Žižek and Lacanian Psychoanalysis: How to Read Lacan

Lacan is one of the most difficult thinkers to read and decipher. With Lacan, he seems to have a language within a language. A mode(s) of communication that go beyond traditional lingual structures; a way of communicating power relations that has never been done. For this, Zizek has taken Lacan into his project among Marx and Hegel. Zizek has an interesting way of interpreting and applying Lacan. Seen in his text: How to Read Lacan.

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Timestamp:
Intro: 0:00
Approaching Lacan: 3:47
Desire, Lack, and Split Subject: 6:48
Symbolic Order: 9:17
Imaginary: 13:00
Ideology and False Consciousness: 15:45
Political Jouissance: 20:02
Split Law, the Sublime, Notions of Truth: 22:48
Zizek's 'Reading' of Lacan: 25:23
A Message: 27:15

[rafaelll]

Your channel is my favorite on Youtube! Congratulations on your initiative in approaching Lacan and Zizek. These ideas deserve to gain more visibility outside the academy.
P.S.: It would be awesome if you made a video about Alain Badiou.

[cheers]

So glad you covered this. I’ve been doin heavy studies on Lacan and Žižek lately.

[unusualpond]

This was really fabulous. One thing I could add, is that Nietzsche already introduces the idea that consciousness is equally predicated on remembering and forgetting. I think it’s in the genealogy of morals.

[sohamadhikari]

An amazing video! As someone who has spent so much time reading their works, I honestly think this is the best introduction to Žižekian philosophy and Lacanian psychoanalysis available on YouTube. Kudos to you!

[GAIJINGUY]

I’m mostly interested in applying Lacan’s concepts of the Real and Trauma to horror media like Japanese comics. You’ve got a new patron.

[christophboon]

Lacan himself was in large part a Hegelian, at least during his own formative years. Nevertheless Zizek is sometimes forcing Hegelian notions or a style of reasoning into Lacans' body of work.

Two of Lacans' most important teachers during his own student years in Paris, were both prominent French Hegel specialists: Alexandre Koyre and Alexandre Kojeve.
Of course Lacan was kind of an intellectual magpie who borrowed ideas from the most diverse thinkers (Kant, Spinoza, the classic Greeks, Heidegger, Levi Strauss, ...) and sciences of his days (linguistics, mathematics, anthropology, psychiatry, ...), but he never literally copied ideas. He did his own thing with all of it.

In that same sense, Zizek never just explains Lacan or Hegel, he invents his own version of a sociopolitical, critical apparatus based on mainly Lacan and Hegel.

Therefore if you want to learn about these 2 thinkers themselves, you shouldn't take Zizek for granted as some sort of guide. Just try to read them yourself, Zizek is just another creative reader like some of us are. He will only inform you about Zizek, the thinker, and Slavoj, the (high functioning) neurotic 😉.

[hadi.elzein]

Another brilliant video. Another reason why this channel is my fav on youtube

[tesali]

I hate when people call philosophers obscurantist, yes some philosophers write in a very complex and hard to read way but that doesn’t mean that they have nothing to say, it is your job to find out what they’re trying to say.

[Tofu_va_Bien]

Great video! Just a tip - manque is pronounced more like mawnk than mawn-kay. General rule with French is not to pronounce the last letter. Merci quand même, j'adore tes vidéos ^_^

[NotForMaybe]

You're paraphrasing titans of thought! And doing it well. Cheers for bringing knowledge back to the village.

[OfAngelsAndAnarchist]

It’s fun that we’re finally catching up to Buddhism
They’ve been teaching this in a far more skillful and simplified manner for thousands of years - but they’ve had 2500 years to refine their understanding and teaching of it.

We’re super late to this party but, at least we’re starting to arrive at

[overtonesnob]

Reading Sublime Object/Zizek in general for the first time rn, this helped a lot, thank you!

[kzyreuz]

This is beautiful, brother. Thank you for the great content.

[amberpayson]

I’m reading the Sublime Object of Ideology now and found this video was quite helpful in establishing more context - thank you so much !

[Trevor-psoe]

Confusion is something I thought I knew well until now.And yet I'm telling myself I'm ok with it. Thanks for making this available.

[EliKrochmalnik]

Really understandable video about a nearly not understandable thinker! Thank you

[GAIJINGUY]

Great, great, great stuff. I’ve been digging into Lacan for some time now and have a basic understanding, but still am unable to explain his concepts to others.

[Sandra-hcvo]

This was so good! Definitely gave me a passion to learn more.

[NegationOfNegation]

Brilliant video, great editing, very well researched as well and visually informing. I would urge and request you to do some videos on Kant and Hegel. Especially, Hegel, for he is the most complex philosopher to understand and you have a good way of breaking down things. Keep up the good work!

[vauchomarx]

"The origin of this desire comes from a lack known as monkey."
OMG, DESIRE IS ABOUT RETURNING TO MONKE!
On a more serious note, great video again, now the two best philosophy channels (Plastic Pills and yourself) both have Lacan videos!