Things That Are Bullshit In This Review of Žižek’s Book

Original is found here.

Pointing out things that are wrong by conflating “I disagree” with “It is not so” is my favorite past time, of course.

1) “He has become the saint of total leftism: a quasi-divine being, than whom none more radical can ever be conceived.” – Nothing of this sort has happened to Žižek. There are plenty of more radical people. And Žižek is probably more criticized from the Left than any other people.

2) “Even if you are attracted by Žižek’s Hegelian fundamentalism, you are bound to wonder how it connects with his spectacular radicalism.” Žižek’s Hegel is far from any “fundamentalist” Hegel (if such even exists), it’s barely Hegel at all. The author might need to revisit “ragged volumes of Hegel and Marx” forgotten on his shelves.

3) “Two hundred years later, Hegel’s view of philosophy is at best a magnificent ruin, and no one can believe in it any more.” This is untrue on so many levels, the authors needs a reality check by looking at books on Hegel from the last 10 years.What does it mean “to believe in a philosophy” anyway? Does anyone “believe” in Plato’s Forms?

4) “He is happy to leave the world to burn while he plays his games of philosophical toy soldiers.” Please, this is rather stupid. This is the sort of idiotic comment one finds in reviews. “The author fails to address the issues that I think he must address!” It’s a book about Hegel, Žižek has plenty to say about other things in other books!

This review is ranked as “full of bullshit”!

Unplugging the Giant Bathtub of Bullshit

The end of Lost – what a bunch of idiotic sappy quasi-religious bullshit! Whoever was responsible for ruining this perfectly decent show should just come out and say so. Yes, it was a strange show from the start, but at least it was always trying to explain “strange” things in terms of even “stranger” physical reality – electromagnetic forces, time travel, or some other perfectly good material explanation. And it all ends with a big group hug in some ecumenical heaven after some dude unplugs the giant bathtub of light? – give me a break! And the most frustrating part? America loved it! What gives?

Up In The Air And About To Hit The Fan.

Went to see Up in the Air, have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, it’s perfectly boring “romantic comedy” turned into a predicable “life’s better with a co-pilot” moral lesson. On the other hand, it’s trying to do something, even if it ultimately fails at it. The subject matter itself is rather banal/stupid, but the context is interesting, could have been developed further, something really good could have come out, but it didn’t. I think that maybe it tried to be “fresh” and “happening” but at the expense of people who were losing their jobs, even if they were ultimately compensated (as viewers) for their trouble with a sugary “see, it’s not that bad, it will turn out to be just fine” bullshit.

Apparently George Clooney character was wrong in thinking he can “do it alone” and the naive young super-energetic (anti)feminist was wrong in thinking she could eliminate the human involvement when it comes to the difficult task of “terminating” people, but in the end no one has dared to ask the real question: How is it that if I steal a stapler from my employer, I could (technically) be arrested for petty theft, but when the same employer fires me and thus deprives me of my livelihood, my ability to feed myself and my family, no one calls the cops and no one is getting arrested? In other words, capitalism is not just the default in this movie, it’s social reality, it’s “how things are” and “how they will have always been” – don’t question it, just hope that when it’s your turn, you’ll have friends/family to support you through your “difficult times” (a nice euphemism, isn’t it?)…