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Excerpts from PEL podcaster & listener discussions on Sartre's Nausea, Heidegger's "The Question Concerning Technology," Slavoj Zizek's Year of Dreaming Dangerously, Marx and Engels's "Communist Manifesto," Peter Schaffer's play Equus, and Cormac McCarthy's The Sunset Limited: A Novel in Dramatic Form. Plus an interview with Hillary Sydlowski, leader of the Not School Introductory Readings in Philosophy Group.
This Digest (our first since last August) is jam-freakin' packed, with folks moaning over difficult texts and crooning over easy ones. We've got good microphones side by side with terrible microphones so you can learn the difference! Wacky sound effects! A song ("Messed Up People" by The MayTricks, from 1994's Happy Songs Will Bring You Down) spread out over two places but yet still not adding up to one whole song! The first minutes of several conversations, you know, before everyone got warmed up and comfortable! A commercial that sounds like real content, and some real content that sounds like a commercial! Such a thing is to be missed only if you have an ear infection! (We do that so you get the summary: you still learn what these works are about even just listening to these little bits, and you don't have time to get bored.)
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A Jock says
February 28, 2014 at 11:28 pmHoly cow that Zizek discussion sounded like some pedantic nerdos. When Zizek says “think, don’t act” he is not trying to make some impossible Zenlike demand. He is playing on the Marxist, “Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it,” which applied fine to 1848 when there was a surplus of good alternative ideas worth going to revolution over; in contrast, Zizek is remarking that as the ideological concerns of the C21st have changed, perhaps socialism as it existed (Leninism) is not a good enough idea by itself to overthrow capitalism anymore* and we need to go back to the formulation part and leave the protesting for the 9/11 Truthers
*not to speak in favor of capitalism as it exists, just to imply the sort of international revolution demanded by emancipatory politics would damage the global ability to organize and act and direct effort, which we can no longer go without until things like biological concerns or global warming are not concerns anymore (since it demands that scale to be able to fight)
Mark Linsenmayer says
March 1, 2014 at 8:51 amWhile I think you need to adjust your expectations given that these were students and not people even speaking with the idea of being broadcasted to the world, I should explain the background on that recording.
The group leader was Michael Burgess, who has written for this site and will likely be our guest on the PEL Zizek episode whenever we get around to that. I was more or less along for the ride: I read the book, but it was my first intro to Zizek, and I certainly didn’t do any of the outside reading or note taking or anything else that I do for a PEL episode. Michael ended up getting stuck on a train or something and wasn’t able to show up for the call, so we just went with who was there and felt pretty rudderless, with no one on there I think who really knew what he was doing. But then again, that’s part of the fun of these groups (and PEL itself, for that matter)… not having an expert telling you what to think but rather shootin’ the shit with fellow amateurs. For me, it ended up being a fine introduction (and I’m going to try to accompany Michael on his proposed March Zizek group as well so I get another dose of the Z). You should join/enlighten us instead of spitting from the sidelines!
Wayne Schroeder says
March 1, 2014 at 12:31 amA Jock:
Think, Don’t Act–(In addition to anachronistic Marx):
In Year of Dreaming Dangerously where Zizek is addressing “the difficult question of how to fight the system without contributing to its enhanced functioning,” he explains his “Don’t act, think!” position in contrast with Kant’s position of “Don’t think, obey!” So the logical opposite of this Kantian position is “Don’t obey [do what others tell you to do], think [with your own head].” (p. 4)
This observation is made in the context of also arguing against Kant’s position in “What is Enlightenment”: where Kant argues for individual reason as a solution to despotism since “a revolution may well put an end to autocratic despotism . . . or power-seeking oppression, but it will never produce a true reform in ways of thinking.”
Zizek holds this “private” position of “just think” as anemic and argues for the “public use of reason” combined with an “engaged subjective position” as the only way for “adequate ‘cognitive mapping’ of our situation.” (p. 5, YODD)–Wayne