Coincidence of Opposites & Parallax View

In his words 10

“i don't think you can reduce one to the other. [desire and drive are] like in parallax, two visions of some more radical deadlock.”
28:51 Notes Towards a Definition of Communist Culture · desire and drive as parallax views

“the problem is not can I go from here to there when I'm in logic to phenomenology or back — the problem is to define the difference as such”
48:25 The Dash: A discussion with Rebecca Comay and Frank Ruda · parallax structure of Phenomenology/Logic

“The parallax real is that which accounts for the very multiplicity of appearances. It is not the hard core which persists as the same but the hard bone of contention which pulverizes the sameness into a multitude of appearances.”
12:54 Why I oppose Historicism and Remain a Philosopher · parallax real

The stories that teach it

the jokes and anecdotes he reaches for when he works in this idea, ranked by how many of its talks they turn up in; each card is one story, with every retelling on its page

example · in 4 of its talks

Billy Bathgate / bad novel and bad movie generating virtual ideal

Both the Doctorow novel and its film adaptation are bad, yet through their repetition a third purely virtual entity emerges, the ideal novel that should have been. This is Žižek's model for the unconscious as a virtual, non-substantial entity.

example · in 3 of its talks

Schumann's Augenmusik

Schumann's piano piece has a third 'music for the eyes' line (a missing theme) that the player must convey without hearing it; variations exist without the audible theme, illustrating pure virtual difference.

anecdote · in 3 of its talks

Nixon's trip to China as utopian act

Nixon visiting China, doing what appeared politically impossible given China's status as ultimate evil superpower, is cited as a modest example of enacting utopia: an act that changed the entire symbolic coordinates by doing the impossible.

example · in 3 of its talks

George Soros and Southeast Asia

Uses Soros's currency speculation that caused suffering in Southeast Asia as an example of 'abstract violence', financial acts experienced by victims as pseudo-natural catastrophes.

example · in 3 of its talks

Alphonse Allais joke, woman naked beneath her dress

The French satirist Alphonse Allais shows a woman and says 'beneath her dress she is completely naked', this is the real. The real is not behind appearances; it is only real beneath the appearance.

anecdote · in 3 of its talks

The Međugorje Miracle

Slovene communists exploited a Virgin Mary apparition for tourism, but attacked a local priest for calling it superstition, arguing that proclaiming it a miracle was his 'economic duty' to the state.

Casa del Fascio vs. Stalinist Architecture3 Gonzo hardcore pornography as censorship3 Remote-controlled rat3 Stalin joins the applause3 The Dark Tower (Film/Book)2 Iron filings and magnetic attractor2 Titanic and the novel Titan, catastrophe in the air2 The Venezuelan Factory Failure2 Metzinger and cognitivists on Plato's cave2 Viking horned helmets invented for Wagner2

Where it comes up 50

61 moments located in the transcripts, click a timestamp to play from there

Slavoj Žižek Masterclass: Jacques Lacan: A Lateral Introduction. Part 12006-05-25 · 1:45:23

13:28 parallax

ago and I noticed how from outside it looks small, once you are inside it magically looks like how can it be, no? In this—that would be the elementary Real.

1:25:26 pure difference

… ason I'm telling you this is that the problem is the following one: we have this movement of, let's call it, what Deleuze would have called pure difference.

Slavoj Žižek: Architecture as a Critique of Ideology2009 · 1:46:39

1:11 parallax

… that, to use terms from my own theory, what is called postmodern architecture is closely related to the term that I use a lot, the term of parallax.

32:50 direct outside vs. inside outside

… There is outside, a simple outside, and there is the sublime outside seen from the inside.

The Failure of Performance-Arts Venues to construct a Communal Space2009-06-16 · 1:15:32

1:11 parallax

… be that to use terms from my own theory what is called postmodern architecture is closely related to the term that I use a lot the term of parallax.

32:50 direct outside vs. inside outside

… There is outside a simple outside and there is the sublime outside as seen from the inside.

Notes Towards a Definition of Communist Culture2013 · 41:48

28:43 parallax

… like in parallax, two visions of some more radical deadlock, however you call it, and so on and so on, i don't think you can reduce one to the other.

~27:56 parallax between desire and drive

to the law caught in some dialectic master but truly elementary the zero level is drive i think that there is a short tech in agreeri on. from freud's tribe to the desire of the analyst. where nonetheless desire returns as the strange desire of …

Moebius Strip, Cross Cap, Klein Bottle: The Twisted Space of Subjectivity2017-10-20 · 2:30:44

10:30 pure difference

… So brought to its end, the logic of reflection confronts us with the paradox of pure difference in the sense of a difference which is not a difference between two established entities but a difference which precedes the two terms it differentiates.

6:19 Möbius strip

… Lacan, as we all know, often Jacques Lacan often refers to three of these topological models that you see behind my back: Möbius strip, Cross-cap, and the Klein bottle.

6:20 Klein bottle

… l know, often Jacques Lacan often refers to three of these topological models that you see behind my back: Möbius strip, Cross-cap, and the Klein bottle.