It’s been a little while – I had a daughter four days after the last post here, so I’ve been very distracted for obvious reason. Nevertheless, let’s continue.
In Part 7, Zizek continues his point that, to the fundamentalist, what we would call “belief” is in fact “knowledge” to them, in that they have not even a sliver of doubt about the veracity of the claims.
He talks about Catholic priests and pedophilia, but I don’t consider the point salient, so I don’t really have an interest in discussing.
Zizek then makes a point about Land Rovers in his country being driven from the suburbs to the city (whereas we had Hummers in the United States). These vehicles are not bought for utility, but rather to make a statement. Similarly, Hegel, for Zizek, is talking about this relationship with regards to the “spirit” of the state. In fact, Zizek tells us that Hegel is being very materialistic here, by saying that the state isn’t just a tool but rather that it is a statement; that rituals (and perhaps jingoism) are the “self-consciousness” of the state not as a supernatural spirit but (in my words) as an “emergent phenomena”. Thus, while government might be a tool to make decisions for a nation, things like inaugurations, mottos, anthems, and seals are a statement about the nature and “persona”, if you will, of the state.
This concludes Zizek’s lecture, which also concludes most of my interest in the video series. What follows is commentary by Dr. Cornel West, and then a Q&A with Zizek and West. I do love Cornel West, but I don’t think he says anything, in these videos, that is pertinent to my topic here – belief, existential crisis, and post-modernism. However, since there’s a sprinkling of interesting comments in the remaining videos, I’ll do one final post to summarize the remaining videos later.