Slavoj Zizek on the Hypocrisy of Conscious Consumerism
Do you buy organic apples because you think they taste better or because you’re trying to buy redemption for your own participation in a pernicious capitalist system? In this lecture, compellingly illustrated by the RSA Animate crew, the philosopher Slavoj Zizek criticizes charity and what he calls “cultural capitalism”—think TOMS shoes or Fair Trade coffee—as palliatives that only perpetuate an immoral economic system.
“(A writer) must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid; and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed - love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice. Until he does so, he labors under a curse. He writes not of love but of lust, of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value, of victories without hope and, worst of all, without pity or compassion. His griefs grieve on no universal bones, leaving no scars. He writes not of the heart but of the glands.’
—from William Faulkner’s speech at the Nobel Banquet at the City Hall in Stockholm, December 10, 1950
Read the whole speech here.
So I figured it was about time to make a post about a project that I’ve been working on for about a year now. I started a second blog heykeepliving.tumblr.com which has been a place to post snapshots, and things that I found interesting for some reason or another. This project started as a…
(Source: limeflavored)
Book release party December 6th from 7-9 in the back room of Bar Divani. You won’t want to miss it.
available on a tee until 22.XI
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