Tibetan Bhuddism: Canned laughter
Objectively you are praying, it doesn’t matter what you are thinking. The tv laughs for you. Something that is supposed to be spontaneous emotional reaction can be externalized. The function of canned laughter is to trigger in this Pavlovian reflex to trigger your laughter, NO! it laughs for you. I watch tv, like an idiot, at the end I feel relieved as if I was laughing.
Brevik an enigma: Pro-Zionist, yet anti-Semitic. What is happening here.
Levinas, smuggled into Judaism, pseudo Christian attitudes, the face of the Other, vulnerability of other’s face, this is profoundly NON-Jewish. From a Jewish standpoint, the zero-level ethical experience is single face of other is NON-Jewish. You see a weak child, oh my god, this is automatic reaction, ETHICS begins for me, when you ask a question: “Is it something that I don’t see which is the price for seeing this?”
But still I have respect for some insights of Levinas. When you read in the bible DON’T KILL it isn’t God addressing humans, the addressee is GOD HIMSELF. The big problem from the very beginning, is BRUTAL DIVINE VIOLENCE. re-read the Old Testament and see the incidents of brutal divine violence. God is like the castle in Kafka’s novel, it is the sublime object up there, but what appears from below is a majestic builing is only a couple of dirty cottages. The basic Jewish suspicion is this one, don’t get too close to God it won’t be bliss, it will be furor.
Marshal McCluhan scene in Annie Hall: this happens in the Talmud. Two rabbis debate theological point, the one who is losing, tries to pull Annie Hall trick. Let’s call God. Jehovah comes, an old man, but then the other Rabbi shouts at God, you old man beat it, you did your job, your created the world, you did it pretty god, now go away. The reply of God is My children have vanquished me and with a merry laughter walks away.
The danger of the proximity of God. How to keep God at a proper distance. The point is God should be only in dead letter not in images, images come to close, God should be dead.
Lacan: The only true atheists today are theologists
God dies in Auschwitz. how could he have allowed etc. In view of the horrors of 20th century, to describe them in secular terms is not strong enough, 6 million killed, words don’t match the horror, we need a dimension of the sacred. Not that God is behind, but an excessive sublime, its too much to explain away as small secular affair. Not only God did not die at Auschwitz, in Auschwitz God came back and was too close to us.
This terrifying Living God, the God if you know Greek Tragedy, Bachae, crazy woman exploding in orgy. Excessive sacred orgies. Where is this today. I see signs.
Shitty boring movie. PROJECT X. College kids organize a small party. House burns down etc. You can see how, in a nice strategy, it starts as jokes, at level of obscene Hollywood sex comedy, but then at a certain point you are transported, its too much, something ectasy, something sacred is going on. There is a demand for this sacred dimension, no I’m not America bashing, no in Europe, 3-4 weeks ago, a girl in Belgium, announced on Facebook a party, 40,000 people came. Its obvious this sacred dimension in SOCCER, trance and violence.
And before parents leave they give the rules, don’t touch this etc. At the end of the film when father returns, you expect him to explode, Father then returns, and says, ok, you did it, its damage, nonetheless I didn’t think you were able to do this, you are a man.
Lacan says, “Beyond the mother, stands out the image of the father … fundamentally to unite and not oppose a desire to the law.” while formerly prohibiting, discreetly not only tolerates, but solicits them, you are expected someway to violate the prohibitions. A permissive father can be much worse, a father who prohibits, by playing a game of do it but out of my site. The bible itself, in so far as God is father, in old Testament, of turning a blind eye, the prohibition don’t celebrate other gods, but if you look closely, don’t celebreate other gods in front of me, but what you do discreetly over there, is not my business.
Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit
Master and Servant: Servant not ready to risk his life, Master enjoys. Lacan turns it around. The Master is prohibited to enjoy. He enjoys in such a regulated way. The only enjoyment, is servant in marginal space, when Master turns his eye away. But Masters do have orgies, but only that they are overly regulated. Private life of ancient Indian masters, so fat barely able to walk, so how did they do it … What about normal permissive father. Permissivity You can do it, turns imperceptibly into you Have to do it, you Have to Enjoy. Enjoy! it turns oppressive. Healthy sex is promulgated in a terrifying utilitarian way, sex is good for your muscles etc. Is this sex? This medical assertion, it is much more liberating for Father to prohibit it, then he goes out and you bring in girlfriend.
In the area of generalized permissivity: we get so much anxiety impotence, etc.
Ž then begins on Gangnam style which I have recorded not here but in the Žižek Toronto 2012 posting.
To be Continued