Philosophers contemplate state of belief

Religion professor Cornel West GS '80 and Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek discussed the concept of belief before a packed audience in McCosh 50 on Thursday night.

The lecture was titled "The Ignorance of Chicken, or, Who Believes What Today."

Zizek began the lecture by arguing that "nobody really believes today," most notably religious fundamentalists and atheists.

"It is as if to really believe you have to put up an atheist front," Zizek said. "Or the other way around, to be skeptical, you have to superficially believe."

He said that most of his friends had been shocked at the recent election of Pope Benedict XVI, who truly believes that Christ exists. Eighty percent of Europe, Zizek said, is Christian, but only five percent believe that Jesus really lived 2,000 years ago and was the son of God.

Similarly, he told the story of an atheist friend who would not deny the existence of the divine with absolute certainty.

Zizek remarked that although he was not a McCarthyist, he could provide "a list of who is who in destructuralism" in terms of atheists who would not "look you straight in the eye and say 'No, I really don't believe.' "

West followed Zizek's argument by praising Zizek.

"He is eclectic to the core. What I've always loved about your work is that you are unabashedly old-fashioned in your philosophical orientation, you are modern to the core," West said.

West then asked Zizek to clarify several points relating to his discussion.

The lecture, which was arranged by ideology@princeton, has been in the works for over a year.

It was inspired "by the desire to put two of the most multifaceted intellectuals alive today in conversation," graduate student Andrea Sun-Mee Jones said in an email.

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"We could choose a topic out of a hat and Zizek and West would have something fascinating to say about it and, moreover, they would both have a political injunction for us. Princeton needs more political injunctions," Jones, the organizer of the event, said.

"ideology@princeton brings public intellectuals to campus in order to discuss what is/can be/should be done in the world," Jones said.

The group is organizing another lecture in March 2006 which will feature West and French philosopher Alain Badiou. More information can be found at www.princeton.edu/~ideology.