Examined Life - Slovj Zizek
Johnny Holton
Intro to Humanities: Ideas/Values
2013SU_HUMNT-1102-NET02_11253
Unit 4 Essay
I watched the short film on the “Examined Life”. It was a documentary film done in 2008 directed by Astra Taylor. The documentary features eight significant modern philosophers walking around different cities. They discuss the everyday claim of their ideas in today’s culture. The documentary offers isolated moments with great philosophers from areas extending from moral philosophy to cultural theory. “Examined Life,” exposes philosophy's influence to change the way we look at the world in and around us and envision our place in it.
In this instant, the philosopher in question is Slovoj Zizek. He describes that ideology is the way we identify reality, but he also claims that ideology is “mystified.” Zizek also points out the increasing issue of the environment, and the people who are aware of it, but have done zero to help. Zizek states in the video that the most basic fundamental ideology mechanism is the “temptation of meaning, when something horrible happens our natural tendencies to search for a meaning must mean something.” Zizek highlights “temptation of meaning” when he points out a contradiction. The concern or nervousness that Zizek discusses seems more to be more about the loss of a certain perception of nature and not the loss of nature itself. He says in the documentary that we need to “cut off our roots in nature”. He thinks this because, the catastrophes that he warns about are all human caused natural catastrophes and not the damaging ability of nature itself. Furthermore, while Zizek criticizes ecology of fear he also connects a view of nature in which is asserted to viewing nature as sacred and so forth.
He claims that whenever we come up on disputes that are a too big for us to solve alone, we assume it is overwhelming to solve. Then people regularly try to find a quick solution of their problems of which they cannot fix. People tend to
Intro to Humanities: Ideas/Values
2013SU_HUMNT-1102-NET02_11253
Unit 4 Essay
I watched the short film on the “Examined Life”. It was a documentary film done in 2008 directed by Astra Taylor. The documentary features eight significant modern philosophers walking around different cities. They discuss the everyday claim of their ideas in today’s culture. The documentary offers isolated moments with great philosophers from areas extending from moral philosophy to cultural theory. “Examined Life,” exposes philosophy's influence to change the way we look at the world in and around us and envision our place in it.
In this instant, the philosopher in question is Slovoj Zizek. He describes that ideology is the way we identify reality, but he also claims that ideology is “mystified.” Zizek also points out the increasing issue of the environment, and the people who are aware of it, but have done zero to help. Zizek states in the video that the most basic fundamental ideology mechanism is the “temptation of meaning, when something horrible happens our natural tendencies to search for a meaning must mean something.” Zizek highlights “temptation of meaning” when he points out a contradiction. The concern or nervousness that Zizek discusses seems more to be more about the loss of a certain perception of nature and not the loss of nature itself. He says in the documentary that we need to “cut off our roots in nature”. He thinks this because, the catastrophes that he warns about are all human caused natural catastrophes and not the damaging ability of nature itself. Furthermore, while Zizek criticizes ecology of fear he also connects a view of nature in which is asserted to viewing nature as sacred and so forth.
He claims that whenever we come up on disputes that are a too big for us to solve alone, we assume it is overwhelming to solve. Then people regularly try to find a quick solution of their problems of which they cannot fix. People tend to