The Logic & Critique of Democracy
Wendy Brown’s concept that democracies naturally attach themselves to anti-democratic principles, requiring critical scrutiny to refound democracy.
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
Gramsci interregnum, when old is dying, monsters emerge
Žižek cites Gramsci's Prison Notebooks passage on the interregnum, when the old order is dying but the new is not yet born, morbid symptoms and monstrous entities fill the gap, and applies it directly to the current political moment.
BP oil spill and Obama's response
Obama's reaction to the Gulf oil spill, insisting BP pay, is ridiculed as legalistic thinking: the real task is not compensation but changing the structural conditions (capitalism) that make such damage inevitable.
Catherine Millot and the Last Lacan
Žižek dismisses the idea that Lacan’s final years (represented by his 'official mistress' Catherine Millot) contained a 'last wisdom' or point of the Real, arguing instead that these seminars represent a 'gradual disintegration' and a liberalizing of Lacan’s thought.
T.S. Eliot on Heresy
Cites British conservative poet T.S. Eliot’s idea that sometimes the only way to save religious orthodoxy is through radical heresy, applying this to left-liberal orthodoxy.
Gandhi more violent than Hitler
Gandhi's aim was to stop the British colonial state functioning, whereas Hitler killed millions to guarantee the smooth functioning of the German state; so Gandhi was more violent in the relevant (systemic) sense.
The Three-Body Problem (Trisolaris)
Cites Liu Cixin's sci-fi novel about a planet with three suns causing chaotic weather, as a metaphor for Earth's current state where nature itself is chaotic and unpredictable.
Where it comes up 6
6 moments located in the transcripts, click a timestamp to play from there