The Obscene Master (Trump, Putin, Authoritarians)

In his words 5

“You are no longer castrated in the sense of renouncing your dirty private side so that you can exert power as the figure of dignity. You can bring out all your personal dirt and paradoxically this not only does not limit your power but even strengthens it.”
12:25 The Rise of New Obscene Masters · obscene master: dirt strengthens power

“Donald Trump is the ultimate fetish… the last thing that a liberal sees before he sees class struggle.”
1:02:07 Reconstructing Communism: Part 4 SYSTEM—Disorder, in Heaven · Trump as liberal fetish screening class struggle

“this is indicated in a very nice way in the scene towards the end of wild at heart where bobby peru is killed… when his head explodes, it's as if we see the head of the penis being torn apart.”
2:07:41 The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema (2006) · the sacrificed phallus / obscene father

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 9 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

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…

anecdote · in 6 of its talks

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.

joke · in 7 of its talks

coffee without cream / coffee without milk

A customer orders coffee without cream; the waiter says they have no cream but can offer coffee without milk. Even though the result is identical, the absent supplement matters, Hegelian negativity in a joke.

example · in 6 of its talks

V for Vendetta morning after

In the final scene of V for Vendetta thousands of unarmed Londoners march on parliament and the people take over; Žižek says he would sell his mother into slavery to see Part 2, what happens the day after the victory.

example · in 5 of its talks

Taliban-China Deal

Immediately after the Taliban victory in Afghanistan, China recognized them on the condition they do not interfere with China's treatment of Uyghur Muslims, a deal Žižek presents as the model for the new BRICS international of mutual non-interference in each other's atrocities.

Bernie Sanders at Biden's inauguration5 Heydrich 1936 letter on Jewish emigration to Palestine5 Native Americans prefer 'Indians'5 Hannah Arendt on authority: parents must act with authority even without justification4 Lacan the same in private as in public4 Stalin: both deviations are worse4 Auschwitz and Srebrenica Jokes4 Yugoslav army and homosexual innuendo4 Glasgow Climate Conference4 Obsessional neurosis in psychoanalysis4

Where it comes up 102

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

Slavoj Žižek — Democracy: Is This The End?2022-11-04 · 2:17:03

36:02 obscene master

… they're a new form of obscene master if you already want.

36:11 obscene father

… in freudian terms, it is more something like urvater, you know, this freudian myth of the primordial father who is brutal master exploiting all directly possessing all women and so on and so on.

~14:33 desatanization

to our knees, but, if i'm allowed to use my last tasteless metaphor, up to our up to our asses. the world is really getting crazy today in the sense that you know what's my fear? i repeated the last day always this point. uh …

Slavoj Žižek: Trump is a liberal fetish2025-04-09 · 1:17:37

~37:05 Trump as liberal fetish

clearly it didn't work. But what I want to say is that you know this Freudian theory, it's a little bit naive but it's another story to explain it. Where Freud says that fetish is the last thing you see before you see sexual difference, …

2:54 obscene father

… One nice Freudian theory is that, you know in his *Totem and Taboo*, Freud has this mythic history of there was Urvater, primordial father, who terrorized all the family, raped, had sex with all women, and then sons gather, kill the father, the father returns as a ghost, as symbolic authority, that’s how we get normal symbolic power.

~23:00 SA vs. SS

is going on here. So but what I wanted to say is that my next text will probably entitled "I pray that Trump will survive the next couple of years." Why? I am more afraid if Trump dies if Vance takes over with—you know I …

+1 more in this talk

The Pervert’s Guide to Podcasting2020-11-25 · 1:38:44

22:16 obscene master

… of course we read the book we did our research because remember in the in the appendix to it I went into it a little bit this new figure of obscene master in contrast to the noble ironically I mean this of course epoch of Stalinism where the leader was totally untouchable you know nothing shou …

37:25 post-modernist president

… ders really is with them talks with them my old idea is that if there is a postmodernist totally ironic brutal tasteless mocking Trump is a postmodern president in this yeah well I wouldn't disagree with that Bernie was an old-fashioned wonderful moralist you know yeah that's also why with regard to …

About His Debate With Jordan Peterson2021-05-09 · 52:37

~11:40 Trump as liberal fetish

that was my aim there to as you Ben put it very precisely the we should always forget and this is what many leftists don't will never forgive me when I point it out that yes Trump is a horror and so on. But Trump …

12:59 Trump with a human face / Biden with a human face

… I even used that phrase that I regret a little bit: Biden is just Trump with a human face.

Žižek Chillstep Lofi background lecture for cleaning with ADHD | 2025 Slavoj Zizek Downtempo2025-09-04 · 1:12:48

2:16 obscene father

… One nice Freudian theory is that, you know, in his Totem and Taboo, Freud has this mythic history of there was Urvater, primordial father, who terrorized all the family, rape, had sex with all women, and then sons gather, kill the father, the father returns as a ghost, as a symbolic authority.

28:51 perverted communism

… ou fire one or people from government job, in the evening I don't know, but I know, ah you know what I do later, my god this is pure almost perverted communism.

~1:08:27 SA vs. SS

I forgot which text of her I think it's a text from the late 30s has a pretty good analysis of the difference between do you know a little bit about early years of Nazism the difference between SA and SS. SA were these violent …