I'm no f&cking Buddhist, says Bjork & Zizek

Link: Revenge of Global Finance, by Slavoj Zizek.

I like this article from Zizek. Watching the stupid film I turned after Yoda's 'let go of everything' speech to someone or rather, and said to a friend: "fucking Buddhist". I like the "fucking" here, for it in itself announces a passionate dislike - itself an attachment, and one I refuse to let go of despite seeing my amigos one by one succumbing to the true Dark side. In this very attachment I announce my desire for the Other, my desire to refuse this capitalist supplement of meditating after a hard day's work. Instead I have a Guinness and blog (pardon the self-referentiality at this exact moment).

But I'm a copycat here: Bjork said it first, no doubt because many confused her as such.
"I’m no fucking buddhist, but this is enlightenment" (from "Alarm Call").

Zizek's `most interesting' point, I think, is that the reason the Revenge of the Sith seemed so bland, so narratively inferior, is because Anakin's transformation into Darth Vader was not, as it should have been, because he became Evil precisely because of his zealousness to battle Evil, but simply because he was weak-willed. Boring, especially if Lucas really wanted to make a political point... (though I'd say Bush's handlers are Evil from the get-go, not that they are perverted in their very quest for `rooting out' Evil - or if so, they were perverted a long, long time ago...). Anyway, this explains why it lacked "the proper tragic grandeur... Anakin should have become a monster out of his very excessive attachment with seeing Evil everywhere and fighting it".

ADDENDUM (for those not familiar with Zizek's understanding of Christianity, i.e., for those who aren't aware that he is, in fact, an atheist):

Part of the logic in the background of this article is that to be an atheist (as Zizek is), one must pass through the Christian experience.

Christianity is the only religion where God dies. When Christ dies on the Cross, God dies too. God only remains, then, through the faith of Christians (in the Holy Spirit, the community of believers). Obviously, then, Christians are likely to waver in their faith. This can lead to extreme violence towards others in the desperate attempt to `shore up' one's wavering faith.

It can also lead to atheism. We can only be atheist because of Christianity. If we just reject the Christian legacy tout court, we are only presupposing a dumb pagan or Buddhist God from which we cannot find a path to atheism.

There is, then, nothing more regressive than denying `our' Christian legacy.

(Of course, if you get this confused with the neocon agenda, I shall have to bonk you over the head.)

Comments

[Matt]

I can think of a few other reasons why it lacked "the proper tragic grandeur." Such as: no psychopath stare, no bags under the eyes.

[CR]

Um. I think we need to enact and enforce some sort of Labatts Blue rule - or whatever it is that they drink up there in parts all frosty like...

[A Disgruntled Postal Worker]

Lucas' only real contribution to movies was helping Kurosawa get Kagemusha made.

It's fun reading Zizek shove Lucas' bullshit Buddhism down his throat, but Salon blew the whistle on Lucas' scam back in '02:

http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/feature/2002/04/10/lucas/

[RIPope]

Boo. Why's that?

[CR]

Oh, I see. It was Guinness. Please tell me not Guinness out of the can with the whippet or whatever it is that they put in their to simulate "real bar behavior."

[A Disgruntled Postal Worker]

You used to be able to find something called "Guiness Extra Stout" in bottles. More bitter, less creamy than the stuff in the cans. Haven't been able to find it in years.

[RIPope]

Yes, t'am sorry to say it'was.
But I find it OK. I certainly don't trust the taps here in my fair city, where they go weeks without cleaning them - and get away with it... Meanwhile we, to be sure, don't get away without a hangover in such events..

[CR]

Hey - I saw that! You said you were gonna kick my American neo-con ass or something! Own goal! You freakin deleted my post for a minute!

[RIPope]

Huh? No no the Troll was back shouting obscenities using my name with Adam K.'s email address. I think he's gone totally schizo; he doesn't even know which blogger to impersonate at any one moment.

[CR]

OK then. I'm Canadian by heritage and citizenship anyway, by the way. Just recently received my replacement "Certificate of Canadian Citizenship" in the mail recently - parents lost the original.

[RIPope]

Good stuff. I'm also an Irish citizen, if that goes some way in explaining my choice of drink.

But back to the topic: you see, a Buddhist would never say "fucking". It announces passion.

You know, the Dalai Lama only eats one and a half meals a day. That's why he looks so serene.

Why does he get up at 4:30 in the morning? Call of devotion?

No, he gets up, and runs to get his cereal.

[Jodi]

terrible reading of RoS--no tragic grandeur? come on, much more interesting is the small turn into evil, the fact that one has already become evil before really making a definite choice to be that, following the small temptation, holding on here or there, but nothing really big. It's much more sinister and insidious, more dangerous even for evil to have already arrived and for us to miss the moment of its arrival.

[A Disgruntled Postal Worker]

Jodi: Small turns to evil? Watch Kurosawa's Stray Dog.

RIPope: ROTFLMAO!!!!!

[RIPope]

Ah! Pagan!
If Evil has always already occurred, if it is, then, a sort of balancing priniciple to our universe, then we have no hope of changing the coordinates of our situation.

Disgruntled: ROTFLMAO???

[Matt]

Just as a side note, RIPope, don't you mean to say "fucking hippy"?

If Lucas is a Buddhist then James Earl Jones is a Lacanian.

[Glenn Reynolds' Pineal Gland]

“If Lucas is a Buddhist then James Earl Jones is a Lacanian.”

Heh. Indeed.

[Adam Kotsko]

This is the real me. Since you seem to have a handle on the Troll of Sorrow, I am breaking my promise not to comment for a week.

My earth-shattering remark:

I believe the preferred usage is ROTFLMFAO.

[RIPope]

Then what does THAT mean?

Lucas as Buddhist, all of us as closet Buddhists, yes, indeed. It matters not if we acknowledge it or not. A Westernized Buddhism, it needs not be said.

[A Disgruntled Postal Worker]

ROTFLMFAO:
Ρολλινγ
Ων
Θε
Φλοορ
Λαυγ(h)ινγ
Μ(y)
Φυκινγ
Αςς
Ωφ

[RIPope]

Well somebody here is taking crazy pills, and I'm pretty sure it isn't me. For once.
Or they're speaking Greek - to me.

[Michael B]

"Obviously, then, Christians are likely to waver in their faith. This can lead to extreme violence towards others in the desperate attempt to 'shore up' one's wavering faith."

Obviously so, then the statement after that doesn't so much as bother with an introductory "obviously" as that statement is beyond "obvious," obviously. Yet what is elided here is an enormity, Zizek's own reconstructed faith in a variant of Marxism. An elision, and an essentially abstract reconstruction, one suspects in part, to avoid accounting for the sundry Marxist hecatombs left in the wake of a motley assortment of true believers in the true faith. Which is problematic for Zizek, given the above quote concerning faith and violence.

Who, pray tell, is the true believer, given the faith we are seemingly suppose to invest in Zizek's heretofore untested abstractions?

Vide, Zizek reviewing Hardt and Negri and indicating "... [it's] nothing less than a rewriting of The Communist Manifesto for our time ..."

It's also significant that in '68 Zizek was experiencing the Prague spring rather than other currents. Zizek gained, what is more accurately indicated as an appreciation of Christianity because of that climate, including Vaclav Havel, Jan Patocka and others who knew what commitments cost. One can read between the lines of your post and perhaps get a glimpse of that, but it's yet another thing that may not be so obvious.

[RIPope]

Okay, I'll confess to not explaining everything, but for that I am not exactly repentant. We are blogging here, not writing manuscripts, and I shall not apologize for the medium itself, just as I shall not get up right now to begin chasing my tail.

[Michael B]

Certainly evasive, but more a heavy-handed and Pavlovian rebuke than a terribly clever riposte, "explaining everything" was hardly the issue invoked. Perhaps other commenters will be receptive to such Pavlovian retorts.

Was posting a comment which noted a set of enormous and crucial omissions, not at all registering a peripheral or tertiary concern. Shall not take such a superfluous and self-congratulatory reprimand to heart.

[RIPope]

Michael, you're right, it was not much of a response; more a little (perhaps failed) attempt at humour. But I sensed an aggressivity in your comment that did not exactly make me want to reply in any other way.

[Michael B]

A fair enough reply perhaps, so a final comment.

The aggressiveness was there from the beginning, yes, but it was very much secondary to the more substantive aspect of the post which substance 1) places Zizek in an absolutely critical historical setting (Prague '68, Havel, Soviet dominated Warsaw Pact country, etc.) and 2) even more importantly noted a critical lack of intellectual curiosity and consistency about any broader notion of a faith/violence nexus. As a secondary element the aggressiveness was there precisely because I in turn detected a facile dismissiveness, a quality that is by no means rarely found in social/political forums. So, when attempting to engage (or temporarily intervene) in a social/political discussion begun with a set of basic assumptions or more obvious fallacies, I often do add an aggressive quality, in part because genuine and substantive engagement is typically not sought in the first place.

Adieu.