscious lovers who say things like, "As the poets would have put it, I love you" (6). Such phenomena, which Žižek treats as symptoms of disavowed, displaced, or suspended belief, are a major target of Žižek's analysis in The Puppet and the Dwarf. One of Žižek's signature critical moves is to make explicit the underlying presuppositions, the disavowed beliefs, and the obscene fantasies that secretly support our consciously held positions and intentional acts. Although the aforementioned postmodernists pride themselves on being self-reflexive, Žižek pinpoints their blind spot: an anti-foundationalism that resists positing a conceptual totality on the grounds that such thinking risks becoming totalitarian. As a result of their principled anti-foundationalism (which functions as a kind of disavowed foundationalism or, for more canny thinkers, foundationalism under erasure) the postmodernists neglect to take into account the consequences of their epistemological skepticism and self-conscious irony. One particularly detrimental consequence is the general undermining of truth claims in an intellectual climate in which directly asserted beliefs are too readily judged as equivalent forms of dogmatism. — review
As cleverly as this is articulated, it basically complains about freedom. If church and state are separated, then religion is one more lifestyle choice. One might say that our living religion, the one we will kill and die for, is our attachment to individual liberty. Freedom leads to pluralism leads to it being difficult to achieve a politically effective consensus. And then the culture war obscures the class war. As far as complicity goes, most if not all people are complicit in the exploitative status quo. That doesn't mean I don't hope we'll do better. Or that I'm against the quote above. I just think we are attached to our freedom and to some vision of a better society that such freedom quietly opposes.This culturalization of belief - the transformation of our beliefs into cultural lifestyles - has dire ideological consequences. It depoliticizes us, as we are conditioned to tolerate or respect other lifestyles rather than to disagree and debate with others who hold beliefs that we consider to be mistaken. As a result, most contemporary forms of spirituality are complicit with the exploitative socioeconomic status quo. — review
Creating temporary crutches so we don't get snuffed out?Right. That's one of the complexities of Zizek. And yet what is the Cause but world-fixing? I'm not against the Cause. I just find it indeterminate. — Eee
Since no one fixes the world, perfection is never reached.Belief in the fight itself seems to require that the world remain imperfect. — Eee
A new constitutive trauma creates a new world with its own story, complete with mysteries to uncover.I suspect that the wicked human heart will always find a new antagonist, a new injustice. — Eee
Fair enough, though I suspect Zizek, with his Freudian leanings, believes in reason less than I do.We are meeting 'in reason,' since we are both identified with articulating our positions in a way that assimilates criticism. — Eee
Zizek says he's a "Christian atheist"; that is to say, neither a Christian nor a proper Marxist. What he really believes in is the one thing that every side hates: the Christian messianic component of Marxism itself! Zizek says that with the modern church being what it is, only an atheist can be a religious Christian who loves the Truth as much as he does. After reviewing the links below, can you honestly say he's wrong? He goes as far as to say that God died with Christ on the cross. Therefore, he believes that Christ was God even more literally than Christians do. Who was Christ? Only the most sublime hysteric (Stage 6) and eradicator of hypocrisy. Definitely a God fit for Leftists.Well I think there's wisdom in that. It's also just sophisticated Christianity. — Eee
Look into Alain Badiou's philosophy of the Event. My starting point was Frank Ruda's For Badiou: Idealism Without Idealism.And it's not obvious to me, anyway, how to get the right politics out of it. — Eee
Zizek has a complex relationship with phenomenology. He's not a fan of Husserl's bracketing method because he thinks it turns people into zombies. For example, he notes that Zen training where the warrior reflexively cuts off enemies that "appear" is based on theory that is very close to the phenomenological method. The only way to be a person and not a tool is to let yourself feel emotions. On the other hand, Zizek is a phenomenologist in the sense implied by Freud's "analysis of the transference". Identifying actions that appear emotionally "impossible" is an important part of Zizek's approach.I think of what I'm doing an phenomenology. — Eee
Zizek is what would by now be called an old school leftist in that he wants non-pathological subjects to refuse to compromise with what they truly desire. For example, he tries to show that Heidegger's Nazism doesn't come from emotionalism, but from not going far enough. Conservatism comes from people obscuring their true desires out of fear. Universalism is not a metaphysically truer position per se, but a more sublime, hysterical and admirable position, like Christ against the Pharisees in the Gospels. The problem with theology is not the figure at its center, its logical rigor or its desire for truth. These are all good things. What's wrong is its cowardice in not going far enough with all these qualities to the point of rejecting worldly injustice with the sublime master it claims to worship.But what of the gap between 'is and 'ought'? — Eee
You can't possibly tell me they support Trump sincerely even now. He's more of a troll candidate than ever. Conservatives like the fact that he pisses off "libtards". I can't prove what Trumpists really think, but don't you think that if conservatives were genuinely politically engaged, then they would at least make an effort to find out whether Fox News talking points match the facts rather than judging them solely by the criterion of whether or not they piss off liberals? It's not hard to discover that this is the quality of reporting you get on Fox News: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vMK-p6-M5E Yes, there are complete patsies who are incapable of verifying the truth, but surely they are in a minority?Some of them may secretly be self-conscious thugs muddying the water. Others are clearly sincere. — Eee
This is just the thing. There is no matriarchy. Ergo, they hate the truth. They claim to love it, of course, but they are clearly lying.And many choose Trump as a stand against something they perceive as a matriarchy, a culture of not of the guilty but the sick. — Eee
Personally, I think conservatives are my Neighbors. We should be fighting for their interests too, at least insofar as these are universally emancipatory and not oppressive towards others, while mourning the fact that they are actively trying to screw us over for shits and giggles, but I can't say for sure that Zizek would agree. After all, they are not comrades.Anyway, the Trumpians are our neighbors. So what does that mean? — Eee
Zizek doesn't stand for Leftism per se so much as breadth of vision. Leftism just happens to be closer to universal emancipation than conservatism.Exactly, and liberals are (some of them) trying to install a new type of man. — Eee
That's exactly right. This is a deep issue.Also is Derrida's Spurs the 'man' (a mode of personality and not a biological sex) identifies his face with his mask. His mask is his face. The woman knows that she is faceless, that she is nothing but a system of masks concealing a void. — Eee
Zizek would say that men who promote "feminine"-centrism are often disseminating patriarchal ideas by putting women on a pedestal. Have you noticed how often chauvinists argue that women were truly free in traditional society, which lets them be women, cooking and cleaning to their heart's content? Have you noticed how many neopagans, people who, claim to worship goddesses, are Nazis? The founder of Armenian neopaganism was himself a radical ultranationalist. Many forms of traditional paganism are also unfriendly to women's liberation. The danger of conceptualizing femininity as a positive substance is that our very idea of what femininity is has been shaped by traditional gender roles. Truly freeing women means letting them be as "manly" as they want to be (though no more).Often the thinkers I like take the side of the woman, the goddess. Her sons are the masks that think they are faces. The philosopher or analyst is like a woman who wears the right mask for the task at hand. — Eee
Here we return to the foundational antinomy.There are lots of ways to use these symbols — Eee
I believe this is called the figure of the Primal Father. Surprisingly, Lacanians classify him as a feminine figure. Here's an example from contemporary media: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPE0n8mtD_Q Classical examples include Pan and Dionysus in The Bacchae. In early modernity, Casanova and Don Juan were salient. In the 20th century, there was Dr. Frank-N-Furter. The most popular version outside the West is probably Krishna's Rasa Lila: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJLzaCSZQyI https://vedabase.io/en/library/sb/10/29/ https://vedabase.io/en/library/sb/10/33/The maximally masculine position is something like the mad emperor who no longer bothers to justify his will in terms of the universal. — Eee
Zizek probably thinks Derrida is too feminine. Femininity is a necessary limit of masculinity, but the ordinary subject is masculine, and that's what interests Zizek. "The day after the revolution..."This reminds me of Derrida. — Eee
Zizek is the philosopher of our inability to commit to either. Neurosis is freedom.The serious political thinker must read the ironist as an irresponsible child. But the ironist can also read the serious political thinker as lost in the illusion that he has a face. — Eee
I will go through the reviews later, but I just want to note that this reviewer doesn't understand what Zizek is saying at all. Zizek is an absolute believer in the hard facts of external reality. What he says is that external reality is shaped by our subjective beliefs when we act on them. If we go extinct because of climate change, that would be because of our power to ignore the facts of external reality. These beliefs are experienced in the form of two subjective positions, masculine and feminine. In masculinity, we take subjectively projected objects seriously. In femininity, we pretend we are above it all. Beyond that is the inability to commit to either position. Zizek is not what anti-postmodernists call a "relativist". Not even a little bit. He just likes to joke around and people who don't pay attention think he's saying everything is a joke.First, it makes no sense to speak of a relative truth that doesn't apply universally. — review
Apropos of nothing, I really should have clarified that Lacanians understand pathology a little differently from standard psychoanalysts. For Lacan, the goal is to get the patient to "enjoy his symptom" by completing his subjectivation, not to change his behavior to fit social norms.Feel free to elaborate or paraphrase and maybe I'll get at your meaning. — Eee
He goes as far as to say that God died with Christ on the cross. Therefore, he believes that Christ was God even more literally than Christians do. — absoluteaspiration
What's wrong is its cowardice in not going far enough with all these qualities to the point of rejecting worldly injustice with the sublime master it claims to worship. — absoluteaspiration
Conservatives like the fact that he pisses off "libtards" — absoluteaspiration
I can't prove what Trumpists really think, but don't you think that if conservatives were genuinely politically engaged, then they would at least make an effort to find out whether Fox News talking points match the facts rather than judging them solely by the criterion of whether or not they piss off liberals? — absoluteaspiration
This is just the thing. There is no matriarchy. Ergo, they hate the truth. They claim to love it, of course, but they are clearly lying. — absoluteaspiration
The patriarchal fantasy is women enjoying giving pleasure to men. With his usual tact, he illustrates this with the example of porn, where the man is an objectified tool and the primary content is the woman's pleasure. It is this pleasure of the subordinate which titillates the exploiter. — absoluteaspiration
Masculinity is the substance, femininity is the void and "transgender" is loosely the real antinomy, the inability to commit to either of them. The rise in sublimity from masculinity to transgender is the radical negativity operative in the return of the repressed. Meanwhile, the desublimation from transgender to masculinity is a form of speciation, a move towards positive substance. — absoluteaspiration
The Rational Being is confronted by neighbors with immensely greater worldly might than his own, money, health, wealth, and so on, or he feels on the point of being blown away by a natural disaster like a storm. But with the dynamic antinomies in mind, he feels the supernatural weight of moral principles that transcend the order of the natural world. Thus he is enabled to think of natural might as insignificant and sacrifices his material body to uphold the moral law. In para-Freudian terms, a man acts as though the world is lawful (castration anxiety), but there is an exception to this rule whose existence is ambiguous. — absoluteaspiration
Comparing the immovable object with actual infinity, the Rational Being sizes up sensuous reality, responds, "Is that all?" and sacrifices oneself rather than bending before natural might. — absoluteaspiration
The feminine subject thus has an opening to reject boundaries placed on her by Master figures in the form of social roles or biological natures. — absoluteaspiration
Because femininity locates the transcendence of nature in the terms supplied by the world, not as moral principles insisting from beyond it, femininity is pure subjectivity that does not rely on the perception of external objects such as "principles". — absoluteaspiration
Because castration anxiety is experienced as ambient noise in femininity while it constitutes the foremost experience of masculinity, masculinity is a paper tiger that has been contingently cut out from the radicalism immanent in the feminine subject. Since we can never actually access the noumenal, men are constitutionally terrified of being "unmanned" somehow. — absoluteaspiration
Zizek would say that men who promote "feminine"-centrism are often disseminating patriarchal ideas by putting women on a pedestal. — absoluteaspiration
Also, if I can be a straight male chauvinist for a moment, there is nothing hotter than a woman doing manly things. Just watch the video of the Primal Father in contemporary media that I will link somewhere. Sometimes I wonder whether the men who want women to be women are all gay. Since when do boys actually want girls to do girly shit? That's just surreal! — absoluteaspiration
He also says God is the figure of the ultimate criminal. — absoluteaspiration
Zizek probably thinks Derrida is too feminine. — absoluteaspiration
Zizek is the philosopher of our inability to commit to either. Neurosis is freedom. — absoluteaspiration
In Scepticism, the entire unessentiality and unsubstantiality of this “other” becomes a reality for consciousness. Thought becomes thinking which wholly annihilates the being of the world with its manifold determinateness, and the negativity of free self-consciousness becomes aware of attaining, in these manifold forms which life assumes, real negativity.
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By means of this self-conscious negation, self-consciousness procures for itself the certainty of its own freedom, brings about the experience of that freedom, and thereby raises it into the truth. What vanishes is what is determinate, the difference which, no matter what its nature or whence it comes, sets up to be fixed and unchangeable. The difference has nothing permanent in it, and must vanish before thought because to be differentiated just means not to have being in itself, but to have its essential nature solely in an other. Thinking, however, is the insight into this character of what is differentiated; it is the negative function in its simple, ultimate form.
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It finds its freedom, at one time, in the form of elevation above all the whirling complexity and all the contingency of mere existence, and again, at another time, likewise confesses to falling back upon what is unessential, and to being taken up with that. ... It proclaims the nothingness of essential ethical principles, and makes those very truths the sinews of its own conduct. Its deeds and its words belie each other continually; and itself, too, has the doubled contradictory consciousness of immutability and sameness, and of utter contingency and non-identity with itself.... Its talk, in fact, is like a squabble among self-willed children, one of whom says A when the other says B, and again B, when the other says A, and who, through being in contradiction with themselves, procure the joy of remaining in contradiction with one another.
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In Scepticism consciousness gets, in truth, to know itself as a consciousness containing contradiction within itself. From the experience of this proceeds a new attitude which brings together the two thoughts which Scepticism holds apart. The want of intelligence which Scepticism manifests regarding itself is bound to vanish, because it is in fact one consciousness which possesses these two modes within it. This new attitude consequently is one which is aware of being the double consciousness of itself as self-liberating, unalterable, self-identical, and as utterly self-confounding, self-perverting; and this new attitude is the consciousness of this contradiction within itself. — Hegel
True, in the eyes of others the appearance which I present to them may be regarded seriously, in that they take me to be really concerned with the matter in hand, but in that case they are simply deceived, poor limited creatures, without the faculty and ability to apprehend and reach the loftiness of my standpoint. Therefore this shows me that not everyone is so free (i.e. formally free)[52] as to see in everything which otherwise has value, dignity, and sanctity for mankind just a product of his own power of caprice, whereby he is at liberty either to grant validity to such things, to determine himself and fill his life by means of them, or the reverse. Moreover this virtuosity of an ironical artistic life apprehends itself as a divine creative genius for which anything and everything is only an unsubstantial creature, to which the creator, knowing himself to be disengaged and free from everything, is not bound, because he is just as able to destroy it as to create it. In that case, he who has reached this standpoint of divine genius looks down from his high rank on all other men, for they are pronounced dull and limited, inasmuch as law, morals, etc., still count for them as fixed, essential, and obligatory. So then the individual, who lives in this way as an artist, does give himself relations to others: he lives with friends, mistresses, etc; but, by his being a genius, this relation to his own specific reality, his particular actions, as well as to what is absolute and universal, is at the same time null; his attitude to it all is ironical. — Hegel
The next form of this negativity of irony is, on the one hand, the vanity of everything factual, moral, and of intrinsic worth, the nullity of everything objective and absolutely valid. If the ego remains at this standpoint, everything appears to it as null and vain, except its own subjectivity which therefore becomes hollow and empty and itself mere vanity.[53] But, on the other hand, the ego may, contrariwise, fail to find satisfaction in this self-enjoyment and instead become inadequate to itself, so that it now feels a craving for the solid and the substantial, for specific and essential interests. Out of this comes misfortune, and the contradiction that, on the one hand, the subject does want to penetrate into truth and longs for objectivity, but, on the other hand, cannot renounce his isolation and withdrawal into himself or tear himself free from this unsatisfied abstract inwardness. — Hegel
https://www.radicalphilosophy.com/article/romantic-bureaucracy-2For Kojève, the necessity of revolutionary violence follows from the ineffectiveness of persuasive speech. Already in his analysis of Bayle’s Encyclopedia (to which he indirectly refers in this letter to Strauss), Kojève demonstrates that the philosopher cannot overcome the plurality of particular opinions by means of persuasive speech alone – by the speech that pretends to be ‘true’ speech. [17] Indeed, throughout its history philosophy tried to operate by persuasion. It measured its effectiveness by the influence that it exercised on listeners or readers. But there is no evidence that is evident enough to compel readers to abandon their own opinions and begin to accept ‘evident speech’ as ‘true speech’. The hope that motivated philosophy for centuries – the hope to produce such an intense light of evidence that it would be impossible for anybody to reject this evidence, to turn one’s back to this light, to remain unpersuaded – this hope demonstrated itself as futile and ruinous for philosophy. As a result philosophy degenerated into literature; philosophy began to reproduce the plurality of opinions instead of overcoming it. — Groy
Both/and - (but) must be we choose? :smirk: — 180 Proof
Being No One helps to explain why the traditional reliance on philosophical intuition has illuminated this subject so little. Human intuitions about consciousness and the self are shaped by consciousness and the self-model, as they are experienced by normal human adults. Both consciousness and the self-model are products of evolution, a natural process which favours gene reproduction. Evolution has no fundamental bias towards the truth. Although it is often adaptive for organisms to form accurate models of reality, it is by no means always so. Robert Trivers has shown that self-deception can be adaptive (because it helps us to deceive others) (Trivers, 2000); and so can ego-boosting misperceptions such as superiority bias. Another highly adaptive evolutionary product is what Metzinger calls the Phenomenal Self-Model (PSM). It has conferred such great advantages on our species, that Metzinger describes it as not only a tool, but (acknowledging Andy Clark for the metaphor):
…a weapon, developed in a cognitive arms race. Conscious selves are like instruments or abstract organs, invented and constantly optimized by biological systems. (Metzinger, 2004, p. 273)
To describe the model as effective is not to say that it is accurate. In fact, it is inaccurate in important respects. We are not the sort of beings that, influenced by our own self-models, we intuitively think we are. Discipline is required to overcome our biases, to arrive at truths about ourselves that are scientifically justified. — link
Relative to what is the ego-boosted self deceived? His community's shared self-deceptions? And I like various master thinkers (Lacan), but they too are masks, weapons, fellow mortals who dream of gazing on community-independent truth. Cult leaders all. And I dream that dream like maybe all of us do.Robert Trivers has shown that self-deception can be adaptive (because it helps us to deceive others) (Trivers, 2000); and so can ego-boosting misperceptions such as superiority bias. — link
Sorry, my university applications are in the way.Just want to say this is strange and strangely interesting thread. Keep it going :) — I like sushi
Not yet, but that sounds interesting.Have you ever looked in Kojeve? His interpretation of the master/slave dialectic is great. The basic idea is that many famous philosophical positions are just rationalizations of cowardice. We are afraid to challenge the worldly master, so we invent theoretical freedoms and/or theological masters of those masters. — Eee
Where is it in lived reality, outside libraries of controversial thinkers? Even inside the libraries, I've seen multiple feminists complaining about the people who will probably turn conservative when they get older making a nuisance of themselves trying to prove how pro-woman they are (obsessional neurosis). The tragedy is that these "radicals" occasionally get more grassroots support than serious theorists. The only way I know of to fight this problem is to dismantle the myth of progress. Turns out the supporters of these "radicals" often think that "progress" wins out in the long run, and if they hold the most "progressive" position, then their insanity will be vindicated when they turn out to be on the "right side of history". They don't understand that, eg, second wave feminism was a movement of TERFs. Whatever actually happens is branded "progressive" after the fact. The real future is physically necessary, but semantically contingent. Fighting for it bears little relation to how "progressive" you think you are being. Zizek argues that communist atrocities were carried out with the same hope for historical vindication. He says we should refuse to hold back on our desire without any hope of justification.I think there is a matriarchal vibe, even if it's massively exaggerated. — Eee
Alright, how do these exhibits square with your theory? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSILkDZI7jk http://verduria.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=37&p=20949#p20949 (written by a conservative)Tho some of the thought leaders are probably self-conscious sophists who cynically manage their dupes. — Eee
I like this. Although, strictly speaking, the original point probably mentions "enjoyment" in the Lacanian sense, not pleasure. This means repetitively circling the object of desire without attaining it. This could be pleasurable, but it may not be. So it may be that it strokes their ego to imagine women endlessly desiring them. This is probably also a projection. According to Lacanian theory, this is how men behave towards women. Moreover, I have noticed how, in porn, the female orgasm commonly reflects male orgasm in reality. The whole thought form is a projection.As a pet theory, I suggest that maybe this is connected to the egoistic man projecting his repressed desire to submit and believe on the woman. If we think of the man as self-assertion, endlessly critical and unmasking, then the fantasized woman has the ecstasy that the man qua man denies himself. In Sartrean terms, the woman is man's disavowed flight from his own freedom. — Eee
Checks out, but I need to think about it.If the 'male' fantasy is autonomy and self-definition, it is also being dominated by female beauty. The beautiful woman is a 'phallus,' the mystical object. To be in love or dominated by the beauty of a woman is OK because she is of a different order than a rival, male ego. Something like that. — Eee
I really need to read this Kojeve. However, caveats are in order about these narratives of self-sacrifice:This is different way of saying the kind of thing I find in Kojeve's Hegel and something I mostly agree with. We can talk about a symbolic reality that has enough weight or force that man can risk his life for it, perhaps to impose it on the world or just to sacrifice his life as a gesture. — Eee
Nice. Could you please recommend the thinkers you like best? Maybe also some goddess-centric ones if you still don't think they are patriarchal.Is there a masculine mystique? I think so. Zizek, Lacan,the thinkers I like,...all project it. It's like a violence that cuts through illusion and pettiness. — Eee
Thank you for completing my train of thought. I usually just shy away from it.I speculate that on some deep level that everyone is bisexual. — Eee
Zizek probably also thinks Derrida should have been more irrational. And yes, Christian theology should have been more rational. Every theory should follow its guiding genius to the end of its desire. They will then turn into the points of reference between which the foundational ambivalence is unable to commit. And this ambivalence is not even a goal worth reaching. Rather, existential tension arises between this ambivalence and its speciations, i.e. Freudian symptomal compromise formations. It's only after reaching this tension that Zizek is focused on masculinity, the absolute fucking madman.I've mostly wrestled with early Derrida, and I find him patricidal. The purple velvet sportcoat is the costume of an assassin. It does make sense that anyone who insists on action will read the ironist or anyone who muddies the water as passive. And the ironist can read Mr. Action as cutting the knot in impatience. I don't come down on either side, but maybe that's me coming down on a side after all. — Eee
I haven't read it. My excuse is that I'm from outside the Anglosphere. I will read it and write back.Is the judge in Blood Meridian still a philosopher? Or a post-philosophical prophet? — Eee
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