that our time in the sandbox is purportedly so brief is precisely why it requires a ZIZEK THREAD

http://www.newstatesman.com/film/2011/12/coriolanus-freedom-play

srly reading this guy is like reading the creepazoid first-generation neoconservatives: watch how he skates

Soldiers are not bad per se but soldiers mobilised by nationalist poetry are. There is no ethnic cleansing without poetry. Why? Because we live in an era that perceives itself as post-ideological. Given that great public causes no longer have the force to mobilise people for mass violence, a larger sacred cause is needed, one that makes petty individual concerns about killing seem trivial.

Religion fits this role perfectly, and so does ethnic belonging. There are instances of pathological atheists being capable of committing mass murder just for pleasure but they are rare exceptions. The masses need to be anaesthetised against their elementary sensitivity to the suffering of others and, for this, a sacred cause is needed.

yes... there are instances...

ILX is the only place I've been exposed to Zizek and I can't say I'm all that impressed

I think he's a total charlatan and his popularity is based on his cool name and goofy way of talking

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uh5MB17v9A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TqyKsnQD38

lol @ zizek as movie reviewer, not sure what the problem with the original quote is exactly - ?

Stalin, Mao etc

p sure stalinism, maoism fit his definition of 'larger sacred causes'

p sure they were also pathological atheists so uh

clue: also read the sentences which are not in bold

afaict the problem with the initial quote is its blithe dismissal of Stalin and Mao and the like as rare aberrations

but I should let goole speak for himself

the claim is "you can't take a group of people and convince them it's okay to murder a whole other group of people unless they are operating under the impression that what they are doing is For A Cause - otherwise people will operate under the basic human constraint that killing is bad"

in response to the imagined objection that there are, say, serial killers, who had no larger cause and still killed a bunch of people, he says that these are pathological cases and thus exceptions - he's talking about taking a whole bunch of dudes and convincing them it's okay to turn of the murder-is-bad filter

the whole argument is about the circumstances under which you can persuade a whole lot of people to kill a whole lot of people; the mental circumstances of the person doing the persuading doesn't really enter into it

his logic goes off the track with "an era that perceives itself as post-ideological" - everything after that operates w/ the assumption that 'we're in a post-ideological age' or at the very least 'everyone thinks we are' neither of which are remotely true

i think he is in slippery fashion eliding the cases of non-religious political killers and the particular psychosis of a serial killer

i think the funniest thing in the link is probably this progression:

And this is why Fiennes's Coriolanus is like the eyes of God or a saint in an Orthodox icon: without changing a word in Shakespeare's play, the film looks squarely at us, at our predicament today, offering us the figure of the radical freedom fighter.

Slavoj Žižek's most recent book is "Living in the End Times" (Verso, £12.99)

“Coriolanus" (certificate 15) will be released in the UK on 20 January

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xpost i don't think he is? but mainly my takeaway from this is 'the new statesman has given up subediting slavoj zizek'

ie that death you may have heard of coming from non-religious leaders is surely some kind of mistake, but on the other hand we shouldn't preclude killing as a totally bad thing...

So, yes, Coriolanus is a killing machine, a "perfect soldier", but he has no fixed class allegiance and can easily put himself at the service of the oppressed. As Che Guevara put it: "Hatred is an element of struggle; relentless hatred of the enemy that impels us over and beyond the natural limitations of man and transforms us into effective, violent, selective and cold killing machines. Our soldiers must be thus; a people without hatred cannot vanquish a brutal enemy."

There are two scenes in the film that provide a clue for such a reading. When, after his violent outburst in the senate, Coriolanus leaves the large hall, slamming the doors behind him, he finds himself alone in the silence of a long corridor and confronted by an elderly cleaning man. The two exchange glances in a moment of quiet solidarity, as if only the cleaner can see who Coriolanus is now. The other scene is a long depiction of his voyage into exile, done in road movie style, with Coriolanus as a lone rambler, anonymous among ordinary people. It is as if Coriolanus, obviously out of place in the Roman hierarchy, only now becomes what he is and gains his freedom.

The only thing that he can do is to join the enemy Volscians. He does not join them solely in order to take revenge on Rome. He joins them because he belongs there. It is only among the Volscian fighters that he can be what he is. Coriolanus's pride is authentic, but it has no place in imperial Rome. It can thrive only among the guerrilla fighters.

incoherent in a way, unless you count two rhetorical aims: minimize any communist atrocities, avoid putting up any moral lines that would prohibit future, necessary communist atrocities

nah i think it's just incoherent tbh

that's not really a saving grace

that's an awesome article OP, I loved every word. thanks.

Coriolanus is the best Shakespeare film in awhile tho

hat-tip to goole for the thread title

i am psyched for that movie, always cool when the lesser known plays get a movie treatment. i'd love to see someone try a winter's tale.

altho taymor's titus andronicus was pretty bad

tempted to start reading zizek again, use this thread to liveblog

http://www.audunmortensen.com/files/gimgs/the_collected_jokes_of_slavoj_zizek.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEnkDEgALGI

wheres the liveblog