Subject: Re: Jouissance in the Dark
Date: Mon, 23 Oct 2000 13:41:58 -0400 (Eastern Daylight Time)



On Mon, 23 Oct 2000 09:44:52 -0400 christopher brittain 
<chris.brittain-AT-utoronto.ca> wrote:

> It woud be interesting to hear what you thought of these films without what 
you consider to be crucial to BtW, which is the miracle (which, as you know, I 
consider precisely to have been BtW's great flaw).

The Idiots comes out on video this week, perhaps I'll have a look at it. What 
appears to me to be interesting is the consistency in which von Trier's depicts 
"the feminine" - as this kind of sacrificial personality. The point, I guess, 
would be to consider if this is in fact a representation of the cultural logic 
of the feminine (which always ends in violence or death) or a distortion of 
this logic. The point being, if von Trier's has captured something of the 
'spirit' of the age - then are his illustrations haunting enough to prompt a 
critical or cynical distance, or are the simply absorbed and reiterated 
socially: is it ideology or aesthetic ideology critique... 
 
> But the essay by Zizek above often puzzles me, when it almost become 
suggested that reality IS the capitalist dynamic - (reality is lacking, etc.). 
It's almost an apology for capitalism, and for endless consumption, which gets 
my suspicious mind questioning what is really going on in Zizek's work?

Errr... I really don't see it as an apology for capitalism. Zizek primary 
objection is that the political economy has been radically *depoliticized* - by 
way of the separation of public consent and private dissent. His entire 
analysis aims at politicizing the economy - in effect - demanding, not just 
desiring, that it be changed and democratized (subjectified). This entails that 
we acknowledge our *radically* entwinment within capitalism, noting that we 
are, in fact, constituted by it - which is precisely why the critique of 
existing states of affairs is to painful and traumatic: it's us! (and why 
the political economy is so often ignored). This by no means justifies 
capitalism - however it does hint at the idea that doing away with the economy 
(by ignoring it or pretending we're beyond it) is an illusion.

ken