Žižek: How to “Be Yourself”

[@julianphilosophy]

Thanks for watching. If you’d like to access my “Guide to Žižek” ebook series, it’s available here: www.patreon.com/julianphilosophy

[@BlenderheadX]

Thank you

[@JMoore-vo7ii]

The section on "selling yourself" is fantastic. Thank you for your continued work and willingness to communicate these ideas. Wonderful teacher

[@Ava-tq3kv]

Love your content. I first heard of you on TikTok. For a 40 second TikTok they are incredible insightful. I just in the last week found your KZbin videos. I’ve been amazed so far.

[@nojh0515]

Hi sir Julian! am also from Philippines! Am currently taking my master degree in philosophy. Thank you so much for all the lectures you are sharing. Am learning a lot from you sir! 🙏

[@squaldon3585]

Love the lecture. I must say i recognise this deeply in myself and many of my friends, the anxiety to stand out is real and i have talked about it with friends before, But iam glad to finally Hear it formulated clearly.

[@ernestofalso6003]

Really? I don't get it myself. The whole premise seems to be a strawman. Sure (as an outsider) I thought it interesting that punks adopted a kind of uniform, but never heard one complain that they felt conflicted by it. To me, this analysis treats the possibility of a conflict as if it were real. Zizek does this a lot. It doesn't matter if the question is real or not (just as it doesn't matter if he's seen the movie he reviews), it's just a launching point from which to ply his technique.

[@josemarialaguinge]

You can argue they don't complain because they don't know any better. I have a lot of friends following the current worldview advise, with their respective gurus. They all want the money, to stand out, so on and si forth, they encapsulate themselves in these ideas never questioning why they follow them, and a lot of times you can feel the distress in following without knowing.

[@ernestofalso6003]

@@josemarialaguinge Yes. People can worry about the stupidest things. But that doesn't mean that every stupid thing is worthy of analysis.

[@karmabhutia706]

What a enlightening analysis and lecture.Thank you🙏

[@ahmetdogan5685]

I love your Mundane Morning lectures.

[@BenKingOfMonkeys]

Great lecture, the cut stuff was clear and enlightening.

[@waterman121]

Really loves this, thank you!

[@TheWay-u1n]

upon changing environments and routine we can avoid being misshapen by softness.. Your in my world for my knowledge of the environment surpasses yours

[@TheWay-u1n]

You can be the softness with the rest

[@TheWay-u1n]

@tristanreynolds5748 Jihad is bottom up.. Yr on defense

[@TheWay-u1n]

@tristanreynolds5748 Jihad goes through

[@agus.90]

Amazing lecture, very clear. Thanks!

[@t_khon_o]

I watched the Hypnosis yesterday. It’s a good illustration to some of what is said here. Cheers

[@zoomer619]

Today is Janmashtami in India, one of the most significant days for Hindus. Although I'm an atheist, one of my favorite books of all time is the Bhagavad Gita, a dialogue between Arjuna and Krishna (whose birthday is today). I hope the symbolic structure brings enlightenment to your intellect and through your hard work towards understanding what you call 'I.' On to the Owl of Minerva... Namaste 🕉️🙏

[@GIGADEV690]

BHAGAVAD GITA OVERRATED GARBAGE YOU LOVE IT BECAUSE OF YOUR HINDU ROOTS NOTHING ELSE

[@ai_serf]

This is similar to Nietzsche and Foucault, we must choose our morals and values and be wary of the genealogy of influence from society. Also, capitalism and our current political landscape are horrible... le sigh. I try to manifest my own values and light. It's a work in progress, and we must try not to lose hope and not give up.

[@lonelycubicle]

“If you are completely yourself, you’re an idiot.” Unless I missed something, this is just asserted by the speaker who says it represents what Zizek said. If I got that right, it seems too important to just assert and would like to hear why since becoming oneself is what many people attempt to do (and think was advised by Nietzsche.)

[@stopshell8154]

thank you

[@dharmnayak5474]

Happy Janmasthmi zizekians ;)

[@skyblazeeterno]

I wasnt expecting Peep Show to be referenced in this video

[@xXSironimoXx]

Am i really the only one seeing the parallel between Zizek/Lacan and Kenneth Burke? Drive+Fantasy fits very well on his concept of identfication+substance. Gotta start making videos about this, yall miss something^^

[@bkinstler]

This “freedom” to create/become our postmodern selves sounds more like a compulsion than a freedom.

[@onepartyroule]

Freedom is a feeling though right? Resistance (to what is already here) is the opposite of freedom.

[@josemarialaguinge]

It is freedom under your own terms in this post modern world, after all no one is truly free.

[@taciprince7400]

25:41 happy when you’re hustling

[@taciprince7400]

30:56 we are the cut

[@sina8883]

Am I mistaken in hearing echoes of Don Quixote in ideas of the “fantasies maintaining your drive” presented here?

[@sodvar5047]

Not mistaken at all, IMO. Don Quixote is one great early literary representation of modern subjectivity.

[@112broadcastyourself]

amazing

[@clorofilaazul]

Are you Portuguese, my friend? Or probably Portuguese descendant. Thank you for this video, my friend.

[@theelderskatesman4417]

'revelant' is a nice slip in the context.

[@richardg.lanzara3732]

Great talk! I only wish that you had used the word "imagination" instead of "fantasy"...

[@MyWritingJourney9]

I dont know why, but at the end, for me, it looked like Camus Absurdism. Please someone, can you relate?

[@josemarialaguinge]

A little bit yes, I feel like all of these are ways to try and stay alive fighting the Absurd, or in case you don't like the idea of the Absurd you can think of it like Nietzsche's answer to nihilism. They are all similar ideas.

[@MyWritingJourney9]

@josemarialaguinge thank you man.

[@TennesseeJed]

👍

[@wordscapes5690]

There is no self to be.

[@markoslavicek]

Couldn't we say that each of the coming periods (modern, postmodern...) is potentially a reaction to the previous one? The modern one negates the pre-modern one, transforms the form of the cut into a metaphor (Jesus is cut on our behalf) but replaces the old pagan symbolic order with the new Judeo-Christian one. The postmodern period - _not_ postmodernism as a philosophical term - then rejects the modern symbolic order and re-appropriates the pagan cut-gesture in a seemingly non-symbolic environment. I sense a touch of Deleuze here and his concept of 'pure difference' which he draws from Nietzsche, proposing an affirmative rather than negative approach, or action instead of reaction. As long as the postmodern subject _reacts_ to modern symbolic order, they merely replace one order with another and their insisting on the individual freedom becomes a new restriction as such. Zizek in this case argues similarly to Nietzsche when he says that the only way is 'through', not 'back' (Nietzsche draws inspiration from a Greco-Roman value system as an antidote to the Judeo-Christian one, however, he adds that the point is _not_ to go all the way back, but forward).

[@Peanut-jy7hd]

Another one of the examples of Julian's masterclass teaching expertise! Great work! @julianphilosophy I would love to hear what you think about metamodernism in literature as described by Robin van den Akker, as somewhat of a culture-shift toward something where humans are more aware of themselves.

[@pega7us]

You can learn from people like Peterson and their life experience without turning them into your gurus by exercising proper judgment. You've got to subtract a man from his philosophy. Every man is his own personal myth. Here's my problem with Zizek (and Peterson, for that matter). I find him disembodied. All in the head. That has got to leave a mark on a man's philosophy. Hence, "there's no true self", perhaps.

[@natlee5879]

It's all too much. We're not meant to entertain such complexity (think too much about our absurd positionality). Just live, get your feet on the ground every day, and absorb. I know it's not that easy... but all this is obfuscation

[@GreenTeaViewer]

I find that Zizek uses unnecessary abstraction and verbiage to communicate simple concepts. For example, apparently he says that people use tattoos to "signify inscription into the social order". Inscription? This usage is completely unidiomatic in English. Why not say, tattoos show membership of the group and are an attempt to increase social status. Simple and clear. I'm left with the impression that unnecessarily abstract, non-idiomatic and complex language - referring to the abstractions of Marcuse and Lacan rather than building from first principles without jargon - is simply an attempt to gatekeep and accrue social status (you might say) as being thoughtful and profound.

[@jaydubb1623]

It seems Zizek uses those words instead of different words for the same reason that we have variants of colors. I could say the car is blue, light blue, midnight blue, etc. The usage of different words provides more definition for the expression of what he is trying to communicate. I struggled (still struggle) with his language occasionally. It’s what makes his writing dense. Inscription implies outward force applied to someone in order to obtain their participation. It is not just membership with a group, but a compelled membership brought on by outside force stronger than any single one who is joining the group. Social order is a larger overarching, more all encompassing dynamic than just a group. It speaks to all of the components and sub components that not only establish, but maintain the group. It’s not necessarily that people get tattoos to obtain membership to a group, but it’s that people are compelled by forces beyond their own individual reasoning to do things that signal, and potentially attempt to obtain, alignment with the overall cohesiveness of the current age. I think it comes back to ideology and how it not only shapes your opinion, but provides the filter/lens through which you form your opinion. It happens so subtly than you don’t even notice it. Your actions are not truly chosen, but rather they are being directed.

[@junxu4438]

But this isn’t a problem at all. We can never be truly free, we are animals with bodies that are preprogrammed by our genetics, we naturally know what brings us pleasure, just need to listen to the body, not the mythical spirit or soul. The real problem is trying to escape our animal bodies and find ‘purpose or meaning’ from the meaningless world, it’s like stuck in a man made simulation.

[@ldjkfg]

Pleasure and pain are not clear categories. Also genetics/anatomy are a kind of inscription on the body as well. We can create an instruction manual that tells a person "touch yourself here to experience pleasure" but at that moment it becomes unknowable if the pleasure is "natural" or learned. This is practically the point of psychoanalysis, and a big problem with behaviorism. Although one can object (and man have) that psychoanalysis repeats this problem through description of the unconscious, primal repression etc.

[@lonelycubicle]

This is similar to how I was raised, but was told “real” religion is in each person, just have to listen to yourself (kinda similar to gnostic thinking.) But if one can’t get an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’, why should one attempt to follow what the spirit and/or body says, assuming one can even do that? Practically thinking, I think that’s the best one can do, but think of it more as ‘do what you love’ but would really like to know if there’s some philosophical justification for doing so since in my case would impoverish me. That’s why I’ve been watching post-modernist videos on the subject to see what they have to say.

[@ryanshieldsalford7738]

Ironically, the moment you truly believe this is the moment you find both purpose and meaning.

[@meowzedong2]

@@lonelycubicle​​⁠don't know for sure if this would be helpful to you, but look into the book "timenergy" and/or the channel "theory underground" that the author runs. was helpful to me for better understanding the relationship between passion/purpose/meaning and survival under capitalism

[@lonelycubicle]

@@meowzedong2 Thanks for the suggestion, I’ll look for it

[@hotto5150]

Never a Julian video without having to up your volume by 100% and it's still not enough to hear him.

[@josemarialaguinge]

I've never had this problem with him before nor do I have it now, but I feel like I'm missing the experience in my life.

[@geoffreydawson5430]

Zizak is lazy, he is critiquing Dr Iain McGilchrist and his Process Philosophy to sell books before he dies.

[@richardcox7926]

Talk faster so I don't have to put you on 1.75 speed

[@AutumnBrazzle]

judgmentcallpodcast covers this. "Žižek: Authenticity's paradoxical nature explained."