Hegemony, Consent & Cognitive Mapping

In his words 5

“The most dangerous moment of state control: when you are unfree, but you experience your unfreedom as freedom. I just do what I want, I surf the web, I buy what I want.”
36:32 Another End is Possible · unfreedom experienced as freedom

“the most dangerous unfreedom is the unfreedom that you experience as freedom — you are not even fully aware how controlled manipulated you are”
19:21 Interview with David Feldman · unfreedom experienced as freedom

“didn't Donald Trump do a wonderful struggle for hegemony? In an ingenious way he established a chain of equivalences”
1:32:18 Lesson from „Airpokalypse“ · Laclau's hegemony theory applies equally to fascism

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

anecdote · in 20 of its talks

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.

example · in 11 of its talks

Starbucks ethical consumerism

Buying a Starbucks cappuccino is sold as supporting Guatemalan organic farmers and saving the planet; the owner appeared like Anthony Giddens calling Starbucks an ersatz place of collective experience. The sin of consumerism and its redemption are packaged together in the same…

joke · in 11 of its talks

coffee without cream / coffee without milk

A customer orders coffee without cream; the waiter says they have no cream but can offer coffee without milk. Even though the result is identical, the absent supplement matters, Hegelian negativity in a joke.

example · in 8 of its talks

Book of Job as first critique of ideology

Job's theological friends tell him his suffering has a deeper meaning; Jehovah appears and says Job was right, the suffering has no meaning. Chesterton reads God's 'where were you when I created monsters' speech not as arrogance but as: look, the whole world is a mess, you're …

example · in 7 of its talks

Canned laughter / TV laugh track

Mentioned as another example of passive consumption and the removal of substance (laughter without the joke/comedy).

example · in 7 of its talks

Organic apples as ideology

Žižek confesses he buys organic apples not because he is convinced they are better but because it makes him feel good, as if he is doing something for Mother Earth. The purchase functions ideologically regardless of sincere belief.

Brassed Off coffee invitation7 They Live / critique of ideology glasses7 Malcolm X and the loss of roots as emancipatory starting point7 European Toilet Designs6 Apartheid justified in multiculturalist terms6 Stalinist prohibition of the prohibition6 Native Americans prefer 'Indians'6 Chesterton's philosophical policeman5 Zhou Enlai on the French Revolution5 Martin Luther King and Tolerance5

Where it comes up 114

132 moments located in the transcripts, click a timestamp to play from there

Peter Sloterdijk in conversation with Slavoj Žižek, Indigo festival 20232023 · 2:03:29

26:09 cognitive mapping

… Because I think we are more and more missing what my Marxist friend Fredric Jameson calls cognitive mapping, even a vague idea of what is going on today.

2:02:21 unfreedom experienced as freedom

… Or to repeat my old formula: the worst kind of unfreedom is

Slavoj Žižek - Is Marx Alive, Dead, or a Living Dead (July 2018)2018-07-20 · 2:19:13

1:13:41 cognitive mapping

… We lack what my friend American Marxist Fredric Jameson called cognitive mapping a map of where we stand today.

58:21 opium of the people

is the opium of the people.

Cambridge Union2018-11-10 · 1:17:29

18:52 opium of the people

… Just to give you one of my slogans you know Marxist old definition of religion as the opium of the people.

~1:11:23 unfreedom experienced as freedom

of WikiLeaks was for me not so much Russia China my God everybody knows they're controlled societies and so on. Ideology at its most dangerous today is and that's the magic of successful control through internet and other digital media that you are most controlled …

Slavoj Zizek The Pressure of Meaningpub. 2014-12-20 · 1:59:32

10:25 cognitive mapping

… This lack of what Fredric Jameson would have called cognitive mapping is crucial.

32:47 belief in belief

… All these things that—and this is the crucial problem of belief, I claim—all these things that we in a way believe without believing.

~1:22:34 belief as existential engagement

For example: I learned that there is a group in Israel which takes literally the prophecy that Messiah will come when a calf will be born with totally red hair. So they say, 'let's fasten a process,' and they are making these biogenetic experiments to—to …

Slavoj Žižek | Full Address & Q&A2019-11-18 · 1:07:47

1:00:37 cognitive mapping

… o again: no, be active, but don't forget just that we lack and I quote here my Marxist friend Fred Jameson we still lack what Jameson calls cognitive mapping: a kind of a global narrative, in a good sense I'm never a postmodernist we need big global narratives of what goes on today.

~33:10 belief in belief

ask a child, ask parents, "do you believe in Santa Claus?" They say "no, I'm not stupid, I buy the presents, of course I don't believe in it." Then you ask the children, they will also tell you "I'm not stupid, I know, but I …