Radical Evil & Diabolical Ethics

In his words 3

“evil is more spiritual than good.”
1:14:03 Do we live in the End Times? · Schelling on radical evil as pure spirit

“An ethical monster without empathy, doing simply the duty to help others with blind spontaneity, but without any narcissistic self-satisfaction.”
1:15:07 Year of Distraction · ethics without morality / the ethical monster

“ne pas céder sur son désir — do not compromise on your desire. That's precisely the psychoanalytic categorical imperative.”
59:56 Do we live in the End Times? · Lacan's categorical imperative

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

example · in 6 of its talks

Antigone rewritten, three alternate scenarios

Žižek describes his book rewriting Antigone in three alternate-history versions: (1) Sophocles' original; (2) Antigone wins the argument with Creon but this triggers revolt and ruin; (3) the Chorus executes both Antigone and Creon as traitors establishing Jacobin terror. He us…

example · in 5 of its talks

Himmler's Posen Speech

Himmler told SS officers at Posen (Poznań) in 1943 that any idiot can sacrifice his life for his country but it takes a truly great patriot to do a bad thing, to kill, torture, suppressing even moral sentiment, for his country. The trick is to present your natural ethical resi…

example · in 4 of its talks

Don Giovanni and the Stone Guest

Don Giovanni refuses to repent when faced with death, choosing hell over renouncing his desire, illustrating an 'immoral ethics' of fidelity to oneself.

joke · in 3 of its talks

Marx Brothers idiot boss

Adapting the Marx Brothers joke: when a boss acts and talks like an ordinary man, his subordinate is justified in saying 'You look like an idiot, act like an idiot, don't be deceived, you really are just an ordinary man.' The joke exposes the new logic of power through display…

example · in 3 of its talks

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.

anecdote · in 3 of its talks

Gianni Vattimo’s Defense of Heidegger

Žižek describes leftist philosopher Gianni Vattimo’s attempt to save Heidegger by arguing he was just a 'stupid local guy' making a concrete mistake, ignoring that Heidegger’s philosophy itself warns against confusing metaphysical stance with concrete people.

Stephen Weinberg on religion making good people do evil3 Heydrich playing Beethoven string quartets3 Apartheid justified in multiculturalist terms3 Canned laughter / TV laugh track3 They Live / critique of ideology glasses3 Daisetz Suzuki's Knife3 Book of Job as first critique of ideology3 Avital Ronell / Badiou catches her on betraying the master2 Slovene farmer / fairy, kill neighbor's cows2 Titanic and the novel Titan, catastrophe in the air2

Where it comes up 46

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

Slavoj Žižek — On G.W.F. Hegel, Lecture 3 [Remaster]2009-08 · 2:42:02

1:06:35 diabolical evil

… as you probably know proposes the this strange category of and you will see immediately why the oscillation is crucial what he first calls diabolical evil what's his problem then his problem is that you could be there are elementary forms of evil

56:41 Kantian autonomous ethics

… sponsible for them this is what Kant means by radical freedom and so on that how should I put it when Kant makes you what does Kant mean by subjective autonomy which is exactly the opposite of Antigone he doesn't want to say oh you are free to to act autonomously no what Kant prohibits is you know …

1:07:18 pathological motivation

… table reasons and Kant is well aware that these reasons can be that this works even for good and that if you do it for some what Kant calls pathological reason Kant doesn't mean it in the sense of clinical pathology but in the sense of contingent immediate empirical circumstances it disqualifies wh …

+1 more in this talk

Do we live in the End Times?2015-04-13 · 1:45:07

1:07:29 radical evil

… And so Sade defines in the very same terms the act of radical evil: that you just do it for the sake of it.

1:10:30 diabolical evil

… First he plays with the notion of what he calls diabolical evil and then he abandons it and quickly changes to radical evil.

~1:06:57 pathological motivation

is a free act. Why? Because it's no longer part of what Kant calls pathological motivations. For Kant pathological means motivated by empirical factual reasons. For example if you do something for a certain empirical cause, to gain, even to appear honest to others, whatever, …

The Interaction with the Other in Hegel2009 · 2:07:30

1:09:57 radical evil

… explicitly but if you follow closely you can see it he gets the terrifying consequence which is that if you allow for an evil act like this radical evil then it is undistinguishable from the good because Kant defines good as something that you do just for the sake of principle not for pathol …

57:18 Kantian autonomous ethics

… have moral laws moral norms whatever that you follow are never simply given to you you are responsible for them this is what Kant means by subjective autonomy and so on which is exactly the opposite of Antigone he doesn't want to say oh you are free to act autonomously no what Kant prohibits is yo …

1:11:06 evil be thou my good

… re complex the one of the definitions of this kind of diabolical evil you know Milton Paradise Lost you know that famous statement by Devil evil be thou my good so you do evil because you treat it as the supreme good not for any pathological profit and so on so then Kant reinterprets radical evil as …

Apocalyptic & Post Apocalyptic – pandemic, dystopia, horror, climate change, & so on2021-10-14 · 1:35:56

~1:17:46 radical evil

the notion which would have been the authentic one of radikal böse. This is for him he he proposes it for a brief moment as an evil act which formally responds to the definition of the good. For Kant good is something that you don't …

1:18:32 diabolical evil

… en Kant gets afraid of this because if you accept the hypothesis in this sense of radikal böse, or he even mentions once the term dämonisch demoniac evil, then in some sense formally the evil is indistinguishable from the good because it fits the same formal category, it's done just for the sake of it.

Why Radical Politics Needs Philosophy? A Masterclass With Slavoj Zizek. Day 22023-11-22 · 2:10:06

14:15 banality of evil

… First is precisely Hannah Arendt, the banality of evil.

41:44 Vernichtung

… One pole has to destroy, Heidegger uses the term often in his black notebooks, *Vernichtung*, has to annihilate the other.