Alain Badiou. Political Perversion and Democracy. 2004 1/12

http://www.egs.edu/ Alain Badiou speaking about the essence of democracy, political perversion and democracy, dictatorship, politics, majority, satisfaction, enjoyment, pleasure, sexual harmony, democratic freedom, respect of the other, Slavoj Zizek, the throne of Wolfgang Schirmacher, and totalitarism in a lecture without a title. Public open video lecture for the faculty and students of the European Graduate School, Media Studies Department Program, EGS, Saas-Fee, Switzerland, Europe, 2004. Alain Badiou. Alain Badiou, born 1937, in Rabat, Morocco is a prominent French Left-wing philosopher. Alain Badiou Ph.D., was a student at the école Normale Supérieure in the 1950s, taught at the University of Paris VIII (Vincennes-Saint Denis) from 1969 until 1999, when he returned to ENS as the Chair of the philosophy department and he became Rene Descartes Chair at EGS. He continues to teach a popular seminar at the Collège International de Philosophie, on topics ranging from the great antiphilosophers Saint-Paul,Paul the Apostle, Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Jacques Lacan to the major conceptual innovations of the twentieth century. Much of Badiou's life has been shaped by his dedication to the consequences of the May 1968 revolt in Paris. Long a leading member of Union des jeunesses communistes de France (marxistes-léninistes), he remains with Sylvain Lazarus and Natacha Michel at the centre of L'Organisation Politique, an organization concerned with direct popular intervention in a wide range of issues including immigration, labor, and housing. Alain Badiou is the author of several successful novels and plays as well as more than a dozen philosophical works including: Philosophy, Le concept de modèle 1969, Théorie du sujet 1982, Peut-on penser la politique? 1985, L'Être et l'Événement 1988, Manifeste pour la philosophie 1989, Le nombre et les nombres 1990, Conditions 1992, L'Éthique 1993, 2005, Deleuze 1997, Saint Paul. La fondation de l'universalisme 1997, 2002, Abrégé de métapolitique 1998, Court traité d'ontologie provisoire 1998, Petit manuel d'inesthétique 1998, D'un désastre obscur 1998, Logiques des mondes. L'être et l'événement, 2. 2006. Badiou wrote several dramas and critical or political essays including Rhapsodie pour le théâtre 1990, Beckett, l'increvable désir 1995, Le Siècle 2005; Literature and drama: Almagestes 1964, Portulans 1967, L'Écharpe rouge 1979, Ahmed le subtil 1994, Ahmed Philosophe, followed by Ahmed se fâche 1995, Les Citrouilles, a comedy 1996, Calme bloc ici-bas 1997; Political essays: Théorie de la contradiction 1975, De l'idéologie, with F. Balmès 1976, Le Noyau rationnel de la dialectique hégelienne, with L. Mossot and J. Bellassen 1977, Circonstances 1 2003, Circonstances 2 2004, Circonstances 3 2005. Several articles and essays have been translated into English: Art as a Place for Politics Video - Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, 11/16, 2006, Truth Procedure in Politics Video - Abreu Gallery, New York, 11/18, 2006, Truth Procedure in Art Video - Tilton Gallery, New York, 11/17, 2006, Jacques Lacan's Seminar On Anxiety Video - The Drawing Center, New York, 03/07, 2006,The Contemporary Figure of the Soldier in Politics and Poetry, UCLA, Destruction, Negation, Subtraction Art Center College of Design - Pasadena,The Uses of the Word "Jew", The Adventure of French Philosophy, Behind the Scarfed Law, There is Fear On the French headscarf ban, Bodies, Languages Truths, The Cultural Revolution: The Last Revolution , Democratic Materialism and the Materialist Dialectic, The Desire for Philosophy and the Contemporary World, Destruction, Negation, Subtraction - on Pier Paolo Pasolini, Eight Theses on the Universal, An Essential Philosophical Thesis: "It Is Right to Rebel against the Reactionaries" , The Event in Deleuze , Fifteen Theses on Contemporary Art, The Formulas of L'Etourdit, The Factory as Event Site, Further Selections from Théorie du sujet on the Cultural Revolution , Highly Speculative Reasoning on the Concept of Democracy from Metapolitics, Lacan and the Pre-Socratics, A Musical Variant of the Metaphysics of the Subject , Number and Numbers, On the European Constitution, On the Truth-Process, One Divides into Two On Lenin, Philosophical Considerations of the Very Singular Custom of Voting, Philosophy as Creative Repetition, Philosophy and Politics, The Political as a Truth Procedure from Metapolitics, Politics: a Non-expressive Dialectics , The Scene of Two English translation from De l'amour, Selections from Théorie du sujet on the Cultural Revolution , The Subject of Art Deitch Projects, New York, 1 April 2005, The Triumphant Restoration , What Happens On Beckett; , What is to be Thought What is to be Done On the 2002 French elections; written by Badiou, Sylvain Lazarus and Natasha Michel, A Musical Variant of the Metaphysics of the Subject, The Event in Deleuze, What is a Philosophical Institution, What is Love.

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• Badiou
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• perversion
• democracy
• essence
• dictatorship
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[Krelianx]

I didn't know much of math myself; the book provides the necessary information to understand what's in it. Just try harder. Logics of Worlds is much, much harder.

[Victimoftheinsane]

i have being and event on my shelf, and have tried several times to read it, without great success. this is largely due to the fact that i have scant knowledge/ability in mathematics. it's THE obstacle you need to overcome if you want to understand badiou, i think.

i admire books like 'infinite thought', 'ethics' and 'inaesthetics' a lot, which is why i'm rather frustrated with myself for not being able to read the cornerstone of his thought.

[Krelianx]

How so?

[TheMariborchan]

Haven't watched the lecture yet... but isn't this dichotomy you're presenting itself nihilistic?

[Krelianx]

Two essential points here, outlining our epoch's relation to enjoyment (jouissance):

a) Leftist

Self proclaimed as radical and emancipatory. Disconnected conception of the world; an existential negation of the world. Relapse into nihilistic self-indulgence by denying the world's meaning. (Drugs, hedonism). Unconnected conception of existence. Logic of individualism

b) Rightist/liberal - Purchase of false enjoyment. Consumerism nihilism, capitalist mechanics. Impossible in formulation.

[Zadokor]

Yes, Badiou is brilliant. It's so nice to be able to watch these talks.

[Krelianx]

Badiou is in my opinion the most important living philosopher, but he is very profound and demanding. It is not easy to understand him without knowing a lot of philosophy, and even then Being and Event is no easy feat. Without that book, nothing of what Badiou says sounds very coherent. But the book has not been translated into English until recently. So there's a natural lack of understanding at this point. It will change, however, as time goes by.

[getthis162001]

I agree..it seems that Zizek exhausts all attention, though he himself at least alludes to Badiou often, and credits his work.

[benchimin]

I've watched two Alain Badiou talks on here, and no one ever comments on him. It's really sad. He's a damn genius and it seems a little neglected.