{"id":10552,"date":"2013-03-05T13:05:46","date_gmt":"2013-03-05T18:05:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/?p=10552"},"modified":"2013-03-05T13:12:14","modified_gmt":"2013-03-05T18:12:14","slug":"spirit-is-a-bone-rabinovitch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/2013\/03\/05\/spirit-is-a-bone-rabinovitch\/","title":{"rendered":"spirit is a bone rabinovitch"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u017di\u017eek, Slavoj. “Zizek_TheLacanianReal_Television<\/a>” The Symptom<\/em> 9 Summer 2008.<\/p>\n

The Spirit is a Bone.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cthe spirit (the subject) is a bone, a skull (der Geist ist ein Knochen).\u201d
\nIf we read this proposition literally, it is vulgar-materialistic nonsense, reducing the subject to his immediate material reality. But where lies, in Hegel\u2019s words, the speculative truth of this proposition? The effect of the phrase, \u201cthe spirit is a bone.\u201d On the listener is the feeling of its utter inadequacy, of its absolute contradiction: it is total nonsense – how can we reduce the spirit, its dialectical movement, to an inert presence of a dead object,
\nof a skull?<\/p>\n

The Hegelian answer is precisely this absolute contradiction, this absolute negativity that we feel when we experience the uttermost inadequacy of the proposition, \u201cthe spirit is the bone.\u201d<\/p>\n

We have here a kind of dialogic economy: we articulate a proposition defining the subject, and our attempt fails; we experience the absolute contradiction, the extreme negative relationship between the subject and the predicate – and it\u2019s precisely this absolute discordance which is the subject as absolute negativity.<\/p>\n

It is the same as with a well-known joke from the Soviet Union about Rabinovitch, a Jew who wants to emigrate. The bureaucrat at the emigration office asks him why; Rabinovitch answers: \u201cThere are two reasons why. The first is that I\u2019m afraid that in the Soviet Union, the communists will lose power, there will be a counter-revolution, and the new power will put all the blame for the communist crimes on us Jews – and there will be again the anti-Jewish pogroms\u2026\u201d \u201cBut,\u201d interrupts the bureaucrat, \u201cthis is pure nonsense; nothing can change in the Soviet Union – the Soviet power will last eternally!\u201d \u201cWell,\u201d responds Rabinovitch calmly, \u201cthat\u2019s my second reason.\u201d<\/p>\n

The logic is here the same as with the Hegelian proposition, \u201cthe spirit is a bone\u201d: the failure itself of a first reading gives us the true meaning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u017di\u017eek, Slavoj. “Zizek_TheLacanianReal_Television” The Symptom 9 Summer 2008. The Spirit is a Bone. \u201cthe spirit (the subject) is a bone, a skull (der Geist ist ein Knochen).\u201d If we read this proposition literally, it is vulgar-materialistic nonsense, reducing the subject to his immediate material reality. But where lies, in Hegel\u2019s words, the speculative truth of … Continue reading “spirit is a bone rabinovitch”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[100,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hegel","category-zizek"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10552"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10552\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10557,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10552\/revisions\/10557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}