fragilekeys

After finishing Žižek’s “First as Tragedy, Then as Farce” (which is a precursor to his “Living in the End of Times”), I feel compelled to compile a list of his basic points and tasks. Žižek is often met with the charge that he never comes out with a position or a political task, that he simply theorizes, etc. But I find that any close (and kind) reading of Žižek proves the exact opposite (or rather, there is something sick and hyper(re)active about our times when we do not see in his voracious philosophical output a form of action in itself). And yet in FTTF, while he ridicules those who look to the intellectual class for their answers and programs for action (see Chomsky on this same point in this short video), he points to various “tasks” to be undertaken. These are simple tasks– and thus the hardest to know how to implement. My goal in this note is to stress what I think are Žižek’s main points and tasks in FTTF. Continue reading →

I have been struck by a few things lately. First, my capacity to pursue the things I prescribe myself to pursue, i.e., courage and perseverance. I have spent so much time, it seems, in futile vacillation: between pursuing these things (Marx on social-being and productive processes, Bloch and Celan on u-topia, Hegel, Agamben on the transmission of transmissibility, Hamacher on hermenutics, Bataille on non-knowledge…) and running in fear. Not in fear of these things– for in their attracting me, I feel alive and connected to the other within and without; rather, running in fear of the pursuit itself: running in fear of my self and my potential.

The vacillation (as well as worrying about it, maybe) is unwarranted, unnecessary, and generally wasteful. What does “running in fear” look like for me? Nothing too tragic: watching MSNBC and riling myself up over political struggles and economic injustices; consigning myself to afternoons of brats and beer; letting the night “go where it will,” whether that means smoking, sitting by campfires, bars, bowling, or whatever. Obviously, it is not these activities in themselves which are the “problem,” and anyone who tries to live a life without friends is doomed to the worst hermeticism. In fact, I am blessed to have such wonderful, light, and stimulating friends and contacts– I really do not know what I would do without them. But nonetheless, although to an ever lesser degree these past few years, those activities have often turned into moments of pure ‘sleep’– stagnation and stasis, losing the trail, forgetting rigor that is so invigorating.

In truth, I am less and less worried about these distractions, and accept them as they are and as they come, for I’ve never been one to dictate where I was (although I might work on this). But dissatisfaction is the root of invention, perhaps, and my dissatisfaction with ‘relaxation,’ ‘happiness,’ ‘fun activities,’ has long been growing. I think this sense of dissatisfaction grows because I am not just myself, I do not live for myself. For so long now I have known that to really do something means becoming invisible, disappearing. But what this means practically is the dissolution of the private sphere of interests and whims for the sake of an even more inner and private arrangement-engagement with the soul, where my tasks and activities are united with “them” beyond the local sphere of a billiard table, out into the creation of works, all the way to the world-beyond-the-world. Continue reading →

Karl Marx’s project is best encapsulated in one phrase of his: “So far philosophers have interpreted the world in various ways– but the point is to change it.” This emphasis on changing the world stems from his engagement with the dialectical logic of the philosopher Hegel, whose “interpretations” of the world held the most weight during Marx’s time. For those interested in a very cogent yet brief explanation of Hegel’s logic, Marx’s critique of it, and why it matters, I suggest the book Dialectical Materialism, written by the French Marxist Henri Lefebvre in 1939. In this note, I summarize some of the basic insights of this book and evaluate them from an Adornian perspective. Continue reading →