Slavoj Žižek talks new book, Occupy Wall Street at SIPA

http://www.columbiaspectator.com/2012/10/24/slavoj-Žižek-talks-new-book-occupy-wall-street-sipa

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Žižek rose to prominence in his native Yugoslavia, where he said he was “a mid-level dissident, enough to be jobless but not enough to be arrested.” His popular anti-capitalist cultural philosophy attracted an overflowing crowd, some who had come from outside the University just to see him speak.
Žižek was at Columbia to talk about his new book, “2011: The Year of Dreaming Dangerously,” but he touched on a wide array of other topics. Moderator Stathis Gourgouris, professor of classics at Columbia, started this panel on “one of the most provocative thinkers of our time” by noting that “moderating Žižek is an impossible event.” Gourgouris, along with Lydia Liu of East Asian Languages and Bruce Robbins of English, admitted that they found it difficult to put up arguments against Žižek or stop him once he got going.

Building on the arguments in his book, which sold out at the door, Žižek cited many philosophers from the Core Curriculum, including Marx, Rousseau and his “big love,” Hegel. Paraphrasing one of Hegel’s central ideas in reference to the crises of 2011, Žižek said, “Before the Fall, paradise was stupid animality. Only retroactively can we generate the specter of what we have fallen from.” “2012: The Year of Dreaming Dangerously” is Žižek’s take on the revolutions and upheavals of 2011, which he said he views as key turning points in the questioning of capitalism.

Before these revolutions, he argued, capitalism was a dogma, de-politicized because it was such an unquestionable part of our society. “Here, there are more people who believe that Armageddon is coming than that capitalism should be adjusted,” Žižek said. But the global economic collapse began to rip a hole in the fabric of these dogmas, Žižek said.

“Bankers were always greedy. Capitalism as it is today cannot be regulated,” he said. “It simply gave them the tools to realize that greed.” This financial crisis, Žižek argued, led to Occupy Wall Street, the Arab Spring, and the upheavals in Europe. In this new multi-centric world, countries like China, which subscribe to ‘communist,’ non-traditional models of capitalism, are swiftly gaining the upper hand, he added. The world should start to question just what it means to go beyond the constraints of capitalism.

During the question and answer period, Žižek was confronted by a Maoist who wanted a debate. Instead of dismissing him, Žižek called out his arguments and set a date for the contest to thunderous applause and laughter.

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