Žižek Research Articles

Being Taken for a Ride: Social and Technological Externalist Complements to the Internalist Reading of Buddhist Chariot Similes

Abstract: Slavoj Zizek’s criticism of Western Buddhism (2014) for being a late capitalist opiate of the people is partly unwarranted and partly of undeniable relevance. His implicit assumption is that Buddhism is an internalist path that only looks into the individual inner world, leaving harmful societal systems in peace. This article offers a response to Zizek’s analysis, by interpreting the chariot simile in the Buddhist Pali Canon. Even though Pali chariot similes indeed support an internalist perspective, some of them also allow for a reading that opens up to two “externalist” complements: the social outer world and the technological environment. In this way, while acknowledging Zizek’s criticism, we point at Buddhist philosophy’s inherent potential for developing a social-technological critical stance, for instance by linking it to mediation theory.

Political Demonstrations, Nepali Youths and the Politics of Mourning: A Semiotic Analysis

This paper analyses mainly three representative photographs of the spectacles of mourning as displayed in Fig. 1, 2 and 3 that come to surface during political and social demonstrations in Kathmandu and other towns occasionally. Such spectacles used by political parties and social activists include clean-shaved-head, white linen clothes, burial shroud, bamboo bier, and fire. Together, they give a picture that a mock funeral of Hindu order is being staged. My major concern is to answer these questions: Why do Nepali youths stage such semiotics of sad worldview at times when their transitional politics and society is often praised for being dynamic? Why do they bring such religiously subjective and familial spectacles into the public ripened with politics? I argue in the line of argument developed by political philosophers Friedrich Hegel and Slavoj Zizek and psychoanalysts like Sigmund Freud and Carl G. Jung to reach a conclusion that such spectacles evoke the complex state of Nepali youths’ political subjectivity. While staging such mock funerals, they stage their helplessness of being youths of a donor-depended and Hindu patriarchal nation that has been going through transitional politics.

Indian cricket, popular culture and “national Thing”: Reflections from sport‐induced nationalism

AbstractCricket in India has evolved much beyond its fundamental definition as a game or form of entertainment in the present century. The liberalization process in the 1990s, followed by the drastic social changes in the country, impacted the game, leading it to acquire new meanings as cultural text. Currently, Indian cricket forms part of collective enjoyment, forming people's habitus and playing a central ideological role in the politics of ethnonationalism. This article attempts to analyze Indian Cricket using Slavoj Zizek's concept of “national Thing,” to critically understand its potential to evoke hyper‐nationalism in the Indian polity. The concept of “national Thing,” proposed by Zizek, postulates that the recourse to nationalism can cause a pleasure‐in‐pain situation and evoke extreme “enjoyment” (jouissance), which functions on the idea of sudden sense of loss. Drawing insights from this, this paper theoretically investigates sport‐induced nationalism in cricket in the backdrop of escalating neo‐nationalist sentiments in India. Additionally, the article expounds on how cricket becomes a “lost Thing” in Indian popular culture by critically analyzing the Indian film Kai Po Che (2013), in which cricket emerges as a social and political entity, intervening with the lives of ordinary youths in India.

The Golden Age of the Virtual Realms, Right Now

The virtual is just the latest expansion of human craving for meaning and it is brimming with opportunities: mostly symbolic, nonetheless, real. Thinking, presenting ormanipulating a situation has always been dependent on the symbolic operations (Mircea Eliade, Raoul Girardet, Lucian Blaga, Camil Petrescu, Ernst Cassirer), on the uses andabuses of the referential and condensed symbols (Murray Edelman). At the same time, such operations are not reserved entirely to politics. In our virtually expanded contemporarylives, we relate to symbolic meanings, either consciously or not. As Slavoj Zizek noticed: “Behind the realities there are phantasies and behind the phantasies, realities.” Baudrillard’s ecstasy of communication and simulacra present the offer of a golden ageopen for individuals and politicians alike. The enemies are clear and the saviours, too. Justlike decorations hanging in the virtual window here there are the (slightly) cosmeticized images of ourselves carved as individual persona representations, or, as the solution messages for the current problems, prompt as a soft form of political management. All these symbolic décors in the virtual malls that we visit and consolidate are symbolic attemptsto approximate the golden age as we can “see” it, in our human everlasting aspirationsfor success and prosperity, for stability, communion and, possibly, peace.

The Three Neighbors in The Room: A Study of Harold Pinter

In order to analyze Harold Pinter’s, play The Room, this essay examines the importance of Slavoj Zizek's three sorts of neighbor theory. The play's social relationships and power structures are insightfully interpreted in this essay by considering the play's characters and themes through the eyes of the play's imagined, symbolic, and real neighbors. The play The Room is more than simply a portrayal of social connections, the paper says, but a complex examination of the ways in which power, desire, and suffering interact in the human experience. Zizek's theory provides a helpful framework for evaluating the play's issues and repercussions.

Radical Distinction of the Secular and the Problem of Violence in the Context of Contemporary Culture’s Philosophical Comprehension

The theory of secularization has long been at the forefront of the philosophical discourse of the 20th century. The secular perception of social processes could not help but influence their dynamics, the decisions made by people at different levels of social life. What is allowed for a person in the world where religions no longer form the basis of social behavior and the centuries-old foundations of social life are considered canceled? The author seeks to analyze previous attempts to comprehend the problem of violence in modern culture through philosophical theories, which regard radical secularization as one of the key characteristics of modernity. At the same time, the author refers, among other things, to the study of various approaches to the problem of moral relativism, including the perspectives of theistic and atheistic philosophy: on the one hand, represented by Radical Orthodoxy of John Milbank and Alasdair McIntyre; on the other hand, postmodernism (Gilles Deleuze and Jean Baudrillard), post-structuralism (Judith Butler), and Freudo-Marxism (Slavoj Zizek). All the above-mentioned philosophers associate radical secularism with the escalation of violence in society. The study identifies the meeting point of perspectives on the problem of violence in secular society: the absence of collectively shared values rooted in the discursive tradition inevitably generates and maintains moral relativism, the prevalence of which is generally proportional to the growth in the level of violence, including latent violence. The article suggests ways to mitigate the risks of secularization and moral relativism and puts forwards an argument for the importance of tradition and community in shaping moral values. The author also emphasizes the importance of considering the role of religion, particularly Christianity, in addressing this issue.

From Urban Space to Cyberspace: A Research on Spatial Writing and Human-Android Relations in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Philip K. Dick takes the highly computerized but ruined Los Angeles of the United States after the post-apocalyptic war as the background and brings the cyberspace struggle between androids and humans as the novel's theme, sketching a cyberpunk society in which humans and androids fight against each other. The novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? invites people to think about cyberspace and human-androids subjectivity. Inspired by Slavoj Zizek's critical theory of cyberspace, this paper uses this science-fiction force as a text to explore how contemporary American science fiction reconstructs a revolutionary human-androids subject in cyberspace, challenging human subjectivity in the urban space. Faced with human-android coexistence, Dick affirms the coexistence of multiple subjects using equal dialogue, fully exploits the advantages of androids and humans, and constructs the subject with human-androids. Through an in-depth study of androids, this paper concludes that in a human-androids coexistence space, humans and androids should not be in a master-slave relationship; instead, they are each other's constitutive Other. Humans should try to break the boundary between self and others to accept a pluralistic and open subject.

Continental Thought in Institutional Economics

I will research some branches of continental thought in institutional economics. I will start with John Searle’s idea of social causation as collective intentionality and (according to my understanding) even more important notion of a background. I will take a continental neo-materialist and economic approach to the subject. I will also read Slavoj Zizek as neo-material economics in continental philosophical way. Furthermore, I will compare Searle’s notions of collective intentionality and the background of the social to Maurizio Ferraris’ notions of text as a replacement for collective intentionality. The problems that Ferraris addresses are understood here in terms of practices. This reading will make space for neo-material developments of economic theory as social theory. I will not directly address Alain Badiou’s neocommunism but will take some notions from neocommunism in general.

Technology and Human Agency in Kurt Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron and Player Piano


 The present study aims to explore the intricate relationship between technology and ideology in the formation of social structures. It highlights the increasing dependence on super-advanced technology and touches upon the potential dangers associated with its manipulative use. Furthermore, this study examines the dehumanizing effects of technology highlighting how it can serve as a tool for not only imposing ideology but also eroding a character's agency. Drawing on Slavoj Zizek's theories regarding technology and agency, the profound impact of technology and ideology on human agency is addressed. To illustrate the effects of technology on society and government control, Kurt Vonnegut's short story, "Harrison Bergeron," and the novel Player Piano are analyzed. In Vonnegut's dystopian stories, the government uses technological devices to enforce ideology and manipulate characters even leading to job unemployment. Ultimately, the article achieves its three-fold objectives by examining how ideological subjects regard their unfreedom as freedom, examining the dehumanizing effects of technology as a means of ideological enforcement, and analyzing the erosion of agency of ideological subjects in a technologically advanced society governed by an oppressive regime such as the one in Harrison Bergeron and the elites in Player Piano.
 

Being taken for a ride: Social and technological externalist complements to the internalist reading of the Buddhist chariot similes

Slavoj Zizek's (2014) criticism of Western Buddhism for being a late capitalist opiate of the people is partly unwarranted and partly of undeniable relevance. His implicit assumption is that Buddhism is an internalist path that only looks into in the individual inner world, leaving harmful societal systems in peace. This paper offers a response to Zizek's analysis, by interpreting the chariot simile in the Buddhist Pali Canon. Even though Pali chariot similes indeed support an internalist perspective, some of them also allow for a reading that opens up to two 'externalist' complements: the social outer world and the technological environment. In this way, while acknowledging Zizek's criticism, we point at Buddhist philosophy's inherent potential for developing a social-technological critical stance, for instance by linking it to mediation theory.

The Aleph and the Real: An Examination of Borges' Short Story through Slavoj Zizek's Psychoanalytic Theory

This research paper examines the concept of the Real, as proposed by Slavoj Zizek, through the study of The Aleph by Jorge Luis Borges. This short story best represents this idea of the Real as intended by the Slovenian philosopher. Yet, Borges displays the idea of the Real through a mystical perspective, whereas Zizek tends lean on psychoanalytical perspectives. Once the short story is read through Zizek, we can perceive a new interpretation of the text. Otherwise, the transformative process after encountering the Aleph remains ambiguous and irrelevant. A similar idea of this transformation is also represented in many religious readings of the concept of God. This paper tends to study this idea of the Real through the psychoanalytic theory of Slavoj Zizek. His theory makes a long journey through Sigmund Freud and Jacque Lacan. The objective of this study is to have a new understanding of the ideas that undergo ambiguities and misunderstanding, including the idea of unseen powers that dominate our life.

Berebut Makna Lewat Dui’ Menre’: Analisis Mengenai Ideologi dalam Perkawinan Bugis

The rite of dui’ menre’ bestowal in Bugis marriage positions women as object of exchange. However, this rite generates contradictory effect. On one hand, it is perceived as burdensome because the broom parties have to give a relatively big amount of money to the bride parties. On the other hand, the Bugenese keep running the rite. Hence, the rite of dui’ menre’ is not only a ritual of giving-and-taking money, but also an ideological conduct. There is something powerful that forces people to keep doing the rite solemnly. This research lead me to conduct this research. There are two objectives of the reserach. First, it tries to find the form of ideology and fantasy which support the rite of dui’ menre’ be towal; second, it wants to expose the Bugenese sub ject position in the face of dui’ menre’ bestowal. The fieldwork was conducted in Pinrang district, South Celebes. To discuss the matter, this research utilizes Ideological Criticism and Sexuation developed by Slavoj Zizek from Lacanian concepts. Slavoj Zizek’s Ideological Crit icism is used to find out the fantasy which supports an ideology. Meanwhile, sexuation is utilized to show the impossibility of sexual relation defined by Bugenese through dui’ menre’ r ite. Dui’ menre’ is not only a language of tradition as it were in the era of traditional authority, but also a languageof economy which makes woman as an object of exchange. Dui’ menre ‘ is a challenge that must be conquered by a man to get a woman. In the contemporary era, several forces collide. Bugis feudalism, Islam, and capitalism interweave in the same issue. In the rite of ui’ menre’, woman is reduced to be object cause of desire for man. In this symbolic realm the Bugenese subjects present and take position. Generally, there are several Bugis subject positions in responding dui’ menre’, na mely psychosis, perve rse, obsess ive neurotic, and histeria.

AIdeological Manipulation Strategies of Religion and Emotional Deception: A Study of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter

One of the foundational cornerstones upon which works of literature are built is Religion. It is a motivational ideology that inspires authors to write fiction. Ideological literary works are not mere aesthetic attempts that reflect the unlimited potential ability of literature to present the unthinkable: they are serious works that reflect the very social turmoil that the author has been experiencing in his society. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne perfectly represents this type of genre. He successfully shows the way Religion was ideological manipulated by the authorities in that Puritan society. This paper highlights the different ideological strategies influential individuals employ to change people’s convictions. After a short perusal of the different stages, the theory of ideology has undergone, it presents the most significant ideological factors in the novel depending on various thinkers, mainly Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan, and Slavoj Zizek. It also shows the domination of ideology over the life of people: it may be observed in their clothes, customs, cultural attitude, and means of communication. Depending on certain theorists, this research finally proves that it is beyond the possibility of anyone to break the chains of ideology and live in a Real world. The illusion of ideology sneaks into every single detail of people’s lives, as represented in Hawthorne’s novel.

Brain-machine interface: New challenge for humanity

The aim of this paper is to clarify specific aspects of the impact of the brain-machine interface on our understanding of subjectivity. The brain-machine interface is presented as a phase of cyborgization of humans. Some projects in the field of brain-machine interface are aimed at enabling consensual telepathy - communication without symbolic mediation. Consensual telepathy refers to one of potential ways of transmission of information within singularity. Therefore, consensual telepathy is an important aspect of singularity. Singularity or human-machine symbiosis shows some similarities with child-mother unity. Therefore, the psychodynamic perspective might be considered useful in thinking about human-machine symbiosis. Knowledge from developmental psychodynamic psychology combined with insights by Slavoj Zizek and Jean Baudrillard provides an additional perspective looking at human-machine symbiosis. The paper claims that if consensual telepathy becomes another way of communication, it will have the potential to annihilate subjectivity making it schizophrenic. At the same time, we look at the possibility of an escape from our inner world through the prism of addictions.

The Interpretation of Lenin’s Thought by Slavoj Zizek

The article reveals the nature of the interpretation of Lenin's thought by Slavoj Zizek and the social and philosophical significance of the interpretation. It is demonstrated that the interpretation is based on the opposition of Lenin and Leninism. This opposition is carried out with the problematization of the relationship between economy and politics and the interpretation of being based on Zizek's analysis of criticism of Marxism by postmodern left thinkers. It is demonstrated that Zizeks’s interpretation of Leninism is a new stage in the polemic of Western Marxism against Soviet Marxism. The methodological foundations of this new challenge are revealed.

Women with Split Identity; A Literary Analysis based on the selected Female Portrayals in Literature

Female characters in Literature are portrayed through diverse dimensions such as heroic figures, objects of desire, rebellious individuals, icons of female liberation and individuals with fragmented identities. Those potrayals reflect the the feminine self which is surrounded by the awareness of her negated existence, stereotyped images of womanhood, the sense of lack of belonging, and repressed individuality. Thus the study focuses on analyzing the female literary portrayals like ‘Nora Helmer’in ‘The Dolls House’ by Henric Ibsen, ‘Adela’ in ‘The House of Bernarda Alba’ by Federico Garcia Lorca and ‘Emma Bovary’ in ‘Madame Bovary’ by Gustave Flaubert, ‘Maggie Tulliver’ in The Mill On the Floss by George Eliot and ‘Kattrin’ in Mother courage and Her children by Bertolt Brecht with the objective of bringing to the surface the socially determined fatal end and the symbolic disappearance of the feminine figure. In analyzing and elaborating the perspectives which are discussed within the research paper the theoretical perspectives of Simon de Beauvoir (‘The second sex’), Sigmund Freud, (‘Civilization and its Discontents’,)and Slavoj Zizek, (‘Looking Awry’) are referred with a thorough consideration. Consequently the woman figure whose identity is negated and given less vitality is identified as an inferior and vulnerable social figure within the existing social order and thus the literary characters like Adela, Nora, Emma, and Maggie Tulliver portray the antagonism between the social principle of ‘Repression’ and the feminine ‘ Liberation’. In contrast to the characters such as Adela, Emma and Nora who negate the social other in pursuing their determined routes towards the self-satisfaction, the feminine portrayals like Kattrin and Maggie Tulliver adopt the self-denial and renunciation of desires for the betterment of the social other. Thus the characters like Nora, Emma and Adela become capable of gratifying their intense abomination towards the social order while Kattrin and Maggie Tulliver with their self-sacrifice and altruistic motives achieve a serene satisfaction. In that sense it can be identified that their self-annihilation leaves behind a symbol of identity rather than nihilistic reality implying a more psychological vitality without being just a physical deterioration.

The violence of the event: ontology, ethics, and politics in Zizek

The article presents the guidelines of the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek’s ontology, in order to understand his unique conception of violence, as well as the respective ethical and political consequences. For him, violence is not necessarily destructive, as there is a productive form of violence: transcendental violence, which involves both breaking the coordinates and building the conditions of possibility for the emergence of a new event. However, although he came to formulate, based on the examples of Socrates, Jesus and Gandhi, the idea of a violent pacifism, Zizek does not distinguish between antagonism and agonistic and, thus, loses sight of the strategic possibility of an agonistic pacifism.

Rhetorical Denialism: The Melancholic Affect of Conspiracy Rhetoric and Ideological (C)kynicism

ABSTRACT The January 6th insurrection illustrated a dark era of American democracy where one side of the political aisle will outright deny the legitimate election results as part of a grandiose conspiracy. The denialism of the 2020 presidential election illustrates a rhetorical moment that requires further examination in conspiracy theory communication. In this article, I examine a particular type of rhetorical denialism which I refer to as ideological (c)kynicism. Borrowing from Slavoj Zizek and a wide range of philosophical literature on conspiracy theories, I illustrate the rhetorical and ideological process of ideological (c)kynicism. I argue that ideological (c)kynicism occurs in three stages: (1) The Conspiratorial Erasure of the Big Other, (2) Melancholic Transference and Kynical Politics, & (3) The Obsession with the Big Other. The denier, under ideological (c)kynicism, transitions from ideological cynicism into political kynicism through the melancholic affect. However, while the denier utters political kynicism (with the melancholic), the denier’s ideological cynicism or the big Other are left unstated and presumed in the denialism. The denier uses the melancholic to bring audiences back to the big Other.

Book Review: Pandemic! Covid-19 Shakes the World by Slavoj Zizek!

Book Review: Pandemic! Covid-19 Shakes the World by Slavoj Zizek!

From Dialectical Closure to ParallacticalIndeterminacy: A Study of the Political and Individual Modes of Being in Slavoj Zizek’s Antigone

Parallax is the difference in perception caused by the spatial shift of the observer and the observed. Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek has used thisscientific notion to interpret apparently antithetical positions in the fields of politics, neurobiologyand philosophy. His contention is that the parallax shift makes some phenomenon appear as two, while a change in perspective can make us see that theyare, in fact, ONE. The notion of parallax can also be exploited to read a literary text and, in this article, I intend to use it to read Slavoj Zizek’s own re-writing of Sophocles’ play Antigone. Antigone, as a character, has enamored and appalled criticsand philosophers throughout history. Her defiance against the State has been interpreted and evaluated from different perspectives and viewpoints. The play stages the conflict between two modes of being, thepoliticaland the individual,and the appeal ofits polemic seems not to have gotten stale all these centuries. In his re-writing, Slavoj Zizek has provided two alternates to the original ending. He has described this as an “ethico-political exercise”(Zizek,2016, p. xxv)and not a literary venture butI have attempted to read his play as a literary text applying his philosophical notion of the parallax. I have used textual analysis as my method in order to read the selected text. My contention is that the two alternate endings provided by Zizek presentthe individual and political as two warring modes of being but a shift in parallactical position can make them appear as ONE. Moreover, it can also be argued that even the two alternates are an outcome of a parallactical movement in perspective that masksthe inherent ONENESS of the two.