>If there is a rock star in the world of contemporary philosophy it might be Slavoj Žižek. But I don’t even know what that means, except that, unlike most philosophers, he seems to engender a kind of rapture amongst his followers. Reviews of his books on Amazon are rarely uniform. They always included raves and pans. There is little neutrality. I think this should be the case with every philosopher.

Here is the documentary Žižek! (2005). Watch it an you will agree with me, there is no one like Žižek.

http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=-6597950490592250178&hl=en&fs=true

Okay, I am new to Žižek. I’ve seen his name for a while, but I don’t know his work as much as would like. From what little I do know about him I think he and I are in very different camps ideologically. The video above, though, is one of the more fascinating things I’ve seen lately. What a fascinating character he is.

I have no interest in addressing anything within the video per se, but I am fascinated that a philosopher shows up at a speaking engagement and even the standing room is overflowing. This is an extremely rare kind of happening in the U.S. – maybe with someone like Noam Chomsky, but even then not for his talks on linguistics as much as those on U.S. foreign policy. I also love that he has a sense of humor and love movies.