Gay philosopher
What is your opinion on Slavoj Žižek?
Mediocre, but he knows how to use multimedia like movies, videos, clips. There exist more deep and smart philosophers, but they are literall bookworms, they are known in the small circle of people and those people are the only ones who can understand the deepness of their thought. Yet those great philosophers are like boomers, don't know how to use a computer, how to send an email. So in our modern world it may seem like there are only mediocre thinkers, but in reality they are the only ones knowing how to use multimedia. The real great thinkers are in archives, on archeological sites, in libraries - they are doing their work there, and not on grifting TV or Youtube repeating the same phrases.
Eh, Slavoj Žižek had his phase of doing that: he did some quite serious and hermetic works in the 90s, drawing on Hegel and Lacan mostly. But he soon realised his real strength is in popular philosophy – basically applying the philosophical theory onto the familiar pop culture, to bring it close to people.
Is he then the Carl Sagan of philosophy? Perhaps...
Now that he's getting old he's increasingly reliant on recycled witticisms, but his thought proves to be perennial; lindy, dare I say?
He is still publishing like crazy. I think he is very based. A philosopher just sitting in his ivory tower doesn't really do much for society and Zizek isn't just an airbag, either. He has substance, when he talks. Maybe he isn't perfect, but he is much better than 99% of people who get media attention.
Another thing I gotta give him major props for:
as you already mentioned >>120195 he's an extremely prolific writer; and he always manages to tie stuff to current events. And he's quick. He's always done while it's still relevant. He has 2 books on pandemic out now. And he writes opinion pieces on almost any serious happening. For example his opinion on Taliban takeover: https://www.rt.com/op-ed/532207-zizek-taliban-retake-afghanistan-reason/