Anxiety & Lack
Žižek's reinterpretation: shame is not a barrier against too-strong desire but the protective guard of desire's constitutive lack against excess that would saturate and obliterate desire altogether.
In his words 3
“the only emotion which doesn't deceive is anxiety. all other emotions are fake.”1:40:52 The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema (2006) · Freudian primacy of anxiety
“The first shock of the event is anxiety, always. Christ has arisen from the dead. The first reaction is anxiety, shit what is going on.”1:28:01 Confronting Humanity & The Post-Modern · anxiety as the universal first reaction to any event
“Enthusiasm is always the obverse of anxiety. It's very close to anxiety — Kant describes enthusiasm as this limit experience where your senses are overwhelmed.”~1:15:40 Confronting Humanity & The Post-Modern · enthusiasm and anxiety as paired limit experiences
The stories that teach it
the jokes and anecdotes he reaches for when he works in this idea, ranked by how many of its talks they turn up in; each card is one story, with every retelling on its page
Cars Burning in Paris Suburbs
Žižek cites the burning of cars in Paris suburbs and protests against police shootings as examples of 'divine violence', an explosion of rage with no goal.
V for Vendetta morning after
In the final scene of V for Vendetta thousands of unarmed Londoners march on parliament and the people take over; Žižek says he would sell his mother into slavery to see Part 2, what happens the day after the victory.
Higgs field as less than nothing
Žižek uses the Higgs field paradox, that a completely void field at zero level costs more energy than a field with the Higgs particle, so the Higgs is literally something that costs less than nothing, as a formal homology for the Lacanian object a.
The Knesset Debate
A Knesset supporter defends the torture, asking if inserting a stick into a rectum is legitimate, only to be shouted down, illustrating shamelessness.
Hegel's Antigone as young-Hegel reconciliation
Žižek cites Hegel's reading of Antigone, Antigone neglects the state (Creon's domain), Creon neglects private divinities, each should recognise in the other their own oppressed truth, as an example of the 'young Hegel' model of reconciliation that mature Hegelian dialectics ac…
Gore Vidal: 'I was too polite to ask'
When asked in a TV interview whether his first sexual experience was with a man or woman, Gore Vidal replied 'I was too polite to ask.' Žižek presents this as the perfect response, genuinely non-conservative, practicing real civility against intrusive identity politics.
Where it comes up 26
27 moments located in the transcripts, click a timestamp to play from there