26 Comments

"Working is what life is about" isn't that just a result of mainstream protestant and capitalist ethos? Why is life not about leisure time, writing for fun, creativity, discussing with friends?

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I imagine he means work in the sense of having a vocation, some task or project to do that is useful and fullfiling. By that definition "working is what life's about" is a tautology. Obviously under capitalism "working" in that sense and working to make money are usually separated. Slavoj is one of the lucky few for whom they are the same thing.

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So I see "work" as "making money", and therefore I am the capitalist-protestant. I love it, kudos!

But apart from jokes I do see this in Slavoj in many cases. I don't remember where but he has admitted in the past that he needs to work otherwise he feels guilty, that work is the only thing he enjoys, and a general depression towards life otherwise. Which I suppose also stems from being critical to the mainstream ideology, but I find it interesting that on another level, the process in which this critique is done contains the ideology being criticized.

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Pardonne mon français . . . Va te faire foutre toi et ton dieu juif . . .

https://cwspangle.substack.com/p/pardonne-mon-francais-va-te-faire

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this is so cute. I Loved the winter desert feeling in December in Kreta and Mallorca. A quiet, desolated magic emerges, if you are lucky. Otherwise it's just cold and depressing.

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Curling with babies?! A new sport is born!

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Hey slavoj, am a huge fan of your work. Because of you I am now diving into Karl Marx and Jacques lacan. Look forward to your future posts!

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Winter Sports are the best. I love xc skiing. Start the day, read and work until lunch, one hour outdoor skiing, back inside for more work. Merry Christmas.

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That's for the very lucky few. I doubt even Slavoj Zizek could afford your lifestyle.

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Not really, I am far from rich. I barely have savings. Just live a place where you can go outside.

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The neverending saga of rich people saying they're not rich. It's alright, just enjoy the slopes.

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Never ending saga of trolls in the comments section.

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fuck you and your jewish god

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Houellebecq-maxing with this post Slavoj - we love to see it

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Skiing is a deeply beautiful sport that puts you in touch with with nature like nothing else, if you can’t see that then there’s something missing in your soul

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down the slopes we go and up

answering the hamster call

ski the dopes in us all

we could flip we could fall

winter wine in Portugal

where there’s no work, there’s cork

practically all holes; there’s Bjork

slumming her hometown

thinking as hegel’s owl flies round

dusk: the proper environ for thought

skimming a line, pulling it taut

peeing bear and tabled squid

toss this guy a couple quid

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I too hate winter sport, especially hockey. The audience freezes and spreads viruses with screams while violent toothless stacks of padding fight for a small disk of rubber. Why not give everyone a puck? Or better yet, play with an invisible fantasy puck that is always losing and scoring.

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For every one person skiing there's three people drinking. At least where I went.

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I love this and now understand why the love for Scandinavian holidays/life. But is there any reference/info for which Portuguese farmers (in mountains?) when (c20th only?) and how often they ate?

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I'm impressed with the bold and frequent use of 'stupid'.

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Here in the Valley of Mexico, we do not have "winter sports" as snow is an extremely rare event, excepting for some mountains and/or volcanos and the people who live there are usually indigenous, so they also don't care about the "winter sports" bullshit and usually if you go to one of that volcanos, known as the "Ajusco", located in Mexico City, is not to make shitty "winter sports", but to have a big mexican meal with your family while you enjoy the woods and the usually cold weather of the place, while in the rest of Mexico City, winters are usually sunny but with a cold weather, so one of my favourite things to do in winter is to woke up early in the morning (at 6 or 7 o'clock) to see the sunrise while i listen to some of my favourite 60's american psychedelic rock records (usually are The Fraternity of Man's selftitled album, Ill Wind's Flashes, 13th Floor Elevators' Easter Everywhere and Haymarket Square's Magic Lantern) as i really like the mix of sunny, blue skies with a dry, cold winter weather.

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No communist slob could understand the joy of skiing. Finding harmony with nature, adapting to the always different, ever-changing conditions, constantly challenging one’s abilities, taking risks to master one’s skills. Anything I do on the hills is finding harmony with nature.

Of course, you cannot understand that. You are a Marxist.

😉

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Communism is when no skiing

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I actually wrote a post about it:

https://zorkthehun.substack.com/p/skiing-with-marx-and-slavoj-zizek

Zizek is a good communist :)

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