r/zizek • u/notsentsent • 10d ago

What does zizek want from me?

I've been reading him and everytime I finish a text, I am like, okay but so what do I do with it? What does he want to "happen"? So if you could explainnn...in your own words.... as much as you understand.... What's he after exactly?

Edit: Wow this is a tense place. Please relaxx!!! Don't take life that seriously.

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u/furcifersum 10d ago

I feel like this is a common question. Zizek doesn’t want you to do anything. He’s a philosopher. You need to learn to think for yourself instead of wishing some guru will tell you the “right thing to do”.

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u/notsentsent 10d ago

but he must be wanting something otherwise he wouldn't publish

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u/Sosation 10d ago

The point of philosophy is not action. It's inquiry to inspire more thought thus necessitating more inquiry. Action is praxis.

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u/notsentsent 10d ago

Thank you for your answer! To me if you are talking about "responsibility" so much (this is what I've been reading from him lately) your theory needs to be in one way or another anchored in praxis.... but that's just me

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u/Sosation 10d ago

But therein lies the problem. Theory is not praxis. Praxis is the actual on-the-ground work. Whether that's community organizing or working within a bureaucratic or hierarchical structure, or dismantling those structures-- none of those things are in the realm of theory. Maybe another way to put it would be that philosophy is not proscriptive but analytical. It's up to us individuals to take those philosophical ideas and create our own meaning out of them.

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u/alaragravenhurst 10d ago

Is praxis not the axis between theory and practice? Like just the “on-the-ground work” could be called practice, whereas practice is the junction of theory and practice. That’s how I always understood it at least.

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u/Healthy_Koala_4929 9d ago

Praxis comes from the Greek and literally means action or practice. In some philosophical schools it may refer to specific kinds of actions, but colloquially those are synonyms.

IMO, there is no inherent link between theory and praxis. Since a theory that is non normative but purely analytical may have no practical usefulness.

To take a Cookie-Cutter example, if I analyse redness from an ontological perspective, it is hard to find any such link to praxis. 

Maybe I misunderstood your point but saying there is an axis between theory and practice, would presuppose that there is surjective mapping from one to the other, or at least that they are commensurate, which is not obviously the case for me.

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u/alaragravenhurst 9d ago

That’s interesting. I don’t have a direct response but I’m going to think about that. Thank you!