Žižek - The Limits of Hegel

26 March 2011 The Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities

[@CaseyConnor]

The only Zizek video on youtube with the long-winded introduction edited out. Thanks!

[@ujean56]

In his discussion of Bach, he really does capture the zeitgeist of Bach's age when the elite of Europe were desperately trying to "prove" their superiority by connecting all things, including science, to God and the white man's special divinity. There was a desperate fight to invent a science of everything, politics, economics, and music, without offending the church. This phenomenon can be seen as a symptom of the coming fascism of later Centuries. This life-world continues today with TV specials on the superiority of Stradivarius' billion dollar violins featuring scientific tests to show their superior design and construction.

[@abataaoigami6715]

And now, mathematics has superseded this idolatrous concern for YHWH, and formed a central pole around which modern science organizes, in an identical sense. And we even seem to have elected a racial superior in the West: the Far East. Similar to Stradivarius, the greater Sino-Asiatic cultural base has such pedigree that all Roman concerns seem, like concerns for a Holy Roman Empire, the British Empire, or even of the Ottomans or Russian expansionist regimes, totally historical, or pro-historical (MAGA and variants are merely countercultural political ploys in this understanding). Oppositionally (or rather Positionally), Occidental culture reveres Asian Fusion, and Economic development comes freely to those "whitewashed" cultures, who nonetheless possess an intact social superstructure, godless though it may be. Godlessness is even higher than Godliness, just as Space is always higher than the air.

[@VVeltanschauung187]

@@abataaoigami6715 China isn't a threat to the West, in fact they are already in decline; just as the Japanese in the 80s.

[@VVeltanschauung187]

"Philosophy is racist. A system that encompasses the necessary tools for creative thinking and the possibility of individual autonomy, that anybody could have access to if they were given the social development.....can be appropriately compared to British imperialism...." Okay retard maybe stop drinking from the kool aid

[@johncracker5217]

But those violins are superior.. is that racist too?😂

[@kibbo86]

@@VVeltanschauung187 They don't directly threaten the West. They threaten the West's financial and cultural hegemony, upon which a mountain of debt is built. Don't kick the stones at the bottom.

[@perfectibility999]

It's not random. It comes out of his argumentative structure. He makes a number of points and explains them and relates them to other points. The discussion of Bach as a musical formalist/modernist comes out of Zizek's point that Hegel was still working from a Renaissance view of understanding as grasping the nature of the world according to mechanical intuitions. Hegel wasn't Hegelian enough on this point to abandon that view of human understanding.

[@ENGRAINING]

renaissance epistemology itself was revived from the greeks.

[@ewoubast]

"the point is, what kind of repetition?..." **massive wet snort*

[@MrBlackMarvel]

so what?

[@WIRAPressAMH-qo3nq]

#EverythingYouKnowAboutHegelIsWrong and So is Zizek ;-) #CREEP

[@tikusagram7360]

2 years on, and the stuttering slabbering fuckwit still gets a following.

[@farrider3339]

"Rich get accepted when their appearance is vulgar." Unfathomable how Zizek couldn't instantly connect this quote to the 🇺🇸 orange man named Trump. For some heavy jetlag, this was a fairly well done lecture. And as a surplus enjoyment : No annoying self asserting introduction by some curator No stupid Q&A in the end 🎉 Gulag rlz best ✊

[@4455matthew]

The Hegel reference, @ 11:10, about how, coming from animal we first must pass through madness before we can become humanity, and that via customs(sitte), blew my mind; and then also the general description of the unconscious in Freud, @18:50, a propos (hahaha) the female patients dream, when she cannot recognize the identity of the man, of how it is the return of the repressed, of what she cannot confront (the content), now taking place in the structure, that also blew my mind - but the Freud description more so because, for some reason, I could get a sense of the huge historical impact of Freud's idea from Zizeks description of it here.

[@linsk78]

I loved how he glossed Thomas Jefferson as a totalitarian with his most famous revolutionary quote. Interesting interpretation.

[@Stereotype23]

Andy Kaufman was a genious

[@BobanOrlovic]

I myself have read all of hegel and find zizeks ignorance of the process of subsumption of the unique negativity under the concept of the ideal perplexing to say the least.

[@abataaoigami6715]

Elaborate then.

[@BobanOrlovic]

@@abataaoigami6715 I was writing gibberish lmao.... my point exactly.

[@emmanueloluga9770]

@@BobanOrlovic lmfao...yoo chill

[@adaptercrash]

If this was starcarft he be zergling ultralisk

[@farrider3339]

​@@BobanOrlovicprecisely at this point we have to take into consideration : "The shift from epistomological obstacle to ontological impossibility", I claim. Sorry we don't have time now to develop this further ~😊

[@berryryan500]

"...don't worry when we take power he goes to gulag..."

[@alecmisra4964]

One incomprehensible person about another

[@theinternet1424]

Why flaunt your inability to comprehend something?

[@abataaoigami6715]

@@theinternet1424 Why identify yours? You cannot comprehend his statement of basic humanity? Žižek says things intentionally vexing and uses as a primary source an author almost No One has actually read. All people are ignorant, and only some know it.

[@theinternet1424]

@@abataaoigami6715 If it's a statement about their complexity, willingness to engage with the complicated and tendency to leave many listeners behind if necessary, then I apologise for taking the statement too literally and simplistically. If it's supposed to be a simple dismissal of both's work, I remain with my question.

[@chrish12345]

haha i love the way this randomly turns into a music lecture which seems to come out of a remark that Hegel doesn't understand Newton :/

[@MrSuvidh]

it is to put in vulgar terms uncertainty who is the father. Genius

[@nightoftheworld]

3:37 *What’s new in Hegel.* “What is truly new is repetition-repetition in Kierkegaard is crucial. You know that the whole [of] Kierkegaard’s edifice is Christianity.. _religion,_ as repetition against philosophy for Kierkegaard from Plato to Hegel-like Erinnerung _remémoration.”_

[@adaptercrash]

Oh I'm are they'll let you do that to someone well I would do that to religion too they are at the church it don't belong to them

[@stevenlamphear1945]

I had a dream about my old college girlfriend who told me she knew what 'green' tasted like AND...'felt' like when she was tripping on LSD in high school. We laughed 'cause we were both 'high'.

[@chrish12345]

Yes,as I said,he brings up Bach as a way to show a parallel with Newton. But the 'randomness' I was talking about is when he then he starts talking about how Beethoven incorporated some of Bach's techniques and then he goes further by talking about Mendelssohn + theories of Romanticism in music.Call it what you want but the lecture seems to go off on a tangent, to say the least. None of this musical stuff after the Newton/Bach point is relevant to Hegel/Newton,but nonetheless it very interesting

[@kategrant2728]

Replying to an eight year old comment to say, The point is that Bach was like Hegel in that all the problems that emerged post-Bach are not problems absent in Bach. Bach created modern music, and while he couldn't foresee the problems of romanticism directly, the problems of melody were problems he was working on from the beginning. So it is with Hegel. Hegel's shortcomings is that he wasn't hegelian enough, bach's that he wasn't bachian enough.

[@jenniferyoung5291]

Glad this was recommended to me... 'cause Hegel can be sooooooo confusing! - J.YO'

[@Philopantheon82]

jennifer young, if you really want to understand Hegel properly Zizek is the least one i would listen to.

[@nightoftheworld]

+Zana scarlet Explain yourself..

[@joechristmas7205]

52:49 - what a struggle... I just love him

[@glottis5]

but how will i know that i'm listening to THE ELVIS OF CULTURAL THEORY AKA THE MOST DANGEROUS PHILOSOPHER IN THE WEST

[@robertkyle542]

But what if the inverse of the opposite is true?

[@Sportliveonline]

sniff sniff is the answer

[@edenblack5470]

He's so cute.....

[@pretor92]

I want to get a first on a Hegel essay.

[@Peter-ih2tn]

57:54 "the excess is the place of universality"

[@dmitryandreyev8579]

He uses the word "I" a lot. Dm.

[@RealDukeOfEarl]

Congrats

[@nikolajovic7686]

9:27 - is he talking about Less than nothing at this point? I mean, it came out in 2012, and was about Hegel so...

[@gotama570]

What does it mean to be human? And here we go with some wishes and hopes that are not describing what we really are. Yes,you can go to jail if you kill someone but what if there were no laws? The society appreciates only your best side but the worst is trying to punished. Its when you meet someone that can accept you completely you can finally feel free and in touch with your self so you are not free if you are trying to behave like society wants because there are bunch of rules to follow. So how to be naturally accepted by everyone without faking or playing an role that had you learned?

[@coldestlobstar5005]

It's only smart articulations like these that are ignored

[@dubbelkastrull]

2:05 bookmark

[@Sportliveonline]

what is the I that thinks

[@johannespanagiotopoulos4917]

the world is turning Chuck-Hagelian (it has a Chuck Norris ring to it)

[@abataaoigami6715]

Instead of Chuck Norris' strength, it's Žižek's cleverness that is being blown out of proportion?

[@antioedipus72]

32:00 went hard

[@IzabelParis]

9:45 - 11:35

[@buzzhawk]

If you understand anything with his snorting and funny accent, I congratulate you!

[@Emmiee114]

haha same thought! as much as his body language is so much of a distraction, it helps me at least understand what he's saying! an audio alone is not working for me.

[@jenniferyoung5291]

buzzhawk: Yep, he has post nasal drip. This is why I've nevvvver spoken in public, I have it as well; very embarrassing. "Sniff, sniff". -J.YO'

[@mythnow]

I'm a little confused in the first 35mins.. what is it that is the subject or aim? it all sounds like interesting informations.

[@5Hundo500]

One of the reasons for Zizek's insistence on Hegel for Hegel's sake is to counter a certain tendency in philosophy of totally dismissing Hegel. Many philosophers of the recent past such as Michel Foucault predicted that Hegel would return with a vengeance, and Zizek is one of the few vocal and active philosophers directly defending Hegel in the present time. Many people are fascinated at Zizek for this reason alone. He is kind of like an exotic zoo animal in this sense.

[@3434drew]

5Hundo500

[@abataaoigami6715]

@@5Hundo500 i find it interesting that Hegel Has returned, not without criticism or dismissal, but likely because of it. And I find the Dialectic so charming just for Darwinian reasons, and especially with the research in The Mneme/engrammatic thinking, caused ofc by Dawkins. However, the claustrophobic esoterism of Hegel has been seen as far too defensive to be really defensible, and it always Shows in Žižek in that he is always returning to the safe space of anecdote, the endless jokes and comparisons, begging people to consider the dangers of building ideology "out in the open". The current top comment makes this point about the constraints of modern culture, and Žižek again states the futility and cold hatred of post-modernism to dismiss such narratives, whereas i have to say that I think we need to embrace Hegel Through Nietzche, and in no other way is it likely to come to a satisfying stopping point for philosophy nor culture. I say this is true up to and including techno-elitism(Steve Jobs, Zuckerberg, Larry Paige & Sergei Brin, Craig Venter), scientific utopianism (Bill Gates, Arthur C. Clarke), neoclassicalist political economics(neolibs and neocons the world over), and pre-fabricated eka-pastoralisms (2nd/3rd generation "Holistic" Thinkers, nationalism for its own sake*). The only and inevitable concern is that Žižek's argumentative tempo is a feint for some flavor of accelerationism, whipping people up against established norms and pointing them only inwardly, identifying post-modernism as the Rats sending bright would be 21st century revolutionary thinkers to the intellectual gulags, as Descartes, Hume, and most psychedelic enthusiasts have done. *and including such strange bedfellows as Voltaire and nuclear bunker "preppers", who, by virtue of conceptual overlap in both dismissing and then reuniting with failed ideologies of the past, have in them a very similar taste to Žižek, without the honesty. He is the Wasabi, they are the green Wasabi paste.

[@abataaoigami6715]

@@5Hundo500 Also systemic esoteric thinkers are Always regarded suspiciously/reverently, in particular outside traditional religiosity. A perfect example is Alestor Crowley.

[@holidayymann1769]

" *massive wet snort

[@mcjett5870]

Jacobins

[@Spiffyparsley]

I get first on a Zizek video? What an awesome day :)

[@ramanathanthinniyam]

What is the "authentic conservative lesson"? He says at this point kzbin.info/www/bejne/l4DInIuVj56Eq8k

[@Javier-il1xi]

S N I F F

[@4455matthew]

Jesus, I'm enjoying one line of thought and then he jumps into about twenty which I have absolutely no clue as to what he's talking about.

[@pjamesbda]

These references - and what seem to be diatribes into unrelated material are multiple layers of study and actually do build an assertion. Most of these studies the majority of us know nothing about, but this doesn't preclude us from understanding them from direct interaction. We just aren't equipped to explain them as Slavoj does. He is genius - and borders "the madness of super intelligence".

[@cedric2452]

actually when you know hegel well what he says make perfect sense lol it's just very specific and those who are not aware of hegelian or post hegelian problematic cannot understand easily i'm afraid

[@4455matthew]

I know, my friends, I will learn, give me time. it is worth it, isn't it. stay in touch, maybe you guys can teach me a few things about Hegel. greetings from Canada,

[@pjamesbda]

Matthew D You seem like a good person - Life is the teacher. Be wary of all others.

[@4455matthew]

nice, and thank you.

[@oioi9372]

Hegel would characterized Zizek as "that unbehaved silly man that talks nonsense while acting like he is solving mysteries, it is probably some strange sort of humoristic act that satirizes intellectual class of people in their noble work of informing and teaching and educating people, This specific jester, this man named Slavoj, resembles drunk bandit that lurks for people to rob,his innapropriate facial expressions and nasal dysfuctions makes his ordinarily meaningless tantrums comical in most unpleasant way" Zizek would then answer in his well known fashion "it's *sniiiiiif, snoooff" it's highly embodied in the mere self, of itself as oppossed to ideologial fantasies, where bla bla some cow that evaded killing because the farmer was this *sniiiif* this man who draw certain emotional relations to that cow and so on *sniiiiaf* But as Hegel said, or better, as a contrary reaction by litterally, you know in what sense, you know when you hear this music, this *sniff* classical symphonies by Bethoveen And bla bla, then you find *sniif* I'm not sure I will save this thought because now I rememberd, you know if you listen carefully what Hegel's point in his piece of, you will apologize me for saying this, but, what Hegel really means here, is this long struggle to even,... Ok! My point! I was always kinda waiting for this moment to come, where I will, punctually and spontaneously emerge as an embodied version of Geist through itself by itself as seen from Lacanian perspektive but hidden from Hegel looking through Hegels eyes as Derrida beautifully put *sniff* and so on

[@Rabbit85518]

And I get second!

[@coldestlobstar5005]

You need to earn the right to understand Hegel from the universe, if you try to read his material as you are, you will go insane trying to understand him. Break the ego and you will understand him

[@LaLasta]

love him as a thinker, but he does not get music. nope.

[@lotikalmandal8848]

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[@daveklebt7732]

sounds like religion. you need faith to just accept the analogies as some valid representation the human condition.