"The Pervert's Guide to Ideology" is a prose film directed by Sofia Finis and interpreted by philosophical celebrity Žižek. Similar to his predecessor, The Perverted Film Guide, in the film, Zizek, in his usual style, uses film as an example for a scene-two about how ideology works and how we can stop imagining the "big other". hours of discussion. From the first film introduced, he has repeatedly stressed that only when we are violent against ourselves, forcibly taking off our ideological spectacles, can we achieve true freedom. At the same time, however, is Zizek himself shaping and consolidating an ideology? Professor Zhang Xianmin, a guest who participated in the exchange, questioned the academic star at the beginning, and he himself answered similar questions from the audience about him in the audience Q&A.
In order to allow friends who participated in the event to recall what happened that day, and to let other friends who could not participate in the event know what they missed, the VCD Promotion Association urgently organized the essence of this event to share with you. Do a share. For ease of reading, we have slightly adjusted the order of paragraphs according to the coherence of the content.
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Globalization of idols - "The whole world is in the hands of the greatest images"
The image of Zizek himself, and what does his discourse stand for in the context of globalization? Although geopolitics is a less politically correct term, are we expecting someone to appear in the 1990s after the Great Change in the Soviet Union? Do we expect Milos Foreman (Czech director) movies, Milan Kundera novels, or Javier (ex-Czech Republic), as Said did when Orientalism or anti-colonialism was on the rise What can a politician like the President have to offer us? Assuming that there is a category of sharing, and this category is global, then at present, what we share is Zizek, who may be the beneficiary of this idol globalization.
However, this is not in line with the traditional notion of Marxism, which itself is internationalist, not statist; although, in fact, only the first violent movement - the Paris Commune was non-statist, the later Marxists Movements, including the revolution that Zizek calls for, are statist. We are still in the midst of a statist Marxism, so the globalization of idols is on the one hand the opposite of statism, on the other hand, it is necessary. This is reflected in the combination of ideas, popular culture and consumption, the renewal of everyone's needs for ideas, and the consumption of ideas, etc. In this environment, Zizek is actually produced.
Can we imagine, without him, what the whole territory of thought would have been like today? Do we still have to hide in the French philosophy of the 1970s? Therefore, I would feel that the "Perverted Ideology Guide" (hereinafter referred to as "Perverted") is a so-called critique of the "big Other". Žižek himself is a superego, a big, chubby, old, white male who looks a little like Socrates and a little like Marx, and has become the voice of globalization. He himself came from a relatively marginal area, a man with a Soviet-Eastern background, and in the change of global thinking, actually formed the effect of "new immigrants", which was at the same time different from classical, Greek, etc. (traditional elements) combined.
The globalization of idols is actually the opposite of the nationalization of idols, but it cannot be said which is good or bad, or which can be divorced from consumerism. In such a context, we are bound to face such a situation that the world may be in the hands of several big images. Traditionally, these figures were Marilyn Monroe, and now Zizek may be one of those figures. He went down this path, himself one of the great manipulators of our minds, and in the context of globalization, not nationalism. The "globalization of idols" I'm talking about is mainly based on the Internet, but it is also based on another point. Is his thought talking to himself, or is it a debate? Is this debate supposed to take place in the mind of the person watching?
Discourse System - Modern Dramatic Disruption and Partial Coherence
This is about Zizek's way of discourse. "Pervert" is composed of multiple short videos in the Internet style. It has many paragraphs of ideas, which actually come from Zizek's different articles. Zizek's article is more like a media column. He gives an example, or grabs a topic and talks about it for a while, which is an article. Why do you say these things are connected to each other? Does cutting off three or four segments make a difference? Not necessarily, but what is this way of discourse?
He actually talks about it himself, about the "interruption of pleasure," which I understand as a very dramatic thing. Its concept involves the transformation of drama. In the transition to modern times, drama has instilled in everyone the idea that its plot can be interrupted. This process was first explained by the Marxist dramatist Brecht citing "alienation". In German, it is the same word as Marx's "alienation", but it is translated as "alienation effect" in the theater world. We have various understandings of (the word), and with the development of drama, it has not stayed in the original meaning of Marx. One of the results is that to a certain extent, a discourse system has been formed: its discourse is only in fragments. self-consistent. Every line in a classical drama corresponds to the whole of the play, while in some modern dramas, a line only corresponds to the previous line, and has nothing to do with the whole.
I would understand Žižek's way of discourse as a follow-up to a modern drama. On the one hand, it is made up of many discourse fragments, in which there are no particularly noticeable interruptions. Žižek, including the director of the film, is very cunning to avoid interruptions being perceived. On the other hand, the coherence of his discourse is only partial. What exactly he said three or five minutes ago, we can probably put it aside and replace it with new ideas. Because from a theatrical point of view, it's very typical to build a single core. Žižek is the only core of this film, and it is enough that you stare at him. This is the opposite of the characteristics of absurd dramas. Most of the dramas with dialogues one after another have no meaning as a whole; while every detail of "The Psycho" is full of meaning, and then the whole tells you a huge, practical It's a meaning you simply can't accept.
Some people may associate it with "postmodern", but I personally think "postmodern" is a false proposition. The dialogue in most modern dramas has nothing to do with the whole, because it does not have a whole, which is the same as the absence of the "big Other". In fact, the part of the drama is meaningless, and the whole is meaningless.
"The Pervert" is actually very consumerist in the specific way of discourse. In terms of editing, it has the same meaning as American TV series that insert advertisements every two minutes. From this point of view, Zizek is also the same. He changes a point every three or five minutes, and makes you ignore those points through continuous discourse, not paying attention to the interruption. He gives too much meaning and has A bit of "sugar water" or "chicken soup". The Communist Gramsci (founder/leader of the Italian Communist Party) said, "The only value of capitalism's existence is for everyone to criticize", and I followed a sentence on social media "The only value of socialist existence is to be criticized by everyone." Praise". So, of course, it was criticized by everyone.
The relationship between images and rights - three tendencies of images
Does the image itself have power? Does discourse itself have power? To put it in some kind of quoted "postmodern" point of view: the power lies with the listener, whoever watches the film, and not on the speaking side. From this point of view, there will be a relationship of image power no matter what. For example, the concept of pre-modern has two problems: one is whether public power accepts being photographed? Whether the public power believes that only private individuals can be photographed, but not themselves can be photographed freely; the other is the issue of copyright, whether it has gone through the strict control of copyright before returning to the field of piracy.
I read the subtitles before and after very carefully, at first I thought it was a total pirated work, but in the end, I found it to be 100% non-pirated, although I still have my doubts about the music in it, the music in the UK There should be no way for a copyright country. Of course, this is my guess. In the context of non-pre-modern social discourse, when there is no personal or public power that should be photographed, and the issue of voyeurism, the most important issue is copyright. On this issue, on the issue of image power, "The Psycho" is completely in line with the capitalist system. I think it has a moral legitimacy, because it is the director and not Zizek who has to do with the copyright.
In the context of globalization, some people are striving to become globalization icons, or when they have this possibility, they have a very big conflict with nationalism. For example, Assange is the vanguard of globalization. resource sharing. As far as video goes, I think it's another story. To expand a little bit, China is a "special field". When we say that this is a special field, we mean that it is different from other places in the world and has limitations in its own "geopolitics", which may be politically incorrect. But if we examine Chinese images, generally I think there are three tendencies: one is the tendencies of activism. "Activism" is a typical American word. In traditional China, this vocabulary does not actually exist. However, in our thousands of years of history, if we use this word to cover previous history, we can analyze that it has always been There are very few intellectuals with activism tendencies. There is also a pure film tendency, Ackerman kind. Like Kafka's pure literature, there are images of pure art in images. The third type, referred to as "Dragon Brand Tendency", is like this film, it must meet the standards of a system inside and out. The system itself may be the illusion of a "big Other" created.
Prose Film and Literary Traditions (From Jarman's "Blue," Zizek's "Perverts," to "Ackerman Self-Portrait")
Žižek is typically anxious and hysterical, with a touch of mild hysteria that is actually a cocaine effect, while Ackerman (another prose film work of the season) is typically a depressive film. In the past two years, when I reread Beckett carefully, I confirmed the feeling of my early years: his writing was not when the alcohol was at a high point, but the next day, in that dizzy, low mood, sleepless night Written while drunk. It's a bit like saying that the so-called geniuses are all psychological disabilities, the result of a certain disease, such as incomplete personality development and so on. Žižek is an excitable type, and our dialect is called "people are crazy", right?
In China, when we talk about prose, we are talking more about lyrical prose and philosophical prose, which we usually call essays; while in the Western literary tradition, the "prose" they talk about mainly refers to short philosophical essays, typically Mongolian essays. Tian, pushing back would piggyback Rousseau with him. This prose has nothing to do with the lyrical tradition of Romanticism, and it has several possibilities, one for personal reflection and one for dialogue, both of which coexist. (In this case) personal thinking is closely related to shallow depression, so the philosophical monologue is valid. Now, the mainstream view of prose films and prose documentaries in the West is that it is not within the history of film, but back to Montaigne. You think it talks too much, but it comes from the text itself, in this tradition.
Big Other
I said that Žižek was like a stone monkey, he jumped up and down in various ways and changed his face in various ways. I may be more like a Tang monk, long-winded and moderate. When I mentioned the three types, I didn't put myself among them. Is this attitude too detached? It's actually a kind of cunning, or a particularly insincere one. In discourse, many people, like Zizek, are constantly looking for substitutes, such as making a quote and so on. In Zizek's way of discourse, his theorizing does not require a process. Academically speaking, theorizing definitely requires a process, and Zizek is a direct theorizing, or the so-called "conclusion-throwing" style. This is particularly dubious within his academic system because it's interrogative, but most of what you hear from him are judgmental sentences. There is no process, a Hollywood movie is an argument, this is an op-ed, not an academic argument. I feel like (I) am an actor myself, playing a professor here, deliberately saying things you don't understand. On the other hand, I also think that in the context of globalization, there should be some relatively popular thinkers, but there are none yet. One of my superego wishes is that Zhang Xianmin became such a person under your touts?
Any intellectual is actually very cool to be the object of criticism by others. So you have to criticize Zizek, he has no reason to be angry with you. And there are at least two issues worth discussing:
One, he only criticizes what is absolutely unshakable. He himself said that the earth has been hit by an asteroid, and capitalism is still indestructible. However, is it because this thing cannot be shaken, we do not criticize it? This is a dilemma.
Second, he seems to be creating the illusion that revolution is still possible. Is this also the "big Other" he criticizes, an ideological system that controls us. What is the root of his system of thought? He himself plays language games, saying on the one hand that the "big other" does not exist at all; on the other hand, he says that revolution is still possible, so that we have expectations for the future, believe in the power of the people, and so on. If you really believe in the power of the people, is this any different from the Stalinism he criticized? This is some vague, fragmented discourse. But now the so-called ideas, if they can provoke criticism from others, can make scholars feel self-satisfied and happy. Others criticize Zizek as cocaine.
Way Out - Analyzing What We Can Analyse
There is a sentence in "The Psycho", which says that "the power of the state is the closest to the divine", which seems to be a reference to Lacan. As far as images are concerned, it is the same as words. At first, words were divine, and later became part of the imperial power, and then belonged to everyone. From its divinity, such as taking pictures, it will capture people's souls, to integrating with state power, and finally, it will belong to individuals like words. But now the question of whether the image belongs to everyone has not been turned around. Of course, everyone feels different. In this vast ocean, has its divinity or the state power's control over it also upgraded? I think individuals have the possibility of individual analysis. Some people may think that images, like words, already belong to everyone. In this case of everyone, divinity or state power may be embodied in some sort of screening system. "Confinement", preventing certain images or text from appearing, is only part of this screening system.
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