Comrades, Welcome to the desert of the real. This year, I will endeavour to publish twice a week; Politics midweek, Culture or Bonus Obscenities on the weekend. If you have the means, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. When we read an abstract ideological proclamation, we are well aware that this is not how actual people experience it: in order to pass from abstract propositions to people’s “real lives,” one has to add to the abstract propositions the unfathomable density of a life world context – and ideology are not the abstract propositions in themselves, ideology is this very life world density which “schematizes” them in Kant’s sense, renders them “livable,” part of our daily experience. Take military ideology: it becomes “livable” only against the background of the obscene unwritten rules and rituals (marching chants, fragging, sexual inuendos…) in which it is embedded.
oh, sometime my eyes hurt reading Zizek. Why can't he write simply?
Here are some tips.
Ideology and Life Experience: When we talk about big ideas like politics or beliefs, we often forget that they're shaped by real-life experiences. For example, military ideology isn't just about rules on paper; it's also about the unspoken customs and rituals that soldiers follow.
Laughing at Ourselves: Sometimes, when we make fun of our own beliefs, we're actually showing how deeply we're influenced by them. This happens when we take a step back and laugh at ourselves for believing certain things.
Unwritten Rules: In society, there are rules that aren't written down but still affect how we behave and what we talk about. Some groups rebel against these unwritten rules because they feel they limit their freedom.
Civilization and Barbarism: Even in our most civilized moments, there's a hint of barbarism lurking underneath. This means that civilization isn't always as peaceful and orderly as it seems.
Cyberspace and Tantra: In today's world, ideas from ancient practices like Tantra influence how we think about spirituality and pleasure, especially in cyberspace. Tantra teaches that embracing earthly desires can lead to spiritual growth.
Public vs. Private Rules: Sometimes, we break rules in public to show off or rebel. But true rebellion might actually mean breaking our own personal rules, even when nobody's watching.
Being Adult and Breaking Rules: Growing up doesn't just mean following rules; it also means knowing when to break them. Breaking rules, even ones we set for ourselves, can show maturity and understanding.
Oh I can respond (I pay nothing) that was totally and utterly thought provoking for me a delightful spiral - the bit that stands out in all of it was your discussion of culture as a comma in the sentence of our barbarism like good manners set against the absence of that. How fast it’s all stripped away - and what is left. The struggle is everything. Thanks for sending my brain into places it hasn’t reached for a long time (theology philosophy ) way to start my week - Maddi M
What a fine Sunday morning sermon. Leaving our god-confused sanctuary I shake your hand at the door and descend the materializing steps with a smile. I hope he seduced the organist, I’m thinking . . .
I did not read the text, but the screenshot reminds me to tell you that you should read about the world in the videogame S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Like the film Stalker, it is inspired in the novel Roadside Picnic. It was created by a Ukrainian developer and in the game you have various factions. If you look closely, these factions represent the different ideologies in Ukraine at the time. They all exist within the exclusion zone, originally caused by the Chernobyl disaster, but then, using the secluded nature of the exclusion zone, some scientists tried to remove all negative emotions from human minds by interacting with what they call the "noosphere". To do this they had to join their minds into what they called the common consciousness, or C-consciousness. Their experiment failed and the Chernobyl exclusion zone now became full of anomalies. Burners would shoot out flames out of nowhere, whirligigs would whip you up in the air like a mini tornado then explode you, fruit punches would dissolve you like a strong acid, psy-fields that will eventually lead to zombiefication, etc. Is this not a representation of ideology in Ukraine? The C-consciousness is just communism and the different factions represent the different political stances. Duty wants the zone to disappear, Freedom believes the zone is a heaven for anarchy (they love drugs and their base has a broken soviet statue), the Monolith, absolutely brainwashed by the C-consciousness who have made them worship a rock inside the Chernobyl reactor, want to protect the zone so nobody enters it, the mercenaries are just capitalist guns for hire (they are hired by the ecologists), bandits are criminals escaping their crimes and are mostly poor and stupid, loners just want a new experience, ecologists are looking for their next nobel prize, and then Clear Sky are a different type of ecologists who claim to stick to research but were at one point secretly associated to the C-consciousness. Lastly there is the Ukrainian military that is just trying to protect people from dying in the zone and just tries to keep people out of it. All of these factions fight and draw alliances in the zone, and all of them are driven to some degree by greed and the wish-granter. As the protagonist, you destroy the C-consciousness. But after, you say "I don't know whether I was right or wrong, I guess I'll never know... But I made it. And I guess I should be thankful for that.".
The zone itself is a place where everything is in decay. The invisible radiation is radioactive decay, the buildings are falling apart, no cars work, paint is peeling off, vegetation is taking over, roofs are caving in, the wildlife is grotesquely mutated, etc. There is even a zone called "the garbage", which is full of mountains of garbage created to bury stuff that became radioactive after the Chernobyl accident, so it's not even about the current crisis. In other zones there are abandoned secret underground installations that are dimly lit, the lights flicker, everything is rusted and mouldy, etc. That's where you are most likely to meet the most powerful enemies, but they can also appear on the surface when you least expect it, when you're outside with the sun shining through the trees or enjoying a beautiful sunset while fellow stalkers sing songs around a campfire.
Is communism not this experiment gone wrong that tried to remove all negative emotions? Do we not live today in "the zone" that resulted? I think there is a lot to interpret from this game and Ukrainian politics in particular. If there are any truly post-ideological people, those are the Ukrainians. Strelok destroyed the C-consciousness, but was never sure if he managed to escape it. Is this not the case today for Ukraine and the ideology that created the Soviet Union?
After playing the game for hundreds of hours (both the original trilogy and Stalker Anomaly, which is free and made by the community and allows you to smoke cigarettes and do drugs like cocaine), all I can say is that the whole thing confuses me. I've sort of come to love the zone as another kind of nature. One where you have less control about your destiny than you think. A place that lives on after you are dead. Even if you are the main protagonist and you are successful in your purpose, it just adapts and keeps on going, likely becoming worse yet feeling the same when the sun shines. The atmosphere is not one of impending doom, but of both after the doom and in the messy process of doom. It is bleak and oppressive, and uses the nice sunshine and campfire songs so you don't get used to the decay. With time you learn that the fight against decay is decay itself, but you do it anyway because you're just a stalker, not much different from those grotesque mutants. You learn to die then quickly reload your last save.
When we begin to talk about ideology, then it is especially clear that this clarity is not at all clear. As far as I understand ideology from the article, it means the trust in the mistrust of its contents, which should create the distance between what appears ideological and us, who place something cynical in between, to reassure ourselves through this self-placed stuff whether we are still sane; however, have no idea what could be so funny about that stuff. With the example of military ideology, it obviously suggests that the distance is only created by the embedding in one's own system precisely the solution to not fall completely into ideology, by the cynical stuff regulating the informal deviation here - as we all know, these deviations only occur under strict, specific military activities and not detached from these explicit activities.
The problem, however, is that this stuff-like in-between does not exist as such, yet it is precisely here that the deviations under the social order are allowed. Social action is mediated through a sense of purpose that more closely resembles belief than a substantial basis, for the assumption itself is the substantial - not the object behind it. But precisely for this reason, every aspect of understanding the order correctly is missing; it only emerges as a regulated, inconsistent deviation within the notorious system law - naturally only as a form. In terms of content, it is just inconsistent, and not just for every participant, but also for the order itself, which presents itself as a lie about not having it clear, but actually pretending to hold on to the belief of clearly understanding it, because this sacrifice commands the contradiction to cease. Or in other words, the cynical stuff is useful for the participants insofar as they prioritize the belief in the lie to prevent the cut of detachment from their common place. The crux, however, is indeed the knowledge of transgression, which must implicitly make itself known as such in every specific case, i.e., for some inexplicable reason, participants in the consistent chaos know how to pedantically defend their inconsistent contents and protect any transgressions against them with interventions "actually". Therefore, in a certain way, it must be clear which subject represents the virtual character mask of non-community for the others, for this reference is also necessary for social action, in order to move within the social order, since the position to oneself is (apparently) only clear if it or they provide meaning for one's own identity within the community. Otherwise, there remains merely a slight, dull weaving, which as a sensation creates the condition of possibility to establish a subjective relatedness, but without the necessary objective difference - which is outlined here - participants are not able to remember, and so even the formal commonplace remains prescribed as loss.
Great piece! I especially like “Why are so many problems today perceived as problems of intolerance, rather than as problems of inequality, exploitation, or injustice? Why is the proposed remedy tolerance, rather than emancipation, political struggle, even armed struggle?”
I also loved the Proustian reference, but that can't be a quote from him. I assume it's a quote from the interpretation given by Mladen Dolar? The interpretation is good, of course. There is an Italian author who has written a novel about contemporary high schoolers obsessed with "being in"-'the most Proustian novel i've ever read.
Interesting observation about Tarkovsky! I can see you are an East European with a Slavic soul ( I wanted to put "soul" in quotes, but wouldn't that put me on par with the racist travelers suffering of ironic distance?). Yes, decay and decomposition is spiritual for us Eastern Europeans (see Cioran's Precis de decomposition).
If you want to follow high taste consistently, you display your tastelessness, etc: One of the best descriptions of having style. If one dresses in tasteful well-fitted expensive clothes and labels and things from famous stores and off racks, it is tacky and unstylish. If, for example, one has unwashed greasy looking or wild hair, rumpled too big pants, outrageously flat and wide shoes, wears thrifted worn out layers of comically outdated sweaters with fraying sleeves over top of a wife-beater with garters hanging off the bottom and never smiles - one is stylish. Wonderful. ( As a rule I never praise blogs).
"taking pleasure in observing local peculiarities while filtering out the truly traumatic data, is postmodern racism at its purest."
thusly the nerve-calming stupid attempt to detraumatize with it also is traumatizing.. dreamertizing.. advertizing.. wishthinking.. they don't think.. they wish to think.. 'please god let it rain brain!' ideologically splattered brains wished to fall on the ground..
I think by "truly traumatic data" he means the negative aspects,the rough edges of these (mostly non white) societies, which are perceived with the ironic distance of the "superior" nihllist for whom everything is a cool image and nothing more.
oh, sometime my eyes hurt reading Zizek. Why can't he write simply?
Here are some tips.
Ideology and Life Experience: When we talk about big ideas like politics or beliefs, we often forget that they're shaped by real-life experiences. For example, military ideology isn't just about rules on paper; it's also about the unspoken customs and rituals that soldiers follow.
Laughing at Ourselves: Sometimes, when we make fun of our own beliefs, we're actually showing how deeply we're influenced by them. This happens when we take a step back and laugh at ourselves for believing certain things.
Unwritten Rules: In society, there are rules that aren't written down but still affect how we behave and what we talk about. Some groups rebel against these unwritten rules because they feel they limit their freedom.
Civilization and Barbarism: Even in our most civilized moments, there's a hint of barbarism lurking underneath. This means that civilization isn't always as peaceful and orderly as it seems.
Cyberspace and Tantra: In today's world, ideas from ancient practices like Tantra influence how we think about spirituality and pleasure, especially in cyberspace. Tantra teaches that embracing earthly desires can lead to spiritual growth.
Public vs. Private Rules: Sometimes, we break rules in public to show off or rebel. But true rebellion might actually mean breaking our own personal rules, even when nobody's watching.
Being Adult and Breaking Rules: Growing up doesn't just mean following rules; it also means knowing when to break them. Breaking rules, even ones we set for ourselves, can show maturity and understanding.
Remove the qualifiers and modal verbs to accurately paraphrase Z ("some," "hint," "seems," "can," "sometimes,: "might").
The man has said multiple times that he writes compulsively as a defence mechanism. If he were to write "simply", he would simply not write.
It was more fun to read than if it were simple
Oh I can respond (I pay nothing) that was totally and utterly thought provoking for me a delightful spiral - the bit that stands out in all of it was your discussion of culture as a comma in the sentence of our barbarism like good manners set against the absence of that. How fast it’s all stripped away - and what is left. The struggle is everything. Thanks for sending my brain into places it hasn’t reached for a long time (theology philosophy ) way to start my week - Maddi M
What a fine Sunday morning sermon. Leaving our god-confused sanctuary I shake your hand at the door and descend the materializing steps with a smile. I hope he seduced the organist, I’m thinking . . .
I did not read the text, but the screenshot reminds me to tell you that you should read about the world in the videogame S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Like the film Stalker, it is inspired in the novel Roadside Picnic. It was created by a Ukrainian developer and in the game you have various factions. If you look closely, these factions represent the different ideologies in Ukraine at the time. They all exist within the exclusion zone, originally caused by the Chernobyl disaster, but then, using the secluded nature of the exclusion zone, some scientists tried to remove all negative emotions from human minds by interacting with what they call the "noosphere". To do this they had to join their minds into what they called the common consciousness, or C-consciousness. Their experiment failed and the Chernobyl exclusion zone now became full of anomalies. Burners would shoot out flames out of nowhere, whirligigs would whip you up in the air like a mini tornado then explode you, fruit punches would dissolve you like a strong acid, psy-fields that will eventually lead to zombiefication, etc. Is this not a representation of ideology in Ukraine? The C-consciousness is just communism and the different factions represent the different political stances. Duty wants the zone to disappear, Freedom believes the zone is a heaven for anarchy (they love drugs and their base has a broken soviet statue), the Monolith, absolutely brainwashed by the C-consciousness who have made them worship a rock inside the Chernobyl reactor, want to protect the zone so nobody enters it, the mercenaries are just capitalist guns for hire (they are hired by the ecologists), bandits are criminals escaping their crimes and are mostly poor and stupid, loners just want a new experience, ecologists are looking for their next nobel prize, and then Clear Sky are a different type of ecologists who claim to stick to research but were at one point secretly associated to the C-consciousness. Lastly there is the Ukrainian military that is just trying to protect people from dying in the zone and just tries to keep people out of it. All of these factions fight and draw alliances in the zone, and all of them are driven to some degree by greed and the wish-granter. As the protagonist, you destroy the C-consciousness. But after, you say "I don't know whether I was right or wrong, I guess I'll never know... But I made it. And I guess I should be thankful for that.".
The zone itself is a place where everything is in decay. The invisible radiation is radioactive decay, the buildings are falling apart, no cars work, paint is peeling off, vegetation is taking over, roofs are caving in, the wildlife is grotesquely mutated, etc. There is even a zone called "the garbage", which is full of mountains of garbage created to bury stuff that became radioactive after the Chernobyl accident, so it's not even about the current crisis. In other zones there are abandoned secret underground installations that are dimly lit, the lights flicker, everything is rusted and mouldy, etc. That's where you are most likely to meet the most powerful enemies, but they can also appear on the surface when you least expect it, when you're outside with the sun shining through the trees or enjoying a beautiful sunset while fellow stalkers sing songs around a campfire.
Is communism not this experiment gone wrong that tried to remove all negative emotions? Do we not live today in "the zone" that resulted? I think there is a lot to interpret from this game and Ukrainian politics in particular. If there are any truly post-ideological people, those are the Ukrainians. Strelok destroyed the C-consciousness, but was never sure if he managed to escape it. Is this not the case today for Ukraine and the ideology that created the Soviet Union?
After playing the game for hundreds of hours (both the original trilogy and Stalker Anomaly, which is free and made by the community and allows you to smoke cigarettes and do drugs like cocaine), all I can say is that the whole thing confuses me. I've sort of come to love the zone as another kind of nature. One where you have less control about your destiny than you think. A place that lives on after you are dead. Even if you are the main protagonist and you are successful in your purpose, it just adapts and keeps on going, likely becoming worse yet feeling the same when the sun shines. The atmosphere is not one of impending doom, but of both after the doom and in the messy process of doom. It is bleak and oppressive, and uses the nice sunshine and campfire songs so you don't get used to the decay. With time you learn that the fight against decay is decay itself, but you do it anyway because you're just a stalker, not much different from those grotesque mutants. You learn to die then quickly reload your last save.
When we begin to talk about ideology, then it is especially clear that this clarity is not at all clear. As far as I understand ideology from the article, it means the trust in the mistrust of its contents, which should create the distance between what appears ideological and us, who place something cynical in between, to reassure ourselves through this self-placed stuff whether we are still sane; however, have no idea what could be so funny about that stuff. With the example of military ideology, it obviously suggests that the distance is only created by the embedding in one's own system precisely the solution to not fall completely into ideology, by the cynical stuff regulating the informal deviation here - as we all know, these deviations only occur under strict, specific military activities and not detached from these explicit activities.
The problem, however, is that this stuff-like in-between does not exist as such, yet it is precisely here that the deviations under the social order are allowed. Social action is mediated through a sense of purpose that more closely resembles belief than a substantial basis, for the assumption itself is the substantial - not the object behind it. But precisely for this reason, every aspect of understanding the order correctly is missing; it only emerges as a regulated, inconsistent deviation within the notorious system law - naturally only as a form. In terms of content, it is just inconsistent, and not just for every participant, but also for the order itself, which presents itself as a lie about not having it clear, but actually pretending to hold on to the belief of clearly understanding it, because this sacrifice commands the contradiction to cease. Or in other words, the cynical stuff is useful for the participants insofar as they prioritize the belief in the lie to prevent the cut of detachment from their common place. The crux, however, is indeed the knowledge of transgression, which must implicitly make itself known as such in every specific case, i.e., for some inexplicable reason, participants in the consistent chaos know how to pedantically defend their inconsistent contents and protect any transgressions against them with interventions "actually". Therefore, in a certain way, it must be clear which subject represents the virtual character mask of non-community for the others, for this reference is also necessary for social action, in order to move within the social order, since the position to oneself is (apparently) only clear if it or they provide meaning for one's own identity within the community. Otherwise, there remains merely a slight, dull weaving, which as a sensation creates the condition of possibility to establish a subjective relatedness, but without the necessary objective difference - which is outlined here - participants are not able to remember, and so even the formal commonplace remains prescribed as loss.
so u are a nazi.. then just kill yourself!
Great piece! I especially like “Why are so many problems today perceived as problems of intolerance, rather than as problems of inequality, exploitation, or injustice? Why is the proposed remedy tolerance, rather than emancipation, political struggle, even armed struggle?”
My father the barber would only shave those who asked and paid to be shaved. He shaved his own red whiskers with a straight razor.
I also loved the Proustian reference, but that can't be a quote from him. I assume it's a quote from the interpretation given by Mladen Dolar? The interpretation is good, of course. There is an Italian author who has written a novel about contemporary high schoolers obsessed with "being in"-'the most Proustian novel i've ever read.
Interesting observation about Tarkovsky! I can see you are an East European with a Slavic soul ( I wanted to put "soul" in quotes, but wouldn't that put me on par with the racist travelers suffering of ironic distance?). Yes, decay and decomposition is spiritual for us Eastern Europeans (see Cioran's Precis de decomposition).
If you want to follow high taste consistently, you display your tastelessness, etc: One of the best descriptions of having style. If one dresses in tasteful well-fitted expensive clothes and labels and things from famous stores and off racks, it is tacky and unstylish. If, for example, one has unwashed greasy looking or wild hair, rumpled too big pants, outrageously flat and wide shoes, wears thrifted worn out layers of comically outdated sweaters with fraying sleeves over top of a wife-beater with garters hanging off the bottom and never smiles - one is stylish. Wonderful. ( As a rule I never praise blogs).
"taking pleasure in observing local peculiarities while filtering out the truly traumatic data, is postmodern racism at its purest."
thusly the nerve-calming stupid attempt to detraumatize with it also is traumatizing.. dreamertizing.. advertizing.. wishthinking.. they don't think.. they wish to think.. 'please god let it rain brain!' ideologically splattered brains wished to fall on the ground..
I think by "truly traumatic data" he means the negative aspects,the rough edges of these (mostly non white) societies, which are perceived with the ironic distance of the "superior" nihllist for whom everything is a cool image and nothing more.