Zizek's Jokes: (Did you hear the one about Hegel and negation?) (The MIT Press)
Slovenian philosopher, Slavoj Zizek, has been called many things in his time, from being titled the most dangerous thinker in the West, to being called the Elvis of philosophy. He has Informed and amused with his unique critiques of economic and political institutions, cultural developments and ideology using Lacanian psychoanalysis and German Idealism as his weapons of choice. Of course, he’s done this while simultaneously demonstrating and expressing our current state of affairs with several film references and vulgar jokes. But aside from the playful humor and several nervous ticks, lies a very serious philosopher with an impressive bibliography dating back to 1991. However, a fair warning to anyone wishing to dive into Zizek’s world, is that they will be greeted by exhausting texts that are all but inaccessible to all save those with a firm grasp of psychoanalysis on the one hand, and Hegelian dialectics on the other.
His books often ramble on with very few breaks among the large cluster of technical jargon, French quotes and film/book references that always seem to deviate far from the primary thesis. As such, to spot a book of Zizek’s Jokes was to find a better access point into his thought, or at least that was the hope.
Have You Heard The One About the…
As it read on the cover, the book is a collection of jokes taken from various books and public talks by Zizek. The book has nothing in the way of a formal structure per se; there are no chapters to divide the jokes into appropriate categories or anything of that sort. The book simply begins with a simple introduction, has two sections that have a little more meat to them and finishes with an afterword to bookend it all. But other than that, what we have here are a bunch of jokes and the specific readings of them, and those familiar with Zizek’s work and public talks should recognize a few of the classics, from the one about Lacan’s fiancé or the story about the disciples of Christ trying to get their lord and savior laid before his crucifixion.
The jokes are used to better frame real world events, from the ramblings of political leaders and philosophers, to films that seem to give fascinating dimensions to our everyday interactions, our subtle language games and psychological states. Some of the jokes are retold within different contexts in order to show their versatility and universality. However, it was only a few pages in that I started to realize that what I had in my hand was nothing more than a collection of recycled texts nicely packaged and used to make a quick buck. The book seems to clearly be the result of publishers and marketers looking to squeeze every last drop out of the Slovene’s books, something not at all that difficult to do, given the style that Zizek implores.
The jokes hardly make up half a page in the majority of the book, and not all of the jokes land or do anything to clear away the fog of psychoanalytic theory. I came to find this book was a broken camera sold to some sucker to place in a hipster café, a film remake of a classic that bets on nostalgia to make it tickets sale. But is there more to the book than meets the eye?
The Dao of Dirty Jokes
To find greater meaning in a book such as this is in itself full of ideology which Slavoj himself would pounce on like a cat. I can’t help but think back at the classic South Park episode where the world pompously read and injected deeper artistic meaning into a book that was written by a few friends trying their hardest to make the most vulgar book they possibly could. But I select my section heading carefully and wonder if there is not something unintentionally authentic and enlightening about this book of jokes.
In some ways, Zizek’s Jokes shares similarities with a book like the Tao Ti Ching, one of the foundational texts of Daoism. This claim might result in slightly indignant gasps at the thought of comparing a book comprised of select pickings from the collected works of a husky Slovenian philosopher to one of the most important of the Chinese classics. But my comparison is two-fold, first, both books can easily be finished in a single sitting, and like Zizek’s Jokes, the Tao Ti Ching’s pages are filled with very short verses, parables and/or riddles. Second, the position of Daoists such as Zhuangzi is that of a linguistic skeptic, which is placing doubt on our ability to arrive at truth using conventional language.
Similarly, while one may simply find this to be a book with little amusing jokes, it can also be read as a text that shines light on the enigmatic ontological status of jokes and joke making itself. The introduction certainly does well to give pause for reflection over the very attributes of jokes, from their authorless nature, the means of their transmission and mysterious causal pathway. There lies great potential in analyzing the linguistic function of jokes and Zizeks deployment of them perhaps speaks to a far more accurate truth, that persuasion isn’t effectively fostered by facts and logical accuracy, but more so by personal anecdotes and joke telling.
Regardless of any particular reading, I still found enjoyment in the pages of this little book and found myself laughing out loud at many of the jokes within. While I mentioned that some of the jokes don’t necessarily land as well or manage to give better insights into the technical modes of inquiry, there are equally as many jokes that do make more sense out of technical elements within different traditions of philosophy and psychoanalysis. At best what you get from this book is wonderfully amusing yet thought provoking demonstration of the complexity and versatility of our language to tell stories with the purpose to both amuse and inform, and if you don’t believe any of that, then at worst you have a new collection of jokes to add to your arsenal the next time you go to a party.
Happy reading :).