Examined Life Slavoj Zizek Analysis

666 Words2 Pages

Slavoj Zizek is a Slovenian Marxist philosopher and cultural critic. He is currently a senior researcher at the Institute for Sociology and Philosophy, University of Ljubljana in Slovenia, Global Distinguished Professor of German at New York University, and international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities. He writes widely on a diverse range of topics, including political theory, film theory, cultural studies, theology, and psychoanalysis. (Wikipedia) Although, Slavoj Zizek was hard to understand and a challenge to follow, his part in “Examined Life” was to make us aware. Surrounded by trash, Zizek talks about trash and ecology as ideology. Trash is an unavoidable consequence of human life and we try to imagine it goes away by some magical process. Out of sight out of mind, is often the case but Zizek wants us to see the trash and know (premise one) that our society is not good for the environment or ultimately good for humanity. Trash does disappear but we are not paying attention to its disappearance, since without a doubt it never really does disappear. It gets us thinking how much can we safely pollute our environment? He claims “nature is, in truth, little more than a source of catastrophe, using as proof the upsets that led to the extinction of the dinosaurs and the formation of fossil fuels. We humans cannot accept this explanation because we are …show more content…

But you see perfection in imperfection itself. And that’s how we should learn to love the world.” We need to reconnect with nature. We can see, own, and embrace our world as it is. When we are really able to see and embrace trash can we expose the factors that cause environmental destruction. Only after these factors and their impacts are seen and exposed have we built the ground for real and change to take place. According to Zizek, we are to love the trash, because it is real, and inspire others to be aware of the true ecological state of this

Open Document