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Hello, guys. I was wondering if anyone could help me understand what Lacan means by the "symbolic phallus" and "imaginary phallus". I've really been struggling a lot trying to understand these concepts, so I would appreciate it if anyone could break it down for me.

Thanks a lot!

We need to admit the Holy Spirit is exclusively for the religious Christian community’s justification, not any secular project that concerns secular people, out there

I’ve seen Zizek say this a few times, e.g. https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2012/jun/10/slavoj-zizek-humanity-ok-people-boring

What do you guys think of this? Do you agree with it?

I feel like if one really follows this line of thinking, then the logical conclusion would be some kind of Ayn-Randian selfish egotism, not caring much about other people in the world and just focusing on one’s own goals.

But Zizek seems to be the opposite. He’s constantly speaking out against injustices, like his recent speech at that German book fair against Israeli aggression in Palestine.

What do you make of this apparent contradiction in him?

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

Zizek talks a lot about God dying on the cross and that the Holy Spirit is the community of believers. But what about the empty tomb and the Risen Christ? God died on the cross yes, but if you continue the narrative, God also rose from the dead. This seems like an inconvenient truth to Zizek's Christian Atheism.

Does he talk non-stop like this at home with his family?

Žižek: “This is only one part of me. My small band of savage people, the Slovenes, we are manic depressives. I have these outbursts but then I have long periods of tiredness and inactivity. And now I have diabetes, I am old. It’s just stupid and humiliating to be old.”

Age doesn’t bring wisdom?

Žižek: “No! Except now I have learned not to trust psychoanalysis, because I don’t believe in inner truth. Your ethical duty is to find a good cause outside yourself and stick to it: pretend that you are good and act accordingly and maybe there is a chance you will become good. But don’t look deep into yourself. You will discover only shit.”

(from The Telegraph)

Hi everyone, I am currently writing a paper on Ananda Devi's novel "Eve out of her Ruins" in which I am focusing on the desecration of the body (also of nature, relationships, anything innately human really) as irreversible at times (the main character is a prostitute)...in other words, I have recently become interested in the modern ethos of "it's never too late", that nothing is irreversible etc. This obviously could relate to something like climate change, but I'm also interested in really how it feels like a nihilistic sentiment to me in a variety of ways, and I was wondering if anyone had any good recommendations for reading on this topic (doesn't have to be Zizek of course)....thank you!

Hi everyone!

I’m reading Žižek's Violence and noticed that each chapter is titled after one of the seven movements from Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 14. I know that this piece holds complex emotional and structural layers, but I’m struggling to connect how these specific movements help Žižek structure or deepen his arguments on violence. Can anyone shed light on the thematic or structural significance of this choice? Any insights into how these musical references play into his philosophical discourse would be really helpful!

MORPHEÚS, the emerging Digital Journal of Psychology from the Marist University of Querétaro, invites contributions from scholars and professionals in psychology, psychoanalysis, and philosophy for its forthcoming issue, "Evolutions and Transformations: Studies in Human Development". In keeping with our mission to foster a critical and expansive academic forum, MORPHEÚS seeks voices that question, deconstruct, and delve into the intricate dynamics of human growth and adaptation in today’s ideological landscape.

This issue encourages submissions that explore human development across biological, cognitive, emotional, and social dimensions—examining not only the visible structures of identity and resilience but also the hidden mechanisms and paradoxes that define subjectivity in an ever-shifting world. We welcome contributions that interrogate the intersections of selfhood, societal expectations, and the underlying frameworks that shape our collective and individual realities. By inviting diverse perspectives, MORPHEÚS aims to stimulate discourse on how transformation emerges from the tensions within human experience.

In particular, we invite thinkers inspired by Slavoj Zizek and contemporary critical theorists to contribute essays or research that further expand on these themes. Your work could offer valuable insight into how ideological forces shape human development and transformation, adding depth to our understanding of the

Submissions are open from October 1, 2024, to February 28, 2025. Publishing with MORPHEÚS allows contributors to engage with a discerning readership, contributing to a journal that values depth, critical insight, and intellectual rigor. For submission guidelines and further details, please visit our official website or contact us at revista.psicologia@umq.maristas.edu.mx or editorial@umq.maristas.edu.mx.

Can someone give me a brief explainer of this passage from Alenka Zupancic's What is Sex (what pure signifier means and what is the deal with the absolute/absolutization here)? I get the general idea that Zupancic/Lacan are emphasizing that scientific discourse works through creating cuts in the Real which is something Meillassoux happens to miss in his pirsuit of the real thing. But this passage is a little more opaque to me:

does science study only that which we have ourselves constituted as such, posited as external, or is this exteriority independent of us, having existed exactly as it is long before our existence? The Lacanian answer would be that it is independent, yet it becomes such only at the moment of its discursive "creation." This emergence, which may occur ex nihilo, introduces the pure signifier and with it a reality in which discourse has consequences, resulting in a physical reality independent of ourselves, although it is essential to acknowledge that we still exert some influence on it. Moreover, this independence extends to the time "before us." The reality of arche-fossils or objects of ancestral statements does not differ from the reality of objects contemporary with us because neither are correlates of our thinking; instead, they represent objective correlates of a break in reality as a homogeneous continuum, which encompasses both the break of modern science and the emergence of the signifier as such. This understanding is why Lacan's theory is considered dialectically materialist; the break implies a speculative identity between the absolute and becoming. These concepts are not opposed but should be considered together. Something can, over time, become absolute, which implies that the absolute is simultaneously necessary and contingent. There exists no absolute without a break or cut through which it is constituted as absolute, characterized as "necessarily necessary," where this redoubling forms the space within which discourse has consequences, even though this break itself is contingent. In contrast, Meillassoux's approach seeks to absolutize contingency as the only necessity. In doing so, he ultimately adheres to a logic of constitutive exception that totalizes some notion of "all": all is contingent, except for the necessity of this contingency. Unlike this logic, Lacan's axiom could be articulated as "the necessary is not-all." This formulation does not absolutize contingency; rather, it suggests that contradiction represents the point of truth of absolute necessity, where the absolute remains both necessary and contingent.

Hi everyone! I've been trying to find a Žižek lecture I watched a while ago but haven’t had any luck. I was wondering if someone here might be able to help me out.

He was speaking I think at some American college. He discussed the idea that constantly searching for meaning and divine messages in everything (like asking, "What is God telling us through this event?") is a pagan tradition.

He explained that Christianity served to kinda break away from these practices, with the crucifixion of Christ symbolizing the ultimate message from God—one after which humanity would no longer need to search for hidden meanings in every little thing and will be finally able to relax a bit.

I might not have explained it perfectly—English isn’t my first language—but hopefully, someone will recognize what I’m talking about. :')

Thanks so much!

Some MacDonalds stores in China replaced stools with (1) exercise bikes that are (2) made of recycled plastic (3) that can generate electricity for charging phones.

MacDonalds is selling more ideology than Starbucks.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/R97TcyDUD1Q

The channel is called The Žižekian Ideologue. It's a cobbling of a bunch of interviews, addresses, lectures, and so on from other channels. If you know of anything that's not already on there, comment it or a link to the video on the sole post on the channel's community tab.

New Zizek article: https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/france-macron-government-non-democratic-on-behalf-of-democracy-by-slavoj-zizek-2024-10

If he did, what's his take on it? Thank's

Hey guys, amateur teen zizekian here. Was wondering if anyone could help me break down what Z meant in this clip (at 15:22).

Could anyone, please, elaborate on Lacan's idea of the truth being structured as a fiction and Zizek's concept of the personae?

I was watching Night of the Hunter and was really struck by a scene at the the end of the movie. When the villain Harry, played by Robert Mitchum, is caught by the police, one of the children Harry has been tormenting the whole movie, who’s mother he killed, comes running up to him, shouting to the police “don’t do it!”. Then he tries to give the money that Mitchum has been after the whole film back to him, crying, “take it back dad”. The kid has shown no positive feelings towards Harry this entire film until, of course, he is about to die and the unconscious associations with the father take over.

I’m sorry, I wished I could have linked a video of the scene, but I can’t find one online. Too traumatic…?

But anyways, I think this is exactly what we are seeing with Trump. America hated him. America rejected him — killed him. But, as Joan Copjec masterfully outlines in Read my Desire, democracy is a perpetual condition of guilt over killing the “primal father”. No political figure embodies the primal father, the excessive, perverse figure who takes and takes without giving back, more than Trump. When America killed him, I really think this activated the primal guilt of democracy for many. I don’t know if he’ll win, but it’s clear that Americans love him more than they ever did before. It seems, to me, that we did not uphold democracy well enough to withstand the authoritarian sympathies that result from killing this primal father. Like the child in Night of the Hunter, so many are running back, afraid of the responsibility to come, crying “Take it back, dad!”

"From my youth, I remember an old Croatian avant-garde short fi lm about a man chasing a woman around a large table, the two of them madly giggling. The chase goes on, and the giggling gets louder and louder, even when the couple disappear behind the table and we see only the man's hands being raised. In the f mal shot, we see the dead woman's mutilated body, but the giggling goes on . . ." This passage from Less than nothing, I've tried searching for the film but no avail.Thanks.

I have been watching Zizek's videos for a while and have found him to be a really interesting thinker, and want to get into some of his writings. Recently noticed that my library has a copy of "The Parallax View", and I was thinking of picking it up, but want some advice on whether this is the right place to start with Zizek, or if I need to read something else in advance. I have read very little philosophy, nothing on psychoanalysis, and nothing on Marxism. Is "The Parallax View" a good place to start, and will I be able to understand all of it?