The Sublime Object of Ideology (Slavoj Zizek) - Introduction

And so on, and so on...
Slavoj Zizek's first book contains some really interesting takes on Lacan, Hegel, Marx and many others. I have been really enjoying this book (in particular Zizek's treatment of Lacan), and as I work my way through it, I'll try to throw up some more videos where I give my thoughts on the readings. In this video, we are looking at the book's introduction, in which Zizek outlines three aims he had in writing the book.
Enjoy

[@derbucherwurm]

Great Introduction on Zizeks first book. He is a very interessting thinker.
Greetings from Germany

[@VarsityBookworm]

Thanks! I agree, he's challenging but definitely interesting.

[@dt6822]

Excellent introduction, and I agree with everything you said, except that philosophy at this level does require you to have a basic understanding of philosophical traditions and differing approaches, because this is a hard read. There's no doubt about it. If people say it's not a hard read it's because they're trying to sound impressive, but it's a hard read. Don't feel discouraged if you can't understand it right away and stick with it

[@VarsityBookworm]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@dt6822]

As far as providing a succinct summary of the main thesis of this book, in simple terms, In philosophy there are two primary conceptions that extend beyond philosophical genres of epistemology, ethics, etc, and are forms of framing human existence and all that goes with it. Let us call it "world view." We can say that our present conception of human existence begins with Plato and extends as far as back as the ancient Greeks. The problem is that one of these schools is what we might call the occult or esoteric meaning hidden knowledge in as much as there are and have been philosophers as far back as zoroaster who believed that there should not be a demystification until humanity is ready.
And to that aim, religion was intended to propagate the mystery. Your parents propagated to the mystery when they told you stories as a child, Hollywood and movie studios propagate the mystery every time they make a film or especially when they make a fantastical cartoon for children, your teachers propagated the mystery and the storytellers and the librarians and the cartoon writers. And this mystery is simply your ability to perceive imaginary realities. Realities that only exist in human minds.
Now you may be aware that Shrek is imaginary, or even that the Bible is imaginary, but the vast majority of people are not awake to the reality that even their own reality is imaginary. Because we don't live in countries, we live on the surface of a planet. There are no boundaries between countries and the bears do not report to the border Police. There are no imaginary boundaries and there are no military industrial complexes, armies, associations, corporations, there are no United Nations, there are no agencies or patriarchies or matriarchies. There are only humans and their imaginations. All of the above are simply human beings engaged in different forms of human relations. Cities are forms of human relations, countries are forms of human relations, corporations are forms of human relations. There are no markets there are no stock exchanges they're just humans engaging with other humans.
You can therefore understand now better hopefully what he is discussing as the sublime object of desire. Lukacs says in his Reification And Class Conscieousness that reification is a commodity structure that takes on the phantom objectivity of something real and become so real in the minds of people that it's impossible to point out to them. This is the big exclamation point of Marxist theory which most people don't understand. It's not economics of people it's the fact that human beings are trapped in an imaginary structure that they believe is a very real thing and is controlled by a kind of strict autonomy of rationalism. You get a mortgage, you go to work, you get paid with cash, you pay your mortgage and so on but all of these are just structures of human relations they don't actually exist and they can be easily modified - theyre not set in stone and there's nothing material about them.
And so Zizek here is considering how this sublime which by which he means imaginary can become itself an object of desire because desire is this human need and tendency to constantly want more even of the things that don't exist. So he is putting a Lacanian psychoanalytic spin on Marxist reification, which is perhaps the most important idea from Marxism and yet so few people understand it.
And this mystery is what Zizek is fundamentally discussing here, though he does not give you a beginner's introduction, as this is a serious work of philosophy - he is discussing the objectification of desire, which is a psychoanalytic spin on Lukacs' Marxist reification. Meaning what? The two worldviews are essentially Platonism and Nominalism. Final point of clarification that might confuse readers is the use of the term idealism. Today we use that term to mean someone whose idealistic who's desiring of something that's almost impossible. But idealism here does not mean that. It means ideology, or idea-lism.

[@VarsityBookworm]

I like that you place Zizek's critique of ideology within the realist-nominalist debate.

[@dt6822]

@@VarsityBookworm I like you! Keep making videos. So few decent thinkers on TH-cam.

[@VarsityBookworm]

Thank you my friend - likewise!

[@phyothiha6374]

Thank u from Myanmar.