Slavoj iek: Dusty Mongolian Testicles and the Ruling Economic Powers

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Slavoj iek: Dusty Mongolian Testicles and the Ruling Economic Powers

Ophelius Obongo The Mighty James Obongo II >BLOC: A Game of Geopolitics 12/21/2013

Slavoj iek: Dusty Mongolian Testicles and the Ruling Economic Powers Abstract On October 18th, 2013, Klemen Slakonja released a parody that reflected some of Slavoj ieks philosophical viewpoints as well as an interesting take on an old Russian joke from the 15th century. Upon first viewing this music video, the viewer would probably think it to be nonsense on a similar level to something to be expected out of a Saturday Night Live performance, yet after doing some research on not just the man being parodied, but also on the underlying themes behind the philosophies of iek, the song actually begins to make sense. Whether or not the philosophies are correct, however, is always up for debate.
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Slavoj iek: Dusty Mongolian Testicles and the Ruling Economic Powers

Slavoj iek, a Slovenian philosopher, also known as the, Elvis of Cultural Theory (Taylor and Gunkel, 2007), is best remembered for his acute interest and subsequent philosophical in Political and Cultural Theory. In one of his more famous seminars, Dr. iek likened a 15th century Russian joke to the, Progressive Intellectual struggle of the current day. Surprisingly, this observation, along with minor elements of some of ieks other observations, is parodied in a song brought together by Klemen Slakonja. The song, The Perverted Dance, touches on some interesting points about Capitalism and the systems of power in general, including the supposed, Inevitable downfall of Capitalism, misconceptions and intentional ignorance of the suffering required to make what is, essentially a very minor blow to the ruling power, and how one would go about striking at the ruling party, cutting off the metaphorical, balls of those in power. As Slakonja stated in the song, the, Problem with Capitalism is that it has been in, Crisis since the very beginning. This is actually reflective of the Marxist idea, The Crisis of Capitalism, in which, according to the Marxist Encyclopedia, Capitalism is in permanent crisis, as capitalism is constantly transforming the labour process and [revolutionizing] the relations of production, driven by the [irresolvable] contradiction between capital and labour. Or, to put it another way, capitalism is unsustainable development by its very nature.
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Slavoj iek: Dusty Mongolian Testicles and the Ruling Economic Powers This would be where iek would state that, prophets have been predicting the supposed, end of Capitalism since its conception. Unsurprisingly, Karl Marx himself speaks on the subject in his book, Capital, as the Stanford Encyclopedia on Philosophy states:
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In Capital Volume 3 Marx does indeed make the prediction that the rate of profit will fall over time, and this is one of the factors which leads to the downfall of capitalism Paul Sweezy would find in his work, The Theory of Capitalist Development, however, that Marxs analysis was flawed, and another issue with Marxs theory, which states that, labour intensive industries ought to have a higher rate of profit than those which use less labour this idea being, empirically false, and, theoretically unacceptable. Going further, Marx states that, in real economic life prices vary in a systematic way from values. The, transformation problem that Marx used to justify this claim suffered from its own technical difficulties and, while techniques have been threshed out now to solve this problem, it is important to remember that the finalized version of the labor theory of value states that, the connection between price and value is rendered as indirect, while originally it is stating that it is, an intuitively plausible theory of price, and, as an end to Marxs proposed argument, Marx's assertion that only labour can create surplus value is unsupported by any argument or analysis, meaning that this can be argued to be, merely an artifact of the nature of his presentation. Within the song lies the famous joke, a Russian joke from the 15th century in which a farmers wife is forcibly raped by a Mongolian warrior. The warrior demands that the farmer hold his testicles as he rapes his wife so that his testicles to dot get dusty, but as the warrior rides away after raping the woman, the farmer is elated because he made the testicles of the warrior dusty. The farmers reaction is appalling to his wife, because he is ignoring the fact that his wife

Slavoj iek: Dusty Mongolian Testicles and the Ruling Economic Powers was brutally raped so that he can cherish a minor, insignificant victory over the warrior by being able to say that he dusted the balls of the warrior. This state of mind can be seen in some of the more modern events of the day, such as the Occupy Wall Street movement, in which protesters
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camped out for months in parks by financial districts in cities across the United States, including Portland and New York. CNN Money reflected on the movement by stating that, Occupy Wall Street stayed in the news for several months, drawing both fascination and criticism for its approach to tackling major systemic issues like corporate greed and inequality. But two years later, the uprising is long over.

This short overview of the movement captures both the frailty and insignificance of the movement, as protesters who spent months camping out in parks, groups being arrested and evicted, essentially dropped the fight without gaining any ground. One protester, Bray, stated that, Occupy birthed a new generation of young activists, and it also engendered national conversation about issues like class and what a truly equal world would look like. However, with the movement long gone and the parks cleaned up, there is nothing to show for the months of protest, and failed, according to Larry McDonald, due to, Its lack of focus on a singular mission, its disorganization, its reliance on getting 95% of Occupiers to agree on what the group should do. At one time during the movement, protesters celebrated their, victory in delaying the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange, but, as one man bluntly stated from Barstool Sports, Opening bell is at 9:30 you clown asses. So the only thing they actually achieved that day was delaying the opening bell by a whole thirty minutes, yet it is championed as if they had closed down trading for the whole day.

Slavoj iek: Dusty Mongolian Testicles and the Ruling Economic Powers The chorus of this little parody, in which the main singer insists that we need to, cut the balls of those in power, is speaking in reference to the previously-stated joke of dusting the balls. In this message is an encouragement to not simply, dust the balls, but to go and chop
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them off. While this would mean, in a literal sense, to destroy the most sensitive area of the ruling power, iek actually insisted that the big move of cutting the balls off isnt particularly necessary, at least in the sense of making this big, radical move at once. Instead, iek says that this end can be achieved by making a series of small changes, through which the power that the rulers hold is systematically removed. As a reference, it would be like the Velvet Revolution of Czechoslovakia, in which a series of protests and strikes, along with the downfall of the Warsaw Pact, led to a country peacefully transitioning from a One Party Rule to a Democracy within a month. The point doesnt come from the big action, the downfall of the Communist Party in Czechoslovakia, but in the series of small changes/events, the protests, the strikes, which led to such a speedy resolution. Klemen Slakonjas parody of Slavoj ieks philosophies of the problems of Capitalism, this metaphorical cutting of the balls of those in power, and how one would achieve this goal, are not clearly present on the surface of the song, whether that be from the almost indecipherable accent through which both men speak, or through the viewers lack of knowledge on the subjects of the Crisis of Capitalism, ieks lectures, and some Marxist ideas. There is, however, a reasonable amount of accurate references to ieks philosophies and ideas on these subjects, and makes for a humorous yet (slightly) educational endeavor.

Slavoj iek: Dusty Mongolian Testicles and the Ruling Economic Powers

Reference Page
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Taylor, P., & Gunkel, D. (n.d.). International Journal of iek Studies. International Journal of iek Studies. Retrieved December 21, 2013, from http://zizekstudies.org/index.php/ijzs/index Cr. (n.d.). Glossary of Terms:. Retrieved December 21, 2013, from http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/c/r.htm Jonathan, W. W. (2003, August 26). Karl Marx. Stanford University. Retrieved December 21, 2013, from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/marx/ Pepitone, J. (2013, September 17). Why Occupy Wall Street fizzled. CNNMoney. Retrieved December 22, 2013, from http://money.cnn.com/2013/09/17/news/economy/occupy-wallstreet-fizzled/ Logo. (n.d.). OccupyWallStreet Celebrated Thinking They Delayed The Opening of the Stock Exchange. Retrieved December 22, 2013, from http://nyc.barstoolsports.com/m/randomthoughts/occupywallstreet-celebrated-thinking-they-delayed-the-opening-of-the-stockexchange/ Velvet Revolution. (2013, December 21). Wikipedia. Retrieved December 22, 2013, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velvet_Revolution