Žižek: The Importance of doing nothing
Вставка
- Опубліковано 5 лют 2025
- The importance of doing nothing: in today’s video I talk about Slavoj Žižek’s argument about the relationship between sloth, laziness, and contemporary despair/depression.
If you’d like to learn more about Žižek’s philosophy, you can find my guides and ebooks on patreon:
www.patreon.com/julianphilosophy
#zizek #slavojzizek #philosophy
Simple version: do something which other people consider doing nothing
I’d like to add two things to this video:
1: Žižek also notes that activity often masks “pseudo-activity”. Like corporate bloat, where nobody knows what anybody is really doing but they keep doing it.
2: Žižek adds that there is always a class element. The rich are encouraged to be lazy and enjoy passive income, whereas the poor are condemned for not working hard enough.
Thanks for watching. This is of course a simplified version of a more elaborate argument. If you’re interested in going deeper into these ideas I’d recommend my patreon where you can find my guide to Žižek ebook series and more: www.patreon.com/julianphilosophy
I think I've acquired the equivalent of a PhD in doing nothing after going through a burnout
Been there too, not much fun at the time but a necessary thing for a re-evaluation of my life
This feels like a direct attack on social media and the urge to present our happiest moments
I am a casual blogger. Most of my writing has no one read as they are mostly about history, philosophy, book, etc... At the moment I was about to write another book review but before getting to work I watched this video and found so much inspiration! Love your work so much Julian! Happy weekend from Vietnam.
Where can I find your blogs?
oh compatriot! how can i find your blogs? I'm also writing blogs, how can i DM with you to read your blogs?
I appreciate this video so much. I know I'm not crazy for not wanting to be productive or uber productive all the time. Hustle culture is sickening. Thank for for translating Žižek's argument so eloquently. Thank you.
This is probably my favorite concept proposed by zizek because of how much it says with seemingly doing so little
Thanks for sharing this, I find myself resonating with this concept.
As a engineering civil servant in the UK working and fronting a punk rock band, I am torn between giving society what it expects of me to survive on the one hand and expressing my own individual beliefs on the other. Doing nothing so that you can be something unique is what I take away from this. I do my best to reduce my work hours but it is hard when I need things to survive.
Thanks
John
I like the 10 min videos covering a single topic. Thanks!
Great... Thanks💌
Thank you. I took a lot from this video and was worth watching it ❤
I find it interesting how much this is similar to concepts in Eastern philisophies and religions. Doing nothing by being mindful isn't considered a negation, but rather positively doing something, which is bringing your full attention to the present moment.
Having been practicing meditation for a very short time now, I've immediately noticed that I'm much more able to escape the loops of social media and short form content because a space is created (or rather realized) between my consciousness and the media I'm consuming in the moment. Realizing that everything you need and the greatest pleasures are found in the present moment, not requiring any material thing, is a powerful awakening against Capitalism.
I often feel a deep sadness from not fitting into the world, but your videos make me feel less alone. Have you read *Kafka on the Shore*. Thanks
One of my favorites. And yes it helped me lots reading that when I was a young student. Thank you for watching and I’m so grateful these videos resonate with you!
Thank you, Julian. well put.
Thank you Julian.. Great as always
I needed this.
He cooked on this one very informative 😎
Thank you, Julian. Very well done.
The problem with not doing nothing is pretty simple: You won't find a girlfriend anymore and thus also don't want to do anything anymore. To me being unemployed is a form of resistance against evil nowadays, but most people really don't agree with this. It doesn't matter what you know, all that matters is how attractive your persona is. Life is a costume ball.
My mom says wash the dishes but I say I would prefer not to
I know you're joking, but say your mother is abusive and exploitative, as many working conditions are under capitalist means of production, then maybe you would choose to abandon the duties expected of you as a child, or worker, and pursue something else you find meaningful with your life. Even if compromises would still need to be made of course.
@@treyshaffer I cant tell if you're being ironic. Utopia does not exist, we exist within a physical reality, sometimes we have things that we must do, like eat... to stay alive. To eat you must have something to eat off of.... eg plates. They don't wash themselves. Crazy enough. Nothing to do with capitalism, engage critical thinking.
Thanks Julian, very helpful!
My God, this is great
Fantastic video, thankyou..
Thanks mate
Great video. Thank you
I can't believe how much this actually IS MY LIFE RIGHT NOW. I have no interest in participating in the machine and instead read and write and play music. I refuse to play this game.
😊great vid that for uploading
Hi Julian, thank you for the videos. I very much enjoye them. I’m wondering if it was one of your videos in which the book Melancholy and the Critque of Modernity was mentioned. Somebody was said to carry it around and I can’t remember if it was you. Do you remember a video in which you mentioned this book? Thank you!
I've been shirking responsibilities and bouncing from failure to failure my whole life. I thought I was a fuck-up... Who knew I was an adherent of Zizekian philosophy all along
Sounds more like ADHD :)
judgmentcallpodcast covers this. The importance of doing nothing.
Aka “screw the System, bc the System is designed to screw you”.
Having obsessive special interests (reading /studying) it's difficult for me to do nothing. However, I may appear to do "nothing" in the eyes of society. And I have refused for years to partake in forced fun and fake happiness.
Amazing
Wu wei
I think Emerson tries to get at this very thing in all his fiery prose.
Right now I'm in the middle of Plato's Republic and this ethos of doing nothing reminds me a lot to the social picture of the true just citizen: paria, weirdo and not respected at all! Within our productivity highjacked societies, wouldn't be the same to renounce production? Here at Mexico we have this insult (kind of) "bueno para nada" (good for nothing, literally), it's like useless person and therefore not worth value at all. At Republic's book 1, Trasimacus really appreciates social status but for taking advantage out of it. Human beings appreciate it as well, because it is in our nature. Would be interesting to know Žižek's point of view on this!
Productivity and consumerism are the perfect ideological marriage for the capitalist machine, each framed as a revolt against the idea of the other
I think on social media, the most "non-participatory" thing I can think of is to be a combination of boring and inconsistent. Non necessarily being self-contradictory in a way that people can pick apart, but being irregular in terms of schedule and content.
I love Buddhism
I can’t find the video, the death of individuality. I was going to edit my commentary, to include a note that refers that I think Julian is in deed an extraordinary man for all these videos he has done, and my message was to readers in general.
Thank you, means a lot to me. I pulled the video as I felt it didn’t accurately reflect my positions. And I think I can do better. But I truly appreciate you!
❤
“I would rather not do nothing.”
Thank you for doing nothing which is more than something.
The Kardashian quote has a certain ring to it, almost reminiscent of the one attributed to Marie Antoniette.
I would like to refer to the British magazine The Idler.
Please hear ACDC's DOWNPAYMENT BLUES for a better summery: "I know that it's evil/I know that it's got to be/Ya know I aint doing much/ Doing nothing means a lot to me "
I hope Zizek acknowledged Zippy the Pinhead ("are we having fun yet").
This was my own addition, and yes, a nod to zippy. Glad someone noticed.
@@julianphilosophyI have a personal mission to ensure rigorous Zippy citations, so I am glad. you are glad, even if the question as to whether we are having fun must remain sous rature.
Kierkegaard said it all
I think it would be intresting if you added your own opinion more vs mostly just overview. I thought i remember you saying you were christian at some point which im not but it would intresting to hear your reasoning for instance.
“REPENT! Quit your job! SLACK OFF!” - J.R. “Bob” Dobbs
We are simply not allowed to just be
Sickness unto death, does zizek read Kierkegaard
I suppose in some ways this might be the differenciating factor between someone who is right leaning and god believing and left leaning and experimenting.
My generation had 'slackers'
6:33 I do these “nothings”!
while i agree with all of the logic here, it's a bit luxurious to say that "the subject" should do whatever they want, or not, (essentially)
while having to make sure there's food on the table for the kids tomorrow; not really practical for the everyday man to thumb his nose to the big man, no?
how can this philosophical luxury be used and applied by a poor person? (and did i hear something about patreon in there somewhere?)
I'm not sure I agree with Zizek's argument. Capitalism for the past 50 years, or so - monopoly capitalism - has been about the ability to turn various work environments on and off; that's how they turn a profit. It is therefore in their interests when people "do nothing." Yet the mantra of being productive remains - therefore let's return to Horkheimer and Weber, and consider this isn't an ideology of capital, but a residual ideology of Protestantism (along the abiding ideal of pulling back and merely contemplating). Rather, then, than the Bartleby dictum of: "I'd rather not," one should subscribe to the understanding that one is most her/himself, not in commodified abstraction, but in engaging socially such that you change yourself and your materiality (your appreciation of, say, poetry is an aesthetic movement analogous to the chair in the Grundisse). This is anathema to the residual abiding ideology of Protestantism which has been antecedent to instrumental rationality for so very long, and the movement away from activity by supposing a form of supernaturalism in the deity.
I don't understand clearly what is your point of view. You can do something socially but where does your idea of socialility come from in the first place? You have to have defined that to yourself by a trustful authority or/and reflecting by yourself. The social part comes later. That's my point.
So why the resistance in general to shorter working hours and flexible working? Studies have shown that people are more productive working less hours
Workers not being contributing to productivity is considered sinful/lazy
Why do?
We must also remember the inherent flaws in Zizek's philosophy - ua-cam.com/video/C6nbDytiK7g/v-deo.html
ok
be a useless tree
yes 🌲
I'm a useless hobby gardener without much of a green finger. People always ask me what I produce in my garden. "Nothing", I answer as I don't grow food. I have an apple tree that is purely ornamental and a couple of bushes that produce berries, but the birds get to eat them mostly. Deer have started to munch on my flowers, so I grow less and less. So, I'm turning to shrubs that are poisonous or spiky. And to trees, useless trees. My latest inclusion in the flower bed is a young spruce. Just an ordinary spruce that I dug up in a shady spot under other trees. Now it is a really green and vibrant little tree. A rare success in my doings. Ahhh, nothingness!
I was born free of this burden. Luckily. 😂
It sounds like depression is yours body way of forcing you to step back and reorient yourself if you refuse to do it voluntarily
I would prefer not to 🗿🗿🗿
gottem
reminds me of why american blacks are accused of being lazy...
zizek hadn't work a hard day under the sun, like ever...
How do you refuse to take part in the system if you need to feed your family and pay rent? Is this rejection philosophy even attainable to the commons working man? More like the privilege of academics and people with enough assets...
The more I hear these concepts, the more I think this is just theoretical nonsense. This is extremely obscure in the sense that any concept that he takes it’s just the negation of negation. At this point, I feel like he’s just saying a bunch of inverted inspirational quotes that really do not mean anything. and then to top it off, I feel like this criticism of capitalism. It’s just so weary to the fact that he refused to acknowledge that regardless of any system, there is some level of exploitation or unhappiness that will come from the system.
Julian said it's explicitly the affirmation of a negation, not simply a negation. You are choosing to live a life that is not defined by "fun" or "productivity" and instead following a path defined by your own intuition or intellect, regardless of whether it is in doing nothing or being creative. It seems like you didn't follow this argument because you have mental barriers to anyone critiquing capitalism.
@@treyshaffer oh yeah, this is the most brain rot comment I’ve seen. I don’t know how long you’ve been here but if you look at his other theories, this is just an absolute contradiction to his psycho analysis of capitalism and if you think I have a principal preference to capitalism, then you’re just as brained as the comment section. All he says is just a bunch of platitudes and takes the inverse indicates the negation. This is why it’s just a bunch of theoretical nonsense that you have pre-suppositions that you were just quite comfortably affirming thinking that this is some kind of philosophical genius actuality. He’s just taking others platitudes and inverting them.
@@victorlandaverde3063 is it Zizek or Julian you're criticizing? Maybe you just don't like continental philosophy and would prefer something in the analytic tradition like Reasons and Persons by Derek Parfitt or Tractatus Logico Philosophicus by Wittgenstein. Give those a read and see if that approach is more appealing to you.
The "Marxist Philosopher"
The first minutes of your videos are annoying cause you always talk about what it is that you want to talk about instead of just doing it. This kind of doing nothing is not really nothing. Its annoying
lying flat 😘
So true! Love it!