This is why I could never read philosophy.

I think that the book Violence, by Slavoj Zizek, is probably a very good book. I'm not going to be able to tell for sure, because I can't actually read it. It is beyond me.

I like the idea of the book; "Violence, Zizek states, takes three forms--subjective (crime, terror), objective (racism, hate-speech, discrimination), and systemic (the catastrophic effects of economic and political systems)--and often one form of violence blunts our ability to see the others, raising complicated questions." I like that there's a series of books out there (of which this title is a part) called Big Ideas, Small Books, published by Profile Books and Picador. But the actual text itself? Try it out:

"The notion of objective violence needs to be thoroughly historicised: it took on a new shape with capitalism. Marx described the mad, self-enhancing circulation of capital, whose solipsistic path of parthenogenesis reaches its apogee in today's meta-reflexive speculations on futures." (p. 12.)

If I had unlimited time to figure that paragraph out, and if I'd paid more attention in college, I might have a shot at it. But I didn't, so I'll return this book to the library where it can await a more schooled reader.

Comments

[Susan]

Maybe they can come out with the "Zizek for Beginners" or "Introducing Zizek" one of those graphic nonfiction books that makes esoteric ideas understandable.

[Tripp]

I find a lot of these books are written to be consumed for other academics, or those well versed in academic language. I bet if Zizek took a bit of time, he could translate all his ideas into normal people speak. Or someone like Malcolm Gladwell will come along and explain it and sell a lot more books.

[Citizen Reader]

Susan:
Zizek for Dummies? That'd be great! (Nothing's more humbling than realizing you don't even understand the "small books" about the big ideas.)

Tripp,
You're probably right, but I would think the people who should be trying to understand violence should be the non-academics (i.e., the majority of us). I was particularly intrigued by what he meant by "systemic violence," but I just couldn't stick with it. Maybe you're right, maybe Gladwell will take this on as a subject next time, now that he's done with "Outliers."

[Tripp]

It just irritates me when an author can't write in a way that is readily understandable by a reasonably educated person. There is not enough time to read what we should/want to read, so anyone who unnecessarily slows it down is not doing readers a service.

[Brandon]

No need to overanalyze that paragraph. It's a TERRIBLE paragraph, plain and simple. And if the rest of the book is like that, then Zizek is a terrible writer. Orwell probably turned in his grave when you posted that pig slop.

I don't blame you for not reading this. Shitty writing is shitty writing, no matter how many big words you use to cover it up.

Oh, and here's my best translation:

"The idea of objective violence took on a new shape with capitalism. Marx described the unregulated circulation of money, whose single-minded path of reproduction reaches its height in today's Wall Street trading."

See? Even with all the crap taken out, it's still a very bad paragraph. (Zizek is talking about the worst kind of greed, which is using money to make money--i.e. stock market trading. This presumably leads to "objective" violence. Weirdly enough, in Canto VII of the Inferno, Dante condemns greedy people like this to the fifth circle of hell.) Without the proper context, though, it's impossible to know what Zizek is saying. Moreover, the two sentences are completely unrelated--what does objective violence have to do with Marx's theory on free market capitalism?--so it's puzzling, to say the least.

[Brandon]

Oh, here's one more thing: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97234406

That story talks about the "myth" of a bad economy being linked to higher crime rates. If that story is anything to go off of, it seems Zizek is buying into that myth. In this light, now that paragraph makes a little more sense. I could be wrong, or just reading too much into this, but it seems like Zizek is implying that unregulated capitalism leads to a stock market crash, which leads to a bad economy, which leads to increased crime rates.

Ah well. Enough of my intellectualizing. But there's your article that contradicts Zizek's idea that objective violence took on a new shape with capitalism.

[Citizen Reader]

Brandon, Tripp,
I don't know that it's a terrible paragraph (although, Brandon, I DID appreciate your translation--"solipsistic" is one of those words that always stops me in my tracks). I just wish that academics could come a little way toward the normal folks while still using the most appropriate words, and that we normal folks had a bit more time to go toward the academics and learn new words and ponder what they really mean. That would be cool.

Brandon, you're way better at the intellectualizing than I am (and thanks for the link, too). I don't know about Zizek's conclusions; my own belief is that violence of whatever sort just ebbs and flows and moves, but never really goes away, a lot like energy. And that's a rather depressing thought, I think. Objective, systemic, whatever: violence BAD.

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[Air Jordan Shoes]

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[saeed aliyoon]

u folks are nagging because u expect the book to be toned to the average reader.well maybe Zizek did not want it to be so.Take the example of Lacan.He deliberately complicated things in his books to keep them out of the reach of people who are not supposed to read that kind of thing.