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August 15, 2006
The plasticity of truth
If you were to make a film about a contemporary thinker, who would it be? Few are as seductive as Slavoj Žižek, that great huggable Slovenian bear. Žižek! is a fantastic documentary that follows the motor-mouthed madman from his Llubjana kitchen (underpants and socks stowed just beneath the cutlery, lesbian lego queens on loungeroom floor, subverting ideology of plastic castles with his "narcisistically amused" son) to lecture halls in New York and Argentina, always talking, lisping "you must understand" (but please do not agree), hating anybody showing him respect, reacting uncomfortably to hugs and applause. He flirts incessantly with the film's twentysomething Canadian director, who buys him a DVD of Being There in a New York underground film shop, while he attempts to convince her that The Fountainhead is the greatest film ever made. And as with the subtext of everything Žižek feeds you, from the poster of Stalin in his hallway to his run for Slovenian parliament in the 1990s (when he insisted his desire was to head up the Secret Service), you can never be sure just how much he means it.
What is it about Žižek that is so seductive? Is it that he's the last great hope against postmodern vacuity? That he can explain the need for philosophy in a troubled universe through the use of the plots of dumb-ass Hollywood blockbusters without sounding like one of those horrid people who releases volumes of essays on Buffy? Perhaps it's the beard. I've always loved old Slavoj, but at the moment in this film in which he angrily berates Jacques Lacan (by way of an amazingly annoying video of a lecture from the 1970s) for the way he "plays" the philosopher, all gesture and performance and exclusivist obscurity, I finally understood the rockstar cult. Lacan is infamously impenetrable -- which is unfortunate, considering the importance of his work. Žižek takes the opposite approach, peppering his prose with jokes and bawdy footnotes, and analogies so absurd that you are not quite sure whether you're laughing with or at him; you end up in a space where the ideas and the man seem in a kind of permanent conflict. Which is how he likes it. As this film makes clear, for him, to be taken seriously would be death. Žižek's work may not be flawless (in fact he's not held in particularly high regard in the ivory towers, but that's just the way he likes it), but the man himself is one of the most compelling, beguiling sorts you'll ever come across.
After watching the film, I rummaged through my bookshelf, wondering to whom on earth I might have leant my copy of The Ticklish Subject. Was somebody in the loungeroom when I thought, you know what you need is a Žižekian take on Cartesian subjectivity in the postmodern. That's what you need. I couldn't find it, so instead I pulled down a random volume from the pop histories I've bought and never read (you know, like those ones on chocolate or infinity) and learned more than I could ever need to know about plastic. It felt appropriate, though I can't say why for sure. Then I watched one of the best rockumentaries ever made, and wondered why everything seemed to fit together so damn well.
We're not the only ones thinking hard, this week, Slavoj and I. It seems George W. Bush has been reading Camus, not just quoting him out of context. It leads me to want to know, more than I have wanted to know anything about Bush, if he really did read it--as Meursault stands on that beach, with the gun in his hand, Arab caught in the glare of the sun, did he want him to shoot?
Technorati Tags: philosophy, zizek
Posted by patrick at August 15, 2006 3:07 PM
Comments
I don't have The Ticklish Subject, but have you read Welcome to the Desert of the Real? He's bloody good in that...
Posted by: bec at August 16, 2006 10:20 AM
uh... blush....
remember the night of the Oscars ... and then a drunk panda went up a flight of stairs and came back with a goodie tickling my sides...It's now homesick and sitting on my bookshelf - will return it asap.
Posted by: randompanda 
at August 16, 2006 2:43 PM
Hah, I remember very very little about that night, Panda. Don't worry about it - I enjoyed learning about the early pioneers of plastics, and shaking my fist at that bastard Edison (as I always feel the need to do). There are many strange and unexplored corners of my bookshelf that I must explore more often.
And yeah Bec, Welcome to the Desert of the Real is great. Sensible things to say about post 9/11 that in some ways now are actually prescient. Being philosonerd, I bought the triple pack of that series of minibooks, so I've also got Baudrillard's The Spirit of Terrorism and the wonderful Paul Virilio's Ground Zero. They do have sexy covers... Damn, I spend too much on books.
Posted by: Patrick Pittman at August 16, 2006 6:59 PM
On Bush's porch reading, here's some silly satire from salon: http://www.salon.com/books/feature/2006/08/15/bayard/
Has The Daily Show seized on this find? No doubt, huh?
Posted by: sean at August 17, 2006 8:03 AM
I just starting blogging some thoughts about Zizek - but I am not so sure how my interpretations are fairing since I am new to his thoughts.
I would appreciate if someone could look it over and offer some insight.
Thanks
Matt
Posted by: Matt Reider at August 21, 2006 6:04 AM
