The Neighbor as Monstrous Abyss

In his words 17

“What Harris aims at with his imagined truth pill is nothing less than the abolition of the dimension of the neighbor.”
38:52 Rules, Race and Mel Gibson · utilitarian torture and the neighbor

“The neighbor is the evil thing which potentially lurks beneath every homely human face.”
37:36 Fear Thy Neighbor as Thyself · the neighbor as Thing

“"I was too polite to ask." That's the attitude that we need.”
17:49 The Monstrocity of Christ · politeness as proper distance from the neighbor

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

anecdote · in 12 of its talks

Niels Bohr's horseshoe

Niels Bohr had a horseshoe on his country-house door; when a scientist friend asked why a scientist would keep a superstitious charm, Bohr answered 'I was told it works even if you don't believe in it', Žižek's model for ideology today.

example · in 7 of its talks

Rumsfeld's known/unknown matrix and the fourth term

Rumsfeld articulated three epistemological categories before the Iraq war (known knowns, known unknowns, unknown unknowns); Žižek argues he missed the crucial fourth, 'unknown knowns' (unconscious fantasies), which is what the U.S. lacked awareness of, making the Iraqi Ministe…

example · in 6 of its talks

Organic apples as ideology

Žižek confesses he buys organic apples not because he is convinced they are better but because it makes him feel good, as if he is doing something for Mother Earth. The purchase functions ideologically regardless of sincere belief.

example · in 7 of its talks

Starbucks ethical consumerism

Buying a Starbucks cappuccino is sold as supporting Guatemalan organic farmers and saving the planet; the owner appeared like Anthony Giddens calling Starbucks an ersatz place of collective experience. The sin of consumerism and its redemption are packaged together in the same…

example · in 5 of its talks

Sam Harris's Truth Pill

Harris proposes a drug that induces inner suffering invisible from outside as a torture-free substitute; Žižek calls it 'decaffeinated torture,' analogous to coffee without caffeine, desire with its disturbing element removed.

example · in 5 of its talks

Father Joseph / Père Joseph, Gray Eminence

Father Joseph, Richelieu's right hand who engineered Thirty Years' War policy and organized murders, simultaneously wrote mystical letters to a convent at the level of Saint Teresa or John of the Cross, authentic spirituality alongside absolute political evil.

V for Vendetta morning after6 Martin Luther King and Tolerance5 Daisetz Suzuki's Knife5 Book of Job as first critique of ideology5 Gore Vidal: 'I was too polite to ask'4 Israeli soldier and the daughter named Sarah4 Hitchcock's Vertigo, the missing underwear4 Primo Levi's Selekcja4 The Yugoslav Army Oath4 Apologizing to Judith Butler4

Where it comes up 65

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

Slavoj Zizek Zero Level of Fundamental Belief2006-05-01 · 1:59:22

1:11:48 the neighbor

… This is for me one of the precious legacy of the Judeo-Islamic-Christian civilization, this idea of the neighbor not as simply another semblance, but this abyss of the neighbor, the monstrosity of another human being.

50:57 code of discretion

… ist urge to understand each other and to supplement it with the attitude of getting out of each other's way, of that we should invent a new code of discretion.

1:09:18 harassment

… So the point is that this would be I claim politically correct sex: no harassment, dead body doesn't suffer, and so on, nobody.

Can One Really Tolerate A Neighbor?2006-11-19 · 1:50:41

33:23 the neighbor

… ere is a lesson of psychoanalysis it is that the core of the subject is as Freud Lacan put it after him the subject as the thing and that's the neighbor I'm slowly coming to my topic neighbor is a thing a thing means this impenetrable abyss of the other's desire and all this wealth of subjec …

53:01 code of discretion

… communication I should understand you etc I think we should begin more modestly with more distance a a how should I put it a we need a new code of discretion we need to learn even to be more foreigners to to to ignore others more I think this is the great although the great art oh of course some …

A Defence of Eurocentrism2016-06-14 · 2:02:30

51:12 the neighbor

… This is the dimension of the neighbor and you know that's why love your neighbor as yourself is something much more radical.

49:30 code of discretion

… isely and I quote here a philosopher who is a right-winger but not stupid Peter Sloterdijk where he says the way to fight intolerance is uh logic of discretion.

Fear Thy Neighbor as Thyself2007-11-26 · 1:55:58

35:53 the neighbor

… can, Lacanian terms, or even theological terms, in this way I pass from neighbor in the simple sense of semblant, of one who is like me, to the neighbor in this more radical dimension.

39:08 code of discretion

… I think what we need today when we are different cultures violently thrown together, I think we need as Sloterdijk put it, a new code of discretion.

The Monstrocity of Christ2009-04-20 · 1:21:01

8:05 the neighbor

… I would like to begin with my old topic, but some new things to say about it, the topic of neighbor, neighbor precisely in the sense this notion, this word was elaborated, is present in the entire Judeo-Christian tradition where neighbor as we all know, I hope, is not the fellow man.

10:54 toxic subject

… A toxic subject can be an immigrant with a deadly disease, Ebola, whatever, we must quarantine him.