Week 9_3/18/16_Searching for something we'll never find

             A point that I agree with Zizek on is about how humans want to be able to explain everything, especially natural catastrophes. At 2:03, Zizek talks about how it is common that people will associate natural catastrophes with punishment from a higher power. Then, he discusses how we prefer to think that we are being punished compared to not knowing why it happened. Humans really don't like when they cannot label or analyze something, especially in nature, according to Zizek. I think this has a lot to do with our human tendencies to rationalize everything. That way, we feel safer knowing that there is a fate or higher power. Zizek refers to this as "temptation of meaning" (1:45). When we can't measure or explain something in a way that humans understand, it is often labeled as wrong or something to fear. In my opinion, humans have a natural tendency to dominate and conquer. When we aren't busy oppressing people, we try to understand our universe in a reasonable way. We tend to compartmentalize things, like nature, but we often miss most relevant point: that we cannot separate ourselves from nature because humans are a part of nature. Every ecosystem needs to be balanced, and humans are part of that delicate balance in nature. At 3:44, Zizek reaffirms this belief by saying that our ideology of ecology is taking a crucial part away from the overall puzzle. If we really want to understand nature, we shouldn't distance ourselves since we are a part of nature.

                  Karl Marx also has a similar belief about humans and nature. When Marx says, "It is the true solution of the conflict between existence and essence, between objectification and self-affirmation, between freedom and necessity, between individual and species," I take this to mean that Marx believes that the only way society can become its purest form is when humans are able to understand their true place in this universe.

                  Another philosopher with similar beliefs would be Jacques Lacan. Lacan believed that there were three different spheres of human consciousness. The Imaginary deals with self-awareness and consciousness. Lacan claims that The Imaginary relies on The Symbolic, which means that most of our senses and experiences shape our consciousness. Over time, The Symbolic is constructed and reconstructed according to society's standards. Right now, the majority of people believe in what they can prove (taste, measure, see, feel), and it takes a long time to convince each other without physical evidence. If you tie the desire for humans to deconstruct everything in their world, you will see that Lacan, Marx, and Zizek argue that what we know and what we think we know may not be reality. They argue that by constantly trying to understand and prove nature to ourselves, we are unintentionally blinding ourselves to one aspect of nature that humans still don't understand. We don't fully understand nature in its whole capacity because our ideologies shaped by society take us out of the equation and separate us from nature. We will never truly understand what we are searching for unless we intentionally place ourselves as part of nature and our purpose in the grand scheme of things.

Fromm, Erich. "Marx's Concept of Man. Erich Fromm 1961." Marx's Concept of Man. Erich Fromm 1961. Frankfurt School, 1999. Web. 18 Mar. 2016.

Johnston, Adrian. "Jacques Lacan." Stanford University. Stanford University, 02 Apr. 2013. Web. 18 Mar. 2016.