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this very same premise was dealt with in the matrix movies.
some people are so enamored and comfortable in their delusion that they will fight you tooth and nail to remain ignorant and enslaved.

Counterpoints:

1) The character's name is not John Nada, it's Rowdy Roddy Piper. Nobody who saw that movie thought of the character as 'John Nada'.
2) The fight sequence is 8-9 minutes because it's awesome.
3) You would have be spectacularly self-limiting to come so far as he does in his analysis of ideology and then pretend that any person's goal should be to "escape ideology" and get to "the truth," when in fact the only constructive thing to do is to take responsibility for your ideology, criticizing and defending it, and turning it into something useful.
4) GODDAMN I thought all you Matrix-referencing, sheeple-labeling, sophomoric soporifics died out already, what the hell.

@Babymech

ok.let us examine your counterpoints.

1.yeah.i agree.i never saw him as anybody but roddy piper.
2.agreed.while long,it does wear the banner of awesome.zizek may possibly be guilty of over-analyzing,but his comparisons bear some consideration.i find them to be justified.
3.this point you make is an exercise in circular logic and actually makes zizecks point.
where do you get your ideology from?
do you even have an ideology?
what makes you so certain of your ideology?
it is the question that is the real truth.
4.dont really understand your outrage here.sarcasm?
zizeck is exercising the pedagogy of philosophy.
referencing the matrix and pointing out that the wachowski brothers were not the first ones to create a movie with heavy philosophical tones.
john carpenter did it in the 80's with "they live".
and the philosophy of both movies is not exactly new.unless you consider 150 years to be "new".

maybe you disagree with the questions?
or are uncomfortable with the answers?
seem awfully defensive about people asking questions.

@enoch-Same premise in Fight Club: Self-actualization through abrupt shocks to your fixed-perception and routines. (Hell, 'The Matrix' made the shit look easy!)

Zizek pretty-much nails the significance of the duration and intensity of our hero(s) fight scene-

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This puts the finger on just what I've been thinking this last year.

Ideology is insanity. It was only good during the revolutions, to make something better of the way we were ruled and society. Now it's just like glasses making everyone see in distorted visions.

I thinked mainly of political ideology, but the same really goes for religious as well.

Ideology and Insanity are not mutually dependent.

You can have :
Sane Ideology
Insane Ideology
Sane non-Ideology
Insane non-Ideology

The principles of an individual can be constructive or destructive, whether or not they are part of an ideology.
What matters is the specific principles, and not whether or not they are associated with an ideology.

As individuals, we have animal impulses.
These include :
- Feeling combative in the presence of a verbal threat or insult.
- Feeling combative (inclined to silence/sensor) in the presence of ideas that are at odds with one's own.
- Feeling impulse to take shortcuts to reward (eg. stealing money fast vs earning money slow).

Ideology helps to fix these things.
This includes :
- Personal feelings don't take precedence over other people's physical condition.
Words are only words, actions are what makes a tangible measurable difference. We are masters of our own emotions, only ourselves can be blamed for our happiness or malcontent.

- Inherent equality of individuals. Ideas out in the open can live or die by their own merit as determined by all people. Censoring is taking privilege over other people by predetermining for them what ideas they are allowed to consider.

- Respect for domain. Doing as we like with what is ours, and not affecting what belongs to others.


"The moon does not care" (TM).
Nothing is intrinsically universal.

There are worldly concepts native to life on earth (protecting one's children, guarding one's domain, suffering/pain response, etc), but the higher order concept of "Idea X is _unacceptable_" is a purely human invented "meta" issue.



Sanity is Rationality is Logic ... which in turn is the ability to find a path from state A to state B.

For example:
[Given A=alive]
If your desire is to survive (B=alive), then eating poison is illogical.
It would be insane then to eat poison, as it would not be a path from A to B.
But if your desire is to die (B=dead), then eating poison is logical.
It would be sane to eat poison, as it would be a path from A to B.

Point being, people like to view the world with their own goals in mind.
Given that other people invariably have different goals in mind, the judgment of sane or insane becomes relative ... that's not "just words", that's quite real.
If a miserable person with a painful disease eats poison, is it logical for a healthy happy individual to say "that's insane"?



Much of our body politic is the projection of a subset of people's standards onto a larger population, with disregard for the other people.

At this point, politically, we are mired in populism, and we lack ideology - even though we were handed a pretty good one at the beginning.

Instead of having some guiding concepts that we use to restrain emotional impulses, we [as a society] fly off chasing populist agendas fed to us by our "team" (party) of choice.

Ironically, often rooting for a position that we are at odds with. (eg. "I hate the Affordable Care Act" even though "I like having coverage for pre-existing conditions")

The constitution does a good job at laying down the rules for an equitable relationship between government and people, but it's practically a dead document these days.
Elected officials neglect their obligation to represent and instead fashion themselves as leaders.
Lawmakers pass laws in violation of the constitution day in and day out.
Judiciary enforces lower laws that are constitutionally null.

Life, Liberty, Pursuit of happiness aren't just words. They're text from the highest law of the land.
Under such a standard, you would think that it would mean that a person would be able to lead their personal life as they please. But not as it stands.

Most of our public debate, is about whether or not people should "allow" other people to do things with themselves or other consenting individuals.
"Allowing(y/n)" people to do drugs [while not harming others].
"Allowing(y/n)" people to have firearms [while not harming others].
"Allowing(y/n)" people to marry [while not involving others].
etc.

With the main objections being "I'm not physically involved, but I wouldn't do things that way if it were me, so I choose to have hurt feelings (and call that a personal involvement), and subsequently push my personal standards onto others".
It's a selfish, impulsive, capricious, predatory behavior ... lacking any meaningful ideological temperance.

-scheherazade

@scheherazade
that was awesome.