I'll book mark it for this weekend

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pervert's_Guide_to_Ideology

The movie is not so heavy as this the wikipedia article on Žižek.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavoj_Zizek

What meaning did you take away from the movie, Gravitycollapse?

My own brand of "leftism" doesn't seem closely related to Žižek's, nor am I an adherent of any "post-national universalist left." When I wake up in the morning I am always a biologist, pacifist, and Social Justice Catholic heretic, probably in that order too.

When we view neo-leftist ideology like progressivism or liberalism or pacifism from this perspective, we begin to realize an inherent smoke and mirror routine.

Pacifism and "social justice," for instance, rather than being benevolent movements are actually deeply cynical, misanthropic, self-serving forces. Not because it isn't possible for non-violence or egalitarianism to be the right answer at times but because these movements are inherently a lie.

We have to discern between the lie and reality of pacifism. The lie is pacifism is a movement meant to counter systemic violence through the refusal to participate. The reality is pacifism is the imposition of pacifistic tendencies by the ruling order upon the ruled. Either you benefit from the non-violent rhetoric because you'd never suffer under systemic violence or you'd suffer under systemic violence thinking you're making a difference when you are not. And, what I think many like Zizek would argue is, by being in a privileged order and using such a position to do nothing to counter the systemic violence, that itself is a form of violence.

"Social justice," from what I think Zizek would argue is the lie capitalism tells us in order to answer for its transgressions. So, for instance, the venture capitalist who makes a living off exploiting natural resources and the labor of the working class constructs certain outlets to counter his own destructive ways. Thus, the cure for capitalist exploitation becomes more capitalist exploitation. When we derive the source of relief from the illness itself, the only answer is to further the illness.

Put on the "glasses" of biology/evolution/ paleontology and these clearly expose many of the ideologies by which we operate, including many of the ideological "lies" that saturate my own culture and my own upbringing.

I've got no use for authoritarian ideologies, benevolent or not.

I avoid our "consumer" culture as much as I can. No cable, satellite, or broadcast television, no radio, no magazine subscriptions. If someone gave me a new car I'd give it away. The car I have now is rebuilt from salvage and I hate that I'm forced to have a car, but my wife and I have managed to avoid the commuter lifestyle since the mid-eighties. My computers are salvage too.

I'd like to believe my own personal ideology (everyone's got to have one) is built upon my education as a biologist and my observations of nature, plus a hefty dose of humanism. Of course humans are animals. Innovative animal species come and go, especially after experiencing exponential growth as our species has.

As a practical matter, pacifism keeps me out of jail and keeps me out of wars.

Anyways, my journal is littered with posts like this:

Our "market economy" is a religion; it's just that simple.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=4556429

"Productivity" needs to put down like an evil vampire. Drive a wooden stake through its heart.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=4090346

One quits smoking by quitting smoking. One quits fossil fuels by quitting fossil fuels.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=4015501

Every word humans write or speak is one sort of lie or another. Our language is incapable of fully modeling the complexity of our universe, let alone the complexity of earth's biology, or the workings of the human mind. Language itself is an aspect of various ideologies; that we can truly communicate at all requires a great leap of faith.

That, to him, is the true resistance to ideology; identifying some underlying truth to the lie and refusing to make exception.

I don't know if I agree totally with him and that very fact may make me an enemy of his argument (Lacan himself said the only way to understand Freud is to read every last thing he said rather than pick bits and pieces). But I do find his position very persuasive. And I have always suspected the kitsch nature of prominent social and political movements, left or right.

Pacifism itself has the potential to be more complicated than many imagine. For instance, some pacifists support violence if it is in the form of resistance against an oppressive or exterminating force. Especially if that force is some sort of foreign invasion.

Would you identify with that kind of pacifism or do you unequivocally deny the need for physical violence?

My Army Air Force grandfather loved airplanes. They put him to work keeping aeronautic people deemed essential to the war effort out of trouble. He was the handsome officer who'd appear in a big black government car with a driver and intimidating credentials to retrieve important troublemakers, mostly of the drunk and disorderly sort, from local jails. He also got into some sort of hot mischief in Spain and Italy, but that's not something he ever talked about. Silent Generation. I'm pretty sure he never shot anyone. Killing bad men is a privilege reserved for the women in my matriarchal family. After the war he was an engineer for the Apollo Project. Somewhere in his military adventures he'd picked up a knack working titanium.

My other, Conscientious Objector, grandfather was offered a choice of prison or building Liberty and Victory ships. He chose the shipyard job. His wife was a welder too. He worked sixteen hour shifts, she worked eight hour welding shifts and then another eight hours as a dockyard community party girl, dancing and groping only, so far as I know. My mom's "daycare providers" were hookers, pretty ladies with very nice and polite sailor "boyfriends." My mom's dad once got beat up by the police for protesting the internment of his Japanese neighbors but he didn't lose his job. He and my grandma both understood hot metal well enough to be indispensable.

In previous generations most of my ancestors ended up in the U.S. Wild West escaping some damned war or another. The U.S. Civil War, wars in Europe, religious persecution, impressed on an English ship in San Francisco...

I never ever wear shoes I can't run in, or clothes I can't swim in. You never know when you'll have an opportunity to jump over the rail and escape. One of my ancestors escaped Europe as a mail order bride to Salt Lake City. She didn't like sharing a husband so she ran off with a U.S. Government surveyor who was probably escaping something just as bad. My mom's cousin still holds the homestead, as a not Mormon in Mormon territory. The Mormon missionaries, nicely dressed young men on bicycles, never come to my house. I think I'm blacklisted. We're probably deadbeats on the Mormon rosters, no possible way we'll ever repay the debts in their books. Imported brides were expensive, with interest it's well into the multi millions by now... None of her descendants have that kind of money. We are not worthy to be Mormons.

My wife's father joined the Navy after the World War. He didn't like guns, he's intelligent, so they made him a Marine medic. Later he was a human guinea pig for U.S. nuclear testing. He saw an atomic bomb go off up close, butt facing it. Then he marched across ground zero. They got rid of their clothes and equipment and took showers. No problem. As a medic he got to hold the Geiger Counter and tell people if they were clean enough after a thorough scrubbing. Many years later some of his trench mates have died of statistically significant cancers. They also sent him to Japan as support staff to study the aftermath of the nuclear bombings. He won't say this, but the bombing of Nagasaki was an experiment. Fat Man was the bomb of the future. The U.S.A. had more than a hundred in the pipeline. Hanford was built big.

My dad joined the National Guard, never got shot at (so far as I know) and went back to school, graduating as an art/science major. He can draw anything. Sometimes my mom naked, often things scientific or imaginary.

I've been in very rough situations, but never one where me having a gun or other deadly force might have improved the eventual outcome.

Can you conceive a situation where violence becomes necessary for the survival or well-being of either yourself or those around you? And not in some far off, animal sort of way we might disregard as the problems of cavemen. I'm talking about right now, in 2014.

Do you believe such circumstances can come into existence?

I wonder how that would turn out...

We're all riding the suicide train. I figure I'm here on earth to witness a mass extinction event like few in earth's history.

I'll give you a personal story, representative of a few violent experiences I've had:

I was in San Francisco with a girlfriend. Her girlfriend was living with a pimp-boyfriend and we couldn't find her, but we did find pimp-boyfriend in a rough drinking establishment. He claimed not to know where she was, which was a lie. My girlfriend lured the guy into the men's room, handcuffed him to a urinal, and asked me to stand outside the door. I explained to drunk guys who had to pee, "Rough Sex." It almost sounded like that too. Almost.

Surprisingly, every one of us eventually lived happily ever after, but maybe I was the most traumatized, even though I had no direct hand in the violence. I guess I'm kind of sensitive that way.

I was bullied throughout middle and high school since I was a skinny, squeaky, reactive kid. I quit high school for college and the physical assaults immediately ended. I learned that, by far, the best way to avoid bullies was to flee, which did not improve my reputation. Most bullies actually could kick my ass if they caught me unawares or decided to chase me. My rare moments of revenge were when some bully attacked me unprovoked, in full view of a sympathetic supervisor, teacher, or administrator. Of course most of these "authorities" were not sympathetic, didn't want to be bothered, and they figured I was somehow at fault too, giving me the usual stupid advice to "man up" and all that crap.

I've never been in a rough situation where me having a gun would have improved the outcome. I'm very Quaker that way. I figure once the violence starts everyone has lost. The time to actually solve the problem is past. Contrary to what Hollywood and the history books claim, there are no winners and losers in war.

In other words, you've never been in a situation where, for instance, there's a group of men backed by the government coming to kill your entire family; something which happens all the time all over the world.

Or, to bring it closer to home, you've never been in a situation where fleeing a violent aggressor wasn't an option.

That is the problem. You say you're a pacifist because you disavow violence when in actuality you've simply never needed violence. That isn't to say that violence is never needed but that you specifically have never needed it. That is a deeply privileged position to take, is it not?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=5132732

Bookmarking to watch later.

THE PERVERT'S GUIDE TO CINEMA takes the viewer on an exhilarating ride through some of the greatest movies ever made. Serving as presenter and guide is the charismatic Slavoj Zizek, acclaimed philosopher and psychoanalyst. With his engaging and passionate approach to thinking, Zizek delves into the hidden language of cinema, uncovering what movies can tell us about ourselves. Whether he is untangling the famously baffling films of David Lynch, or overturning everything you thought you knew about Hitchcock, Zizek illuminates the screen with his passion, intellect, and unfailing sense of humour. THE PERVERT'S GUIDE TO CINEMA cuts its cloth from the very world of the movies it discusses; by shooting at original locations and from replica sets it creates the uncanny illusion that Zizek is speaking from 'within' the films themselves. Together the three parts construct a compelling dialectic of ideas.


7.8 rating at IMBd........ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0828154/


The Pervert's Guide to Ideology

The sequel to The Pervert's Guide to Cinema sees the reunion of brilliant philosopher Slavoj Zizek with filmmaker Sophie Fiennes, now using their inventive interpretation of moving pictures to examine ideology - the collective fantasies that shape our beliefs and practices.


7.5 rating at IMbd......... http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2152198/?ref_=tt_rec_tt

He is a professor at the European Graduate School, international director of the Birkbeck Institute for Humanities in London and a senior researcher at the University of Ljubljana's institute of sociology........A MARXIST....

... escaped Ireland, sometimes just a few steps ahead of the English hangman.

"Improvised Explosive Devices" didn't end the violence, Peace did. I have a friend who lost a significant amount of hearing in one ear simply because he was walking in the wrong place at the wrong time. He jokes he wasn't injured too badly because he was drunk and easily knocked down. The worst of the shrapnel flew over him.

Part of my wife's heritage is Southwestern U.S.A. native American. This part of her family got pushed into Mexico along with French and Irish Catholics who were appalled by the violence of white Protestant invaders. Killing Priests, raping nus, burning churches, that was unacceptable behavior. Fuck the U.S.A.. Time to leave. Later they had to reapply for U.S.A. citizenship (her grandparent's generation) even though they'd been U.S.A. North Americans for longer than most anyone else here, at least hundreds, or many thousands of years. One of my wife's grandma's never applied for citizenship, even though she had more right than anyone, her ancestors walking here from Siberia more than ten thousand years ago. I think she was still angry.

My mom's family were Wild West Catholics and Jews who ranched cattle far away from any Church or Synagogue, in the heart of Mormon territory. They were refugees from dangerous Europe and U.S.A. civil wars.

Ethnic violence doesn't have to be anything exotic. You can read all about it in ordinary English, either the U.S. civil rights movement or the Troubles in Ireland.

Violence is never a measure of winning or losing. At the very best there is a "side" that loses less. And in the case of Native Americans in the U.S.A. they did earn some respect, example Geronimo and the other great Indian leaders, but they still lost most everything else simply because they were out-gunned and out-numbered and less resistant to filthy European diseases.

The only victory to be had was living another day and speaking the truths later. Justice doesn't always prevail in the short term.

The girlfriend in the post above, her dad escaped a Soviet occupied nation. The nation of her heritage isn't "free" today because the people fought, it's free because the Soviet Union collapsed and the people eventually rejected violent solutions to their own internal conflicts.

It's a pretty pathetic warrior who would shoot an unarmed grandmother.

Going back to my biological thesis, it's the grandmas (and, in these wondrous times of modern medicine, the great grandmas) who can be foundations of stability and peace in human society.

For instance, when we discuss paradigms in the sciences we are speaking of an ideology. At some point, the paradigm itself will collapse under the burden of its own failure and we may call these paradigmatic shifts. What takes place is a loss of trust in the very structure of research.

This general failure of a system can be brought about only after a tipping point has been reached where the force behind the number of failures for system to justify its existence becomes greater than the force behind number of successes. And even this "loss of faith," as you will, will not cause the system to collapse. Instead, the system falls into crisis whereby the operators can reformulate the system or abandon it only if the vacuum produced by its absence can be filled by something else.

You can see how the discussion of systems becomes immensely complex and largely removed from the actions of individuals. Within that obscurity exists philosophies like pacifism. What it recognizes is the transcendence of the system without admitting that it is the accumulation of individual actions.

So, when I talk about a specific circumstance where a government backed force is coming to kill you and your loved ones, what I'm trying to do is draw your pacifism out of the obscurity and confusion of ideology back into the simple act of survival or harm reduction.

So let's say you live in a Jewish ghetto during WWII and through rumor you hear about the great liquidation of the ghettos and what lies ahead for those shipped off on trains to camps. You also know that your portion of the ghetto is next on the list of liquidation. A friend knocks on your door and you open it to discover that he is concealing several firearms in his jacket and wants you to have one. He's giving it to you to fight off the coming liquidators.

Would you take the firearm? And would you use it when the German soldiers come wailing on your door?

I have a very serious issue with someone who would not use it solely because they feel violence is never the answer. I think there is something deeply, fundamentally idiotic about such suicidal ideas. There is no question that the enemy knocking on your door is committing an offense that should be confronted with deadly resistance. This isn't a philosophy of what does or does not constitute evil. Death is knocking on your door and you're going to simply submit to it.

But let's go back to philosophy for a moment since that is where pacifism often retreats when confronted with contradiction.

There is that famous statement by Burke: "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

But I think this needs to be taken a step further to elucidate my point. When good men do nothing to counter evil, they themselves become complicit in that evil. You do not evade evil by doing nothing to counter its force.

So I want to rewrite that famous statement to better reflect reality:

"All that is necessary for a good man to become an evil man is to do nothing in the face of evil."

Pacifism, popularly understood, is uncontroversial in the sense that it ruffles no feathers in the ruling order precisely because it makes their job easier.

I'll let you borrow my time machine... how are you going to stop the rise of Nazi Germany?

Just a hint, killing the young Hitler doesn't work. It often makes the outcome worse. Having a madman in charge probably weakened Germany in many ways.

Violence is a symptom of fatally injured hopes and dreams, it is not a "solution" to anything.

I'll take your example of the Jewish ghetto. That was a consequence of malignant antisemitism throughout Europe and the United States. At that horrible moment in history, hopes and dreams were already fatally injured. It was too late to solve the problems, "going out shooting" or not.

Bringing you back to the present, what are the problems that need to be solved today before the hopes and dreams of this civilization are dying once again?