Been on a bit of an environmentalist one recently. Just watched this, a film shown on UK Channel 4 about unorthodox views from within the environmentalist movement. It was difficult to watch - one 'green taboo' after another was demolished, advocates arguing for the use of nuclear power and GM food.
Made me think of Žižek's bit in An Examined Life:
The connection between the two is that they both identify ideology as the cause of an obscuration that prevents real insight into the problems that the planet faces and finding prompt ways to act. In the first film it is a residual hippy activist movement that is blind to the science that can treat the problems now. In Žižek, it is conservatism and secular religion lurking beneath our beloved Gaia. They both call for more technology: "We should become more alienated!"
Thursday 11 November 2010
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I wish that I could get the Channel 4 thing, seems like they don't broadcast it in America. I live on the West Coast, where the use of ecology as "the opium of the masses" is overwhelmingly and increasingly apparent. But not always as closely linked to technophobic/faust-o-phobic worries as Zizek seems to suggest here. At the same time, I'm not sure why Zizek wants to downplay the dangers of stuff like genetic modification etc. - except maybe to make his philosophical point about the nature of nature...I especially wonder though, why his numerous reiterations of this theme are rarely accompanied by analyses of the funding structures of contemporary cutting edge technological research. I think his techno/ecological diatribes would be make more sense if he addressed these topics together - the way he usually puts it is too reflective of the dualistic stance he's critiquing - "is technology good or bad?". (He also seems to reinforce this psychology with the comments like - "what we should really do, and which is EVEN SCARIER" (or something along these lines.)) Maybe he goes over this stuff in one of his books, but I haven't seen much of it yet.
ReplyDeleteI think these films present just a speck of the full debate and you are absolutely right, it is in questions of funding and politics - the material conditions on all levels - for debate and action for environmental issues. I'm only just starting to engage with a deeper understanding of this particular debate and just picked up quickly on the fact that both films call for more technology - uncritically - "technology has moved on and so should we," despite the fact that both films take a polemical stance against ideology, though from opposing political readings. I guess my question is whether the function of criticism of ideology is genuine here. I don't know enough yet about Žižek to really understand his position, but yes, his 'diatribes' do read like a deliberate provocation and less like a proper argument as such. Maybe that's his aim, a performative gesture. Who knows!
ReplyDeleteThanks for you comment ixmesh.
Enjoying your blog.
ReplyDeleteJohn Gray talks of "prozac politics" (see interview with the Independent newspaper, April 2009) and Slvoj Zizek talks of "disavowal". I think they are very close together in some ways. I found it very interesting to navigate between these two thinkers and locate their points of departure. Also Zizek on "Materialism and Theology" at EGS..
Anonymous, thank you for your comment and glad you are enjoying.
ReplyDeleteAnd thanks for the tips - if I continue on this theme I will investigate them.
The notion of an almost intentional blindness, or a barely masked denial is interesting. I have been thinking of it recently in reference to art institutions, where an institution operates with an elaborate (and often invisible unless you are 'in the know') social coding that functions as an exclusive discourse - that when you begin to unpick it, exposes exactly how insubstantial that invisible coding is. But we all continue to behave as if it's the most *natural* thing in the world. Well, that's a bit lengthy, but maybe you understand the connection. Cheers again.
Yes, the most natural thing in the world to let institutions get away with it.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if you stayed with this theme, but I am pleased to find that I am still enjoying an idea about representation that crops up in the Zizek talk. Not original, but he makes it funny, y'know? The cosmic designer is compared to the designer of computer worlds. The latter don't ever expect the gamer to venture out to the limits of the world, e.g. the stars in the sky cannot be resolved into greater detail than the programming allows. (Similarly "out of focus" in a CGI film is there by design - there is no moving towards objects or horizons to bring them "into focus" - a mental limitation that makes watching such films so uncomfortable, don't ya think?). Anyway, so Zizek goes on (and on), the cosmic designer similarly did not expect the gamers (mankind) to get so clever as to split the atom. Indeterminacy emerges as a fundamental aspect of nature, etc. From here he introduces "multiplicity and zero", and tells a good joke about lifts. Ha Ha!