Precarious Work & Self-Entrepreneurship
The ideological operation by which precarious labour (short-term contracts, instability) is sold to workers as a new form of creative freedom and self-reinvention, masking domination as liberation.
In his words 4
“The very condition of your strengthened exploitation, you experience it as more freedom.”32:32 Syriza – A New Word for Freedom · precarious work as ideological freedom
“actual unfreedom is often presented to us as a new form of freedom.”23:40 Was will Europa? · ideology of self-entrepreneurship and precarity
“Isn't this isn't this very sad that what is the symbol of workers' resistance, a strike, becomes a privilege.”28:43 Hegel and Hardcore Pornography · strike as privilege under precarious 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
Bill Gates as rent-extractor from general intellect
Gates became the world's richest person not through standard Marxist exploitation of workers (who are actually better paid than average) but by charging rent for access to the digital space, the internet commons, that we all share.
Afghanistan: from secular to fundamentalist
Thirty to forty years ago Afghanistan was the most secular and tolerant Muslim country in the region; US intervention against the Soviet-backed government, by supporting the mujahideen, produced the Taliban, demonstrating that fundamentalization is the product of globalization…
Apartheid justified in multiculturalist terms
South African apartheid ideologists justified racial segregation by claiming it preserved precious local cultures (Hottentots, Bushmen), Žižek uses this to show that multiculturalism can serve racism.
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'.
Malcolm X and the loss of roots as emancipatory starting point
Malcolm X (the X standing for lost African roots) refused the game of searching for original African identity (à la Roots) and instead proposed using the dispossession of roots as a chance to build a new, freer universality, which is why he became a Muslim (the Umma as communi…
Toms Shoes 1-for-1 formula
For every pair of shoes you buy, another pair goes to a child in need, the formula lets consumerism present itself as philanthropy, so the more you consume the more virtuous you are.
Where it comes up 62
75 moments located in the transcripts, click a timestamp to play from there