“The more general point to be made here is that the global reflexivization/mediatization generates its own brutal immediacy whose figure was best captured by Etienne Balibar’s notion of excessive, non-functional cruelty as a feature of contemporary life: a cruelty whose figures range from “fundamentalist” racist and/or religious slaughter to the “senseless” outbursts of violence performed by adolescents and the homeless in our megalopolises, a violence one is tempted to call Id-Evil, a violence grounded in no utilitarian or ideological reasons. All the talk about foreigners stealing work from us or about the threat they represent to our Western values should not deceive us: under closer examination, it soon becomes clear that this talk provides a rather superficial secondary rationalization. The answer we ultimately obtain from a skinhead is that it makes him feel good to beat foreigners, that their presence disturbs him… What we encounter here is indeed Id-Evil, i.e., the Evil structured and motivated by the most elementary imbalance in the relationship between the Ego and jouissance, by the tension between pleasure and the foreign body of jouissance in the very heart of it. Id-Evil thus stages the most elementary “short-circuit” in the relationship of the subject to the primordially missing object-cause of his desire: what “bothers” us in the “other” (Jew, Japanese, African, Turk) is that he appears to entertain a privileged relationship to the object – the other either possesses the object-treasure, having snatched it away from us (which is why we don’t have it), or he poses a threat to our possession of the object. What one should propose here is the ultimate identity of these “useless” and “excessive” outbursts of violent immediacy, which display nothing but a pure and naked (”non-sublimated”) hatred of the Otherness, with the global reflexivization of society; perhaps, the ultimate example of this coincidence is the fate of psychoanalytic interpretation.” – Zizek
on 19 Jan 2008 at 1:31 pm # Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man
The voice of the current somnambulism”.[4] Each media “adds itself on to what we already are”, realizing “amputations and extensions” to our senses and bodies, shaping them in a new technical form. As appealing as this remaking of ourselves may seem, it really puts us in a “narcissistic hypnosis” that prevents us from seeing the real nature of the media.[4]
All the pretty horses
1. c4 e6 2. Nf3 d5 3. d4 Nf6 4. Nc3 Be7 5. Bg5 O-O 6. e3 h6
7. Bh4 b6 8. cxd5 Nxd5 9. Bxe7 Qxe7 10. Nxd5 exd5 11. Rc1 Be6
12. Qa4 c5 13. Qa3 Rc8 14. Bb5 a6 15. dxc5 bxc5 16. O-O Ra7
17. Be2 Nd7 18. Nd4 Qf8 19. Nxe6 fxe6 20. e4 d4 21. f4 Qe7
22. e5 Rb8 23. Bc4 Kh8 24. Qh3 Nf8 25. b3 a5 26. f5 exf5
27. Rxf5 Nh7 28. Rcf1 Qd8 29. Qg3 Re7 30. h4 Rbb7 31. e6 Rbc7
32. Qe5 Qe8 33. a4 Qd8 34. R1f2 Qe8 35. R2f3 Qd8 36. Bd3 Qe8
37. Qe4 Nf6 38. Rxf6 gxf6 39. Rxf6 Kg8 40. Bc4 Kh8 41. Qf4 1-0
“The more general point to be made here is that the global reflexivization/mediatization generates its own brutal immediacy whose figure was best captured by Etienne Balibar’s notion of excessive, non-functional cruelty as a feature of contemporary life: a cruelty whose figures range from “fundamentalist” racist and/or religious slaughter to the “senseless” outbursts of violence performed by adolescents and the homeless in our megalopolises, a violence one is tempted to call Id-Evil, a violence grounded in no utilitarian or ideological reasons. All the talk about foreigners stealing work from us or about the threat they represent to our Western values should not deceive us: under closer examination, it soon becomes clear that this talk provides a rather superficial secondary rationalization. The answer we ultimately obtain from a skinhead is that it makes him feel good to beat foreigners, that their presence disturbs him… What we encounter here is indeed Id-Evil, i.e., the Evil structured and motivated by the most elementary imbalance in the relationship between the Ego and jouissance, by the tension between pleasure and the foreign body of jouissance in the very heart of it. Id-Evil thus stages the most elementary “short-circuit” in the relationship of the subject to the primordially missing object-cause of his desire: what “bothers” us in the “other” (Jew, Japanese, African, Turk) is that he appears to entertain a privileged relationship to the object – the other either possesses the object-treasure, having snatched it away from us (which is why we don’t have it), or he poses a threat to our possession of the object. What one should propose here is the ultimate identity of these “useless” and “excessive” outbursts of violent immediacy, which display nothing but a pure and naked (”non-sublimated”) hatred of the Otherness, with the global reflexivization of society; perhaps, the ultimate example of this coincidence is the fate of psychoanalytic interpretation.” – Zizek
The voice of the current somnambulism”.[4] Each media “adds itself on to what we already are”, realizing “amputations and extensions” to our senses and bodies, shaping them in a new technical form. As appealing as this remaking of ourselves may seem, it really puts us in a “narcissistic hypnosis” that prevents us from seeing the real nature of the media.[4]
Fischer was a brilliant conceptual artist.
His playing will be missed.
::|.