Thank you for your comment! I would say that catastrophic does not necessarily equate to random or lawless, on the contrary even - to have such a catastrophic event such as the formation of oil that Zizek talks about, we know they follow chemical and physical laws. If anything, Zizek only emphasizes that these laws will always be there, no matter what we do. So to extrapolate a little, climate change would also be there without humans - even though we have sped up the process. So to combat this, it would be stupid to say that we should just return to nature, that is like saying that we can change these laws of nature if we only showed our love to Mother earth. I do like your point about nature and that we should see it as an Otherness rather than an object. But is in this case "dealing with it" not the same as "submitting it to our will"? I mean, if there is ever anything like our Will that is - but our will to survive ocean rise in this case for example would result in us "dealing with it". How could we solve these fundamental problems without using our technology?

@@eversbrothersproductions1476 This is the trick, we can not do without technic nor science, but technic and science can not define human ways to be and think and love: they must absolutely stay tools we use for our survival, and curiosity. You certainly are right about nature and laws in his thesis, I misunderstood him. What I still do not understand is that Zizek knows that we need a big political and symbolic change. Of course the idea of this big mother nature taking care of us is an another very dangerous idea, along with the new florishing injunctions which could lead to another ideological aera with a symbolic structure as oppressive as capitalism, lesser disguised. But what he misses, in my point of view, is that the youth's claim is not just against climate change. It is about living in a society which does not spend its entire energy to denie all the reals. Also the symbolic function is to take charge of human real, and technic function to take charge of the real of nature, our actual ways to do this is killing all sorts of lives and subjectivities. When "serious" adults talk, they do not say "We are so sorry to destroy so many animal lives, but we did not find another way for us to survive: that is the tragic of our condition", they say, at best "Worms are negligible collateral damages" , and more often saying nothing thinking the easy way :"Worms have no value and so do the ones who stand for them, and the ones who stand for the ones who stand for them" and so on, so that the stink of social garbage expands to all those who denounciate their little mind arrangement. It is more tempting to identifie ourselves to a worm (as despised as feminin "jouissance" and reals and all the outcasts postmodernism finds not valuable objects) than to a serious adult who believes that much in his social status, still functionning in a pure nonsense consumerist way. Worms, like feminin "jouissance", and reals, are the outcasts of postmodern societies. All that is included in the youth's claim. It must absolutly be distinguished from the adult behavior who now eat vegan and go skiing in Dubai. Youth must also be told the tragic and yet beautifull human condition: there is no "whole"... but holes can be beautifull, and imperfections garantee our freedom (which is very different than finding trash beautifull!!) What I, little worm, think, is that it is only when technic protects us from the destructive strenght of nature that we can enjoy it (hiking and sleeping days and nights in the mountains is incredibly beautifull...with good clothes). As the 10 commandements protect us from our neighbors by stating a right distance between us, technic must be adjusted so that the Otherness of the real in nature does protect each of us from mutual destruction, and allow us human to enjoy the encounter of this terrifiing, uncanny and beautifull Other: that is the feminin "jouissance" which can not be claimed, but heard behind the claims. (Sorry for my english, I am french..)

Ps: Paradoxically, postmoderns enjoy the nonsense of human real, which prevents them from the hard work of fantazasing it in a unic way

@@celinemartin3814 I really like your vision on this topic, and I think I understand what you mean. That the science and technology should be the tool, not the goal - and that the way to get there should be a symbolic and political change. Do I understand that correctly? And I do see your claim in favour of the youths. That their point is not necessarily the changing climate, but the unwillingness to have a honest, open and intellectual discussion of the consequences. I mean, you can clearly see the power structures even prevent these discussions from taking place. In the media you are eighter a ideological possessed scientist that thinks we need to hug trees, or you are portrayed as a radical fundamentalist like Extinction Rebellion and on the other hand there is the capitalist that denies the problem altogether. But there is in no way a honest debate about our morality that underlies our society. I also like your poetic vision of the "there is no whole, but holes can be beautiful"! And I am all for this way of looking at the world. 😄 But say that we need this moral change - a change where the highest value is no longer our so beloved capital, which the power structures so desperately try to uphold through their propaganda, but a new value system. Like Nietzsche proposed that we should determine the weight of all things anew. Then my question would be: "how do we do this?", how do we create this fundamental shift in our morality and our value structures without sounding like the capitalism on the one hand, and the hippie post modernist on the other? And absolutely no worries about your English! So far I am able to understand you! 😁

@@eversbrothersproductions1476 Yes!! Exactly! that is exactly my point, and the question! And it is a vicous circle: political "regime of truth" (as Michel Foucault puts it) determines the way of thinking which determines politic, so both ways should change. Thus a political change would be violent because most people are not willing to change anything (thinking is more and more difficult and takes time, good circumstances, and a constant fight against "ready made" thinking); if only symbolic structures change (which takes a looong time to travel from the first minds to common sens, and to overturn old values)...our actual propaganda will have time to undemine it. So it should be both ways simultanously, which seems totally desperate - I can not imagine any change before catastrophic events. Though, if I let myself dream (if I ignore the strenght of mass denial), I would propopse the following solution : Citizens would be prompted to gather and express and talk together about their dreams of a new society. this would go up and down until we find a viable option, people thonking and working together. No more partis (democrats, communists...), so we would have to invent a way for very different people (communists and libertarians) to live together, without causing to much destruction. "Expert" people (ex politics) would be in charge to move things towards those promesses. If they betray, they are out. If they find problems, discuss with people and so on As that is very unlikely to happen, I can only imagine a solution for "after" chaos: a democratie where people (representing particularities and change) constantly talk with governments - representing universal obligations based on a better value system -promesses we vow to honnor, like "neguanthropie" ( law of thermodynamic applied to humanity, as Bernard Stiegler, a french dead philosopher, puts it), and geopolitical contigencies. Debate alltogether, experts ans common people alltogether As for the symbolic change, Lacan's borromeen nod seems a good lead: "How could we allow people to make their own nod while not destroying their others?" could be the question - Imaginary function is nowerdays totally trapped by the fixed image and the capitalist value: freeing it from the mirror-image would allow the subjectivities to take charge of the real in a new way, unic, moving, creative. An imaginary that keeps the other be and dream like an other, and let us aware of it. An imaginary that constantly prevent us from getting trapped into the illusion of "communication" in the babel tower - We killed all human big Others (God, kings, values, ideals...). It has not disapeared though, as Zizek demonstrates. The new "treasure of signifiings" should include protecting non human lives, and be aware of its own contingency (and thus absolute necessity), so that we avoid all sorts of totalitarism. Otherness (and real) would then be desirable despite its strangeness. People would know that symbolizing and creating their own way of perceiving and acting in the world is their fundamental job, our human work which makes life meaningfull. This woud be the new injonction, like Freud's "Wo es war soll Ich werden". Learn that desire is a mysterious thing we never can catch but better follow. - We should share the garbage work nobody wants to do, and be educated in the consciousness of our inner solitude, singularity (nothing to do with the "gender issues" which, trapped in identities issues, eludes this question of radical Otherness), and responsability of our acts, which do not say all about who we are ( neither our status, nor anything): learn that we are nothing, invisible to other's eyes and our's, thus in charge of making a world where living is not a nightmare for all living beeings. That is what I would say in a democratic meeting meant to change the world... If you have time to tell what you would say, it is great. Otherwise, thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and taking time to debate with us, that is so great and rare!

Consumerism is natural? Maybe I just don’t understand your point, but that sounds odd. Before industrial society, we had complete control of the means of production: our hands, the soil, the rocks, plants and animals. We could build our own homes and take them down at will. We could forage and hunt our own food. No overconsumption. No B.S. jobs. It is our silly modern industrial society which made us this weak and confused. Yes, there were different problems then than we have now, but “natural consumerism” would seem to be a myth which conveniently supports capitalism, just like humans’ “natural competitiveness” and “natural selfishness.”

I see your point and I agree. I do think however that in the philosophy of Zizek there needs not be any nihilism - for, he offers us a solution to that, namely: technology. It is not that we should not create an environment for ourselves where we are most likely to survive the catastrophy that is nature, but we cannot do that by returning to a false sense of this proclaimed "nature" that doesn't exist. On the contrary, we can only solve real problems with real solutions. For example, when we discovered that our use of CFK's was causing the hole in the ozone layer we did not abandon spray cans altogether, we today use a gas that is safe with regards to the ozone layer. When we had acid rain in Europe due to sulphur and nitrogen emissions, we drastically reduced emissions, not by decreasing production, but by inventing filters and fertilisation schemes. There are more than enough problems today, but they cannot be solved by believing that a return to what we believe we once were will solve them, we can only solve them by using our technology. The question a psychologist like Nietzsche would ask however, is if we really want to solve the problem, or if we only really need something to believe in in this Godless age?

His idea of ecology is opium is overblown. Many genuinely want to solve the problem-Zizek here is displaying his prejudices. He doesn't care for nature and it annoys him that people do, so he tries to construct a philosophy that backs up his personal feelings. It's just lazy and nihilistic-even though he will try his best to say it isn't with his belief in technology, as if that will assuage his guilt. Even though he has some good observations on this, it is still very one-dimensional, reactionary and dogmatic thinking.

Masanobu Fukuoka might be a great example of what Zizek might be anticipating a need for. He farmed rice/barley grains without chemical/salt fertilizers, heavy machinery, pesticides/herbicides, even without flooding the plains or tilling the soil, and produced an output comparable to and even sometimes exceeding his industrial counterparts, with these plants also being more resilient and nutritious. He distinguishes his "do-nothing" form of farming from a simple abandonment of nature, rather emphasizing the human role of interpreting and cooperating with nature, making an implicit order out of nature which "grows into" basic human gestures. Clover providing nitrogen for the soil, scattered straw of the harvested grains acting as soil-building and weed-suppressing and seed-hiding (from birds) mulch, insect populations culling weak plants and spiders keeping the insects in check. This arrangement is artificial, but elegantly so, in the typically effective Taoist way.

Importantly, Fukuoka emphasizes too that nature is not something that can be described, categorized, and definitely not linguistically understood. In this, Zizek might agree somewhere. Fukuoka treats nature as one would treat the Taoist 'tao' -- "The way that can be named is not the way" -- and simply uses nature as the generator for self-regulating and self-reinforcing relations of energy storage and complexity.

And finally, as if I weren't long-winded enough, we must distinguish the aesthetics of ideas from their substance. Zizek's conception of the artificial, the human, etc. does not necessarily translate to or necessitate things like chemical runoff or greenhouse gas emission or endocrine-disrupting plastics, and so forth (the "waste", which itself is simply a failure to properly use the aforementioned mathematics of an ecosystem, which is of course a human conception in itself). Honestly acknowledging the artificial and human element of things like Fukuoka's natural farming or the functional approaches of indigenous peoples (which have worked for thousands of years and therefore represent far more human knowledge and learning in this field than the entirety of western modernity) is the way in which the artificial-natural division can be outgrown. This divide too is likely a collective trauma response to times of famine in Europe, themselves products of post-Roman colonization eliminating European indigenous knowledge and practices.

I do believe you are correct, it is not so much a critique of the school of ecology, but rather the “ecologist”- that is, the ecologist itself and the people that make claims on ecology. Also, I think you are right to assume that Zizek would be pleased to see the mathematical version of ecology which has saved us many times before. But I think that what you mention in your first comment is precisely what results in the contradiction with your last comment (if I understand it correctly). In your first part you describe how we can use nature without destroying ourselves. Something like Lotka-Volterra models to calculate the amount of fish we can catch to not over-fish the waters have proven to work quite well. But this is the contrary of returning to nature. Today's claim would more often then not be: “we should do it like the indigenous people used to do”. But this is precisely what we did before, when we just exploited the waters. We did not do it in any knowledgeable way - that is to say, indigenous people are not knowledgeable about there effects on nature - they are just mostly harmless because they are just not capable. Or as Nietzsche would say, they are weak, not virtuous. We are just those indigenous people some hundred years later, where we just evolved onto a larger scale driven by the necessity of a growing population due to increased wealth. We eventually did get powerful enough that our actions have a significant effect on our environment. Moreover, if the indigenous people had the choice between using artificial fertilizer and starvation the choice would be obvious, and history gives us the green revolution as proof. The point of Zizek would be that we have outgrown the luxury to return to a false vision of how we were 2000 years ago. I have to admit I do not know Fukuoka, but what you describe sounds a lot like biological farming systems. And even though I am convinced that there is a lot we can do to optimize our production and minimize our destruction, I do not believe that the down-scaling to a biological system would work for a number of reasons - with which I will not bore you here, but am always willing to go further into 😊. Could we not achieve a solution for our problems by using technology and knowledge, rather then creating less efficient systems that have their own downsides (downsides which are inevitable in whatever system we will think of)? By the way, you sound like you know a lot about the topic! Is that just interest or is this something you do for a living? :)

@@eversbrothersproductions1476 You give indigenous people far too little credit. Their practices are time-tested to be in tune with ecosystemic, eh, systems. Californian tribes' regular burnings of flammable material in California is what prevented massive wildfires while enriching the soil and allowing fire-dependent seeds to open for germination (pinecones are one example, I think) for instance. The idea that indigenous peoples didn't know what they were doing is indeed a hauntology of colonialism, one that likely says more about the colonialist-gaze's failure to recognize stable and, really, engineered balance, mistaking it for raw nature (the idea Zizek is critiquing) -- early English settlers looking at the food forests of the east coast as naturally-occuring and not as carefully maintained and designed systems of indigenous people is a great example.

Morning Mood (Morgenstimmung aus Peer Gynt Suite No. 1, Op. 46). 😄

Love the part: "He was at the bottom of the food chain... " "Who's at the bottom now?"

I appreciate you clarification here. And I agree! 🙃

i see you

I share your sentiment of disgust with the Dutch accent in English. I would have liked to be gifted with a nice, fluent and soft English tongue, but the universe decided that I should be born in the Netherlands, so I have to suffer this endless curse of disgrace and embarrassment. The only thing that can now lift my and my fellow struggling dutch people's curse, ...is death. 😔

@@eversbrothersproductions1476 Lmao, I didn't mean to offend you and your reply is hilarious. But don't worry, all English say the Dutch have the best (=least noticeable) accent. The problem is that I'm Flemish, and we can hear a Dutch accent from the first word somehow, like a fork scratching on a dinnerplate. Then the percentage of Flemish people with English good enough to identify any accent is pretty small. So it's a negligible issue. We don't notice a Flemish accent though. I'm so not used to creators actually reading there comments ;).

@@eversbrothersproductions1476 you speak english very well dont worry.. everyone has an accent in a language they dint grow up speaking 😊