SYMPOSIUM WITH SLAVOJ ZIZEK, MLADEN DOLAR, AND ALENKA ZUPANCIC

Symposium: Varieties of Materialism Today
Slavoj Zizek with Mladen Dolar and Alenka Zupancic

http://english.princeton.edu/events/symposium-slavoj-zizek-mladen-dolar-and-alenka-zupancic

Date: 

Wednesday, April 09 - 4: 30 PM to 8: 00 PM

Location: 

46 McCosh Hall

Speakers: 

Slavoj Zizek, Mladen Dolar, Alenka Zupancic

Slavoj Žižek, Princeton University Global Scholar, will present a series of five seminars from March 31 to April 16 devoted to the topic “Philosophy Through Psychoanalysis.” In addition, he has organized a symposium with Mladen Dolar and Alenka Zupančič, entitled “Varieties of Materialism Today.”  These events are open to the public and he has suggested his two books, Less Than Nothing and Event, as background for the seminars. The schedule and titles for these events are:

SEMINAR:  PHILOSOPHY THROUGH PSYCHOANALYSIS

March 31 – MATERIALIST THEORIES OF SUBJECT (Althusser, Badiou)
April 2 – BEYOND THE TRANSCENDENTAL TURN (from Kant to Hegel)
April 7 – THE IMPASSES OF THE NEGATION OF NEGATION
April 14 – GODS: REAL, SYMBOLIC, AND PROSTHETIC
April 16 -  THE OBSCENE LAW

SYMPOSIUM:

April 9 – VARIETIES OF MATERIALISM TODAY (with Mladen Dolar and Alenka Zupančič)

Me want cookie: the idiot's guide to being a fun-loving modern fascist

by David Mitchell, The Observer, 12 April 2014






http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/13/me-want-cookie-idiots-guide-fun-loving-modern-fascist-cookie-monster-david-mitchell?CMP=ema_1364


[...]


I'm referring to someone who, as far as we know, has never touched beer or cigarettes, which is probably a good thing as he seems to have rather an addictive personality. It's the Cookie Monster from Sesame Street, surely the world's most lovable personification of an eating disorder, whose image has been adopted by a group of German neo-Nazis in an attempt to recruit children.


[...]


"But how is this allowed?" you're probably asking. It isn't. Steffen Lange, who walked into a school playground in Brandenburg dressed as the Cookie Monster and started handing out neo-Nazi leaflets, has been arrested by the German police. I don't know whether the producers of Sesame Street are planning legal action but I imagine they'd have a case. Maybe they don't think there's much point since, as TV programmes go, Sesame Street is about as likely to be mistaken for being pro-Nazi as Dad's Army.


Then again, this wasn't an isolated incident: Cookie Monster-themed rightwing pamphlets were subsequently discovered at Lange's home, and the police have confirmed that the blue fluffy problem-eater's image is increasingly being abused by the region's far right to try and drum up support. A police spokesman speculated that it was an attempt to make neo-Nazism seem "a bit fun and a bit rebellious".


This is a fascinating strategy – and an insight into the mindset of the modern fascist. The Cookie Monster is anarchic, dynamic and madly driven by a very specific, but also totally random, aim: he wants cookies. He wants to charge around crazily smashing cookies into his mouth. He will never get enough cookies. It's unclear whether he understands this. Maybe he imagines some future stage of sated calm which he might achieve if, miraculously, he were to obtain all the cookies he desires. Or maybe he is wiser than that and knows it's all about the journey, his endless quest for biscuits.


These extremists' message is clear: that's what it's like to be a neo-Nazi. It's not mean, harsh and judgmental – not primarily, that's just a side effect. It's wild, active and devil-may-care. And violent – but it's not about whom the violence is directed at, that's not important. It's about the sensual joy of the violence itself. It's fun, dynamic, outdoorsy and liberated. Those who get hurt are collateral damage – hence the usefulness of a rationale by which hurting them is either good or irrelevant. As long as you see Jews and Gypsies as only so many cookies to be ground up in a cloth mouth, rather than as actual people, then it's all good clean fun.


You can't say this doesn't tap into a side of humanity that has always existed. Since the dawn of time, there have been plenty of us who just love running around and smashing things and people to bits. Think of the Vikings. They sailed around, pillaging, burning and looting, for centuries. They did it out of economic necessity; they did it out of greed; they did it out of hatred for other races and religions. But many of them must also have done it for fun. Some of those great warriors – skilled seamen and fearless soldiers – must have loved that life, loved running up to a coastal village and unleashing carnage.


Don't focus on our specific unpalatable views, Herr Lange and his colleagues are saying, focus on the thrill. There's something more primal in the appeal of extremist politics than any of its ostensible beliefs or policies – and the sensation is a lot like running around shouting "Cooookiiiiieeeessss!!!!!" For so long considered monsters by the political mainstream, these rightwingers are finally coming clean: "That's exactly what we are!" they're admitting. "Cuddly mindless monsters – and it feels amazing!"


But will they take these intriguing new recruitment tactics further? How else might fascists perk up their image now they're dispensing with all the tiresome Teutonic discipline and hate-sponsored pseudo-science and returning to their berserker roots?


Music
Can you imagine the Cookie Monster listening to Wagner, a nationalistic anthem or a marching band? Of course not – he's far too fidgety. The modern neo-Nazi wants a tune that's a lot more energetic and fun: Yakety Sax, Killing in the Name or the theme from Ski Sunday are all perfect upbeat accompaniments to any frenzy of hate.


Hashtags
Everyone knows that extremists say horrible things on social media, but a hashtag is a great way to put even the most vile remarks into a more upbeat context. Threats of violence in particular can be leavened if made cartoonish with postscripts such as #biff, #blam, #kersplat or #everydayracism.


Dress
The black shirt and the brown shirt, those staples of the fascists' glory days, have been lost to the jazz musician and the 1978 Coventry City away strip respectively (I used the internet in the preparation of this article). And anyway, they're far too staid for the wacky fascism of the Cookie Monster Nazis. So what about Hawaiian shirts? They're fun, they're crazy, they're slightly anarchic (within blandly uninventive parameters) and, like pineapple on a pizza, they provide the sort of meaningless nod to multiculturalism that helps less committed racists salve their lacerated consciences.


Dance
How better to separate actions from any sense of their meaning than with dance? The global success of "Gangnam Style" has shown the way. The extreme right needs to move on from the discredited fascist salute and develop some new gesture or move which can be aped by millions on YouTube. Something like a double thumbs-up while running on the spot, David Brent's dance from The Office or just a spot of rhythmic mooning would be ideal.


Baking
The choice of the Cookie Monster also suggests that, at a time when baking is so trendy, the far right has decided to reclaim the fascist oven from the shadow of Auschwitz. But, unlike their mascot, modern neo-Nazis don't just like cookies – they're into cakes, pies and puddings, but not soufflés, which are homosexual.





[...]

Christian Materialism?

Vietnam Is Sentencing Corrupt Bankers to Death by Firing Squad

By Patrick Winn, GlobalPost

03 April 14

For the most part, American bankers whose rash pursuit of profit brought on the 2008 global financial collapse didn’t get indicted. They got bonuses.

Odds are that scandal would have played out differently in Vietnam, another nation struggling with misbehaving bankers.

The authoritarian Southeast Asian state doesn’t just send unscrupulous financiers to jail. Sometimes, it sends them to death row.

Amid a sweeping cleanup of its financial sector, Vietnam has sentenced three bankers to death in the past six months.

One duo now on death row embezzled roughly $25 million from the state-owned Vietnam Agribank. Their co-conspirators caught decade-plus prison sentences.

In March, a 57-year-old former regional boss from Vietnam Development Bank, another government-run bank, was sentenced to death over a $93-million swindling job.

According to Vietnam’s Tuoi Tre news outlet, several of his colluders were sentenced to life imprisonment after they confessed to securing bogus loans with a diamond ring and a BMW coupe. And last week, in an unrelated case, charges against senior employees from the same bank allege $47 million in losses from dubious loans.

None of this would impress Bernie Madoff, mastermind of America’s largest ever financial fraud scheme. The combined amount from all three Vietnamese cases adds up to less than 1 percent of his purported $18-billion haul.

But these death sentences nevertheless are high profile scandals in Vietnam.

That’s the point. Human rights watchdogs contend that splashy trials in Vietnam are acts of political theater with predetermined conclusions. The audience: a Vietnamese public weary of state corruption. But these sentences also sound loud alarm bells to dodgy bankers who are currently running scams.

“It’s a message to those in this game to be less greedy and that business as usual is getting out of hand,” said Adam McCarty, chief economist with the Hanoi-based consulting firm Mekong Economics.

“The message to people in the system is this: Your chances of getting caught are increasing,” McCarty said. “Don’t just rely on big people above you. Because some of these [perpetrators] would’ve had big people above them. And it didn’t help them.”

Like most nations that crush dissent and operate with little transparency, Vietnam is highly corrupt.

According to a World Bank study, half of all businesses operating within the communist state expect that gift giving toward officials is required “to get things done.” Transparency International, which publishes the world’s leading corruption gauge, contends Vietnam is more corrupt than Mexico but not quite as bad as Russia.

Unlike in America, where judges can’t sentence white-collar criminals to death, Vietnam can execute its citizens for a range of corporate crimes.

Amnesty International reports that death sentences in Vietnam have been handed down to criminals for running shady investment schemes, counterfeiting cash and even defaulting on loans. This is unusual: United Nations officials have condemned death for “economic crimes” yet Vietnam persists with these sentences — as does neighboring China.

Though statistics on Vietnam’s opaque justice system are scarce, a state official conceded that more than 675 people sit on death row for a range of crimes, according to the Associated Press.

It’s still unclear how the bankers will be killed. Vietnam’s traditional means of execution involves binding perpetrators to a wooden post, stuffing their mouths with lemons and calling in a firing squad. The nation wants to transition to lethal injections. But European nations refuse to export chemicals used in executions (namely sodium thiopental) to governments practicing capital punishment.

Fraudulent bankers are receiving heavy sentences at a moment when Vietnam is enacting major financial reforms.

For decades, Vietnam has been slowly transforming its communist-style, state-run market into a more open and competitive arena. In the post-reunification era, the government owned every bank in Vietnam. Today, state-run banks control only 40 percent of all assets.

This push to bank in a more Western style has ushered in improvements as well as temptations to swindle. According to the UN economist Vu Quang Viet, Vietnamese credit laws passed in 2010 “simply copied the lax US law now widely believed to be at least partially responsible for the financial debacle in 2008.”

Campaigns to root out corruption are promoted as a way to entice foreign investment, which could help prop up Vietnamese banks whose growth has slowed from a sprint to a jog.

But the recent death sentences aren’t really intended to prove the reformers’ sincerity to the outside world, according to McCarty.

“They don’t care about foreigners. It’s all internal politics,” McCarty said. Foreign banking honchos wouldn’t be impressed by a few executions anyway. “If you really want to want to resolve the problem, you can’t just arrest people,” he said. “You’ve got to improve accountability and transparency in the entire system.”

A leading Vietnamese newspaper, Thanh Nien, is also pushing for system-wide cleanup in lieu of showcase trials against a few corporate criminals.

An op-ed in the paper recently compared death sentences for corruption to fighting fire with fire. 

The preferred approach would be dousing corruption before it burns through public funds. “It is better to prevent corruption,” the paper opined, “than deal with it after the fact.”

Supreme Court Defends Wealthy's Right to Own Government

By Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker

05 April 14

The article below is satire. Andy Borowitz is an American comedian and New York Times-bestselling author who satirizes the news for his column, "The Borowitz Report."

By a five-to-four decision, the United States Supreme Court today defended the right of the wealthiest Americans to own the United States government.

Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts summarized the rationale behind the Court’s decision: “In recent years, this Court has done its level best to remove any barriers preventing the wealthiest in our nation from owning our government outright. And while the few barriers that remained were flimsy at best, it was high time that they be shredded as well.”

Citing the United States Constitution, Justice Roberts wrote, “Our founding fathers created the most magnificent democracy in human history. Now, thanks to this decision, the dream of owning that democracy is a reality.”

Justice Antonin Scalia also weighed in, telling reporters at the Court, “After all the pro-gay decisions we’ve been making around here lately, it was nice to finally have a win for the good guys.”

Western Movies and Ethical Courage

from Conversations with Žižek, by Žižek and Daly,

page 108:

“This is the central concern of Westerns generally -- at what crucial point do you gather the courage to risk life itself? So I think that in no way should one dismiss the Western as some kind of American ideological fundamentalism. On the contrary, I think that we need this heroic attitude more and more.”