Decaffeinated Products (The Thing Without its Substance)
The contemporary logic of having everything in a depotentiated form deprived of its substance, coffee without caffeine, beer without alcohol, sex without risk, epitomised by the chocolate laxative.
In his words 9
“we can have today beer without alcohol, coffee without caffeine, sausages without fat — when we also have sex, well, basically without sex. it's called safe sex.”25:43 The Need to Censor our Dreams · decaffeinated pleasures / X without X
“what most of the left today effectively strives after is global capitalism with a human face, a little bit more tolerance, more this, more that.”1:08:03 Left in Dark Times · Third Way left as capitalism with a human face
“Marx's idea of communism is not a utopia because it's too crazy, but a utopia because it's not radical enough.”~0:01 Radical Politics Today: Hegel’s Teaching · critique of Marx / capitalism without capitalism
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
Coffee/Beer/Chocolate without [Substance]
Žižek lists consumer goods stripped of their defining, potentially harmful or intense qualities (coffee without caffeine, beer without alcohol) to illustrate the modern desire for safe, non-disruptive experiences.
Niels Bohr's horseshoe
Niels Bohr had a horseshoe on his country-house door; when a scientist friend asked why a scientist would keep a superstitious charm, Bohr answered 'I was told it works even if you don't believe in it', Žižek's model for ideology today.
Postmodern permissive father and grandmother visit
The old-fashioned authoritarian father says 'you must visit grandmother'; the tolerant post-modern father says 'only go if you really want to', which secretly contains the stronger command 'you must go AND you must want to go'.
Da Vinci Code / Da Vinci, sex displaced onto Jesus
In The Da Vinci Code there is no sex between the protagonists, but Jesus himself has to make love to cover for the absence of sex between Robert Langdon and the heroine. In Angels & Demons, sex present in the novel is removed from the film.
Dating agencies: 'find love without the fall'
French and American dating agency advertisements promise busy women that they can 'find yourself in love without the fall', for Žižek the very thing these agencies eliminate is what makes love love.
Remote-controlled rat
Žižek describes experiments where rats are connected to machines and controlled like remote-control cars, illustrating the potential for direct neural control in humans without the subject feeling controlled.
Where it comes up 92
113 moments located in the transcripts, click a timestamp to play from there