{"id":10664,"date":"2013-03-14T11:16:09","date_gmt":"2013-03-14T16:16:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/?p=10664"},"modified":"2013-03-15T09:46:09","modified_gmt":"2013-03-15T14:46:09","slug":"z-in-brazil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/2013\/03\/14\/z-in-brazil\/","title":{"rendered":"\u017d in Brazil"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u017d\u017eek Sao Paulo Brazil 8 March 2013<\/a><\/p>\n

Difference between Vampires and Zombies<\/a>
\nHugo Chavez and Citizen Kane<\/a>
\nLegacy of Chavez<\/a><\/p>\n

Something is happening for which we have models in the past<\/a>\u00a0they met they talked for 2 months and then they left. What in Hegel’s old terms the passage from in-itself (chaotic protest) to for-itself (organized program) why doesn’t this happen?<\/p>\n

Negri multitude<\/a>: participation, abolish hierarchy, local participation<\/p>\n

The Leader and Transference<\/a>\u00a0 People don’t know what they want, but every authentic revolutionary process is a transference at work, a ‘subject supposed to know’ what you want<\/p>\n

We need large efficient structures, just think of how to deal with the ecological crisis.<\/p>\n

But what about the “morning after”<\/a>\u00a0 When things return to normal, bourgeois liberals like nothing more than temporary outbursts. \u00a0Alain Badiou, even, a little bit of this dismissing of ordinary everyday life as “animal life” non-evental, NO. \u00a0The thing is to change the normal everyday life, when things return to normal.<\/p>\n

Stalin and Violence<\/a>\u00a0 Violence as sign of impotence: when we criticize the 20th century left for its excessive violence (critiques of Stalinism) the usual mistake is to focus on violence, of course Stalin was wrong killing millions, but not otherwise Stalin was ok, just a mistake of violence. No brutal violence is a sign of impotence. \u00a0The forced collectivization of farms of 1920-30s isn’t this brutal violence a sign of extreme inability to solve the problem. \u00a0Which was the BIG problem of Russia, how to bring farmers into Socialism. \u00a0A brutal acting out:\u00a0passage a l’act<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Violence against women<\/a>\u00a0 Gang rapes in India, but way its reported is symptomatic. \u00a0Arundati Roy, the rapists were poor ordinary people, in India there were much worse horror stories, prostitution houses in Bombay, rich people sending emissaries in Nepal, and buy girls from 4-5 yrs and bring them to bordellos. \u00a0Everybody knows this, its done systematically. \u00a0I would like to know about this. \u00a0A collective re-assertion of masculinity in moments of panic, Suaraz, in Mexico south of the border: thousands of young independent woman in poorly paid jobs, this is a provocation to machismo, every year 100 are killed, local gangs kidnap. \u00a0It’s a collective obscene ‘pseudo sacred’ event. \u00a0What the police does? \u00a0Is they call social workers who systematically try to re-interpret as cases of local family violence, systematically obliterating these cases.<\/p>\n

\u017di\u017eek mentions Canada<\/a>\u00a0 less reported, Vancouver, the most liberal city, the big reservation of ‘natives’ and in their reservation were allowed to have their own police force, a group of white people go to reservation, kidnap a lone native girl, rape and kill her and dump her body just within the reservation, and if local police call Canadian police they are told, its on your reservation, and then reduce it to a matter of family violence etc \u00a0and systematically try to obliterate render invisible, insitutional ritualistic function of this violence.<\/p>\n

Church peodophilia<\/a>\u00a0 Garry Wills from Chicago: being a priest made him a molester. \u00a0It’s part of hidden church identity.<\/p>\n

Eurocentrism (India story)<\/a>\u00a0 Chavez, resisted the temptation of claiming the solution is to return indigenous roots, authentic collective being etc. \u00a0Global modernization is here, there’s no way back. \u00a0Famous INDIA story. \u00a0It is true there was pre-modern India, then Brits came along and installed a foreign culture. \u00a0BUT what India today wants: new open modern democratic post-colonial India, what they want as the goal of their fight against residues of colonization, is a dream which emerged with that very colonization.<\/p>\n

Hegel saw this very clearly PARADOX: a universality is brutally imposed, experienced as a traumatic loss, but what you are really deprived of, is not what you really lost, pre-modern India, no the space of which was opened for this very brutal modernization.<\/p>\n

The detailed book on caste system, it was put together as ancient classic by British colonizers, when they said we need some local ideology to keep Indians under our rule. \u00a0Contrary to belief, Imperialists were always multicultural. \u00a0In South Africa, the defence was, oh my god what an authentic world the Hotentot has, if we get rid of apartheid, they will get lost in Western society, we need their authenticity, to remind us of our loss. \u00a0Mandela did not fall into this trap of returning to roots. \u00a0Even Malcolm X, the X is loss of roots, not return to African roots, the X, as lack roots in tradition, as opportunity for liberation.<\/p>\n

What Hegel saw clearly<\/a>, from the Logic of Reflection: Absolute Recoil, or counter-punch, a thing DOES NOT precede its loss, it emerges ONLY THROUGH ITS LOSS. \u00a0The illusion of putting the blame on English language, it prevent us from expressing ourselves, here I’m a Lacanian-Hegelian: every language is like this, a fundamental gap between human subject and language<\/strong>. \u00a0It is not enough to be Heidegger, language is the house of being, no Lacan: Language is the torture house of being<\/strong>. \u00a0Language by its nature is lying, we have to torture language to make it say the truth. \u00a0oh but a\u00a0humanist\u00a0says, you start to torture language you end up torturing people. \u00a0NO! its exactly the opposite<\/p>\n

You either torture language or you torture people<\/a>. \u00a0Look at poetry. \u00a0the greatest torture machine you can imagine. \u00a0imagine writing a sonnet. \u00a0There is a fundemental violence in language.<\/p>\n

Apply the Hegelian Recoil<\/a>\u00a0 How something emerges through its very loss: when we think we are returning to some roots, we are effectively creating in the very return, what we are returning to. \u00a0 Eric Hobsbawn, a wonderful book “Invented Traditions” \u00a0in Scotland kilts, nothing in middle ages, but invented in late 19th century revival.<\/p>\n

People never authentically believed, we believed by RECOIL. Cynicism is the greatest illusion<\/span>. Those who are cynical realists are the most blind to what is going on. \u00a0Back to Jameson, we are in a cynical era, those in power don’t even believe themselves, its only economic power interests. Today we do not need any longer exquisite critique of ideology, what is unsaid in what is said, absences, lacunae, not its all bluff. \u00a0NO! \u00a0The big less of Marx precisely such brutal thinking, no b.s. its just money power sex. \u00a0THIS IS THE GREATEST ILLUSION<\/p>\n

Remember the financial crisis of 2008. It was not done by welfare state idealist living in their illusions, it was done by most cynical banking guys, who said fuck ideas, its just about money and so on. \u00a0Cynicism\u00a0means PERVERT. \u00a0The unconscious is most inaccessible to penetrate in perverts<\/span>. \u00a0They are the most oppressed, these perverts.<\/p>\n

What is it then that cynics do NOT see?<\/a>\u00a0 The material power of illusions themselves. \u00a0This is the DEEPEST INSIGHT OF MARX: COMMODITY FETISHISM. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What Marx called CF, in the very heart of our real life the place of CF is REAL, the most brutal commodity exchange. \u00a0 We need \u00a0critique of ideology more than ever, especially in an era that says its cynical post-ideological.<\/p>\n

Maurizio Lazzarato The Making of the Indebted Man<\/a>\u00a0This book claims in todays global capitalism, the status of being indebted changed: what we are witnessing today, and this is IDEOLOGY at its purest, if we poor want to be consumers, we have to be in debt. \u00a0This is conceptualized as entrepreneurship of the self, big or small we are all entrepreneurs of the self. \u00a0 This is your way to INVEST in yourself. \u00a0It functions like capitalist investment. I want to educate my children, like a small enterprise, I go in debt to INVEST in their future.<\/p>\n

This logic of being indebted and investment serves as a way of IDEOLOGICAL control. no longer do we need oppressive machines, the moment you are in debt you have to take care of yourself, it works at the level of individuals, companies and states. \u00a0Argentina, through some loans, decided to pay back directly its debt to IMF. \u00a0Instead of being glad, the bank was concerned, that now they might do something crazy, how do we control them now? \u00a0SUPEREGO: precisely you are not supposed to meet this demand to do it, the point is NOT to repay the debt, the point is a means of control, to keep you permanently in debt. \u00a0This is where we are today. \u00a0Without this UNIVERSALIZATION of capitalism, where we are all capitalists, you are a small capitalist investing, this is a small example of how IDEOLOGY works. \u00a0This is way to dismantle what remains of welfare state. \u00a0Instead of state deciding, YOU should decide, You should invest. \u00a0YOUR SLAVERY IS SOLD TO YOU AS YOUR FREEDOM. \u00a0 You are treated as small capitalist investor. \u00a0This allegedly brutal modern financial world is the world of ILLUSIONS of DREAMING.<\/p>\n

Brutal Tasteless Joke<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0In order to go further, to criticize capitalism, one has to go through capitalism. \u00a0Even concerning formal freedoms, Marx knew very well that formal freedom which is empty allows you to build a measure, from you can see how effectively NOT FREE you are. \u00a0Reject Stalinist “all bourgeois freedom” \u00a0If you are taken away formal freedom you lose even the chance to see your freedom. \u00a0 \u00a0When I was in Palestine, Ramallah, I met a Christian Palestinian, he told an obscene joke about Jesus Christ, just when Christ, on the last night, and he know that next day he would be crucified, the apostles worried, he didn’t have any fun, shouldn’t he experience some fun before he dies, they call Mary Magdelene, go seduce Jesus … 5 minute comes running out, terrified. \u00a0They ask What happened? \u00a0She says: he started well, I danced, \u00a0 …. This is the liberation I don’t want, I want us to enjoy our wounds.<\/p>\n

Question and Answer Session Less Than Nothing<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Close reading of Hegel, quantum physics, The basic message is political: \u00a0FACE IT if we want to be Marxists today, we have to admit, the very fact that Stalinism emerged, the very fact of old style commies, as in China, the best managers of capitalism, we have to RETHINK critically the Marxist legacy to REPEAT Marx, his critique of political economy is breath-taking, it is the only serious description of the \u00a0totality of capitalist reproduction. \u00a0WHO IS THE AGENT OF REVOLUTIONARY change today. \u00a0Working class??? I doubt it. Permenent wage workers, is almost a\u00a0privileged\u00a0position. \u00a0 \u00a0The role of natural resources in exploitation, Marx was marked by his time, when he unambiguously claimed that natural resources are NOT a source of value, the irony he uses is OIL. \u00a0Are we aware what this means, this means in so far as, when Chavez was selling oil to USA, if we mechanically apply Marx’s position, it would mean Chavez was exploiting USA, he was selling something that had in Marxist sense no value.<\/p>\n

Heckler, interruption of \u017di\u017eek<\/a>\u00a0 The Year of Dreaming Dangerously \u00a0The Minotaur, the Greek economist. \u00a0Absolutely crucial to EXPAND the notion of EXPLOITATION. \u00a0Include PERMANENTLY unemployed in the exploited. \u00a0Unemployment isn’t what Marx was talking about, not today, more and more the whole strata, whole groups are getting permanently unemployed, whole countries in symbolic sense unemployed, rogue countries are excluded CONGO, crazy rogue state, but there isn’t a country more included in global capitalism than CONGO.<\/p>\n

All I’m saying is that if you dogmatically insist on working class fundamentalism, only workers create value, then the moment its a problem how to account to for 3rd world state wanting to profit from their natural wealth. \u00a0I develop year of Dreaming Dangerously, we are in a way partially returning from PROFIT TO RENT. \u00a0 More and more RENT IS THE SOURCE OF WEALTH. Bill Gates, privatized part of what Marx called GENERAL INTELLECT. \u00a0collective intellectual substance, what we use to\u00a0communicate\u00a0with each other, the PRIVATIZATION of the collective substance of knowledge.<\/p>\n

Maybe we should risk returning to HEGEL<\/a>\u00a0 Maybe Hegel was more materialist than Marx, Hegel precisely much more open to the CONTINGENCY of historical development. \u00a0He prohibited dreaming about future, its not for us to dream … Holderlin poet: where the danger is the greatest, there salvation potentially arises. \u00a0We are at the lowest moment, but there is a chance of the biggest reversal. \u00a0Proletarian position is lowest but greatest liberation. \u00a0No. \u00a0We had a great attempt of liberalization in 20th century it failed, but how to avoid so we should do nothing, become cynics, \u00a0Hegel, says it has to FAIL the first time, the thing is NOT TO LOSE HOPE after the first failure. \u00a0 The American guy Stanley Cavell wrote a book about the comedies of REMARRIAGE. comedies who stories: couple are in love, marry, bliss is over, divorce, meet again, remarry, you have to marry twice to have the REAL marriage. \u00a0Authentic revolutionary process, first it has to go wrong, then you have the true test.<\/p>\n

\u017di\u017eek gives his opinion of Latin American Left<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0disagrees with Tariq Ali, “Europe should look to Latin America.” No way! Look at the countries, capitalism in its most violent: Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, China \u00a0These are countries with an extremely strong regulative state. \u00a0We need to distinguish ne0-liberalism in its ideology and what is really going on. \u00a0The USA state apparatus was never stronger than today.<\/p>\n

Philosophers misunderstand each other, Hegel misunderstood everyone<\/a>: \u00a0Philosophical dialogue doesn’t work. \u00a0 I read another philosopher, but my very misunderstanding is productive and I invent something new.<\/p>\n

Democracy<\/a>\u00a0 Badiou drops it. \u00a0What to replace it? \u00a0Justice?? \u00a0everyone is for justice? \u00a0I think that I am ready to keep the term democracy on condition that we accept that what we today call, democracy in the institutional sense of multi-party democracy, is simply not strong and efficient enough to deal with ecological and global problems we are facing today. \u00a0Bolivia, adds local indigenous movements, but he has no illusions about them. \u00a0There are new opportunities of corruption that open up, they send their chiefs, who get corrupted, fight for their own group against other group, there is NO easy solution. \u00a0Parliamentary democracy will NOT suffice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u017d\u017eek Sao Paulo Brazil 8 March 2013 Difference between Vampires and Zombies Hugo Chavez and Citizen Kane Legacy of Chavez Something is happening for which we have models in the past\u00a0they met they talked for 2 months and then they left. What in Hegel’s old terms the passage from in-itself (chaotic protest) to for-itself (organized … Continue reading “\u017d in Brazil”<\/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":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-zizek"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10664","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=10664"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10664\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10666,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10664\/revisions\/10666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}