Symbolic Authority, the Empty Master & Authentic Authority
The underlying narrative drive Žižek identifies in Spielberg's films: father is absent or bad at the outset and the entire plot functions to restore his legitimate authority.
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
Coetzee's Disgrace as Hegelian reconciliation
Žižek cites J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace as the closest literary approximation to Hegelian reconciliation: the hero loses everything, and this total loss/acceptance is the reconciliation, not a triumphant reappropriation.
Hegel on the Peloponnesian War and Thucydides
Hegel reportedly said that the only spiritual gain of the Peloponnesian War was Thucydides' book about it, as if thousands had to die so the book could be written. Žižek uses this to introduce his own (tongue-in-cheek) claim that San Francisco exists so Hitchcock could make Ve…
Fukushima and the Vancouver heat dome
Three days after Fukushima it was clear the 30-million Tokyo area might need evacuation, impossible today without global cooperation; and Vancouver hit 50°C while doing everything right ecologically, because the catastrophe is global air circulation, not local fault.
Secret police department producing anti-regime jokes
A widespread fantasy in all socialist countries held that there was an ultra-secret department within the secret police whose sole function was to produce political jokes against the party leadership, to keep people satisfied with a small opening. Žižek takes the fantasy serio…
Deep Impact as Incest
In Deep Impact, the asteroid represents the daughter's incestuous rage against her father who divorced her mother; the happy ending involves her embracing him before being killed by a wave.
Gulag birthday telegram to Stalin
Žižek cites Anne Applebaum's Gulag book: once a year on Stalin's birthday, all prisoners collectively signed a birthday telegram to Stalin, a practice unimaginable in the Nazi universe, illustrating the perverted Enlightenment logic of Stalinism.
Where it comes up 11
11 moments located in the transcripts, click a timestamp to play from there