Comment by pmoriarty | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pmoriarty | Hacker News Reader

"...in They Live, ideology is not imposed, Zizek postulates. Rather, Nada puts on the glasses in order to see how things really are, because ideology is "spontaneous relationships to our social world" and therefore indivisible from reality. The glasses, therefore, finally remove ideology from the equation."

Except that in They Live ideology is imposed by the aliens.

"In the movie's most notorious scene, Nada tries to impose this truth on another person, brawling with Armitage for several minutes in order to force him to put on the glasses. This endless fight scene, possibly the longest in cinema history, is a metaphor for the struggle to achieve enlightenment. "To step out of ideology ... you must force yourself to do it," Zizek concludes. "Freedom hurts.""

But Piper's character didn't have to force himself to put on the glasses. There was no struggle and it didn't hurt.

Zizek is amusing and I agree with many of his left-wing sentiments, but a lot of what he says is pure bullshit, concocted to sound profound with zero substance to it if you think about it for half a second.

Except that in They Live ideology is imposed by the aliens.

He thinks that ideology is good so for him the glasses are ideology, not the cut-through-ideology tool.

But Piper's character didn't have to force himself to put on the glasses. There was no struggle and it didn't hurt.

Using the glasses did cause headaches, but in the real world it's just the same. Once you rebel against bullshit your life becomes very uncomfortable real soon.

"He thinks that ideology is good so for him the glasses are ideology, not the cut-through-ideology tool."

But he's deluded. Regardless of his beliefs, the aliens have in fact imposed an illusion (or "ideology" in Zizek jargon) on him, and the glasses do in fact let you see through that (as he himself does later). He can think whatever he wants, but that doesn't change these facts.

"Once you rebel against bullshit your life becomes very uncomfortable real soon."

So, contrary to Zizek's contention, it's not his "enlightenment" that causes problems, but his trying to fight against those with power. A lesser man might have thrown away the glasses after seeing the truth, or perhaps consciously and deliberately started cooperating with the aliens, as various traitor characters did in The Matrix and V, for example.

Challenging or questioning your own ingrained ideology can be uncomfortable, regardless of what society thinks. We've all got things we believe very deeply but haven't really questioned, and when we are forced to defend them we tend to get angry. Getting past the anger and actually looking at the idea is usually tough.

So, contrary to Zizek's contention, it's not his "enlightenment" that causes problems, but his trying to fight against those with power. A lesser man might have thrown away the glasses after seeing the truth, or perhaps consciously and deliberately started cooperating with the aliens, as various traitor characters did in The Matrix and V, for example.

He has nothing to lose, for everybody else:

http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html

I think the message of They Live; is that our rulers complete lack of empathy for ordinary people means they might as well be aliens. Also I don't think it was a vision of the future; it was about society at the time.

It's still a common trope, that the rich are lizards, commonly popularised by David Ike for example

I think the message of They Live; is that our rulers complete lack of empathy for ordinary people means they might as well be aliens.

I'm more interested in what the movie tells me than in the message the author was trying to convey. If you look at it from the rulers perspective, it will depende on whichever the rulers are. I prefer to look from the perspective of the individual and how propaganda and the need to conform affects my ideas, conscience and behaviour.

You are over-analyzing allegory.

Zizek does it too, but he is entertainer-philosopher. Some of his readers take him too seriously too.

I like Zizek, but you should not try to value him as a analytic philosopher who thinks things carefully trough. He has the ability to take unique and insightful viewpoints.

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