Episode

[@JRodizAwesome]

Ever stop and think how great it is that Zizek survived the Covid pandemic? People on KZbin comments of any Zizek video make fun of his constant sniffing, but the truth is that Zizek likely has underlying health conditions. Covid almost certainly would’ve wrecked this beautiful thinker. Glad we still got him. Edit: No intent of being pessimistic here. During the episode I thought about Zizek’s critique of the left and parts reminded me of Nietzsche (the parts on capitalism). Naturally I was reminded of Nietzsche’s somewhat short life (55 years lived) and thought of Zizek.

[@djetinjstvo_u_boji]

I like the part on dialectics very much! And yes, please do techno-feudalism episode.

[@markoslavicek]

Absolutely 👏🏻

[@nightoftheworld]

Yes I second this-talk about Varoufakis please, his idea of “cloudalism”

[@ommit]

+1 techno-feudalism, by yanis varoufakis

[@RossOzarka]

+1 to this!

[@TennesseeJed]

Thank you Professor West for another excellent presentation! I am looking forward to more Žižek

[@addammadd]

It’s always interesting to read a comment section under a Žižek video. It’s reliably saturated with people who’ve ever only seen KZbin videos about Žižek, never having read his works, and making confident assertions about him as if they have the slightest clue about his philosophy.

[@markoslavicek]

Zizek got so deep into reality that he completely lost the touch with illusion.

[@tortera]

Just brilliant. Thank you so much for sharing.

[@whiplashTM]

Really enjoyed the episode - but I would disagree with Zisek regarding "needing ideology" as I would word it with "Metaphysics" instead. I've been reading alot of Jan Patocka lately - and he's very critical of metaphysics - saying that we need to "shake" our metaphysically views and not be locked in the same frame of thought - because it's a ever ending search - but we also need metaphysics to understand the world and our lifes, here and now. Would love an episode of Jan Patocka sometime in the future - a man who lived through the regime of both Germany and Russia during and in the aftermath of WWII, in Czech Republic. He was interestingly a student of both Heidegger and Husserl. Keep up the good work you do!

[@GuftguJamia]

😊😊

[@Sinner-man]

you really are wonderful, thank you

[@GeekGawk]

Beautiful piece.

[@kiuri.]

I am a big fan of your podcast! I found out about Zizek and started reading his books and watching his talks. I am enjoying it a lot! I have a slight feeling that his latest talks are getting a bit lost into clickbait sort of territory, and it seems that perhaps his age is catching up to him. I disagree with his recent stances on migration. They seemed a bit racist and seem to ignore that majority of migrants do not want to leave their home countries unless compelled by dire circumstances like war or economic despair and are left them with no other choice to begin with. And also his idea of giving nuclear weapons to Ukraine. The principle of having a country being able to decide its future independent of whatever side the influence comes from and be able to do so because one has nuclear weapons, somehow seems to be missing the thread on who runs most countries in the world (selfish leaders who sell their souls to the highest bidder to the detriment of the people) and how easily corruptible these are, as history has seen time and time again. I am uncertain if he is doing this to trigger debate or if his Balkan patriotism he alluded to in one of his recent talks, is starting to pick up with age. I know you don't go deep into political discussions and picking sides, even though if one is smart enough, one can read between the lines, but maybe during the interview you want to do, you could try to see whether his "ideology is dangerous and limits free thinking" could also be applied to recent anti-immigration rhetoric polluting the western narrative these days, and whether Simone Weil would have suggested that before you talk about such topics, you should live them, to understand them better. Also, watch out as he likes hijacking discussions and will most likely eat away at the allotted time and leave you with little left, so be strict about it in case you don't want to delete 45 minutes of political discussion you may not want to air :D Anyway, big thanks once more for your show!

[@curtissjamesd]

Great job as always

[@PepePerez-x1x]

Well think about how much people's life would change if their ideology was challenged, i remembered the answer a friend gave me after i kept on insisting on all the little sociological implications of the free market (for example how you theoretically benefit from not teaching your coworkers about what you know, and how that alienates your relationship with them), and she told me "Well okay that makes sense, but if you think like that all the time you cannot live". And in that sense its one of the reasons that i stopped considering people dumb for believing in a particular ideology ive seen through, and stopped considering people "mad" for having a psychological condition, such as depression, anxiety, schizophrenia; my sister, without that implicit belief would obviously become desinteresad in work or other similar activities, if you remove the dopamine reward at the end of the action, at the "end" of ideology, you brain will try to compensate for that lack putting you in a state of depression, slowing your body down like in a sort of stasis chamber, trying to keep you frozen in time waiting for the point were you able to find meaning again in what you do. In that sense is not too far fetched to think that the suicide, depression, obesity, drug (maybe even conflict or war) pandemic is a social pandemic, inherent to the systems we use today to organize things. As we all create, by doing, the paper, where others can write (the space where others feel and are safe from harm) , the pen that the others use (the tools, the ways in which they can act, do and accomplish), and even the words they use to think and most importantly express themselves (and if we consider that we are always, to the day that we die, trying to: do, achieve, earn, get things that are outside of ourselves, things that momentarily complete us). Maybe if we recontextualize things in another way, instead of the neverending race of adquiring more money or power to escape from some subconscious concept of scarcity and from the limitations that other subjectivities impose on us, avoid using the concept of positive freedom as a way to point fingers at someone for being mean, and instead try to create the ideologies that motivates us to expand those freedoms.

[@williammcfarlane6153]

I often tell my son that one of the things that makes the world so complicated is that you'll have people do the right thing for the wrong reason and the wrong thing for the right reason...

[@AliTahreiSh]

The best way of thinking is to study all ideologies and select and apply the best part of them just like when you eat a chicken you don’t eat the whole chicken. You just select the best parts to eat. (Or a vegetable if you're vegan)

[@TheLaterWay384]

Perhaps, if people didn't have distractions from reality, they would be more burdened by what they don't know that they don't know, resulting in an increased value of original philosophy in order to prevent moments of anarchy or in an increased value of anarchy in order to overthrow the people preventing new philosophies from forming. (Just based on the history of western philosophy...)

[@melissasmind2846]

Helpful

[@jessicapotts9972]

Woo Hoo, Australia got a call out

[@AliTahreiSh]

studying all the ideologies and select and apply the best part of them makes our world the better place to live, but being LOYAL to any ideology turns our world to a hell

[@Vladimir-Struja]

It was Fichte! :D

[@philosophizethispodcast]

and schelling! thanks for listening! :)

[@jaybot22]

Zizek reminds me of when I was 18-20 years old and thought my ideas on society were innovative, perceptive, and brilliant

[@thereignofthezero225]

Too bad he never grew up

[@Burnedcoffee0]

Yes yes, but what does that mean? That your ideas lined up with his or that you think that his approach is lacking. Do you feel he's being prescriptive instead of descriptive? Do you think he's too full of himself and he does not know what the "real world" is like? Would you mind expanding on an element of his thought you find lacking. You don't have to answer anything I wrote, but your comment reads a little bit like you're patting yourself in the back because you gained a wisdom Zizek lacks. And that's fine, I don't think he's a genius, but you know, he does make arguments for his points at least.

[@jaybot22]

Yes you guessed it. I find his ideas trite and lacking. He makes very mundane observations and rambles on without really saying anything. He offers no unique or intricate perspective. He is the Taylor Swift of philosophy.

[@adrianaslund8605]

"Never grew up" Dude! Maybe you've just been perverted? Maybe that mindset is just you having acclimatized to a reality that has inherent flaws. Zizek is nuanced and well worth considering. And he's fully aware of this kind of cynicism. It just seems like a wall that you've put up to me.

[@life_lab_chronicles]

​@@jaybot22do you have a unique and intricate perspective we should be hearing?

[@melissasmind2846]

Reminds me of Burlington, Vermont. Hehe

[@mimszanadunstedt441]

What are your thoughts on idealism vs materialism?

[@bq4416]

Lost respect for zizek when he said, that after tearing down the government what would they replace it with, hinting there's no alternative to the current government and so no point in democracy. I understand he was talking more on ideology but nevertheless, such a cackhanded, populist assertion. Obviously he never really predicted the incompetence of the UK conservative government!! And, how there's a lot more nuance and craft to/in governing and policy making, and how important it really is to a functioning nation, state, civilisation.

[@andynewman6941]

He made that comment about the film V for Vendetta, which is a work of fiction. And if you are going to tear down the existing system of government, you do need to have some idea of what is going to replace it. And what does the current UK government have to do with any of this?

[@bq4416]

@@andynewman6941 I know, and thanks for highlighting. The thing is, he's used that film as an example for many of his talks/essays to prove a point. It wasn't just some film fanclub; he actually used the film to demonstrate his own(?) politico-philosophical POV. I mean, it was used to discredit ideologies, particularly anarchistic, radical or revolutionary movements, but that's my point, his POVs and comments just felt so nihilistic thus discouraging. It's a similar story to a lot of absentee/inactive voters in elections - "why bother voting, they're [all political parties] all the same?".

[@bq4416]

@@andynewman6941 also, my reference to the UK conservative government was meant to highlight how taking a nihilistic and indifferent stance to the state's modality of governance does nothing but harm for the mid-long term health and prospects of a country and it's people. The current UK conservative party is a testament to this IMO.

[@advicepirate8673]

When the dudes whole 'thing' is making provocative connections that aren't necessarily true in order to get people to take a step back and take a closer look at their own ideology, and you lose respect for him for making a provocative connection that isn't necessarily true, are you sure you aren't missing the damn point?

[@timbarbeau2886]

If there's a constructive point in Zizek's comment it's that the act of tearing down one governing structure necessitates that it will be replaced with a different governing structure. It's not an accident that every place on earth has a government, "government" is just the word we have for the thing that we do when humans collectively need to make decisions about who has what responsibilities and who gets what resources. Many people talk about the problems of "government" when what they're really upset about is how their society has made those decisions about resource and responsibility allocation. If they had their way, they would immediately replace the "bad" government with a "good" government that distributes resources and responsibilities in the way they would prefer. As long as we live in communities of more than 20-30 people, you really can't get away from the fact that some kind of governance is going to be required, and not everybody is going to like it.

[@CiscoZero]

This episode is where Washington crossed the Delaware River. I just hope this doesn’t get to Stephen’s head. He’s leading some important aspect of history as it goes down. A voice to echo for as long as there’s hungry ears for understanding. (This is not a soft psyop for an uprising lol). Look, l’m just gonna say it: Trump/Vivek 2024

[@Maverick_Mad_Moiselle]

Why is dialectics not treated just as another ideology? 🤨 It's just yet another interpretation made by the human mind.

[@michaelkelly60]

I demand techno-feudalism ❤

[@christinemartin63]

Why do plain common sense and garden-variety critical thinking suddenly get packaged by some "philosopher" (e.g., Zizek) and get peddled as an original, creative "theory"? I learn more about life and am exposed to more wisdom in literature than from reading countless "philosophical theories."

[@mimszanadunstedt441]

Hamster LMAO

[@pathyal489]

❤️ Promo-SM

[@juvenalhahne7750]

Os temas de Filosofe isso sao oportunos e interessantes, mas deviam ser mais breves. A partir de 10 ou 15 minutos ja conseguiram ou tiveram tempo para deixar sua ideia e podiam pois descansar. Tornam-se entao cansativos e, desconfio, um tanto prolixos e monotonos pelo que parece um excesso de repeticao. Seu unico recurso tecnico, uma voz narrando sem qualquer pausa e imagem para constrasta-la, enervante...

[@geometron3646]

Climate Change ideology good example. Plant optimum is 1200ppm of CO2. So maybe we need to double our efforts on carbon release. Sea levels haven't meaningfully changed since at least Roman times.

[@VoloBonja]

You use example from podcast to prove you are right. Good for you. More confirmation bias, please. The example about climate change is not denying, but about proper action not Starbucks way

[@cadamham]

Rome became diverse. Then it fell.

[@farahali6749]

With all due respect, I lost interest in Zezik when he started pandering to Piers Morgan. Time to move on to other serious theorists pls. Thank you Stephen.

[@Wingedmagician]

“I” is the key word here.

[@MoyadElley-iw9gp]

Wingedmagician , can WE ask Mr Zezik to “ philosophise this” killing?

[@VoloBonja]

What didn’t you like specifically from Morgan interview? With all due respect this comment is shit, throwing out ideas because of some reporter. Engage with ideas

[@MoyadElley-iw9gp]

I am not particularly interested in Zizek philosophy,as long as he is not clear enough about the moral implications of the killing in Gaza

[@Lukainka]

What is unclear about him, I've read pieces where he clearly advocate for peace

[@farahali6749]

What is unclear about him is that while he feels strongly for Ukraine, he is vague on the Palestinian's rights to defend themselves, that is what is unclear about him. Clear as mud to you I guess?

[@SomebodyLikeXeo]

@@farahali6749 What do you even mean by this? Where was he vague on the topic of Palestine? He was literally condemned and critiqued as an anti-semite after talking about October 7th. Recently, Zizek started his own substack account where he shared his thoughts on Palestine having the moral justification to resist.

[@markoslavicek]

​@@SomebodyLikeXeo Exactly. Just because he 'condemned Hamas' (unlike Varoufakis), it doesn't mean there is anything vague about his position. I watched closely when they booed him at the Frankfurt book fair only days after 7 Oct because he _dared_ to point out to the Palestinian suffering.

[@tisiaan]

@@SomebodyLikeXeo your reaction was sharp, clean and precise. Respect.