On the idea of communism - so what did Žižek saj?

[Heraclitus]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/mar/12/philosophy

The hottest ticket in London this weekend is not for a pop singer or a football match but for a conference on communism which brings together some of the world's leading Marxist academics. The international financial crisis has led to a resurgence of interest in a philosophy that many claimed had been buried with the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Such has been the interest in the conference, entitled On the Idea of Communism, being staged at London university's Birkbeck college from tomorrow, that the venue has been changed three times to accommodate the extra demand and is sold out. Participants are flying in from the US, Latin America, Africa and Australia to hear from some of the world's big hitters on the subject.

...

One of the organisers, the Slovenian philosopher and writer, Slavoj Zizek, has emphasised that the purpose of the gathering is not to "deal with practico-political questions of how to analyse the latest economic, political, and military troubles, or how to organise a new political movement". He added: "more radical questioning is needed today – this is a meeting of philosophers who will deal with communism as a philosophical concept, advocating a precise and strong thesis: from Plato onwards, communism is the only political idea worthy of a philosopher."

This was on the 12th, I missed it but read an article about it today. I haven't heard much about the content but I wonder what the guy said.







http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavoj_%C5%BDi%C5%BEek

[Elok]

Who cares? He's a commie and a philosopher, which makes his opinion doubly irrelevant.

EDIT: Jeez, his Wiki says he's into sociology too. That's three strikes and counting! Is he also a proponent of the UN General Assembly by some chance?

SECOND EDIT: Holy crap, he's also into psychoanalytic interpretations of pop culture. The duds just keep coming from this guy.

[chequita guevara]

Well, Elok's pronouncements from on high aside, Žižek is something of a rock star in Europe. I don't know why, since he's not the easiest person to understand, speaking in the post-modern jargon.

My big problem with Žižek is that, like many post-modernists, his big thing isn't, "how do we make a socialist society, how do we build a socialist movement capable of getting us there?" it's, "what does all this **** mean?" At this moment in history, when capitalism is tottering and stumbling, and won't be righting itself anytime soon (and certainly not without major structural changes), it is the practical questions that are of utmost importance. This isn't to say the Žižek doesn't have important stuff to say, it's just that there's other stuff more important right at this moment.

[Elok]

Hey, it's not that I think the obsolete musings of nineteenth-century economists shouldn't be applied to solve the problems of today. It's just that I'm more of a bimetallist, myself. Nothing personal.

[SlowwHand]

He looks like he stays in a fog most of the time, which wouuld explain his thinking.

[EPW]

...he studied psychoanalysis....

...which was debunked over 100 years ago...

[Elok]

Yes, but that doesn't stop people from applying its tenets to critical analysis of things. The bulk of lit crit is a vast race to be the first to say the most absurd and implausible things with the straightest face, and discredited or fringe ideologies are a big help in that. Psychoanalytic criticism involves everything representing our fathers' penises, except for the stuff which is our mothers' vaginas, and how the work speaks to our collective nervousness about both of those things.

Actually, not all of Freud's ideas were debunked, just most. There are still a few psychoanalysts practicing today, IIUC. I'll have to ask my mother, she's a psych professor.

[Alinestra Covelia]

If Marxism is defunct based on its age ("100 years out of date") then how do you account for all the politicians running countries based on religious tenets from centuries ago?

[Blaupanzer]

Alinestra, church influence as historic artifacts. population and leaders afraid to change. National populations of ostriches with the rulers better off if the public keeps its collective head in the sand.

Note that the original "Marxist" theory was presented as an historical explanation of how the unarmed (and often shunned as being Jewish) capitalists took control of the engines of national power from the heavily armed, prideful, touchy feudalist leadership structures. That theory still works, has not been debunked.

[rtwinger]

Wow, believe it or not, another communist using capitalism to spread his ideas. Ironic?

Get him up against the wall!

[ZEE]

Capitalism breeds rampant crime

Communism breeds dictatorship with a "creed"

Fascism breeds dictatorship with an iron fist.

[rtwinger]

Capitalism breeds rampant crime

Communism breeds dictatorship with a "creed"

Fascism breeds dictatorship with an iron fist.

Both communism and fascism are the same in practice.
Capitalism doesn't breed crime, the mass of dirty, poor, and retarded peasants inspired by libs and communists create crime.

[Blaupanzer]

For once, AAHZ, your gross oversimplifications are not eye opening. Crime almost always orients itself to capitalist control structures. The Government provides no barriers to entry and punishes the successful in direct relation to their success. True capitalism seldom exists outside underground enterprises. Communism "in one country" cannot work as it is internationalist Hegelianism. Fascism is a mix of Nazism and Syndicalism. Nazism, or properly, National Socialism is the culmination of nationalistic movements, or Hegelian Nationalism. The presence of the iron fist is possible in all three forms as these are technically economic theories/forms which can be used by different governmental forms.

[Ben Kenobi]

Ali:

Marxists arguing that if the Church has influence over the years, so do they? Interesting twist. I hardly think most Marxists would appeal to the church as a rationale for relevance.

[DirtyMartini]

In that first picture it looks like Sonny Crockett punched him in the eye for stealing his outfit.