How we fill gaps in our everyday experiences
November 22, 2017 2:08 PM   Subscribe

Instead of taking us out of the real world and drawing us into the artificial virtual space, [Pokémon Go] combines the two; we look at reality and interact with it through the fantasy frame of the digital screen, and this intermediary frame supplements reality with virtual elements which sustain our desire to participate in the game, push us to look for them in a reality which, without this frame, would leave us indifferent. Sound familiar? Of course it does. What the technology of Pokémon Go externalizes is simply the basic mechanism of ideology—at its most basic, ideology is the primordial version of “augmented reality.”
Slavoj Žižek unpacks Pokémon Go .
posted by Rumple (53 comments total) 24 users marked this as a favorite
 
So... catching pokemon in VR is the same as Nazi's using Jews as scapegoats for perceived and real problems?

"did Hitler not offer the Germans the fantasy frame of Nazi ideology that made them see a specific Pokémon—“the Jew”—popping up all around, and providing the clue to what one has to fight against?"

What the literal fuck? I'm not so much offended as I am deeply confused. Of all the fucking metaphors man.
I've heard Žižek referred to as a "Marxist troll" but I didn't understand that until now. WOW.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 2:21 PM on November 22, 2017 [20 favorites]


If all ideologies are games then we aren't really accountable for our actions because, hey, "I was just playin' ". That doesn't really hold for racism and genocide though does it?
posted by OHenryPacey at 2:22 PM on November 22, 2017


As always with Žižek's ideological disquisitions, needs a [real]/[fake] tag.
posted by Doktor Zed at 2:23 PM on November 22, 2017 [1 favorite]


Oh dear god.
posted by lilies.lilies at 2:24 PM on November 22, 2017 [2 favorites]


Obligatory
posted by OHenryPacey at 2:26 PM on November 22, 2017 [11 favorites]


By what colossal oversight is this titled Ideology Is the Original Augmented Reality and not Pokémon Goebbels
posted by oulipian at 2:28 PM on November 22, 2017 [39 favorites]


Any Raids?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 2:29 PM on November 22, 2017 [1 favorite]


Oh dear. I hate to be that guy, but there's a lot that here that betrays a... less than thorough... understanding of the history and technology of augmented reality. First off, I really don't think the comparatively recent SixthSense MIT demo was "the first step in this direction of technology imitating ideology." I don't think it was the first step in anything.

Secondly, he seems to confuse Mixed Reality with Augmented Reality, in that apparently AR doesn't involve anchoring objects to real space. Uh, tell that to Google and Apple, Slavoj.

Thirdly... oh, fuck it.
posted by adrianhon at 2:35 PM on November 22, 2017 [9 favorites]


Excerpted from Incontinence of the Void by Slavoj Žižek

cool title bro
posted by thelonius at 2:41 PM on November 22, 2017


Excerpted from Incontinence of the Void by Slavoj Žižek

cool title bro


Seems kind of shit.
posted by Fizz at 2:43 PM on November 22, 2017


*yawn*

This is so silly and easily dismissable - Žižek isn't even a very good troll. I am surprised Nautilus would run this.
posted by twsf at 2:52 PM on November 22, 2017 [2 favorites]


I clicked because I thought this would a mildly amusing Shouts & Murmurs parody. :(
posted by betweenthebars at 2:53 PM on November 22, 2017


Slavoj Žižek descending into self-parody is a lot less fun than Werner Herzog descending into self-parody.
posted by saturday_morning at 2:55 PM on November 22, 2017 [16 favorites]


One can easily imagine a contemporary anti-immigrant version of Pokémon Go where the player wanders about a German city and is threatened by Muslim immigrant rapists or thieves lurking everywhere.

What, so we would have to try to collect all the most powerful rapists and thieves for our team to battle other groups of criminals? I mean, has that guy even played Pokemon Go?
posted by randomnity at 2:58 PM on November 22, 2017 [12 favorites]


the educated take would compare pokemon go to the Canterbury Tales
posted by idiopath at 3:03 PM on November 22, 2017 [2 favorites]


If all ideologies are games then we aren't really accountable for our actions because, hey, "I was just playin' ".
"Being a pirate is all fun and game 'til somebody loses an eye."
posted by sjswitzer at 3:06 PM on November 22, 2017


Really I'm kind of embarassed for him, in that it's sort of sad to see someone old latching on to a year-old fad, popular with kids, in an effort to seem with it, if that's what it is. Is there any sort of mechanism to get philosophers (theorists, if you must) to stage an intervention?
posted by thelonius at 3:11 PM on November 22, 2017 [6 favorites]


who is Žižek?
posted by Grandysaur at 4:12 PM on November 22, 2017 [1 favorite]


the player wanders about a German city and is threatened by Muslim immigrant rapists or thieves lurking everywhere.

Something about running from zombies? Oh yeah. Pick your own bad guy, I guess, but... meh.
posted by Leon at 4:24 PM on November 22, 2017


Isn't “zombies” a well-known US jittery-white-homeowner euphemism for non-white minorities (in the context of talking about what one is stocking up on guns and ammo for, without sounding obviously racist)?
posted by acb at 4:38 PM on November 22, 2017 [2 favorites]


Downhill? This was exactly what I expected from Žižek: a number of questionable points making entertainingly overextended connections mixed in with intelligent and insightful analysis.

Clearly you can't go all that far with the point that the point that paranoid style ideologies are essentially augmented reality on the human hardware that lets you see imaginary enemies in the same way that part of Pokemon Go is augmented reality on phone hardware that let you see imaginary Pokemon everywhere. And while you may see it as a ridiculous point, it's not a stupid point.

Anyway, the bulk of the article is not focused on that point but on the different types of augmented reality technologies mediate reality and how they compare with how the human brain mediates reality.

This is the sort of rather bonkers and unexpected yet not quite easily dismissed essay that I was expecting and it made me happy.
posted by Zalzidrax at 4:40 PM on November 22, 2017 [9 favorites]


I can see very few others here liked this analogy. I like it so much and believe it so true! haha!

Ideologies do fill in gaps in experience.
Fits for me because I am already of the belief that technology is never new, it's just a sharpening of something that's been around forever.

All the rest of the article, little examples about racism or the history of AR/VR/MR or whatever rambling Zizek is prone too are maybe too triggering, that i understand. But I repeat: thesis good thesis. Ideology is original AR/VR/MR...
posted by danjo at 4:53 PM on November 22, 2017 [1 favorite]


Isn't “zombies” a well-known US jittery-white-homeowner euphemism for non-white minorities (in the context of talking about what one is stocking up on guns and ammo for, without sounding obviously racist)?

Previously.
posted by Rumple at 5:02 PM on November 22, 2017


Nah, consciousness is original AR/VR/MR...
posted by Index Librorum Prohibitorum at 5:17 PM on November 22, 2017 [3 favorites]


Slavoj Žižek (sorry - make that ‘noted Trump supporter Slavoj Žižek’) would be hilarious if it weren’t for the fact that he takes himself entirely seriously.
posted by Itaxpica at 5:24 PM on November 22, 2017 [3 favorites]




Slavoj Žižek descending into self-parody is a lot less fun than Werner Herzog descending into self-parody.

Herzog is definitely in on the joke. He's had cameos that spoof his overserious demeanor on Parks and Rec, American Dad, The Boondocks and a few other shows. Žižek, though, I don't know if he's in on the joke.
posted by Vic Morrow's Personal Vietnam at 5:29 PM on November 22, 2017 [3 favorites]


Now I know all there is to know about the Žižek game.
posted by Halloween Jack at 5:33 PM on November 22, 2017


Žižek is a less subtle (and skilled) artist of the provocation than his antecedents Baudrillard and Foucault (mainly because he's still a bloody Lacanian), but the linguistic emphasis here is important: we're not asked to consider how Pokemon Go is ideological in and of itself, but rather how ideologies are superimposed on our interactions as a kind of augmentation on reality. What Žižek is attempting here is an inflection of Baudrillard's theory of simulacra and the hyperreal which presumes that, rather than representations of the real eroding the 'realness' of reality, the phenomenon of reality's augmentation by technology permits interpretation of the effects of ideology on culture, where ideology itself is seen as an acquirable item by the subject (or 'player').

I think it's a long bow to draw, but Žižek loves his long-bow-drawing.
posted by prismatic7 at 6:09 PM on November 22, 2017 [4 favorites]


It's interesting that a lot of people are reading this article through the lens of their opinion on the author and kind of... making his point. I know almost nothing about him and I thought it was rather good apart from the cringeworthy Nazi analogy. I don't think the analogy is wrong, I just find the juxtaposition with a video game to be crude.

Anyway, read the last four paragraphs as if someone else wrote it and then see what you think. I think it's a decent explanation of how people make (or support) really terrible decisions despite the actual facts of the situation. How can so many Trump voters be so deluded? Their brains are not interpreting (absorbing) all the information that exists; rather their ideology is guiding them to rationalize totally irrational things. I think the left is better at interpreting information because on average they have more formal education and thus (on balance) have more practice with critical thinking. But one only need to look at Twitter to see evidence that the left can be just as blinded by ideology. Every day there's a new outrage and things are shared as fact based on whether it confirms what we already believe about "the other side." If there was video of Trump kicking a puppy, it would be widely shared because people would prima facie find it credible, even if it was later found to have been edited.
posted by AFABulous at 6:13 PM on November 22, 2017 [5 favorites]


Metafilter: Thirdly... oh, fuck it.
posted by ZaphodB at 7:59 PM on November 22, 2017 [5 favorites]


No luv for the Ziz? I don't agree with everything he says, but he provokes some interesting perspectives on things at times.
posted by ovvl at 8:59 PM on November 22, 2017


No luv for the Ziz?

Nope. Camille Paglia with a beard.
posted by thelonius at 9:07 PM on November 22, 2017 [7 favorites]


a year-old fad, popular with kids

You may be surprised to find out (I know I was) that Pokemon Go was thirty six years ago.

Isn't “zombies” a well-known US jittery-white-homeowner euphemism for non-white minorities (in the context of talking about what one is stocking up on guns and ammo for, without sounding obviously racist)?

I've seen non-prepper jittery white homeowners use zombie to mean like homeless/junkie.
posted by fleacircus at 10:59 PM on November 22, 2017 [1 favorite]


Don't fight with Žižek, if he wins he'll power up and evolve into a Syzlak!
posted by chavenet at 3:12 AM on November 23, 2017 [7 favorites]


Moe?

Or perhaps a Sleestak is more fitting.
posted by gusottertrout at 3:49 AM on November 23, 2017 [1 favorite]


If I'm reading this effectively, it's much more about taking on Daniel Dennett and the nexus between analytical philosophy and cognitive neuroscience than anything else; the AR/VR/MR stuff is the hook, but it's both sloppier in its reasoning and, frankly, is presented as less rigorous.

It's notable that Žižek moves from calling technology an "imitation" of ideology to stating that technology "imitates and materializes" ideology and then, finally, to the claim that the embodied mind (as represented by cognitive neuroscience) already does all of this stuff already.

Read charitably, this is the development of a thought, and Žižek is using the "technology" of text to similarly materialize his point about the way discontiguity of meaning only emerges retrospectively when we interrogate experience.

Read less charitably -- and I do not read Žižek very charitably anymore -- it's a not entirely finished bit of thinking /writing and could use a few more passes for rigor so that the major ideas are more fully developed and expressed. He loves his pop culture, but her Pokemon Go is too much of a garden path for the point he seems to really be aiming for, and his analogies suggest an unfamiliarity with the actual game.

Perhaps by virtue of being a book project, however, this is much better than some of his emptier provocations in newspaper columns over the last few years, though.
posted by kewb at 4:41 AM on November 23, 2017 [1 favorite]


A few years ago I was at my local insufferable third-wave coffee shop and a man who looked remarkably like Žižek came in and ordered espressos for himself and for his friend. Asked whose name the barista should call, he hesitated and then said Sebastian -- Sebastian, as if assuring himself of it. There was an empty table next to me, and he sat there and ate two cookies, getting an immense amount of crumbs in his beard, and drank his espresso, then drank the other one, and left.

I have nothing else to say about Žižek.
posted by tapir-whorf at 4:54 AM on November 23, 2017 [3 favorites]


If Žižek were a Freudian instead of a Lacanian (Lacan claimed to be a Freudian) he'd see the missing piece of his analogy: Ideology isn't just "structured like a language" but is attached by strong affect. I've never met a Pokémon Go player who actually believes there are really Pokémon out there in the world. They are not deluded and in need of therapy because they are really seeing things which aren't there because of an emotional need to have reality structured that way.
posted by Obscure Reference at 5:48 AM on November 23, 2017 [3 favorites]


Ideology is the practice of augmenting reality.

So is it then the case, according to Zizek, that reality is best understood absent ideology? That to interpret is to see at a remove, so therefore a better understanding is in fact no understanding? Things are, but any attempt to consider those things places a barrier between those things and "us" that is removed only at the point of denial of consideration.

There are artists who might go down that path to some degree, where the celebration of "pure" seeing is of paramount importance, but then art works by mediation, in creating a frame for reality in order to focus attention on that deemed important or most relevant so I'm not sure separation is even possible no matter what Zizek intends with the analogy. A better definition of ideology would certainly be a good start, followed by what the absence of such might be.
posted by gusottertrout at 5:54 AM on November 23, 2017 [1 favorite]


The Hairpin article posted herein is priceless. Deep down I enjoy being a terrible person, and this is a perfect weapon for my arsenal.

Also, I play and love Pokemon Go. Fuck off, Zizek.
posted by Sweet Dee Kat at 10:50 AM on November 23, 2017 [1 favorite]


Wow, it’s really disappointing to see so many knee-jerk reactions. In spite of his clownish persona, Zizek is a very serious philosopher, and is highly respected in his field.

a better definition of ideology

Indeed. One of Zizek’s major theoretical contributions is his critique of ideology. In a nutshell: 20th century ideologies (as in fascism, communism, liberal capitalism) tended to be explicitly ideological - if you were to ask a communist whether they were motivated by a belief in the ideology of communism, they would freely acknowledge that to be the case. After the end of the Cold War, many proclaimed that we had entered a post-ideological era (see Fukuyama’s end of history thesis). Zizek’s insight (in the nineties IIRC), was that ideology actually functions more effectively when in is disavowed by those engaged in its material practice. The ideological frame fades into the background, structuring the way we see the world, but the (post)ideological subject denies any such influence, insisting that the world is in fact, objectively as it appears to them.
So the “post-ideological era” is not the end of ideology, but rather, ideology coming into its own. We deny ideology in theory, but still enact it in practice.

With this in mind, I think his Pokémon go analysis is a fair bit more interesting. Of course people playing Pokémon go know that the Pokémon is not out there in the world on the other side of their screen; they are not motivated by a belief that the game is real, or that Pokémon actually exist. Just the opposite, they know it’s not real, and despite that, they engage in the material practices that the game demands or encourages.

It’s also worth noting that Zizek is very critical of the classic Marxist notion of ideology as false consciousness, that we can be liberated from ideology all together and see the world as it truly exists. Instead, he argues (drawing on Lacan) that ideological fantasy is a fundamental aspect of human consciousness that we need in order for our experiences to be comprehensible. So he doesn’t argue that we need to (or even are able to) categorically reject ideology, but that we need to acknowledge it as such in order to move toward ideological systems that are less destructive and oppressive.
posted by thedamnbees at 10:58 AM on November 23, 2017 [8 favorites]


Mefi still believes ‘Slavoj Žižek’ is real, then?
posted by Segundus at 2:07 PM on November 23, 2017


Did Žižek kill everybody's dog or something? I mean, the analogy is a bit of a stretch, and the jump from goofy popular phenomenon to serious philosophical implications is jarring, but... that's kind of his schtick. It's why people outside academic philosophy circles know who he is vs a more respectable and circumspect philosopher like Alain Badiou or Jürgen Habermas. Also he's mostly right. The Rattata in my neighborhood are not "trash" as I previously thought, they are comrades in the struggle against the bondage of "rarity" as it is fabricated within the frame of capitalist ideology.
posted by a_curious_koala at 6:25 PM on November 23, 2017 [1 favorite]


Also, I play and love Pokemon Go. Fuck off, Zizek.

I really don't think he is suggesting you, or anyone, not play Pokemon Go.
posted by Rumple at 7:34 PM on November 23, 2017


Oh, Zizek can be plenty insightful if his style rings your chimes. Otoh that shtick just isn't going to work for everyone, and he does seem to attract a zealous bro type of disciple that can sometimes precede him. It's nobody's fault, just how it goes with intellectuals in the world of public entertainment.
posted by methinks at 8:48 PM on November 23, 2017


It's interesting that a lot of people are reading this article through the lens of their opinion on the author and kind of... making his point.

Publications do seem to consider the name of the author and he doesn't seem to shy from celebrity or from promoting his ideological positions. He made his bed.
posted by ersatz at 11:52 AM on November 24, 2017 [2 favorites]


People are very diacritical of Śłąvój Žižęk.
posted by pracowity at 3:31 PM on November 24, 2017 [7 favorites]


I guess I am being dogmatic in not giving him a go - I have only read his journalism. I mean I sort of know what he's on about but it wouldn't kill me to read a book......what is a good intro, what was his first big book, "The Sublime Object Of Ideology"? Or maybe one of his film oriented books instead?
posted by thelonius at 1:08 PM on November 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


It really depends on how familiar you are with continental philosophy - his books tend to be quite dense, and assume some understanding of Kant, Hegel, Marx and (less so) Lacan. If that’s the case, Sublime Object of Ideology is a good place to start (it’s also easy to find a free PDF too!). If not, his film theory tends to be the most accessible - The Perverts Guide to Cinema is worth checking out. He’s really into Hitchcock.
posted by thedamnbees at 3:25 PM on November 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


Oh also he has a bunch of lectures on YouTube that I find to be quite entertaining. You just have to get used to his particular, ah, manner of speaking haha
posted by thedamnbees at 3:28 PM on November 25, 2017 [1 favorite]


I know Kant pretty well. Studied "Being and Nothingness" in college. I've read the preface to the Phenomenology. Trying to read Sartre without knowing Hegel at all was harsh. Maybe I should really just finish the Hegel, if I'm going to start any big lifelong learner reading projects in Continental philosophy.
posted by thelonius at 6:41 PM on November 25, 2017


Alexandre Kojève’s Introduction to Reading Hegel is worth checking out. It was a big influence on Lacan, among many others.
posted by thedamnbees at 9:19 AM on November 26, 2017 [1 favorite]


« Older Oh Johnny Planesvalker   |   UNKNOWN FRUITS FROM THE FURTHEST NATIONS Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments