The Antisocial Socialist

IT'S SLAVOJ TIME

Zizek starts by talking about China's economic success.

Zizek you are using big words Peterson will not understand this.

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Found a totally legal stream. No sound so far. No one on stage either, but it looks legit. Apparently there is no sound on the paid one yet either.

The audience looks about half empty. I guess not that many people wanted to pay $500 for a ticket? There's, unfortunately, a live chat as well, and it is full of fascists, tankies, and people just typing "sniff" over and over again.

Now faded to a galaxy thing with an ominous silhouette.

SOUND!!!!!

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It is happening

It is really happening



I am so nervous. What if I can't internet from there? What if my snark fails me? But also, I am so excited. My entire life, perhaps all of human history, has led to this moment and I am blessed to be alive and in Toronto.

P.S. I hope they both lose.

Leigh Phillips joins authors Gwyneth Jones, Marge Piercy, Ken MacLeod and Kim Stanley Robinson to discuss the role of science fiction in extending the radical horizons of our imaginations.

I don't agree with everything in this article, especially in regards to Zizek (Ken MacLeod, you know that's not what he meant) but it's a pretty fascinating read on the radical potential of science fiction and a good starting point for discussion. I particularly liked the last question, about technology and its place in cultural narratives. All of the authors really hit the nail on the head in terms of describing exactly why I feel uncomfortable with the emphasis on anti-GMO/anti-Monsanto/pro-woo stuff on the left:

Gwyneth Jones: Progressives have a right to be cynical about nanotechnology, likewise GM foods and crops, as long as these developments are controlled by ruthless corporate interests. It isn’t about the science; it’s about the tragedy of the commons.

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On a more mundane (but still futuristic!) note, this article on organizing workers in a service economy (from Macleans, no less!) is also an interesting read. The premise is that traditionally middle class jobs aren't coming back (likely true) and thus minimum wage service sector jobs should be transformed so that one can actually earn a living at them.

Proponents of the idea that service jobs can become the new ticket to the middle class point to sweeping changes in the manufacturing sector in the early 20th century that helped transform factory work from dangerous low-pay jobs into secure careers that could support a family. From 1914, when Henry Ford declared he would pay his employees what was then an exorbitant sum of $5 a day in order to reduce turnover and boost demand for his cars, governments saw higher wages and greater workplace regulation as the start of a virtuous economic cycle. But whether the service industry can follow the same model is far from certain.

Read and discuss.

Zizek on the Avengers, Occupy, and oh really, do you need an excuse to listen to Zizek rant about things? It's Zizek being himself. Also, he's not dating Lady Gaga. If you were wondering.

I accidentally a whole anti-protest guide to anarchists. Is this bad?

In his court motion warning that Karn is an “anarchist,” Richmond’s Deputy Assistant Attorney Brian Telfair doesn’t allege the possibility of any violence or property destruction. Instead, he cites a blog post by Karn about acquiring government information through legal requests. The title? “FOIA Rocks!”

cannibal_x posted this intriguing Zizek lecture, "Why Only an Atheist Can Be a True Christian," and I just got around to watching it last night. Zizek takes his typical meandering approach to discussing morality with and without religion, how atheists secretly believe, and how religious people secretly don't. He also discusses secular liberal hedonism and provides the best fix-it for Life is Beautiful.

Skip the first few minutes if you know anything about Zizek. He doesn't actually start talking until around the seven-minute mark, wherein he describes how he was symbolically castrated by the moderator.


[Closed-captioning is reportedly available, but I can't get it to work. Ah, this resolution is turning out to be harder than I thought to keep.]

A madman thinks he's a piece of grain. He's finally cured; now he knows he's human. He's freed from the psychiatric asylum—then quickly comes running back. He tells his psychiatrist: "I met a chicken. I was afraid that the chicken would eat me."

The psychiatrist says, "But now you know that you are not a grain of corn. You are human."

He says, "Yes, I know it, but does the chicken know it?"

On a slightly shallower note, on a whim, I searched Zizek's name on TVTropes. There he is, under Real Life examples of Memetic Badass. ("He lives on a giant whiteboard in the centre of time and space.") The usual warnings apply to clicking that link.

Zizek on Avatar and the Indian state of Orissa.

To choose between "either accepting reality or choosing fantasy" is wrong: if we really want to change or escape our social reality, the first thing to do is change our fantasies that make us fit this reality. Because the hero of Avatar doesn't do this, his subjective position is what Jacques Lacan, with regard to de Sade, called le dupe de son fantasme.

ILU, Žižek. Never change.

Seriously, though. He makes a good point:

[I]n Orissa, there are no noble princesses waiting for white heroes to seduce them and help their people, just the Maoists organising the starving farmers. The film enables us to practise a typical ideological division: sympathising with the idealised aborigines while rejecting their actual struggle. The same people who enjoy the film and admire its aboriginal rebels would in all probability turn away in horror from the Naxalites, dismissing them as murderous terrorists.

- U.S. health care: So no public option? The health care debacle in the U.S. has gotten so twisted and entangled that I'm not sure what's going on. All I know is that they'll cover prayer but not gynecological check-ups or basically anything that's part of that "special interest group" composing over half of the American population.

+ Nice op-ed by Zizek on anti-communism in the former Eastern Bloc. You can pair it with this article if you'd like.

+ I finished reading A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini and it made me cry. Yes, I know you all read it two years ago.

- I am quite sick of seeing all of those re-usable shopping bags that are either black and say "this bag is green" (har har) or say "this bag is not plastic." You've had to pay for plastic bags in Toronto for quite some time now, so even people who litter and voted Conservative because of their position on the Alberta tar sands and club baby seals in their spare time carry them now. So carrying one that toots your environmentalist horn just makes you look like a smug yuppie. So there.

+ Good 9-11 conspiracy article, through which I found a link to all of the people who would have had to have been involved for the Truther conspiracy to make sense.

+ I am a crusty old lady (see above) but I wore Docs to school today and the kids were like, "nice kicks, Miss!" And then I had to ask if they meant my boots.

P.S. +++ The season finale of Mad Men. I love this show so much. Perhaps there shall be a separate post about how much I love this show.

It was a slow day on the interwebs, so in lieu of doing something really productive, I took a long walk, did some laundry, and then watched Zizek! It was a terrifically entertaining movie but I still have some questions that will bother me until answered by the internets.

[Poll #1381488]

I forgot to do a question about whether The Fountainhead is really one of his top three favourite movies, but I think it's pretty clear he's trolling there.

P.S. Which one of you is perfecthamburge? S/he is too good to be true, and I need to know.

Coraline: Much better than I expected from the trailers, though you have to mentally separate it from the source material if you want to truly enjoy it. But I don't know why they felt the need to include a brand-new character and [spoiler] have him save the day at the end. Especially since Coraline saving herself (not to mention everyone else) in the book was awesome and clever and the dolls' tea party > big honking rock any day. Is there a new rule in movies where no matter what happens in the book, the girl has to be rescued by a boy? [/spoiler]

Once you've seen the movie, check out nihilistic_kid's unfavourable but hysterical (pun intended) review.

Speaking of Freudian/Lacanian psychoanalysis, I watched The Pervert's Guide to Cinema last night because I'm sick and Žižek cheers me up. I am once again reminded that Žižek is my dream date to any movie ever. "The worst horror zat you can imagine is you flush zee toilet, and zee excrement returns." LOL Žižek, never change.

I still haven't seen Dollhouse, as my intertubes crapped out on me last night. Is there a consensus yet on whether or not it's any good? Am I going to get royally pissed?