Zupančič: Against Gender

[@julianphilosophy]

Thanks for watching: On my patreon you can find my seminars/lectures/transcripts and ebooks. www.patreon.com/julianphilosophy

[@mattsandell3792]

Glad to see you get outside. Keep up the great work.

[@Zizeksagalma]

What a succinct dissection of what was arguably Zupančič’s paramount and easily misinterpreted conception of the sexual discourse and gender! One of my favorite, most intellectually orgasmic insights from her book is from the relatively dense quote explaining sexuality’s symbolic ontology as a constitutive negativity in relation to the Real: “Sexuality is not some being that exists beyond the symbolic; it "exists" solely as the contradiction of the symbolic space that appears because of the constitutively missing signifier, and of what appears at its place (enjoyment)… sexuality is neither something outside of the signifying order (which this order would strive to represent fully, but fail), nor does it have a signifier… It exists only as the inherent contradiction of (symbolic) being.”

[@bladdnun3016]

I guess intellectual masturbation can lead to orgasms.

[@IrkInvader]

Thank you Julian for this explanation. I have not read zupancics book, but from your explanation throughout all the videos in this series (I’ve watched them all at least 4 times each 😂) I think this aligns closely with Preciados proposal for a process of de-identification, specifically from his book Dysphoria Mundi. Thank you again! Your YouTubing brings me a lot of joy ❤

[@kf8113]

Very nice, I had similar suspicions around contemporary gender theory, especially with how the very same people who deconstruct gender to disarm the essentializing arguments levied against them by transphobes and their ilk ironically spend much of their time agonizing over their essence-as-gender (e.g. transition, 'passing', dysphoria, etc.). Even now I see some half-ironic jokes between trans men and trans women where the trans men use their physical force to protect trans women (from transphobes, implicitly) -- a striking reconstruction of the very same heteronormativity they criticized.

[@DJWESG1]

In my experience gay men and gay women are two distinct groups who don't mix together on the whole, even the clubs I played in had separate levels for gay women and gay men, and a neutral level where everyone could dance or drink together. But the antagonisms and conflicts remained always, the classic male dominant attitudes still prevailed in some of these places. But to add, I always found gay clubs to be the better clubs, less violent, more welcoming of all ppl, and you never felt the same insecurities as you might feel in none gay clubs and other spaced full of ppl, they genuinely felt like safer spaces, because they were safer spaces, but not always for lesbians, which I found odd.

[@derpfaddesweisen]

What a strikingly transphobic bs argument. "Passing" is mostly about not being treated like a freak all the time, but i'm sorry that we don't behave in accordance to your position on ontology all the time. I think it is not up to Cis people to judge our community all the time as if some harmless fun is worse than the transphobic genocidal campaign currently. You are like elitists marxists bitching that the working class isn't behaving in accordance to their great theories.

[@BreezeTalk]

What a beautiful video

[@amillar7]

How are you using the word “sexuality”? With reference to sexual preferences or more referring to (“biological”) phenotypic sex?

[@larss4119]

I'm reading this along with you right now! In filthy noisy Paris though, not at a serene and beautiful lake house.

[@alphachicken9596]

Remember the grass is always greener. I would pick anywhere in Paris 100x over Idaho.

[@uncommonsensewithpastormar2913]

I had a very hard time following this video (which is par for the course when it comes to Julian’s output), but one thing that sounded alarm bells for me was when he contrasted “ontology” with “the real”. The whole concept of “the real” is fundamentally essentialist, since it refers, or at least seems to refer, to Kant’s Ding an sich. I was intrigued, however, when Julian talked about how Zupančič offers an alternative to the standard feminist notion that we can be freed from gender simply by creating multiple alternative genders.

[@luizacravopff]

lacan had this habit of using words that were already atributed to other concepts to create his own, completely different concepts, which can be very confusing... the lacanian real doesnt refer to the kantian real, it is a negative category, produced by the limits of the symbolic order... the real is what remains impossible to be registered in the symbolic order. i think the best book to understand this lacanian concept (thankfully a very short and relatively simple one) is alain badiou's "in search of the lost real"

[@uncommonsensewithpastormar2913]

@@luizacravopff Thanks for the clarification. However, if Lacan’s concept of the “real” has to do with “what remains impossible to be registered in the symbolic order” this sounds very much like what Kant claimed about noumena (Ding an sich), namely that it lies beyond the realm of our conceptualized experience (i.e. it is noumena not phenomena). If there is a big difference between the two, I’m not getting it. In any case, I plan on checking out your book recommendation.

[@luizacravopff]

yeah i guess i get why it still sounds similar, i blame that on my poor hability to use my very limited english vocabulary to explain psychoanalytical theory (which is already hard to do using my first language) 😂 but it is not a concrete, substantial real, it is a logical real, always regarding language and a specific symbolic system, which determines what can be enunciated and contemplated by a person or a group that are a product of it and what cannot... some authors even mention that the real for a community or social group will not be the same real as for another... the Lacanian real is related to what is not possible to contemplate in the current culture/system, so it is not a "universal" or "general" real and it is not a completely fixed one, either... anyway, go for the book, its a very good one for introduction purposes! and surely it'll be better translated and well written than my attempt to explain it 😂

[@uncommonsensewithpastormar2913]

@@luizacravopff Are you saying that “the real” refers to how a specific language is incapable of communicating certain things? While I agree that this is true, why would Lacan refer to what is ineffable in a particular language as “the real”? “Ineffable” or how ever it is translated in French is the word he should have used.

[@Rivulets048]

Very well explained I lost consiousness for a second after ant-ontology of ontology, though 🤯

[@odysseus6677]

Will you go over more of The Ethics of The Real? I enjoyed the previous video but many questions left unanswered.

[@user-wx4zt7fv1o]

Hi Julian! I really like your videos and your approach. I wonder can you make a series about depression, sadness and desperation?

[@JuanHugeJanus]

Is it Platons Sun which peeks out from behind you? 🤗

[@11-AisexualsforGod-11]

Will to power pragmatism entails the art of veneer.. Plato was not a fan of trickery.. raise a finger and it off to prison for the Platonist

[@11-AisexualsforGod-11]

Birth in the west is like being strapped into a nauseating spinning wheel of misfortune ride that never stops.. Got to find a way to shut the power off

[@11-AisexualsforGod-11]

Or just not be born i guess.. The logic of the political right is to just spawn more stupid people at a rate faster then those uncovering the illusion can tear it down.. Thats calvinist pragmatism alright

[@conforzo]

Post-Hegelian trauma of relativism.

[@he1ar1]

Our society is skeptical of many things. Yet relativism seems to be low down the list. As are self conceptions of the self.

[@nicbarth3838]

@@he1ar1 ah so you believe in moral facts? strong arguments for or against both are good

[@noobslayeru]

Essentialism true tho

[@goyomain0774]

🤯

[@derpfaddesweisen]

No, it isn't.

[@Liliquan]

Poo poo not tru tru