Interpellation & Unknown Knowns

In his words 40

“your laughter now — this is what makes us subjects of power. There's absolutely nothing sub — we played their games.”
~3:04 We’re Only Human · ideological interpellation through complicit laughter

“Hysterical questioning is: 'But why am I what you are telling me that I am?'”
~0:00 Modalities of the Absolute · hysteria as ideological counter-interpellation

“the basic hysterical question is, but why am i what you are saying that i am? this elementary doubt.”
29:40 Samuel Beckett’s Art of Abstraction · hysteria and interpellation

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 26 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 17 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…

example · in 14 of its talks

Rumsfeld's known/unknown matrix and the fourth term

Rumsfeld articulated three epistemological categories before the Iraq war (known knowns, known unknowns, unknown unknowns); Žižek argues he missed the crucial fourth, 'unknown knowns' (unconscious fantasies), which is what the U.S. lacked awareness of, making the Iraqi Ministe…

example · in 14 of its talks

Santa Claus Belief

Parents deny believing in Santa while buying presents; children deny believing while pretending so as not to disappoint parents. No one believes in the first person yet the ritual functions perfectly.

anecdote · in 12 of its talks

Native Americans prefer 'Indians'

A Native American man in Missoula, Montana told Žižek he prefers 'Indian' over 'Native American' because 'at least that is a monument to white man's stupidity', and proceeded to demolish the left-liberal image of indigenous people as ecologically holistic, saying they burned m…

joke · in 13 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.

Malcolm X and the loss of roots as emancipatory starting point11 V for Vendetta morning after11 Da Vinci Code / Da Vinci, sex displaced onto Jesus10 Apartheid justified in multiculturalist terms10 Goldwyn's New Clichés memo10 Stalinist prohibition of the prohibition10 Apologizing to Judith Butler8 Martin Luther King and Tolerance8 They Live / critique of ideology glasses8 Father Joseph / Père Joseph, Gray Eminence7

Where it comes up 165

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

Lacanian Theology and Buddhism2012 · 1:27:34

1:02:04 interpellation

… in Badiou's term the typical capitalist is not the egotist hedonist democratic individual materialist it's absolutely a kind of a perverted interpellation to an event like there is something for which I am ready to risk everything.

1:14:15 unknown knowns

… rejudices and so on how they approached Iraq and so on this would be again a nice definition of the unconscious Lacan even uses the term an unknown knowledge something you know but you know where you can find a simple example of this? It also goes with what I called yesterday the objective appearance some things the way things really appear.

1:14:26 objective illusion

… nknown knowledge something you know but you know where you can find a simple example of this? It also goes with what I called yesterday the objective appearance some things the way things really appear.

Less Than Nothing2012 · 1:23:18

~17:51 interpellation

and so on, you know, fight for communism, democracy, nation whatever. But even but what we are getting today is is anything more ideology, but ideology which is simply part of our daily texture. Because how are we interpellated, addressed by society today? There is …

1:12:50 unknown knowns

… Going back to your unknown knowns, I heard a talk recently about Marx that said Marx hated the idea of common sense because the idea of common sense was basically the bourge …

Communism – A New Beginning?2012 · 1:54:19

~3:49 interpellation

should... Okay that... Now let me go on with a more another more problematic point which is crucial. What is happening today? Was this a slip of tongue or did you mean it consciously subverting Althusser? Because I'm sorry I'm like a secret policeman I …

46:41 totality

… You see Hegelian notion of totality here Adorno was wrong I think.

First as Tragedy, then as Farce – The Double Death of Neoliberalism and the Idea of Communism2009-11-25 · 59:47

~31:42 interpellation

question is to be asked apropos freedom of choice and so on, not only what is the ideology you adopt, but as what do you identify yourself in adopting that ideology? I think it was already your own years ago Manchester, the beginning of cultural …

2:07 background noise

… Ideology is precisely that thick background noise on account of which even if we explicitly agreed, effectively we did not agree.

35:23 servitude volontaire

… from this mythic content, is simply that when we are subjects to power, as we learn from wonderful theorists like the old good treatise on *servitude volontaire* by La Boétie, you know, we are always, we want it or not, invested in power.

A Plea for Bureaucratic Socialism2017-06-28 · 2:16:05

1:23:11 interpellation

… and psychoanalysis the universal subject is hysterical subject what is hysteria at its most elementary you know louis altisser's theory of interpellation, like ideology interpellates you into something.

4:06 new clichés

… by his studio for using too many old cliches and he immediately wrote a memo to his screenplay scenario department saying we urgently need new cliches he was right and that's what we need politically today i i will present you quite brutally na it will be a very what i will do today my the …