Slavoj Žižek - Collected Recordings

Masterclass – Lecture 3 – Communism: An Idea that Divides – Struggle Towards a New Master Birkbeck, University of London

Masterclass – Lecture 2 – Communism: An Idea that Divides – Ideology: The Terror of Permissive Biopolitics Birkbeck, University of London

Masterclass – Lecture 1 – Communism: An Idea that Divides – Economy: The Vicious Cycle of Capitalist Reproduction Birkbeck, University of London

Zizek on what goes on in the new techno digital development

Birkbeck, University of London

Sao Paolo

Although most of the critiques to which my work was exposed in the last years are “so-called,” fast denunciations not worthy of a serious reply, some of them do at least raise pertinent questions : which, exactly, is the status of violence in social life, and how can one justify resort to it? Is in our societies a radical social change — not just a revolt but the imposition of a new order – objectively possible? What is materialism today, beyond the usual versions of deconstructionist discursive materialism, Deleuzian “new materialism,” and scientific naturalism? And, last but not least, what immanent role do jokes play in theory? Birkbeck University, February 28, 2013

One of the topics dealt with here is just how easily ecological disasters are incorporated into the capitalist “system”, thereby casting doubt on whether capitalism will naturally cease to exist as the result of the ecological crises it is criticized for causing. In this way, and much to the horror of Leftist doomsayers, capitalism is not just going to break on its own. Another interesting thing he mentions in passing is how human waste has become so integrated into the functioning of the ecosystem that (as some ecologists suggest?) an imaginary, sudden removal of all human pollution could ITSELF be an ecological catastrophe. Something to think about for anti-capitalists, environmentalists and philosophers alike

Zizek on the parallax and the function of ideology

Less Than Nothing: Hegel and the Shadow of Dialectical Materialism