Zizek within the limits of mere reason

kenneth.mackendrick at utoronto.ca kenneth.mackendrick at utoronto.ca
Sat Dec 18 14:30:42 PST 1999


On Sat, 18 Dec 1999 16:38:48 -0500 Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu> wrote:


> "What is rational is actual and what is actual is rational" (_The Philosophy
of Right_), or so says Zizek the parliamentarian. As a Hegelian, Zizek thinks that the recognition of reason in the world "is the rational insight which reconciles us to the actual, the reconciliation which philosophy affords" (_The Philosophy of Right_). Philosophy gives not criticism but "consolation" (_Logic_). As with Hegel, Zizek's criticism of idealism is simply a cover for his absolute idealism.

Give it up, you have no idea what Zizek (or, I suspect, Hegel) is talking about, and I suspect you aren't very interested in actually figuring it out. Bad faith and insincerity are hardly good substitutes for trying to understand something (I did mention burning bridges didn't I?). Your 'critique' is meaningless and pays no specific attention to any of Zizek's writings.

If you ever become interested, try reading Adorno's book on Hegel or Zizek's Tarrying with the Negative. You might want to catch up on some Lacan too, I'd recommend The Ethics of Psychoanalysis or Bruce Fink's The Lacanian Subject. There's no point in wasting time with trite [false] impressions and [dogmatic] gossip.

ken

"Lacking strength, Beauty hates the Understanding for asking of her what it cannot do. But the life of Spirit is not the life that shrinks from death and keeps itself untouched by devastation, but rather the life that endures it and maintains itself in it. It wins its truth only when, in utter dismemberment, it finds itself. This tarrying with the negative is the magical power that converts it into being." - Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit



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