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Quote by Slavoj Žižek

“Postcolonialism is the invention of some rich guys from India who saw that they could make a good career in top Western universities by playing on the guilt of white liberals.”

Quote by Slavoj Žižek

Author

A Slovenian philosopher and an influential figure in contemporary Western philosophy. Born on March 21, 1949, Slavoj Žižek is known for his unique Marxist perspective and profound analysis of culture, politics, and film. more

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“Are we all not, when we sit in the cinema, in the position of humans in The Matrix, tied to chairs, immersed in the spectacle run by a machine? However, a more appropriate allegory is that of the viewer himself: beneath the illusion that we "just look" at the perceived objects from a safe distance, freely sliding along them, there is the reality of the innumerable ties that bind us to what we perceive.”

Humans Looks Reality Running Position Objects Safe Illusion Machines Distance Perceive Cinema Ties Appropriate Chairs Tied Viewers Allegory Ties That Bind

Author:Slavoj Žižek

“I already am eating from the trash can all the time. The name of this trash can is ideology. The material force of ideology makes me not see what I am effectively eating.”

Names Force Materials Eating Ideology Trash Trash Cans

Author:Slavoj Žižek

“Love is what makes sex more than masturbation. If there is no love even if you are really with a partner you masturbate with a partner.”

Ifs Sex Love Is Partners Masturbation No Love

Author:Slavoj Žižek

“There is an old joke about socialism as the synthesis of the highest achievements of the whole human history to date: from prehistoric societies it took primitivism; from the Ancient world it took slavery; from medieval society brutal domination; from capitalism exploitation; and from socialism the name.”

Source: Revolution at the Gates: A Selection of Writings from February to October 1917

“Friends told me that the latest trend, at least in Europe, is public sex. They showed me some clips, and they're terrifying. A couple enters a streetcar, half-full, simply takes a seat, undresses, and starts to do it. You can see from surprised faces that it's not staged. It's pure working-class suburb. But what's fascinating is that the people all look, and then they politely ignore it. The message is that even if you're together in public with people, it still counts as private space.”

People Ifs Looks Stills Together Faces Sex Space Half Class Couple Pure Messages Europe Seats Fascinating Trends Working Class Suburbs Clip Half Full Latest Trends

Author:Slavoj Žižek

“In order effectively to liberate oneself from the grip of existing social reality, one should first renounce the transgressive fantasmatic supplement that attaches us to it.”

Should Firsts Reality Order Social Oneself Renounce Supplements

Book:The Fragile Absolute Or, Why is the Christian Legacy Worth Fighting For?

Source: The Fragile Absolute Or, Why is the Christian Legacy Worth Fighting For?

“The threat today is not passivity, but pseudo-activity, the urge to "be active", to "participate", to mask the Nothingness of what goes on.”

Today Goes On Activity Threat Active Mask Urges Nothingness Passivity Pseudo

Book:Trouble in Paradise: From the End of History to the End of Capitalism

Source: Trouble in Paradise: From the End of History to the End of Capitalism

“What Americans don't want to admit ... is that not only is there not a contradiction between state regulation and freedom, but in order for us to actually be free in our social interactions, there must be an extremely elaborated network of health, law, institutions, moral rules and so on.”

Want States Law Order Social Moral Institutions Contradiction Interaction Regulation Social Interaction

Author:Slavoj Žižek

“When we are shown scenes of starving children in Africa, with a call for us to do something to help them, the underlying ideological message is something like: "Don't think, don't politicize, forget about the true causes of their poverty, just act, contribute money, so that you will not have to think!”

Thinking Children Helping Causes Forget Poverty Scene Messages Starving Ideological

Book:Living in the End Times

Source: Living in the End Times

“Confucius was not so much a philsopher as a proto-ideologist: what interested him was not metaphysical Truths but rather a harmonious social order within which individuals could lead happy and ethical lives. He was the first to outline clearly what one is tempted to call the elementary scene of ideology, its zero-level, which consists in asserting the (nameless) authority of some substantial Tradition.”

Firsts Order Individual Social Levels Scene Authority Tradition Ideology Zero Ethical Metaphysical Tempted Harmonious Outlines Nameless Social Order

Author:Slavoj Žižek