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I urge you to read the whole transcript/article. A very precise thread throughout Zizek's writings is that ideology is precisely not absent – it only claims to be, so to speak. The beginning of 'The plague of Fantasies' is a brilliant exposition of that particular state of affairs. Rather, he would be speaking of a current ruling ideology of a- historicity. Which, sitting by my everconnected laptop, I find a compelling thesis. Actually, teaching a course titled 'Alchemy & Utopia' at an arts academy recently, I realized that when faced with working on 'the future' every single student referred, through visual style, to some trend/ideology/decade/style of the 20th century or another. One is even tempted to claim that the future is a thing of the past, more precisely a 20th century fad. This lack of future would be related to what Zizek is speaking of, and, assumedly, Cuaron as well. HMH On Jan 19, 2007, at 5:04 PM, Mike Frank wrote: > > >I think that the true infertility is the very lack of meaningful > historical experience. It’s a society of pure meaningless hedonism. > Today, ideology is no longer big causes such as socialism, > >equality, justice, democracy. The basic injunction is ‘have a good > time’ or to put it in more spiritualist terms ‘realize yourself’. > This is why I think Dalai Lama is such a big hit. He preaches > >enlightened Hollywood egotism; be happy, realize your potentials > and so on and so on. And this is our despair today. I think that > this film gives the best diagnosis of the ideological >despair of > late capitalism. Of a society without history, or, to use another > political term, bio politics. And my god, this film literally is > about bio politics. > > i have not seen the film, and cannot claim to have understood -- i > mean really > understood -- the zizek that i've read, which is much of > zizek . . . but . . . > > so far as i can tell, this a lament precisely about the absence of > ideology, the > replacement of identity politics by an agenda of pure ego > gratification > devoid of historical anchoring . . . so i find myself wondering: > isn't it ironic > that after two generations of almost universal lamentation about the > pernicious fall-out of ideologies, we now suddenly find ourselves > hearing > about the tragedy of a-historicity? . . . hmmmm. . . . > > in view of the fact that zizek worries about the contemporary world > being > "meaningless," maybe the central question can be posed this way > [and with > full recognition that all these words are multiply loaded] : is > meaning itself > possible without ideology?? > > mike > > . > * * Film-Philosophy Email Discussion Salon. After hitting 'reply' > please always delete the text of the message you are replying to. > To leave, send the message: leave film-philosophy to: > [log in to unmask] For help email: film-philosophy- > [log in to unmask], not the salon. ** * * Film-Philosophy Email Discussion Salon. After hitting 'reply' please always delete the text of the message you are replying to. To leave, send the message: leave film-philosophy to: [log in to unmask] For help email: [log in to unmask], not the salon. **