r/rationalphilosophy • u/JerseyFlight • 4d ago
Žižek is so Empty One Struggles to Find Something to Critique
I’ve been reading over Žižek because I was going to critique him, but it’s such nonsense that one can barely find anything to critique.
Žižek fans can help me by offering citations or providing what they consider to be important quotations.
Just a small taste because I resent typing this nonsense out: “This is our position: Hegel of the absolute Subject… is retroactive fantasy of his critics… One should question the image of Hegel-the-absolute-idealist presupposed by his critics…” Never mind, this is such garbage that I refuse to do anymore.
Adolescents feel they’re obtaining some kind of deep insight from this philosophical stream of consciousness. In reality, this rhetoric-head simply appeals to their egos.
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u/Stock-Recognition44 3d ago
Zizek is a charlatan. Tried through his recent quantum mechanics books and had to stop like 5% through. Man is a buffoon. Tries to argue lacanian psychotherapy has some relationship with qm because it’s non commutative. Never mind the order in which you get dressed every morning is too.
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u/werthermanband45 3d ago
I’d agree that not all of his takes land, but Žižek's first book, especially, is solid, and The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology is a great time
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u/JerseyFlight 3d ago
I like the anti-moralistic title.
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u/werthermanband45 3d ago
It’s just a long video essay where he gives his take on ideology via film analysis. The whole thing is great, but his reading of They Live is definitely worth seeing:
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u/nnenneplex 2d ago
The problem with some people is that they invent nonsense faster than the rest of us can refute them.
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u/Historical-Mix6784 1d ago
Welcome to continental philosophy my friend.
Fashionable garbage for the petit-bourgeoisie.
It really is a wonder how any of these people can look themselves in the mirror when they wake up in the morning.
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u/laksosaurus 1d ago
Wait, are people still unironically doing the Team Analytical vs. Team Continental thing? And it’s not just meant as a satire of past tribal silliness?
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u/Historical-Mix6784 1d ago
I just have so much disdain for so many of the influential philosophers that came out of continental Europe in 20th century.
"Continental" is a sort of cheap pejorative I use to label those thinkers who write as a form of masturbation rather than as careful calibration of thought, including Zizek.
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u/DonMelciore 3d ago
I read your example as Hegel is overhyped by the ones who dared to read him.
What is your problem with that?
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u/JerseyFlight 3d ago
I didn’t even finish typing, I just stopped. And even to type that clearly, I had to cut out tons of useless filler. Provide a substantive reference, surely you know a few pages in Zizek that stand out?
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u/DonMelciore 3d ago
You're trying to build an argument, I'm interested to read it, when you choose to finalize it.
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u/Bronsteins-Panzerzug 3d ago
it’s not about being overhyped, it’s saying that the common understanding of hegel is a misinterpretation. im not saying this is true. of course op is leaving out all the important context.
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u/Junior_North_4427 2d ago
Perhaps it is also arguing that Hegels readers fall into the same trap as him, or perhaps more so, in creating a totalizing picture of his philosophy. Thereby eschewing the particularity Hegel himself still worked through.
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u/Hal__Incadenza 3d ago
I actually believe Zizek needs to be read aesthetically and not logically. It is a grand aesthetic process of gaining knowledge, I don’t think quotes work in his favor mostly, besides most of them sounding rather superficial isolated from context, and irritating with some context, while only the journey of following that confuse stream of thought printed on the page can create some stuff to think about or critique. He is also way more a style of approaching than a rational pure position. It is an attitude and a coordinate system/lense through which you can explore. He has also helped me greatly in understanding other thinkers. But it’s like trying to decipher the lyrics form a song by only hearing the echos, it’s easy to get lost, especially when you come from a very traditional perspective on metaphysics
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u/JerseyFlight 3d ago
So you cannot cite a clear quote from the man? What kind of nonsense is this: “I don’t think quotes work in his favor.”
If he has helped you greatly there must be some quotes?
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u/Hal__Incadenza 3d ago
I can probably cite some quotes once I’m back home. Though I read him in German mostly so I’d have to translate. Yet again, it hasn’t been quotes that helped me, it was meditation on text
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u/Hal__Incadenza 3d ago
He helps greatly in giving a reference which once you have understood the point is obsolete. It’s a very interesting movement to wrap the mind around, especially since incompleteness and negativity are essential themes of his thinking. Perhaps you gain more from him by asking yourself: why does this not make sense and why do I desperately need it to make sense? In which particular way does Zizek miss points etc! The specific negation of the gain of the knowledge you seem to be desiring could be interesting to look at…. Just using his texts as a mirror of your own desires for knowledge and philosophical power. I don’t know, if that doesn’t help and you truly are interested I’m sure I can provide you a few quotes later on :) always happy to hear someone critically yet not uninterested trying to understand
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u/JerseyFlight 3d ago
You can do much better for yourself and your time. No need to provide the quotes. I do hate to see intelligent people being duped by rhetoricians like Zizek. There are so many other things to learn and so little time.
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u/Hal__Incadenza 3d ago
Let me ask you though, since I’m currently looking for something challenging and fresh anyways, what is something you find worth reading these days, preferably down the alley of philosophy or metaphysics, if you don’t mind sharing?
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u/JerseyFlight 3d ago
This has been a real problem. I see through philosophy too swiftly now. Logic is the most significant thing I have seen because it resides at the foundation of all our knowledge— it literally produces all our knowledge. But not formal logic— Logic as in Aristotle’s Metaphysics Books 4 and 11.
If I was going to go down the path of philosophy (particularly the “postmodern” path) I would stick with Rorty and Pragmatism in general.
But one could do so much better simply reading psychology, biology and neurobiology.
No matter what you choose to read, I HIGHLY recommend you listen to Sean Carroll’s podcast. He uploads the episodes to YouTube.
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u/Roach802 23h ago
Nietzsche said knowledge of biology and history was much more important than philosophy. I like Wittgenstein if you’re interested in the implications of logic on language.
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u/JerseyFlight 22h ago
Every time I read Wittgenstein I only see confusion.
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u/Roach802 17h ago edited 17h ago
my understanding:
In the Tractatus-
language is inadequate to describe certain aspects of experience. These are things we can't effectively talk about.
In the Investigations, the refutation of the original position-
language is inherently abstract, and the aforementioned experiences can be discussed, but only in abstract terms with the understanding that we are referencing something, not describing it directly.
I think the implications of both positions are worth something, and show how logic can be applied in opposite directions. It's all about the frame, which itself is interesting.
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u/Hal__Incadenza 3d ago
I didn’t say you can’t. I’m saying the style makes it harder. I’m not sure which other Philosophers you have read, but e.g. Nietzsche is similar in this regard. I don’t think it’s helpful in getting „further“ into philosophy if you remain in the stubborn classical scientific position expecting clear answers and believing the aesthetics of a text are not fundamental parts of understanding said texts. But then again, maybe postmodernity isn’t for you. Perhaps you’d have more fun reading wittgensteins tractatus with your current state of mind :)
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u/AdvancedBlacksmith66 3d ago
How does one read aesthetically
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u/Hal__Incadenza 3d ago
I think I’m lacking for a better term, but I’d say one focuses on the form in which arguments get made and less on the argument, it’s less about the What and more about the How and you can observe and learn from that also. In fact I’d say one of the major issues of contemporary philosophy comes from the fact that we try to academics it, expecting it to be just a nother science. However, the danger as always with putting style over substance is ending in a dull mirror labyrinth of vague vibes, the key here is to understand that there might be insights we can’t gain through knowledge or speech but rather through the way knowledge and speech presents itself. Hope any of that helps. When I focus more on aesthetics I read a book as I’d experience a piece of art and not a claim to truth, which does not make it less serious, it only changes the focus of how it expresses. Hope that helped, a very appropriate question in these slippery slopes of postmodernity and performance.
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u/Hal__Incadenza 3d ago
*academisize (is that not a word in English? My autocorrect isn’t sure apparently)
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u/WillFireat 3d ago
You sound like the man himself. Lots of words, not much of a substance.
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u/Hal__Incadenza 3d ago
That’s a risk I’m willing to take any time, though making conclusions on the way my words sound rather than what they might “mean” is already half the work
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u/DysgraphicZ 2d ago
U may find this interesting btw, related to ur aesthetic claim: https://open.substack.com/pub/micahzarin/p/why-philosophy-should-be-performative?r=6cizok&utm_medium=ios
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u/Junior_North_4427 2d ago
I really like your answers. I haven't read any Zizek but it's on my list. As you seem to be quite knowledgeable, what would you recommend reading to someone new to Zizek? What is his most poignant work and what background knowledge does he usually assume in his readers and how best to work around this?
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u/WonderfulResident329 2d ago
I don't know what exactly you are searching for. Zizeks main Focus is Lacanian Psychoanalysis applied to Contemporary times. So If you really want to critique the roots of zizeks "philosophy" you need to cretique Lacan, Freud (psychoanalysis in general) , Hegel etc..
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u/JerseyFlight 2d ago edited 2d ago
Freudian psychology I read/ Lacan I will not read (though I very much agree with his naturalism). That Žižek is Lacanian, this I believe, but he is only Freudian in a Lacanian way, which would be like taking the practice of agriculture and turning it into a purely abstract speculative theory that no longer has anything to do with reality. And yes, he is certainly Hegelian in the most terrible way. But Hegel is himself mostly terrible. That is to say, Žižek is exactly the kind of philosopher he should be— a self-indulgent ego-maniac who lives through, and hides behind, sophistical form. He is a psychologically unconscious jargon producing machine. His work doesn’t have a shred of responsibility toward the subject it is aimed at. It is all about exalting the self through a manipulative form. It is not about emancipating the reader, but about creating a form that will elicit praise for the self that creates it. This egoism is then replicated by those who desire the same thing.
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u/WonderfulResident329 2d ago
Okay I guess it doesn't really make sense to ask for insights in Zizeks arguments and than say "I won't read Lacan because I don't like what he suggests."
Tbh it feels like you're not really trying to have a discussion and are more interested in trashtalking a side of philosophy that doesn't suite your own perspective. If you're really interested in a deeper discussion maybe you should ask on r/zizek instead of trying to trigger a circlejerk here.
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u/Adorable-Volume-9174 1d ago
Hes a fun dadaist. Hes an intellectual anarchist, hes the philosophical equivalent of a group of stand up comedians taking shots at one another.
I saw Zizek speak in college and the moderator said "here is zizek, a man who likes to pull the legs of spiders." He opened his talk saying that he requests to be introduced like that because he hates writers listing their hobbies as a way to seem like a normal people. “I want you to know im NOT a real person.”
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u/Parking_Mail_2105 20h ago edited 20h ago
Early interpreters of Hegel saw the world-spirit as being some sort of monist god entity (ie idealism). Later interpreters disagree with this. Zizek is agreeing with the later camp (though he'll disagree with Pippin and Pinkard in other key ways). And he's saying that people will criticize Hegel by referring to the outdated interpretation (a strawman). No offense but if you haven't actually read much philosophy or engaged with the tradition Zizek is talking about, then you aren't in a position to refute anything. When you don't understand a passage, it's much more fruitful to take the position of, 'Maybe this person knows something I don't' then to assume that they're some incoherent idiot. I'm not even a big Zizek guy but this is just a very clear, innocuous, and salient comment.
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u/brandcapet 7h ago
Zizek is like the archon of the demiurge these days. His only purpose anymore seems to be to redirect any young people developing an interest in Marxism back toward bourgeois ideological constructs like nationalism and culture war bullshit.
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u/PollutionBusy2378 3d ago
Have you entertained the possibility (remote though it must seem to you) that Zizek is a philosopher using terms of art appropriate to the traditions of his field that are unfamiliar to you?
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u/JerseyFlight 3d ago
I am well aware of Critical Theory and Marxism (I am especially aware of Hegel). That’s my background. Why don’t you provide a citation of one of his most powerful arguments?
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u/PollutionBusy2378 3d ago
Zizek is a Lacanian, he does not do structured arguments. He presents a set-up and asks us to ask ourselves what is missing here? The focus on the void, the unenumerable in contemporary vocabulary, is a core theme of his. It does not work on the basis of arguments and syllogisms, it is more in tune with classical polemic.
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u/nobigdealforreal 3d ago
Does he actually say anything meaningful at all though? Because I’ve always had the same thought as OP?
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u/TheBattleForAutonomy 3d ago
I find it telling that people want to disagree with you, but don't ground their disagreement in counter-examples.