On Slavoj Zizek and Jordan Peterson: Nature, Culture, and the Displacement of Time

On Slavoj Zizek and Jordan Peterson: Nature, Culture, and the Displacement of Time

— Read on iambobbyy.com/2019/04/27/on-slavoj-zizek-and-jordan-peterson-nature-culture-and-the-displacement-of-time/

It appears that the people who really do use their thinking skills took a little longer for their comments. Here is another goodie. Bobby gets a little deeper into the various philosophical authorial substrates, and a couple play by plays from the debate.

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Bobby points out one of the significant parts of the debate that I forgot about; namely, that Peterson definitely sees a kind of progress of history, sees history as a ground outside of human cognition, and then that cognition indeed is able to perceive this ground and make analyses of it. Then; Zizek’s rebuttal to this kind of suggestion is, basically, that though it is possible to perceive some sort of progressing lineage, the lineage itself is articulated at the same time as these articulations disrupt the continuity of the scheme, and at that, at a notably random times.

Bobby has a better version of what they actually said, and then goes into the various philosophical ideas around this idea, for example, Derrida’s trace and erase.

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I Am digging his approach, but I depart from Bobby’s analysis in a couple of ways.

1) I am not sure that there is any argument that can be made which overcomes the presentation inherent of the debate. And, what I mean by this is that when we understand, say, Derrida, then there is a further development philosophically that shows us that there is no “proper truth”, As though By virtue of what Derrida proposed the nature of human existence demands that there is no historical ground that human beings can cognitively know in the manner Peterson stakes his position. I describe this particular situation and I am indicating right here some of my earlier posts, perhaps from a year or two ago; I will not rehash them here. If we understand Derrida, then much of what he says is like the wind — “the wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth…”

2) It is sufficient to say, that the argument (as a form) has only a particular bearing upon truth, and that Francois Laruelle’s non-philosophy has basically disrupted the idea that there is some sort of unity of truth that human beings can be suspended within to thereby exist in a argumentative reality. The suspension is itself, as I say, real, but not true.

In my work, I try to show how this particular method, this particular way of coming by or upon reality, that I call the “conventional method”, is but one manner, The One Route of the Two Routes. Further, these two routes do not further indicate a “reasonable or rational” route as opposed to and “irrational” route, but that this kind of argumentative way of establishing truth is indeed one “rational’ manner of coming upon objects. The routes are mutually exclusive in a non-philosophical manner, not complimentary as the early 20th century Existentialists would want people to believe: Belief is required first for the compliment to be realized.

In short, I am saying that all Bobby really does is kind of lean on supporting what Zizek is reputed to argue in relation to a traditional lineage of authorial representation. And that’s ok.

And –

My take is that there is no reduction of this sort possible once we understand what Laruelle is saying; and indeed, this is what I think Zizek was relying upon, as it indeed accounts for why he did not plow into Peterson.

My position is that these two men represent The Two Routes upon objects. These routes do not further reconcile to another unitive, and a singular route. And this is to say that what the debate shows is that these two routes function together without necessarily reducing to either, nor to another further unity.

Indeed Petersons argument is valid by the mere fact that people — regardless of what argument I want to make to pronounce upon such ‘other people’ — indeed can and do experience and encounter reality in exactly the way that Peterson is philosophically describing in his solution. And that this particular way, or route, is not false by virtue of the fact that I may come up with an argument against what they are saying. These people are not wrong or somehow have some sort of invalid way of understanding the truth of reality. The way they (those who understand an objectively knowable history) understand it is indeed True. And this truth, while perhaps in communication with me nevertheless does not fall into falsity due to my points, nor theirs due to mind. And, our existence is not relative nor reductionary to either that or this. It is true. Period.

Objects do not require my acknowledgment or permission to be true, or otherwise have or hold truth.

Also,

And whether or not Peterson understands technically what is going on philosophically in this ‘larger’ sense, Zizek nevertheless does understand and that is why (I submit) he didn’t plow into Peterson about his ignorance, to show how ignorant Peterson might be upon these philosophical intricacies and subtleties.

(See my earlier post about what Peterson might actually be involved with.)

We can find evidence everywhere in his talks and writings that Zizek Understands what I’m talking about: when he talks about “naïve”, he is talking about that particular kind of existence which does not answer nor even fall into the category of the philosophy he proposes by his analyses as a sort of categorical imperative. The ‘common people’ do not answer to his kind of philosophy, and indeed exist outside of it in an essential sense, even to the extent that those people’s reality (truth) has nothing to do with what analysis he is making upon them. This is the nature of his philosophy and it forms a foundational ground that most people seem to miss or are unable to reconcile with their experience.

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If you are interested in The exploration of the two routes, please check out The Philosophical Hack: The concluding unscientific post-script to event, by Cedric Nathaniel.

It is crazy inexpensive.