>I was wondering if you had any thoughts about Zizek's talk the other
>night. Particularly interesting was the discussion around the
>future (crisis) of private property and it's implications for a
>growing wave of hierarchical micro-racisms (a stimulating addition
>to his theory on multiculturalism), which much of the room seemed to
>accept on some level or another. I've been thinking about property
>in relation to Napster and digital reproduction, patent and
>copywrite law, as well as genetic- and bio-engineering, but I
>suppose never thought through the negative implications that may
>come about through its breakdown. Now I'm wondering what the
>prevailing tendancies in thought on the subject are these days, or
>if there is a book I should rush out and read. How would you
>address the implications of what Zizek was talking about?
SZ was immensely entertaining, as usual. I think the stuff about private property is a bit overdone - the paradigm (which he charmingly pronounces as para-dig-em) of costless reproduction applies to a fairly limited set of commodities, though they're the commodities that intellectuals are most familiar with. Software is a pretty big business, but Linux hasn't bankrupted Microsoft yet. Movies are pretty small business. Just because something is technically feasible doesn't mean it's socially feasible under capitalism; long ago, we had the capacity to feed everyone in the technical sense, but people still starve. Intellectual property lawyers are like the security guards of the digital age.
>I am fairly new to this group so if any of this is retread I
>apologize. Also I apologize in advance if SZ's name is a dirty word
>around these parts.
Not around my parts, though other listmembers disagree.
Doug