RSA Animate - First as Tragedy, Then as Farce

Nice animation. Foolish critical-theoretical nonsense. Z thinks completely in abstractions, and abstractions have been responsible for far more more suffering than charity has. But then Z doesn't support the mitigation of suffering, either, because that would take people's mind off of abstractions and the crudest of utopian political projects. For Z, the goal is not to mitigate suffering or save lives or cure disease. It is to make poverty IMPOSSIBLE. That goal is not only not possible, it is incoherent, not only because "poverty" means different things to different people in different times and places, and is valued differently, but because no human being, certainly not some elite critical-theoretical class, knows how to go about pulling the levers and pushing the buttons of history in such a way as to make make poverty (under any description) impossible. Z believes there is a "solution" to poverty, and that every action on behalf of the poor that fails to align with that chimerical "solution" exacerbates the problem. This is absurd, and it can lead him to provoke us with such cruel inanities as "the worst slaveholders were kind to their slaves" because they contributed to slavery's continuation. This is so abstract a judgment, so far from the concerte conditions in which human suffering occurs, that it is insane or sadistic in the way it valorizes cruelty. Z doesn't care aboiut poor people; he cares about poverty as the abstract thought of a systemic social phenomenon, a function of a social formation as a whole, to which there is a solution. How many critical theorists would it to dream it? How many Stalins to implement it? All solutions are incomplete and partial and take a step back with every two steps ahead. Social change is not predictable in the long run. Feed the hungry. Care for the sick. And when the opportunity comes to take a couple of steps ahead in the social and economic formations where you and others have a little power, go for it! But keep alleviating whatever suffering you can. Keep an ear on the critical theorists, but don't let their abstractions bewitch you.

Terrific. Smart and amusing drawing helps clarify what Zizek is saying. Keep up the great work!

[...] Video: Slavoj Zizek: First as Tragedy, Then as Farce [...]

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I listened to this lecture and thank you for this amazing additional resource, the drawings are great! Brilliant! Keep going!