http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11672

The Monstrosity of Christ
Paradox or Dialectic?
Slavoj Žižek and John Milbank
Edited by Creston Davis
What matters is not so much that Žižek is endorsing a demythologized, disenchanted Christianity without transcendence, as that he is offering in the end (despite what he sometimes claims) a heterodox version of Christian belief.
—John Milbank

To put it even more bluntly, my claim is that it is Milbank who is effectively guilty of heterodoxy, ultimately of a regression to paganism: in my atheism, I am more Christian than Milbank.
—Slavoj Žižek

In this corner, philosopher Slavoj Žižek, a militant atheist who represents the critical-materialist stance against religion's illusions; in the other corner, "Radical Orthodox" theologian John Milbank, an influential and provocative thinker who argues that theology is the only foundation upon which knowledge, politics, and ethics can stand. In The Monstrosity of Christ, Žižek and Milbank go head to head for three rounds, employing an impressive arsenal of moves to advance their positions and press their respective advantages. By the closing bell, they have not only proven themselves worthy adversaries, they have shown that faith and reason are not simply and intractably opposed.

I saw Children of Men, directed by Alfonso Cuarón (director of Y tu mamá también), over the weekend. One of the best movies I have seen in years, very powerful. The premise of the movie is that women of the world have become infertile and no child has been born on earth in 18 years ( the movie is set in london, 2027). As a consequence people loose all hope, violence prevails. It is loosely based on a novel written by P.D. James. The book suppose to have a Christian undertone. Surprisingly the movie several times referred to few 'Beatlesque' eastern spiritual themes, which I found bit annoying. I am curious about the book, it has a lot of similarity to Margaret Atwood's Handmaid's Tale. The movie is definitely a social commentary. A grey picture of modernity and civilization. With the rampant rise of xenophobia around the world, Cuarón cleverly portrays a bleak world, where immigrants are caged into detention camps.


I also ran into some commentary by Zizek on this movie(via I Cite). Zizek babbles in his true fashion:

For me, Children of Men is a model of a kind of materialist subversion of a reactionary classic, because the novel is obviously a spiritualist Christian parable of resuscitation, bringing new life and so on. The novel ends with baptizing. It’s clear Christian parable. The film is a model of how you can take a reactionary text, change some details here and there and you get a totally, a totally different story. I would say that it’s a realist film, but in what sense? Hegel in his esthetics says that a good portrayal looks more like the person who is portrayed than the person itself. A good portrayal is more you than you are yourself. And I think this is what the film does with our reality. The changes that the film introduces do not point toward alternate reality, they simply make reality more what it already is. I think this is the true vocation of science fiction. Science fiction realism introduces a change that makes us see better. The nightmare that we are expecting is here.

...He goes on:

So this I think is a true despair of the film. It's not so much about infertility. I think it's problematic to focus on infertility and then do the obvious spiritualist trick and say 'oh but you know this biological infertility is really a metaphor for spiritual infertility or whatever. I think that we should avoid this cheap direct spiritualist reading of the film. I think that the true infertility is the very lack of meaningful historical experience. It's a society of pure meaningless historical experience. 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 egoism; be happy, realize your potentials and so on. And this 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, biopolitics. And my god, this film literally is about biopolitics. The basic problem in this society as depicted in the film is literally biopolitics: how to generate, regulate life. But again, I think the crucial point is that this obvious fact shouldn't deceive us. The true despair is precisely that; all historical acts disappear. Like all those classical statues are there, but they are deprived of a world. They are totally meaningless, because what does it mean to have a statue of Michaelangelo? It only works if it signals a certain world. And when this world is lacking, it's nothing. It all depends on whether we have a world. Doe we have some horizon that makes it meaningful? It's against this background that I think that the film approaches the topic of immigration and so on.

Dalai Lama preaches enlightened egoism; be happy, realize your potentials and so on. wtf? He is got to be joking. Dalai Lama is a 'hit' in the USA -- this is more to do with how christianity, modernity and capitalism evolved than to real Buddhist teachings. The whole idea of Buddhism is not to 'realize yourself'.

Zizek tends to include jokes in the midst of his unique lacanian analysis dealing with pop culture to religion. Some of these jokes are just brilliant. Someone needs to make a compilation of jokes from his writing. Here's two from his book: _The Puppet and The Dwarf: The Perverse Core of Christianity_ (2003).


This is a classic Bosnian joke. He uses it in the context of how God answers our requests.

A guy visits his best friend, and finds him playing tennis in a backyard court -- Agassi, Sampras, and
other top players are waiting there for a game a with him. Surprised, the guy asks his friend: "But you were never much of a tennis player! How did you manage to improve your game so fast?" The friend answers:
"You see that pond behind the house? There's a magic golden fish in it; if you tell her a wish,
she immediately makes it come true!" The friends goes to the pond, sees the fish, tells her that he wants his closet full of money, and runs home to check up on it. When he approaches his closet, he sees honey dripping out from it everywhere. Furious, he runs back to his friend, and tells him: "But I wanted money, not honey!" The friend replies calmly: "Oh, I forgot to tell you -- the fish has impaired hearing, and sometimes misunderstands the wish. Can't you see how bored I am, running around playing this stupid game? Do you think I really asked for an outstanding tennis?"


And here's an old Slovene joke. He brings this up while talking about Otherness, signifier, signified.

A young school boy has to write a short composition entitled "There is only one mother!", in which he is expected to illustrate, apropos of a specific experience, the love which links him to his mother; this is what he writes, "One day I came home from school earlier than usual, because the teacher was ill; I looked for my mother, and found her naked in bed with a man who was not my father. My mother shouted angrily: "What are you staring at like an idiot? Why don't you run to the fridge and get us two cold beers!" I ran to the kitchen, opened the fridge, looked inside, shouted back to the bedroom: "There's only one, Mother!"

Even though I almost creamed my pants while reading _Sublime Object of Ideology_, I was really disappointed with Zizek's recent article. I was surprised to see it on NY Times. I am a big fan of his provocative style. But his unquestionable trust in atheism is concerning. In my opinion atheism does not have any unique or inherent advantage that can claim its superiority, and undermine other religious and agnostic/secular approaches. Yes, we need critic of religion and there are problems with tolerance and religious moderation. But this is not the way to go. In modern capitalist society, function of religion is not limited only in the field of religious experience but provides a irrational framework that leads to reason. An atheist can fall into the same
trap.

I am not denying the need for such atheist approach and critic. What really irked me is his Eurocentric opinion. "What makes modern Europe unique is that it is the first and only civilization in which atheism is a fully legitimate option, not an obstacle to any public post". What about China (Lao-Tzu, Leih-tzu, Chuang-tzu), What about Buddhism? Emperor Akbar? Atheism came into the forefront of world history during the Enlightenment, but that was more so for economic and political factors, not solely for the inherent power of atheism. He also reduces the argument to Europe versus rest of the world.


I agree with him on this: "What about submitting Islam - together with all other religions - to a respectful, but for that reason no less ruthless, critical analysis? This, and only this, is the way to show a true respect for Muslims: to
treat them as adults responsible for their beliefs.".

Maybe he is trying to reach a different audience via NYT. I have read much better piece by him on faith and reason than this. Oh well.