New Materialism, OOO & Speculative Realism (Critique)
Bruno Latour’s concept referring to the political impact and agency of technological inventions and objects in shaping social relations.
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
The Glass Eye (Hitchcock TV)
In Hitchcock Presents' 'The Glass Eye' a lonely woman falls for a handsome ventriloquist, Max Collodi; when she finally approaches and touches him, the big man collapses as a doll, the true living being is the small dummy, and a desperate midget steps out of the costume.
Mao on the atom bomb, accepting terror
Mao argued the atom bomb doesn't matter because even if it blew up the earth that would be a 'minor event for the solar system.' Žižek cites this as the logic of accepting terror (groundlessness) required for authentic emancipatory commitment.
Auschwitz and the Cunning of Reason
Žižek argues that justifying Auschwitz as having 'historical meaning' (e.g., leading to human rights) is an obscenity and theoretically wrong for Hegel, as it implies a divine external teleology that does not exist.
Lanzmann on burning Auschwitz footage
Claude Lanzmann said that if he discovered documentary footage of the most brutal moments inside Auschwitz (gassing, panic), he would burn it immediately. Žižek endorses this: some phenomena are real but cannot be integrated, making them 'impossible phenomena.'
Udi Aloni's Holocaust joke
Pro-Palestinian Jewish filmmaker Udi Aloni criticizes collaborators' clumsiness, saying 'If you were so efficient like this, you wouldn't have been able to do the Holocaust properly,' highlighting the taboo against such irony in Germany.
The Dark Tower (Film/Book)
A story where a modern city and a 'Magic Wild West' are connected by a Dark Tower. Destroying the tower destroys both worlds, illustrating a 'redoubled suture' where each reality needs the other's representative to exist.
Where it comes up 12
15 moments located in the transcripts, click a timestamp to play from there